Sir Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” That has certainly been the case about claims related to school funding and Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax cut plan, including those made recently by former state senator Anthony Hensley.

Hensley made several false claims in his column encouraging Kansans to re-elect Governor Laura Kelly. He blamed Brownback for ‘devastating’ cuts to school funding, but according to the Kansas Department of Education, total spending went from $12,285 in the first budget signed by Brownback to $14,085 in the last budget before Kelly’s election. Schools filed their lawsuit in 2010 after Democrat Governor Mark Parkinson signed a budget that led to a cut in school spending from $12,330 per student in 2010 to $12,285 in 2011. Even then, that is only a 0.4% cut and hardly enough to warrant the very public cuts made by school districts.

Teachers and parents endured budgetary changes during those years, but each was the choice of local school boards and superintendents. They chose to lay off some teachers instead of tapping into more than $700 million in operating cash reserves if they wanted more funding. In fact, schools increased operating reserves by $170 million during that period, meaning they didn’t spend all the funding they received.

Between 2011 and 2018, school districts hired about 600 more teachers, 250 more managers, and 100 more people in other positions. Since then,...

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