BREAKING the
C YC L E : A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
It’s a scene that plays out on repeat. Disagreements over school funding make their way to the courts and push the state to the edge of crisis. Politics come into play and tensions rise even when solutions seem near. But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if a different approach could pave the path to lasting progress?
THE FO LLOWING STORY, TOL D FR O M T H E P E RS P E CT I V E OF A FICTI O NAL WESTERN K A N SA S L E G I SL ATO R, IMAGI NES WHAT TH AT M IG H T LO O K LI K E.
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By Brian Whepley and Chris Green
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hut the doors. Switch off your phones,” the governor says intently. “Nobody gets in or out of here for a while.”
As he pauses, a hush creeps over the 50 people packed into the main room of a community building in a Flint Hills town on a warm Saturday in May. Looking around, I see nearly every faction with a stake in the state’s perpetual tug-of-war over public school funding. I rub my eyes and blink twice, not quite sure I believe what I’m seeing. “I know this must feel strange to many of you,” the governor continues. “It’s not entirely comfortable for me either. But I feel like there’s a window of opportunity here. And if we don’t take it, we’ll just start heading back down the same road we’ve been on for years.”
I exchange perplexed glances with a few members of my caucus, the Republicans in the Kansas House of Representatives. The Senate Republicans sit a few rows back from us. I spy a few Democrats from both chambers looking dubious. The patchwork of roles and ideologies watching anxiously includes school superintendents, board members, free market activists, the CEO of a large corporation, teachers’ union representatives and a few “average” citizens. The governor sports his casual look of blue jeans, boots and a plaid shirt. As I scan the room, that Bill Murray line from “Ghostbusters” — “Dogs and cats, living together!” — pops in my head and I chuckle aloud. Kaye Williams, a Democratic rep from Kansas City who has been a partisan sparring partner of mine since our days together at Washburn Law, gives me “the look” from the end of the row. I shift in my chair and think about how it wasn’t that long ago that the state seemed on the verge of a constitutional crisis. Long before I showed up, the Legislature pumped a bunch of money into schools to resolve a lawsuit filed by some of the state’s school districts. Then, aid to schools got cut back significantly because of the recession. Instead of restoring funds to their high-water mark, a new governor and the Legislature enacted big tax cuts intended to grow our economy. In between, the school folks sued the state, yet again, saying that we hadn’t lived up to our constitutional duty to fund education.
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“I want to see if there’s some chance that we can work TOGETHER for the common good.”
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A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
I, like many of my friends in the Legislature, was ready for a fight this time around if the black-robed justices on the Kansas Supreme Court ruled against us. But the court told us we just had to fix a few things by July to make school funding equitable. Rather than ordering us to pay a king’s ransom to adequately fund schools, they sent that part of the case back to a three-judge panel for additional review. Who really knows how long that will take? I expected us to make some tweaks in the Legislature to help poor schools and be done with it. Which we tried to do. But we also made some changes dealing with the dismissal of teachers and corporate tax breaks for private school scholarships that upset some folks. Tempers have cooled a bit, but there’s an air of bitterness and resentment that hangs over the room and some parts of the state like a western Kansas dust storm. I thought things on the school-funding front would be quiet for a while. But then the governor came out saying that he wanted to take “one giant swing” at getting past the state’s decadeslong cycle of school-funding lawsuits — by calling for a retreat on the issue involving all of the factions, outside of Topeka, no less. Now I sit in this room as the governor takes questions, looking at nearly as many foes as friends. This combustible mix is a result of the governor’s decision to work with school finance advocates to whittle the factions involved down to a workable number of delegates. Not everybody’s here — a few of the people who felt the strongest about the issue refused to attend. And by the demeanor of some around the room, I’m guessing a few more might bolt before the day is out, even if they have to climb out of the windows. “These lawsuits have been going on since I was in law school, and they don’t settle anything for very long,” the governor says. “A few months ago, I called for a truly open process to work at breaking this cycle of perpetual litigation. I believe the people assembled in the room — a group representing a full spectrum of views and ideologies in this state — can make this happen.” The room remains silent, as if in disbelief. “Why on earth would we do that?” I think to myself. “Shouldn’t we just sort this out among conservative Republicans in the Legislature? After all, the voters picked us to make the decisions.” “I know this is an unusual step,” the governor says, as if he’s reading my mind. “But if you look at the history of this issue, it makes you wonder if there’s any one party or group who can solve it in the long run. It’s vexed my predecessors, Democrat and Republican alike, for decades. I want to see if there’s some chance that we can work together for the common good. Or at least begin building the relationships that might make it possible someday.” The governor exhales deeply and takes in the room. “I’m pretty convinced that I am right about this issue right now. The people around me tell me I’m right, too. I’m sure your own people tell you the exact same thing. But when I check out my approval rating or read the newspaper editorial pages, I’m reminded that a lot of people don’t agree with me — or even particularly like what we’re doing. I want to dig a little deeper into what that’s all about, and if there’s something I can do about it. Maybe there’s not. But I think we can all benefit from taking a big enough step back to see ourselves and this issue through other people’s eyes.” 13.
A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
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he governor goes on to reiterate that he’s invested a lot of effort and political capital in cutting taxes, in hopes of creating the business climate he wants to see in this state. But he won’t be in power forever, and he’s seen far too many governors watch their legacies get erased by changes in circumstance and time.
“If I – if any of us – want Kansas to truly grow and prosper, then we have to find a proper, long-term solution to end these school-funding controversies,” he says. People across Kansas are in the process of developing a water plan that looks decades into the future, he says. But school finance doesn’t feel like quite so cross-cutting an issue. That’s probably because about half of all the spending the state has control over goes to K-12 education, he continues. The sector plays a huge role in shaping our communities, the size and scope of government in Kansas and how our economy will perform now and in the future. It’s inevitable that Democrats and Republicans — whether they’re liberals, moderates or conservatives — are going to disagree strongly over how to deal with it. “But what if we could disagree a little less? Or at least agree enough to break this insane cycle we’re in,” he says. “It may be unlikely, but I think it’s possible. I don’t believe that there’s anybody in the room who wakes up in the morning intent on mucking up Kansas. There must be a way we can fund our schools adequately, equitably and wisely.” When the governor’s done talking, the group disperses for a short coffee break. I find myself standing next to Kaye. “Hey, there. You look like you’d rather be at the dentist’s office. Not enjoying our retreat so much?” she teases. I laugh and tell her that the people from my western Kansas district didn’t send me to Topeka for fun and games. They want me to fix things and put the state back on a path to prosperity. They’re tired of high taxes and government overspending, and they just want more jobs to come to our towns, which are struggling to survive. I agree with them on those things. “Stick to your guns,” they say. “I intend to,” I frequently reply. “I’m not going to compromise what I believe in.” Anyway, the two of us get around to talking about how we both ended up here. It’s the first time we’ve really chatted since the most recent legislative blowup, in which we stood, yet again, in opposite camps. Kaye says she was invited to help reflect the Democrat view and because she’s long been a negotiator for a teachers’ union. Because I served two terms on my local school board, I reflect
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A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
the House GOP’s freshman caucus, which is bigger than usual. I tell Kaye that I am not sure, though, what exactly I have to offer in a room full of high-powered politicians, activists, experts and lobbyists. “Well, at least that’s one thing we agree on, that you are not worthy,” says Kaye, jabbing me in the shoulder. But then we turn serious and wonder together what the real story behind this event is. “Maybe the governor’s serious about working this out, instead of just blowing smoke like he usually does,” Kaye says. “It’ll take a ton of work to convince me he’s really shifting gears.” “I think he’s trying,” I assure her. “But when I look around the room, all I see is a whole bunch of people who are trying to annihilate us in the next election.” “Annihilate you?” she gasps. “I think you might want to take another look at the endangered species list, buddy. Because you’re the ones who’ve been coming after us.” My blood pressure still up a bit, I trudge back to my chair. I hear snippets of conversation from around the room that tell me others are just as skeptical as Kaye and me. An editorial writer from one of the state’s biggest newspapers tells a school superintendent he thinks the governor is simply “grandstanding.” The superintendent wonders why anybody should even bother with the summit since the issue is moving back to the courts anyway. The voices of my constituents from a recent public forum I held back home echo in my head. They don’t want their income taxes to go back up. They wonder about some of the choices schools make in how they spend their dollars and where exactly all the money goes. But it’s also the things that I didn’t expect to hear that night at the public forum that spin around in my head. The concerns about larger class sizes. The wealthier districts getting the best teachers with higher salaries. The feeling that people have of being nickel-and-dimed for school supplies and fees in ways they never did with their older kids. The steady creep of local taxes even as the state’s tax bills get smaller. “How on earth do you reconcile those competing things?” I ask them. “Dunno,” one man says to me, “isn’t that your job?” Others suggest talking it out. “If you look for ways to trim the budget first, then maybe we’d be willing to dig a bit more into our pockets,” one woman says. “Just don’t screw things up worse,” another urges me, sparking a cascade of applause. I squirm a bit in my chair while recollecting their comments. In fact, a whole bunch of us here seem uneasy. Because we don’t see much chance of gaining anything today but do see a big fat chance of losing something, whether it’s credibility with voters or just a fine spring weekend with our families.
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“If I – if any of us – want Kansas to truly grow and prosper, then we have to find a proper, long-term solution to end these school-funding controversies.”
LEGISLATURE RESPONDS TO CRISIS
COURTS RULE FUNDING INADEQUATE/ UNEQUITABLE
CRISIS DISSIPATES
the
C YC L E :
SCHOOL DISTRICTS SUE OVER FUNDING
CHANGES ULTIMATELY FALL SHORT OF ADEQUACY/EQUITY
1972-PRESENT
A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
When we reconvene, a woman named Pam takes the microphone from the governor and explains that she’s the chief facilitator from a Houston-based consulting firm and has made a career of working with community groups and businesses on conflict resolution, teamwork and overcoming mistrust. She has assembled a team of highly trained facilitators from Kansas who will guide the group through something called “transformative scenario planning.” A group of foundations interested in healthier civic collaboration have banded together to fund the exercise. It’s a five-step process that helps groups map out plausible scenarios so they can understand the consequences of their actions and get unstuck on a tough problem by together choosing a better path. Sounds touchy-feely and hard to get my head around, but, what the heck, I’m here. And they aren’t letting us out of here anytime soon. They break the big group into smaller ones, made up of as diverse and contentious a mix of viewpoints as they can manage — which is how Kaye ends up in my group. Our discussions are usually pretty contentious, whether it’s about due process for teachers, drug testing for welfare recipients, judge selection or income taxes. “That’s good,” I whisper to Kaye when I learn she’s in my group. “I already know what you think — and how wrong it is.” Others in the group include, I soon learn, a free market advocate from southeast Kansas, an official from the state teachers’ union, a K-State professor, a Methodist pastor from Wichita and two school superintendents — one from a tiny district out near me, another from a goodsized one in a rich Kansas City suburb. They assign each smaller group a referee — excuse me, facilitator — to keep us on track, which is good, because I fear we’re just wasting our time here. Greg, our facilitator, asks each of us to take a turn telling a bit about ourselves — where we’re from, what we do, whether we have kids in school — and what we think is a good education, as well as what we expect from the state in providing one. Views and values start flying, and the little room gets warmer. The union leader pipes in first — big surprise — with the spiel about how the Legislature hasn’t done its constitutional duty and is now picking on teachers, blaming them for a problem legislators and the governor created. Teachers and kids deserve better and now the courts will do what lawmakers resisted doing: force an increase in school funding and taxes. The small-government activist observes that as long as he’s been around, schools keep saying they want more money no matter how much they’re getting at the time. Times have been hard in his part of the state, and everybody’s got to share the pain when the budget’s tight. “With lower income taxes the implement dealer can hire more people,” I toss out, “and jobs like that mean kids won’t leave my town for good.” “But when your daughter goes to K-State, the tuition will bust even your bank,” Kaye counters, which gets me thinking about how, in a decade, four years at K-State or, God forbid, KU will pinch even a somewhat successful small-town lawyer. Hold up for a moment, Greg says, telling us that the discussion is descending into knee-jerk territory. He suggests we think carefully about the values that lie behind each of our positions. 18.
A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
Soon, we’re sinking deeper into defining what a suitable education is. I share that, when I was on the school board, the administration always seemed to find money for new computers and smart screens and could pad the reserve fund, but my son’s math book is a decade old and his grade school class can’t take any field trips. Meanwhile, our school superintendent has the highest-paying job in the entire county. The preacher from Wichita — his wife’s a special ed teacher — says the city’s district has thousands of kids with all kinds of problems that make it difficult to learn. Helping kids in poverty is expensive, and it seems like there are more in need every day. The schools there have so many programs that parents move to the district to get its services. That’s a big challenge with money so tight, the pastor says. On top of that, he continues, the district has a tough time filling teaching jobs in areas such as math and science, as well as in special ed. That may only get tougher with more baby-boomer teachers reaching retirement age and young people not seeing teaching as a viable, rewarding profession. “I wonder if we’re on the verge of a crisis in terms of having enough qualified teachers to fill our classrooms,” the pastor says. “My daughter would have been a great teacher. But she found a job at Cerner, instead, and I have a hard time arguing with her choice.” The challenges that teachers face in the classroom each day become a topic of conversation as well. “I’d like it if my niece’s teacher didn’t have to corral 30 other 8-year-olds,” Kaye says, and I remember how my own kids’ elementary school can no longer afford an aide for that unusually big class, now fourth-graders, moving through the school. Over the course of the next few hours, we start talking about the future and what it is we really want our school system to do for the kids of this state. Are we trying to get everyone to meet a minimum set of standards? Aim higher? What kind of education do kids really need to succeed in today’s world and how do we know if they’re getting it? “I think what’s hard about this issue for me is that I just want someone to tell me the magic number for what we need to put in schools, whether it’s the court or some egghead’s cost study,” I say. “But I’m starting to think that magic number just doesn’t really exist.” “And even if it did, all we’d do is argue about the number some more,” Kaye interjects. “Some people will think it’s too big, others too small. It’s always about how so-and-so didn’t figure this or account for that correctly. We fight about the number so much that we never get to the heart of the issue.” “Or it’s just another round of the blame game,” the preacher joins in. “The Legislature failed. The schools are spending their money wrong. There are too many bad teachers. The voters can’t decide what they want — low taxes or well-funded schools. We can always turn a blind eye to how we’re adding to the mess by pinning the blame on somebody else.” Bouncing what I’m hearing around in my own head, I’m struck by how deeply felt the opinions are, and how most of them are based on things we Kansans like to talk about — how important
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“I think we can all benefit from taking a big enough step back to see ourselves and this issue through other people’s eyes.”
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A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
our cities and town are to us, how we want our kids to see a future in our communities. I remember hearing the same things from my neighbors last month when I asked about what they expected from the state, and what they’d give up, or pay, to get it. Striking, too, is that sitting and talking with these folks face to face makes it difficult to just write off their views. It gets harder, though, when Greg tells us to consider the various plausible ways that the schoolfunding controversy may turn out and to consider the consequences. At first the scenarios sound mighty theoretical, but then Greg describes how the method has been used in situations far messier than this one, such as when South Africa ventured out of apartheid. With some guidance and questioning, we come up with a half-dozen scenarios but whittle them down to the three most likely ones. With our scenarios in hand, the 50 of us reunite in the big room and discuss with the head facilitator what we divined. We find that nearly all the groups sketched out very similar possibilities, observing that the court ruling narrowed the possibilities a good bit. While we agree that it is still possible that the courts will decide that schools are adequately funded, we’re not willing to bank on such a decision resolving any controversy for the long haul. And we agree that we can’t simply ignore rulings of the court entirely. We nickname Scenario No. 1 “Just Put Out the Fires.” The Legislature keeps coming up with quick fixes to resolve the constitutional imbalances found by the court. But the underlying issues — and a real discussion of the kinds of schools Kansas wants and will support — keeps getting kicked aside or down the road a year or two. We risk the possibility of another ruling in the future igniting a constitutional crisis. A second scenario we end up calling “Protect Home Plate.” Rather than addressing school funding as a problem that we all have a stake in, we protect our home bases by fighting for what’s best for our own people, be it our political party, profession or schools. The end result is an outcome where some factions or groups absorb a disproportionate share of the loss associated with changing the system. It’s a result that sows the seeds for future conflicts. But there’s another possibility, one we take to calling “Everybody Takes a Hit.” It is appealing for the very fact that, unlike the first two, it might put us on the path to resolving the funding fight in a more lasting way. We step forward, a group of adversaries who disagree on a lot, to begin reimagining the next era of our public education financing system and building it in a way that makes sure schools get the funding they need and the lawsuits go away, if not for good, then at least for decades. The challenge comes in the fact that each faction is likely to take a lump or two along the way to make progress possible. On one level, it makes perfect sense. No one wins for very long under the current cycle of lawsuits. Plus, it acknowledges that we’ll all need to pitch in to accomplish something, and that we’re all likely going to have to stomach something that isn’t appealing. That last part unnerves all of us. No one really knows what that kind of system looks like. And it opens up all sorts of questions about how we’ll change the existing system and what it will mean for each group in the state.
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A school funding HYPOTHETICAL
How will our funding system change? Where will we direct the money? Will some districts lose while others gain? Will there be consolidation? Whose taxes will go up? Whose taxes will go down? Will we cut spending in other areas of government? Will we change how school districts operate? Start more charter schools? Offer vouchers? All of a sudden, someone has emptied a bottle of bitter pills on the table, and some of them will be tough to swallow. “I don’t know how I could possibly go back home and tell people that we’re pumping more money into government and that we might have to raise taxes,” I confess to Kaye. “You surely don’t think I want to talk compromise with some of the teachers in my district, do you?” Kaye shoots back. “Some of them don’t want to hear of schools getting a dime less than they got back before the last round of tax cuts, just like your supporters don’t want to hear about tax hikes. And now those teachers feel like the politicians are settling a score and attacking them.” Still, none of us think we can live with Scenarios Nos. 1 or 2 either. Just putting out the fires or protecting home plate will ultimately only lead us back to where we just left, a place of repetitive conflict and crisis. After two surprisingly quick days in the Flint Hills, the meeting concludes and we’re preparing to head back to our various towns and jobs. We make plans to meet again in July and reassess where we are then. We haven’t agreed on a firm path to resolving the issue. There’s no real plan yet, at least none that we can hope to agree on. The one thing that’s changed, though, is I see the world differently than I did before. I haven’t changed my mind about keeping taxes low. Or the need for smaller, more efficient government. Kaye hasn’t flip-flopped on schools needing more money. But I’m no longer thinking so much that it’s “us vs. them.” It’s hard, but I’m trying to see that we all share a common enemy, a less than ideal status quo that will carry on unless we do something different to address it. When it comes to that challenge, I see a wider range of options on the table for making progress than I had realized previously. I leave thinking more about the long term. About how we fund education appropriately and sustainably and have the state have competitive taxes and be a magnet for jobs. How we can create certainty and consistency for students and employers. And how, back in Topeka and in my district, I will encourage others to work on sharing the pain rather than ignoring the bigger issues or focusing only on protecting their own interests. And then I tell Kaye, “I don’t know how this story ends. I hope we really can break the cycle together this time. I just don’t know that it’s very realistic.” “Stranger things have happened,” she replies. “The governor stepped up and invited us all here. And then we actually came. Who’d have thought that possible?”
Editor’s note: This description of a hypothetical process to resolve the Kansas school funding dispute is based on interviews with experts experienced in leadership, civic collaboration, public engagement and conflict resolution. It is informed by the techniques of fiction writing and the concept of transformative scenario planning, as described by writer Adam Kahane in a 2012 book on the subject.
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the
S C E NA R I O S : JU S T PUT O UT THE F IRES
PROT EC T HO ME PL AT E
E VE RY B O DY TAKE S A H I T
Quick fixes resolve constitutional dilemmas. But underlying issues remain unaddressed.
Factions end up fighting only for their own interests.
• May place the work of resolving deeper issues in the hands of the courts.
One faction or group ends up being a clear loser and absorbing a disproportionate share of the loss associated with changes in school funding.
Parties start reimagining the school-funding system based on the clear outcomes they want to achieve and look to fund it in ways that diminish the possibility of future lawsuits.
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Risk of school funding crisis reigniting if courts rule again and the Legislature reacts in defiance
Hard feelings sow the seeds for future conflicts – and perhaps even lawsuits.
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• May not resolve the issues of equity and adequacy.
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• A wider array of possibilities is put on the table, and factions carefully consider what bitter pills they are willing to swallow.
• Factions develop stronger relationships with other factions and can better empathize with the losses other factions must sustain in service of a more lasting solution.