Sam Brownback's Impact On The Kansas Education System

“Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy” is how Governor Sam Brownback introduced his plan to help the Kansas economy get better (Rosenberg, 2015). Brownback’s plan was to cut taxes to that the state would somehow make money off of those cuts. Politicians are the driving force that creates change both good and bad in our nation. Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback has impacted the state in many ways. Brownback has created his own tax cut policy that is ruining our education system, putting small towns in debt and lowering the employment opportunities. Even the Republican Party has pulled their support for him. Governor Sam Brownback’s Tax Cut Experiment has disrupted and destroyed many

Duara stated that Brownback “took $45 million dollars in public education funding “(2016).The problem with cutting the public education school fund this much is that it takes away the chance to give proper education. Teachers are the building blocks to society. Without them we would be going nowhere. The education system needs to have a sufficient budget to create a good learning atmosphere. Research done by Celia Llopis-Jepsen has said that “Many eliminated jobs, cut classroom budgets for teachers to buy supplies and discontinued all or almost all of their field trips, unless paid for by parent-teacher organizations. Some asked parents to supply office paper and cleaning supplies for the schools and their offices” (2015). Teachers should not have to spend their own money or ask parents to buy the proper supplies for their classrooms. Our schools should be able to take field trips to enrich their learning because it shows them how the real world works. The salaries of teachers have gone down but they should be making more because it is such an important profession. Kansas is suffering from a major teacher shortage. Another point Llopis-Jepsen made was that “Topeka shed scores of veteran teachers, offering them early retirement, Wichita closed an alternative school and dropped the number of police officers in its schools, Santa Fe Trail restructured its buildings, dropping its community

Since he has been in office, Kansas now has the second highest sales tax in the United States (Duara, 2016). Originally, the experiment was supposed “to let Kansans keep $4.5 million dollars of their own money”,but it did not turn out that way (Williams et al, 2017). Looking at the poorest areas in Kansas, 30% of the population has food stamps because their ways of earning their money has diminished. Pittsburg, Kansas has around 20,000 people who live there and even though it is a college town, stores are still having to close because they can no longer support themselves (Duara, 2016). Southeast Kansas is where they have run into the most impoverished cities and problems. Families have been struggling to put food on their tables and support their children. The quality of life has severely decreased across the state. These communities are struggling so much because the tax cuts increased tobacco, fuel and other items you use in day-to-day