Interesting points.
On the surface these appear to be severe condemnations. However, digging in:
During a budget debate in the state Senate that started Thursday and went into the early hours of Friday, Republicans became annoyed at Democrats who, the Republicans thought, were unnecessarily offering amendments and prolonging the session...At about 1 a.m. Friday, the Republicans halted the proceedings and went into private talks. At about 3 a.m., they returned, and a Republican senator introduced an amendment of his own...The money to fund new pilot programs for this cause had to come from somewhere, and the Republicans decided to take it out of education programs in Democratic districts, along with other things the Democrats had wanted.
Sounds like petty politics, poison pill style. Not a good look, for sure!!
But the Kansas article brings up the baseline budgeting issue. Did Kansas ACTUALLY cut school funding, or just reduce the increase?
According to the article:
Schools would still receive more funding than they did last year, but less than they were supposed to receive this year.
So, Kansas did not "cut" funding to schools, they "increased it less than originally determined." Only in politics is a raise called a cut! Imagine going into work, and being told after your review, "Hey, I'm putting you in for a 10% raise!" And then after approvals, etc. go through, you end up with a 7% raise. MY PAY WAS CUT BY 3%!!!
I watched the documentary The Lottery a few years. You ever seen this? Heartbreaking the condition of our schools that this happens. I'm torn - one of my best friends is a teacher so I get his side, but I also am for school choice, which is often called a "cut" to schools because it goes to "non-public" schools.
I had always assumed that school districts operated off property taxes in their district, yet these things are state or federal delegated funds. Do these proeprty taxes all go into a state fund, and then are distributed? I must confess I have not looked at school funding in a while (20 years or so). I just know that I have always voted YES on a school tax levy increase, as good schools = high property values. Voting YES is a vote on your property value!
Agree with everything you said about the DoE and bloated administration being large drivers of the problem. But I stick to the original assertion that the right does want to cut school and education funding.
Republicans in North Carolina cut funding https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/14/republicans-in-n-c-senate-cut-education-funding-but-only-in-democratic-districts-really/
Look at what happened in Kansas. Governor Brownback completely gutted the education system https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article9351788.html
And then there are Republicans seeking to cut school lunches.
Now this does not mean everyone on the right supports defunding schools and education, but my point is that this is far from a fringe position amongst Republicans. Personally I wouldn't want to be associated with such poor policy, so I openly criticize it. There are undoubtedly very useful reforms and vouchers that could be made to create competetion between schools and drive improvement, but I wouldn't trust Republicans to do that given their record of gutting education at any chance they have.