Judge Orders Kansas' Public Schools Closed (Activist Judge Alert)

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The state must close its public schools this fall while it fixes constitutional flaws in its system for distributing aid to those schools, a district judge ruled Tuesday in a case that is already under appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court.

The order issued by Shawnee County District Judge Terry Bullock anticipates he will soon issue a follow up restraining order preventing the spending of any money after June 30. That means the Tuesday's order will not affect the current academic year.

Dan Biles, an attorney for the State Board of Education, said an appeal of Tuesday's order will be filed quickly, and could stay Bullock's order past the start of the new school year.

"This action by the court will terminate all spending functions under the unconstitutional funding provisions, effectively putting our school system on 'pause' until the unconstitutional funding defects are remedied by the legislative and executive branches of our government," Bullock wrote in Tuesday's order.

He continued: "Although this action may delay our children's education slightly (should the other branches fail to respond quickly), it will end the inadequate and inequitable education being provided now and the disparate damage presently being done to the most vulnerable of our children."

The order was quickly dismissed by Republican legislative leaders, who had already said they planned to pay it little heed, given that the case is already on appeal to the Supreme Court.

Whitney Watson, a spokesman for Attorney General Phill Kline, who filed the appeal to the state's highest court, said the office is reviewing the ruling and planned to announce a response at 2 p.m.

Bullock's decision came just three days after legislators adjourned the 2004 session without acting on his December order to fix state's school finance system, which he found to be unconstitutional.

Bullock issued that preliminary ruling in a 1999 lawsuit brought by parents and administrators in the Dodge City and Salina school districts. He concluded that state's system for distributing $2.77 billion in aid is unconstitutional partly because of how it distributes money to programs for poor and minority students.

Bullock gave legislators the 2004 session to fix the system, setting a deadline of July 1 to make his order final. Legislators responded by passing a law allowing the state to immediately appeal the preliminary order to the Kansas Supreme Court.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said it was "truly unfortunate" that children, parents and teachers must pay the price of legislative inaction.

Alan Rupe, an attorney representing the Salina and Dodge City districts, said Bullock's order is "certainly called for by basis of the Legislature's behavior."

He said legislators were "defiant" in ignoring Bullock's earlier ruling and failing to find a school finance solution, and that Tuesday's ruling suggests appropriate consequences.

"You can't argue with the logic that if the school finance statutes are unconstitutional, you don't enforce them," Rupe said.

In his Tuesday ruling, Bullock said there were "literally hundreds" of ways legislators could structure, manage and fund public schools. He said that legislators could determine inefficiencies in the present structure and that those corrections might reduce the total dollars needed to fund education.

Those corrections, he wrote, could include consolidation of school districts and the outsourcing or regionalization of services.

During the trial, attorneys for the Salina and Dodge City school districts presented a 2002 consultants' study suggesting that schools were underfunded in Kansas by more than $800 million.

"At this point, nothing Judge Bullock did would come as a surprise," said John Koepke, executive director of the Kansas Association of School Boards. "Judge Bullock made clear in his preliminary order his frustration that the legislature has let things deteriorative to the point they are now. It's difficult to understand how closing schools would help children."

Parents of children from Wichita to Olathe starting calling schools almost as soon as Bullock's order was released, looking for more information.

"It has the potential to be the most disruptive circumstance I've encountered in public education in the last 40 years," said Olathe schools Superintendent Ron Wimmer. "I've never experienced a circumstance where a judge has ordered a complete shutdown of the schools."

Does this affect you, non? Kids in school and all that?

Doubtful. Funding is in place for the 2003-2004 school year so it's not like the doors are locked this morning or anything. The decision is going to be appealed so it probably won't even delay next year, either. The legislature may have to come back and redo the funding, but that's about it.

School funding here is really ridiculous. All funding flows from Topeka, and local communities have no say in the matter. I live in the Blue Valley school district, and even though we passed a referendum calling for an increase in property taxes to provide extra funding for the schools and we're not allowed to do that. It's "unfair". Meanwhile some rural districts get upwards of $20,000 per student from the state to fund small town schools. Go figure.

If his ex-wife is Carol Rupe, at one time she sat on a school board in Wichita and is another Democrat donor.

I really think the Democrats are creating this hysteria to play on the emotions of parents and get them to vote Democrat. Maybe I'm crazy, but it's a thought anyway.

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