Student outcomes, accountability take center stage at Education Funding Task Force hearings
By Timothy R. Graham
Director of Government Relations
Members of the Kansas Legislature's Education Funding Task Force spent a day and a half at the Statehouse on May 27-28 examining student outcomes and accountability measures and marking a clear shift in focus from earlier meetings that centered on the mechanics of the school finance formula.
Where April's sessions explored how funding flows through the system, May's hearings asked a different question: How should student success be defined, and how should the state measure it? The answer, based on the hearings, is far from settled.
Day One: Data, an outside expert and a sharp exchange
The task force opened Wednesday, May 27 with a detailed overview of current outcome data from the Kansas Legislative Research Department (KLRD), covering chronic absenteeism, state assessment results, ACT scores and graduation rates. The data revealed a mixed picture — graduation rates have climbed while several other indicators have declined or remained flat.
KLRD researcher Jennifer Light presented five-year chronic absenteeism figures showing Kansas at 19.5% in fiscal year 2025, down from a pandemic high of 21.8% in 2023 but still above the 17.5% recorded in 2021.
ACT composite scores dropped from 21.9 in 2007 to 19.1 in 2025, leaving Kansas slightly below the national composite average of 19.4. A cohort-style analysis of state assessment data drew particular attention when Rep. Kristey Williams, R-Augusta, noted that students in the class of 2024 consistently fell further below grade level in ELA the longer they progressed through school - a trend that prompted extended discussion among members.
The marquee presentation came from Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, who appeared via webcast.
Roza argued that the task force should focus on two key metrics above all others - fourth grade reading scores and eighth-grade math scores, which she described as predictive of long-term student outcomes, including earnings, college completion and workforce participation.
She presented scatter plot data showing wide variation in student outcomes among Kansas districts with similar poverty levels and per-pupil spending, arguing that districts in the lower-performing quadrant often don't recognize they are there - and that spending levels alone don't explain the gap.
"At any spending amount, we have some districts that are knocking it out of the park," Roza said, urging the task force to focus on outcomes regardless of funding levels.
That framing drew a direct challenge from Rep. Nikki McDonald, D-Roeland Park, a former classroom teacher.
"When you argue that people should do more with existing resources, we really normalize underfunding of public education, and we shift the blame to districts," McDonald said.
She pushed back on what she called an oversimplification - one that, in her view, discounted the real costs of serving more special education students, addressing a mental health crisis and investing in reading coaches that are only beginning to show results.
McDonald also raised concerns about Roza's suggestion that Kansas has been adding paraprofessionals and support staff at the expense of classroom instruction, arguing that increases in special education enrollment and community mental health needs drive much of that staffing growth.
Roza held her ground.
"We don't give up because we didn't get what we wanted this year," she said. "We leverage whatever is available and drive as much progress as we can."
Melissa Rooker, executive director of the Kansas Children's Cabinet and Trust Fund — and a former Republican member of the Kansas House who played a central role in drafting the last school finance formula during the Gannon litigation era — offered important context throughout the day.
She noted that the data presented spans years when state funding was frozen under the block grant, court remedies were being phased in, and COVID disrupted assessments.
“This does not contextualize what was experienced," Rooker said of the cohort chart.
She cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from any single data point given the complex variables at play in individual districts.
The afternoon session included a presentation from Wichita USD 259's Creative Minds micro-school, an innovative K-6 model operating inside the Wichita Learning Lab.
The program reported strong internal growth metrics using project-based learning within standard per-pupil funding. Chair Estes cited the program as an example of public-school innovation and raised the question of how any new formula should leave room for approaches like it.
Dr. Renee Nugent, deputy commissioner for the Division of Learning Services at the Kansas State Department of Education, closed day one by substituting for Deputy Commissioner Frank Harwood. She was direct about the state's academic standing.
"We are not satisfied where we are academically with these results,” Nugent said.
But she cautioned against over-relying on a single summative assessment, noting that KSDE is developing a student growth model and has created a new division of accountability and technology.
"The answer can't simply be identifying low performance," Nugent said. "The answer has to be how do we provide the supports, build the systems and change the outcomes."
Day Two: Other states, merit pay and the accountability debate
Thursday, May 28, opened with a comprehensive presentation from KLRD researcher Nicole Bergman on state accountability systems and performance-based funding models in six states: Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland and Mississippi. All six use letter-grade or tiered accountability systems, and several have enacted merit or performance-based compensation programs for educators.
The presentations generated significant discussion.
McDonald questioned whether merit pay systems risk steering the most effective teachers toward higher-performing classrooms. Vice Chair Sen. Renee Erickson, R-Wichita, asked whether data exists on teacher morale and retention in states that have adopted merit pay models, and noted that Roza's own research suggests teachers generally prioritize higher pay above other workplace factors.
McDonald also flagged a recurring concern - the accountability systems reviewed are largely tied to standardized test scores in math and ELA, potentially leaving out the broader skills of civic engagement, creative thinking and social-emotional learning that she and others argue are central to a complete education.
Lauren Bloomquist, of the Education Commission of the States, offered a national overview of school quality and student success indicators, noting that at least 37 states use college and career readiness metrics that have expanded well beyond standardized scores to include work-based learning, industry credentials, ninth grade on-track metrics and military readiness indicators. At least 36 states also incorporate chronic absenteeism into their accountability systems.
The afternoon's discussion produced some of the most candid exchanges of the two days.
Jim Porter, a member of the State Board of Education from Fredonia who serves on the task force, offered a measured challenge to the full group - if the task force concludes its work on a 6-5 vote, he said, "I believe we have failed." He called on members to prioritize listening and relationship-building above winning arguments.
"We have to develop better relationships between the legislators and those of us making decisions about education," Porter said.
That call for consensus ran up against a persistent fault line over how to interpret the data. Rep. Williams, who is the House Majority Caucus chair, argued that improving graduation rates alongside declining state assessment scores suggests graduation standards may not be rigorous enough - a line of reasoning that several members pushed back on, citing funding freezes, pandemic disruption and the complex demographics of individual districts.
Rooker offered a measured defense of Kansas's trajectory, noting that since reaching the full Gannon settlement target in 2023, trend indicators have begun pointing in a positive direction.
"I think we are moving the needle," she said, adding that there is a meaningful difference between impatience for results and the urgency of addressing students who move through the entire system before reforms take hold.
Rep. Megan Steele, R-Manhattan, pressed the group to define what accountability actually looks like in the context of a funding formula.
“We don't have an accountability measure for that," she said of academic preparation. "What is the accountability measure?"
Chair Estes wrapped up the two-day session by asking members to review their priorities before the next meeting and come prepared to begin working toward formula recommendations.
She noted the task force received fewer meeting dates than expected and signaled a fall reconvening. The task force is required to deliver a report to the Kansas Legislature by January 2027; the current school finance formula expires June 30, 2027.
To learn more about the Education Funding Task Force, click here.
The meetings are available on YouTube:
May 27:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJrQ71BvBA
May 28:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=510IVwK4Rns
Timothy R. Graham is KNEA's Director of Government Relations and Legislative Affairs. He can be reached at timothy.graham@knea.org.
For ongoing coverage of legislative activity affecting public education in Kansas, visit Under The Dome at ksutd.org.
— PUTTING IT IN PERSPECTIVE —
By Timothy R. Graham
Director of Government Relations
Let me be straight with you about where things stand.
Accountability measures and some form of performance-based incentives are going into the next school finance formula. That is not speculation - it is the direction this task force is heading, and frankly, it is baked into the statute that created it.
The law requires the new formula to include "meaningful accountability measures." That language didn't get there by accident. The question is no longer whether accountability will be part of this formula. The question is what it looks like when it gets there - and whether we have any say in shaping it.
That is the honest conversation KNEA members deserve to have right now.
There are hardliners in this process who have zero interest in listening to us. They want a single-metric, high-stakes testing model - one number, one score, raw and punitive - and they believe they have the votes to get it. They may be closer to right about that than any of us would like. The best thing that can happen for them is for KNEA to dig in on principle, refuse to engage, and push everyone who might be willing to work with us into their corner instead. That is a gift we should not give them.
Because here is what is also true: Chair Estes has kept an open line of communication with KNEA. She has said publicly, in these very hearings, that she is not interested in a punitive system. She does not want a model built on withholding pay or reducing funding based on a single test score.
What she has said she wants is a growth model - one that gives every teacher the opportunity to demonstrate progress; accounts for where students start and not just where they end up; and that looks at more than a standardized test score to measure whether kids and schools are moving in the right direction.
That is a meaningful difference from what the hardliners want. And she has challenged everyone at the table - including KNEA - to tell her what variables beyond graduation rates should be included and which formula weightings matter most to us and why.
That challenge deserves a real answer, not a talking point.