Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

In 1993, the legislature enacted the Kansas Challenge to Secondary Schools Pupils Act to allow junior and senior high school students to take higher education courses approved by the Kansas State Department of Education. The student may receive both high school and postsecondary credit.[1]

In 1994, Kansas enacted a charter school law that allowed for the creation of 15 charters statewide.[2] In 2000, the law was amended to allow 30 charters. Under current law, any group that is not affiliated with a religious organization may apply for a charter by submitting a petition to the local school board. Once the charter application is approved by the local board, it is sent to the state board of education for approval. Upon approval, the charter school may apply to the local and state boards for a waiver from the rules and regulations that apply to conventional public schools.[3]

In 1994, then-Representative Kay O'Connor introduced House Bill 2754, an initiative that would have phased in a voucher program over a five-year period. The bill died in committee.[4] Another voucher bill introduced that year, Senate Bill 184, would have provided parents a $3,600 voucher to enroll a child in a public or private school of choice.[5] Neither bill was passed.

In 1995, Representative O'Connor introduced H.B. 2217, a voucher initiative known as the Kansas G.I. Bill for Kids. A companion bill, S.B. 182, was introduced by then-Senators Phil Martin and Michael Harris. The bills would have provided vouchers for children to attend a school of choice, with any amount that was more than the cost of tuition to be held in an account for the child's future college tuition.[6] H.B. 2217 was defeated on the floor by a vote of 23 to 98.[7] S.B. 182 died committee.[8]

In 1997, Representative O'Connor introduced the Parents in Control of Education Act (H.B. 2379), which would have established a K-12 choice program to be phased in throughout a six-year period. By the sixth year, all grades would have been served and the voucher would have been worth the public schools' per-pupil expenditure. The bill died in committee.[9] Another bill, H.B. 2466, introduced by Representative Brenda Landwehr, would have created a pilot voucher program for poor students in Sedgwick and Wyandotte Counties. This bill also died in committee.[10]

In 1998, Kansas City became one of 40 Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF) "partner cities." The CSF, a $100 million foundation, gave the Kansas City metropolitan area a $2.5 million, four-year challenge grant to be matched by local donations. In 1999, the CSF announced the first recipients of the scholarships, students in grades K-8 who had been selected randomly by a computer-generated lottery from 11,000 applications.[11]

Several parental choice education bills were introduced in 1999. Representative O'Connor resubmitted the Parents in Control of Education Act as H.B. 2462. The Kansas Educational Opportunities Certificate Pilot Program Act, H.B. 2504 and S.B. 295, would have provided a voucher to low-income students in four counties for tuition costs at an accredited private school. The certificate would have been worth 80 percent of the base state per-pupil public school allocation.[12]

The Kansas Opportunity Scholarship Research Experiment Act (H.B. 2913) would have established a three-year research project to test "whether there is a positive, negative or neutral correlation between vouchers which provide availability of choice in the selection of schools and successful pupil learning." Under this proposal, the Kansas State Board of Education would have contracted with a researcher to design and conduct an experiment in which the academic achievement of scholarship recipients was compared to that of a control group that remained in the public school system. All of these bills died in committee.[13]

A 2000 survey commissioned by the Emporia State University Teachers College and funded in part by the Kansas National Education Association (NEA) found that 60 percent of respondents favored school vouchers. In a similar survey taken in February 1994, 53 percent of respondents had favored vouchers.[14]

Also in 2000, Wichita education activist Cindy Duckett launched CEO Kansas, a program that gives low-income families privately funded vouchers to send their children to private schools. CEO Kansas followed the model of programs throughout the nation that operate under the umbrella organization Children First America.[15]

In June 2000, then-Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall issued a non-binding legal opinion that school vouchers were unconstitutional according to the state's bill of rights and the state constitution.[16]

On-line education made strides in 2000. Educators in the Basehor-Linwood School District created a virtual charter school, designed to appeal to home-schoolers, which allows students to complete coursework on the Internet at their own pace, though students must take state standardized tests to evaluate their progress.[17] The Wichita Public School District created a "school" to attract local home-schooling parents to the state's largest school district. The school's mission statement declares that "Wichita School's mission is to eliminate barriers between home school and traditional school-based learning by offering lessons, resources, and teaching support."[18]

During the 2001 legislative session, the Kansas Opportunity Scholarship Research Experiment Act (H.B. 2496 and S.B. 199) was reintroduced. This legislation would have granted funding for a pilot program to study the effects of vouchers on the academic achievement of low-income students. Two tax credit bills, H.B. 2255 and H.B. 2407, were also introduced. H.B. 2255 would have given parents a tax credit of up to $500 for education expenses, such as textbooks and fees, and a tax credit of up to $2,000 for tuition. H.B. 2407 would have provided up to $1 million worth of tax credits to businesses that contributed to organizations that give scholarships to children who are in special-education classes or from low-income families. Additionally, Senator Kay O'Connor (R-District 9) reintroduced the Parents in Control of Education Act as S.B. 238 to establish a phased-in choice program for students in grades K-12. All of these bills died in committee.[19]

H.B. 2255, which would have provided tax credits to parents for private school expenses, and H.B. 2407, which would have given corporations tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations, were carried over into the 2002 session. S.B.199 and H.B. 2496, which would have initiated an experiment to research the effects of vouchers, were also carried over. None of these bills was passed.[20]

The Kansas Parent Control of Education Act was introduced again in 2003, this time as S.B. 211. Under this program, vouchers would be available to students in any grade who are eligible for the free lunch program. The vouchers would be worth a percentage of the state per-pupil allocation, and the voucher amount would increase annually over six years.[21]  This bill died in committee.[22]

In 2004, Senator Pete Brungardt (R-District 24) introduced S.B. 327 to permit home schooled children to participate in interscholastic sports and activities with public school students. The bill died in committee.[23]

H.B. 2558 passed the Kansas Legislature and was signed into law in April 2004. The bill amended sections of the Charter Schools Act to outline the guidelines for petitioning school districts by those who wish to open charter schools and the specific criteria a charter school must meet.[24]

H.B. 2906, which would provide for financial assistance to economically disadvantaged students in non-public schools, was introduced in February 2004.[25] S.B. 563, the Scholarships for Exceptional Children Act, would have provided children defined as "exceptional" with scholarships to attend private schools or another public school. Neither bill received a vote.[26]

In 2005, Sen. Kay O'Connor (R-Olathe) introduced a bill to create a voucher program for special education students. S.B. 169 would have provided vouchers for parents to send their children to the public or private schools of their choice. The bill was referred to the Senate Education Committee, but no further action was taken on the measure.[27]

In November of that year, the Kansas Board of Education prepared to discuss several school voucher proposals at its December meeting. In the past two years, state legislators have considered bills to create voucher programs for low-income students and, separately, special education students.[28]

In January, the State Board of Education voted in favor of a proposal that would be submitted to the state legislature to change the state's charter school law in two ways, both favorable to charters: first, charter applicants whose application was rejected by their local school board would be allowed to appeal to the state board, and, second, the per pupil funding for charter students would be increased by approximately $1,500.[29]