It seems like my good friend Harrison Bergeron is being invoked in an effort to increase school funding allocation in Kansas. School advocates contend that funding is inadequate and unevenly distributed across rich and poor districts. As such is the case, posit that “capping local taxes on schools [is] unconstitutional” and handicaps students’ abilities to receive a decent education.
But apparently aside from the well-written brief that the students’ lawyers prepared, Vonnegut suggests that they didn’t quite get the story: “It’s about intelligence and talent, and wealth is not a demonstration of either one.”
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“Kansas is apparently handicapping schoolchildren, no matter how gifted and talented, with lousy educations if their parents are poor,”
he said.
State attorneys had a curious rebuttal to the effort to lift the caps: “I would classify this as the Johnson County viewpoint of the world,” Rupe said. “This kind of viewpoint exists when there is not adequate funding for all schools,” he said.
Hmm. So you’re suggesting that because there is inadequate funding for education, people have unenlightened views? Really… you don’t say.
Factory Joe 