Individual liberty, limited government, economic freedom, and free markets in Wichita and Kansas
Government transparency in Kansas is determined largely by open records and open meetings laws which state lofty goals but offer many loopholes and exemptions and few penalties for violations of the laws.
The Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) starts off well. "It is declared to be the public policy of the state that public records shall be open for inspection by any person unless otherwise provided by this act, and this act shall be liberally construed and applied to promote such policy."
At last night's meeting of the board of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, citizens learned that the process used to select the vendor for artificial athletic fields was flawed and violated Kansas law. The district will start over, almost from the beginning, and use a competitive bidding process to select the firm to install the fields at five high schools. The result is that the fields will not be available for the coming football season.
In an op-ed piece printed in the Wichita Eagle ("Barb Fuller: Feds should facilitate, not dictate, on education," February 20, 2009 Wichita Eagle, no longer available online), Wichita school board vice president Barb Fuller makes, indirectly, the case that the U.S. Federal government should fund education, but keep its nose out of how local school boards spend the money.
Today's Wichita Eagle contains a story about the need for additional classroom space to support the initiative of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, to reduce class size.
For tonight’s meeting of the board of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, a resolution has been prepared that calls for a vote on…
The election took place in April 2007. In August 2007, just four months later, all Wichita school board members, including those mentioned above, voted to increase taxes. It didn't take long for Kevass Harding to reverse his position. It didn't take long for Barb Fuller to overcome her dislike for raising taxes. Power has a way of doing these things.
Two middle schools in USD 259, the Wichita public school district, have performed so poorly for the past six years that they must be restructured, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act. ("2 Wichita middle schools must start over," Wichita Eagle, February 29, 2008) Four other Wichita middle schools are within one year of suffering this sanction, and another is two years away. So before long, seven of the 18 middle schools in the Wichita school district could be in the most severe category of remediation as defined by NCLB.