By Jaylen Cavil With election season quickly approaching, Kansas voters will soon be faced with an important decision as to who their next Governor will be. Although there has been no official announcement from potential candidates, both the Free State and Sunflower parties have released their platforms. These party platforms offer voters a stark difference in the future they want to see for Kansas. One of the biggest differences in these platforms is the stance on education that the two parties take. poll
The Free State Party is clear in their support for public education, while the Sunflower Party supports unpopular changes to the Kansas Constitution that would only do more to hurt our public schools. This difference in education policy will be the reason why Kansas voters will elect a Free State candidate as their next Governor. Voters in Kansas are tired of the education debate. They are ready for politicians to stop arguing and finally provide the necessary education funding that the Kansas Supreme Court and Constitution requires. The Free State Party understands that this is not only what the voters want, but what is also necessary. That is why they write in their party platform, “We support adequate and equitable funding for K-12 public education as required by the Kansas Constitution.” The Sunflower party, on the other hand, has outlined a much different vision for the future of public education funding in Kansas. Instead of supporting a plan that would adhere to legal standards for education funding, they would rather change the Kansas Constitution. Sunflower politicians want to give the Kansas Legislature the power to decide which schools are funded adequately and which schools have to suffer. In the Sunflower Party platform they write, “we support amending the Kansas Constitution to give the Legislature exclusive authority in deciding what constitutes adequate funding for public schools.” This language may prove to be a mistake by Sunflower Party officials. Amending the Kansas Constitution so that K-12 funding is determined solely by the Kansas Legislature is an extremely unpopular idea. In fact, when this exact question was asked in a poll done by the Kansas Policy Institute in September 2018, only 16 percent of Kansas voters said that they were in support of the idea. Due to the vast unpopularity of the Sunflower Party’s education stance, this gubernatorial race may be decided by who wins the Free State primary. While there have been no campaign announcements yet, there is plenty of speculation. One of the candidates who are rumored to be running for the Free State Party nomination is Lawrence Mayor Jack Griswold. Mayor Griswold said that if he were to run, “the main focus of my campaign will be public education.” This policy focus by Mayor Griswold’s potential campaign suggests that he also believes that public education will be the deciding issue in this election. The Free State primary will come down to more than just education, as Mayor Griswold will likely face a primary opponent with possibly the same campaign focus. But, once voters in the general election are presented with a choice between the two parties’ education plans, the Free State candidate will have the advantage.
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