Senator Taylor Comments on Guv's Education Plan

Statement by Senator Stratton Taylor
Senate President Pro Tempore

"No matter what face the Governor's office tries to put on it, I don't know anyone who thinks that cutting school lunches, cramming more kids into classrooms or firing teachers is going to improve our public schools. No other state has taken that approach because it's unbelievably bad policy. The report and its suggestions are just as crazy today as they were
yesterday."

"Suggesting that we can give our teachers a pay raise by wringing money out of their students and other teachers is ludicrous. It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and pull a teacher pay raise out of thin air as the Governor's report suggests, but that's not going to happen in the real world."

"The facts tell us that we're near the bottom of the barrel in school funding, but the Governor's staff would prefer to ignore that reality and pursue fantasy. The next thing you know the Governor's people will be telling us that if we just put on our ruby red slippers, click our heels three times and say 'there's no place like home,' we'll be back home in Kansas."

"This education plan isn't the first half-baked idea to come out of the Governor's Office of State Finance, but it certainly is the strangest. Maybe that's why Tom Daxon sent his PR man out to defend it instead of trying to justify it himself."

"The report does illustrate a fundamental difference between the two parties. Democrats want more funding for education. Republicans want to cut corners, cut school lunches and pack more kids into the classroom."