Mayor Funkhouser’s Statement on the Release of the Final Report of the KCMSD Education Reform Task Force

 The following is an official statement from Mayor Mark Funkhouser regarding the final report of the KCMSD Education Reform Task Force. A copy of the report can be downloaded from the Mayor’s weblog, funksfrontporch.com.

It is time for our community to put aside our differences and come together in support of our school system and our children. That’s the most important message I get from the final report of the KCMSD Education Reform Task Force.

I’m proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to serve on this Task Force. Though I was unable to attend every meeting, I found our discussion and work to be constructive and insightful. Likewise, our final report is an important document that I intend to lean on for guidance as I continue to support, in every way possible, our city’s largest district and our entire education system.

Many people have told me that I shouldn’t get involved with education. After all, as mayor, I have no formal authority over our school system. But I simply cannot ignore an issue that is of such great importance to Kansas City.

Indeed, none of us can, if we truly care about our city’s future.

So long as our school system lags behind others in the metro area, folks will continue to choose to live elsewhere. And our city won’t reach its full potential so long as it suffers from such chronic disinvestment. And if our city – the flagship for the metropolitan area – fails to thrive as it should, the entire region will suffer.

Clearly, there’s a vicious cycle at play here. Our disinvestment worsens conditions in our schools, causing still more disinvestment. It’s a cycle that has played out for more than half a century, since Brown vs. the Board of Education ended legal segregation, and most acutely since the riots of 1968. The following year, 1969, was the last year we approved a tax increase for the school district, and it was no coincidence that it was also the last year that the majority of its students were white.

Forty years have passed, but it’s not too late to start mending our community and doing right by our kids. Other cities have been able to do it. Cities like Philadelphia, Charlotte and Richmond have built community consensuses around their urban education systems and are beginning to see real results.

There is no reason why we can’t make the same thing happen here.

We have all the knowledge and resources that we need. What we need is commitment and action.

I pledge both.

And armed with this report and the experience of our work on this task force, I intend to push for communitywide commitment and action.

For more information contact Kendrick Blackwood in Mayor Funkhouser’s office: 816-513-3513.