Yesterday was a relatively momentous day in the world of Kansas education finance. A sentence that, even now, stirs a storm of excitement within you, my reader. At around 9.30 yesterday morning, the Kansas Supreme Court handed down a decision that essentially ruled the “block grant” funding scheme the state of Kansas is using to fund schools unconstitutional. In a case known as Gannon II, the Supreme Court said that the block grant formula distributed funds in a manner that created winners and losers among school districts. In education parlance, the school finance formula is not equitable. They not only ruled the formula unconstitutional, but they gave the legislature a deadline to fix it. Should the legislature fail to do so, the court will use its powers to shut down schools across the state.

This is some heavy stuff, with dire consequences, and it is all taking place in an election year. You can read about my attempted explanations of school finance here, here, and here, but essentially this is a self-made disaster. Over the last six-seven years, the legislature has been spending on education at a level below the previously court-mandated amount. At first this was in response to falling revenues as a result of the financial crisis. This was a reason the pragmatic people of Kansas felt that they could live with. However, as the economy was improving, the state of Kansas passed tax policy that cut income taxes for the wealthiest Kansans, and for nearly all businesses. A bold move that was intended to jump start the Kansas economy. Unfortunately, the state, in passing said policy, gutted a big portion of its revenue stream to the tune of $1 billion a year (as per some estimates) without the resulting economic jump start.

The Gannon cases are not new, and this ruling should come as a surprise to no one. Gannon I, told the legislature to make schools more equitable, they didn’t do enough, then froze that inadequate number for two years. Nevertheless, legislators throughout the statehouse called the ruling “a bully tactic”, “a temper tantrum”, and an attempt to “hold Kansas taxpayers and Kansas schoolchildren hostage.” Here’s the thing, however, the actual text of the ruling does none of the above.

The actual ruling goes to great lengths to give Governor Brownback and the more conservative bloc of legislators a civics lesson. It quotes at great length Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Paper outlining the importance of the judiciary. The Supreme Court did NOT give the legislature a dollar amount that must be spent in order to comply with the ruling, nor did it require a particular remedy at all. In fact, the ruling sends the ball back to the court of the executive and legislative branches. It essentially tells them, “look, we’re tired of dealing with this crap, you know what you have to do, now do it.”

The court is not some pawn of school districts. It is not some infiltrating arm of the teachers’ unions. It is not a tool of Big Education. The Supreme Court is the third branch on this great tree of republican-democracy. It is simply upholding an article in the constitution that the people of Kansas approved barely fifty years ago. As the ruling so painstakingly attempted to point out, the primary job of the court is to halt the advance of any law that is at odds with the codified will of the people.

The consequences of this ruling are not that districts will close. Every state legislator is up for re-election, and for most, that election is the primary on August 2, barely a month after the deadline the court has given the legislature. If schools close, the people will revolt, and the legislators know that. No, the consequences of this ruling will strike at the court itself. Five of the seven justices are up for retention this year, and one can bet the conservative PACs, lobbyists, SuperPACs, and think-tanks will be gunning for all five to be voted out of their seats on the supreme court.

We, as Kansans, cannot allow that to happen. The retention elections are not in place to vote out justices a handful of powerful don’t like. Instead, let us vote out those people who created this mess in the first place. As the legislators like to so often point out, the people elected them to appropriate, and for the last four years, most legislators have failed Kansans. Luckily, with education their failure came up against the state’s constitution. Unfortunately, parents with children on Medicaid have no such luxury as their life saving prescriptions go unfilled. Unfortunately, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation has no such luxury as they are forced to leave 20% of felonies uninvestigated. Unfortunately, state hospital workers at Osawatomie and Larned have no such luxury as they continue to work 32 hours over a 40 hour period.

Enough is enough. This is not about politics. This is not about ideology. This is not about my own interests. This is about Kansas. The problems we face, despite being created quickly, are not likely to be fixed quickly, but we must start this fall. Be informed, know where your candidates stand, and most importantly know where you stand. Four years has set our state back decades. Four more years might set us back forever.