Jim Denning: Laura Kelly oversaw more damage to Kansas kids than any governor ever
To paraphrase President Joe Biden, there are only three things Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and her campaign need to make a sentence: a noun, a verb, and Sam Brownback.
Kelly and her political consultants think Kansans are easily fooled. Rather than campaign on her own record — what a successful incumbent would do — they’ve spent this entire election running against someone who hasn’t been on the ballot in eight years.
Kelly calls herself the “education governor.” Truth is, no governor has presided over more damage to Kansas students in our state’s history.
Under Kelly, student performance is declining; mental health crises are rising; parents are pulling students from our public schools at record numbers and more teachers than ever have left the profession. In 3 1/2 short years, Kansas public education has gotten worse by virtually every metric.
How did this happen?
Kelly was the first governor in America to impose a one-size-fits-all statewide lockdown on schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. What’s worse, despite public health experts and parents pleading for in-person learning, Kelly attempted to close schools into a second academic year. Thankfully, she was stopped by the Kansas State Board of Education. The board called her actions “problematic” and reprimanded her, saying she should be “listening to the doctors, not the politicians.”
Worst of all, it didn’t have to be this way. Many other governors kept schools open, or limited closures to local decision-making. The pandemic ravaged everyone in one way or another, but even one of America’s most noted liberal columnists acknowledged the data shows “educational losses are disproportionately the fault of Democratic governors and mayors who too often let schools stay closed even as bars opened.”
According to a post-pandemic report, “school closures may ultimately prove to be the most costly policy decision of the pandemic era in both economic and mortality terms.” “Closing public schools was entirely under the control of policymakers.”
In Kansas, it was Kelly’s decision and hers alone.
Student achievement in math, English and reading tumbled as a result. Those statistics simply reflect what Kansas parents already know: Their child suffered through remote learning and has fallen behind as a result.
Our children’s mental health and wellness have also deteriorated from Kelly’s hurried lockdown. Isolation led to a rise in teen anxiety, depression and thoughts about suicide.
A survey of Kansas teens shows what should be a shocking statistic, but sadly one that Kansas parents understand all too clearly. One in three teens in our state admit they have seriously considered suicide in their life. That is an all-time high, and a 40% increase from when they first began surveying in 2015.
On Kelly’s watch, about 15,000 students have left public schools since 2019 and Kansas faces its worst-ever teacher shortage.
The one thing Kelly and her allies point to as a supposed success is school funding. It’s true that our schools are fully funded as required by our state constitution. But they have been since before Kelly took office, as a result of the Republican-led Legislature passing SB 19 in 2017, and SB423 and SB61 in 2018. State Senate Republicans added the final fix to school funding with SB16 in 2019, and it was Attorney General Derek Schmidt who successfully defended the full funding at the Kansas Supreme Court. Schmidt’s court victory, not Kelly, closed the book on our school funding dilemma that began when former Gov. Mark Parkinson, a Democrat, cut K-12 spending.
Laura Kelly has no substantive answer for the harsh reality that she’s done immeasurable damage to Kansas kids. She doesn’t want to talk about those real problems that need solving. She’d rather take credit for fixing problems that no longer exist because other leaders did the hard work.
Kansas kids deserve better.