Is the Legislature ready for a $1.5 billion at-risk program?
GUEST COLUMN, David Dorsey, Kansas Policy Institute
KPI has proposed a new model for the state’s woeful at-risk program. There are numerous reasons that a new approach to improving the achievement of the at-risk population is imperative: low achievement, with accompanying high achievement gaps; little or no accountability; and spending that is not targeted to those students, among others.
Add to that list a financing mechanism that has created a bloated amount of funding. Currently, at-risk funding has blown past the $500,000,000 annual mark. Not only is that an unacceptable amount, given the return on that expense, but there exists the possibility of that amount nearly tripling to a mind-boggling $1.5 BILLION each year. How could that be? Read on for the details.
