As most of you are hopefully aware, next week we vote on a new bond initiative, to shower more money onto our underperforming Wichita school district. You have probably guess from my phrasing of the previous sentence that I’m on the “No” side. I actually wasn’t sure whether it’s necessary to write an article on this topic, since our friends at https://votenobond.com have done such a great job making their case. (Check out their website for more.). But it might be good to quickly summarize some key points:
- The “zero rate increase” claim is wishful thinking. The bond incurs long-term financial obligations, in an unpredictable economic climate, and we cannot be sure about the future of state-level subsidies or property values.
- Even if “zero rate increase” were true— we deserve a tax BREAK. The past four years of runaway inflation have stressed the finances of all our households. Due to this inflation, simply “not increasing” taxes leaves us worse off than a few years ago.
- The Wichita school district spends wastefully while delivering poor quality. Over the past few decades the district has received hundreds of millions of dollars in bond funding. Yet for all this money, we get declining student scores and rising school violence, as pointed out at the votenobond site.
- We cannot keep rewarding failure without fundamental change in the district. Wichita schools spend more per student ($19K+) than most local private schools (for example, Independent at 12K-16K, Trinity at 9K-14K), which generally offer better academics and student safety. This proves it is possible to educate students at the current level of funding, and the district needs fundamental change rather than another influx of unaccountable funds.
Thus, for these reasons and many others you can find online, please join me in voting NO on the bond next week.