Bullock's move: brash or bold?
In a bold move last week, Topeka Judge Terry Bullock issued an order to close public schools in the fall, after legislators failed to fix the school finance problem.
Bullock has been called a bully and a genius. Regardless, his order did bring the problem to the public's attention. While many of us may not follow legislative shenanigans most of the time, we should applaud Bullock's efforts to get them to act on school finance.
Legislators are doing their constituencies a grave disservice. They were elected to represent the best interests of the people. They aren't doing that. Instead, they're bickering and bargaining like a bunch of Wall Street traders trying to unload high-tech stocks. Or maybe they're more like a bunch of children, arguing about who gets to use the purple crayon.
When they couldn't reach an agreement, they picked up their toys and slunk back to their homes, hoping the public wouldn't realize their failure to do the jobs for which they were elected.
In other words, education, while important to most of us, is not high on the priority list for Kansas legislators. If they had spent more time on education finance and less time on guns and gay marriage, we might not be wondering if our children will go to school in the fall.
— DONNA BERNHARDT
