OPINION

A message to Derek Schmidt from educators across the state: Don’t mess with public schools

Cheryl Herrelson, Michelle Taylor and Ethel A. Edwards
Special to Gannett Kansas

Teacher Appreciation Week gave us time to acknowledge the hard work and dedication our teachers put in every single day to better support our students, and to thank our educators for going above and beyond for our communities across the state.

While the week of celebrating our teachers has come and gone, there are ways we can continue to honor them year-round.  

Last week, a slate of educators, current and former, from across the state and across the political spectrum, joined together to endorse Gov. Kelly for re-election this fall. We are coming together to send a message loud and clear to Derek Schmidt that we won’t go back to the days where public education was an afterthought.

Ask almost any teacher, regardless of what political party they might belong to, and they will remember the damage done to our schools, our students and our education system under former Gov. Sam Brownback.

Cheryl Herrelson

In just a few short years, Brownback’s reckless “tax experiment” left some schools so underfunded they could only stay open four days a week. It sent a message to our students and our educators that education was not something Kansas values. 

Fast forward just three short years, and that kind of thinking is a thing of the past. With the election of Gov. Laura Kelly, things have turned around for our state and for public education. She kept her promise by fully funding our public schools. She invested in students, teachers and schools to ensure we sent the message to our students that education is, in fact, a Kansas value. She has advocated for our students, educators and families every step of the way.

Michelle Taylor

Gov. Kelly has supported public education in and outside of the classroom. During the pandemic, Gov. Kelly expanded broadband to ensure our students had equal access to education no matter where they lived. She worked tirelessly to get us all back in the classroom, safely.

For our college students, she froze tuition increases on Kansas public colleges and universities to ensure they could start working toward that dream job without breaking the bank.

Ethel A. Edwards

And who’s running against her? Derek Schmidt, who served as Brownback’s right-hand man as attorney general throughout the governor’s two terms. Together, Schmidt and Brownback kept our public schools constitutionally underfunded, Schmidt often going out of his way to do so.

As attorney general, Schmidt wasted millions of Kansas taxpayers’ dollars on lawsuits keeping our public schools underfunded. He was even sued by a coalition of Kansas school districts fighting back against these low funding levels. He spent half a decade fighting to keep education funding low, siding with Brownback and the wealthy corporations the tax cuts were benefiting over our students, teachers and families.

Derek Schmidt has shown us who he really is: an enemy to public education, students and teachers. If given the chance, Schmidt will undo all the progress we’ve made over these last few years under Gov. Laura Kelly’s leadership and take us back to the days of underfunded public schools, four-day school weeks and underserved students.

We won’t let Schmidt take us back to Brownback. 

Cheryl Herrelson is a registered Republican and recently retired after 42 years as an educator. Michelle Taylor is an Independent voter and teaches communications to middle and high schoolers. Ethel A. Edwards is a Democrat, a retired teacher of Topeka Unified School District 501 and the former president of Topeka’s NEA chapter.