We believe public education is for all children. We live in an increasingly diverse and complex society. Diversity of backgrounds and needs of children grow while the world changes at an even faster pace. As our information base explodes and technology becomes more sophisticated, effective teaching becomes more complex.

In Kansas, approximately 40% of our public school population includes students identified as at high risk for school failure. This “at risk” group includes students lacking English acquisition, those with special education needs or children living in poverty. The children in this “at risk” population have significantly increased over the past 15 years and we can expect continued increases in diversity of race, language, culture and socio-economic class. Today’s narrow-minded radicals controlling the State Board today are working to exclude these “at risk” children from public education.

Currently, English acquisition employs multiple teaching methods and improvement is expected over a period of time, sometimes up to 5 years. We do not expect our English speaking students to master a foreign language in one year, yet the radical board member from District 5 supports limiting the time to acquire English proficiency to one year. She also supports employing English immersion as the sole teaching method. This “one size fits all” approach ignores developmental considerations and individual student needs. The rigid time limit ignores student progress and performance, deeming irrelevant a student’s readiness to speak and learn in English.

The special education student population continues to grow and the 6-member majority has a plan for how to isolate these students as well. Radical board members support removing these students from the population and lowering expectations for their learning. The six member majority views some Kansas children as commodities, saying it is generally a waste of time to spend any more money on these students because it will cost too much for a limited return on investment.

Students living in poverty, particularly multi-generational poverty, learn best when teachers apply specific strategies to help them reach proficiency. Despite research to the contrary, the six-member majority continues to claim that the problem is really un-involved parents and un-motivated students. The radical majority support providing these students simple access to education but want to direct little attention to meeting the needs of these students once they are in the education system.

The six-member radical majority do not want to accept responsibility for students’ successful outcomes. Let the student sink or swim - after all, they were allowed in the pool Public education is not solely about access to buildings and educators but about access to achievement. We disagree with the radical 6-member majority. KAE believes public education is for all children.

The good news is that there are qualified, informed and moderate candidates in the 2006 races for the State Board. When these candidates are endorsed by KAE, information about them will be posted on the website. Links to their individual campaign websites will also be provided. Please visit them to learn more about qualified candidates across the state.

The Kansas Alliance for Education is committed to the election of informed and moderate candidates focused on high quality public education. These elections will be long, difficult and expensive. Please lend your support to quality public education by making a contribution to the Kansas Alliance for Education. With your help, we can reach more people to ensure voters turn out to support quality public education.