Kansas Governor Sam Brownback [official website] signed [press release] a bill (HB 2665) [text, PDF] on Thursday enacting a new funding formula for schools. The bill replaces a formula that was found to be unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court [official website], which ruled [JURIST report] in February that the previous funding system was inequitable. Justices on the court gave the Kansas legislature until June 30 before they closed schools due to the failed funding measures. The legislation appropriates [Reuters report] $367 million in supplemental general state aid under a new formula that assessed the value of property within a district on a per pupil basis. The legislation also ensures that no school district will have its current level of funding reduces.

Public schools across the nation faced restructuring [JURIST report] last December, and that could mean more work for the Kansas legislature. Early that month President Barack Obama signed [press release] the Every Student Succeeds Act [text, PDF] into law. The new measures hand much of the power over education success monitoring back to the states. The Every Student Succeeds Act revises the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) [materials] and removes the accountability measures for standardized test scores that had been set by the federal government.