Dive Brief:

• On Friday, a district court in Kansas ruled that the state's controversial school finance law passed earlier this year is unconstitutional, a ruling the state has already signaled its intent to appeal.
• The court ordered the state to reinstitute portions of the state's old school funding formula, particularly in capital costs and providing additional funding based on the number of students.
• State officials called the decision judicial overreach and one expert called the decision "little more than a political opinion."

Dive Insight:

The ruling is the latest in Kansas' ongoing struggle over school funding. Last year, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state's school funding structure was inequitable and violated the state's Constitution. The current funding law was intended, in part, to respond to that ruling. But the district court ruled that the state was, in fact, spending less and not more on schools under the new block-grant funding program. The new program, which allocates districts money in large blocks of money, rather than on a per pupil basis, has drawn criticism for giving poorer and disadvantaged districts short thrift, which was one of the sources of the original suit that made its way to the Kansas Supreme Court.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has filed a notice of appeal to the state's Supreme Court on Friday, the same day the district court's ruling came down.