Inside the Kansas State University classroom all eyes were riveted on the guest speakers. By the end of the two, one-hour training sessions the future teachers were well equipped to tell the story of the state’s number one industry.

Kansas Farm Bureau and Kansas Foundation for Ag in the Classroom partnered to provide agricultural resources to future Kansas teachers studying in the College of Education.

Serita Blankenship, KFB agriculture education and Cathy Musick, Kansas Foundation for Ag in the Classroom conducted workshops about farming and ranching and explained the importance of agriculture in people’s lives.

“If you eat, wear clothes or drive a vehicle, you are connected with the number one industry in the state of Kansas – agriculture,” Musick says.

The Kansas State University session grew out of a long-standing partnership between the two ag organizations.

After student teachers attend these workshops, they’ll be confident teaching agriculture in the classroom, Blankenship says.

“We shared resources, contact information and we’ll be there for them when they begin teaching,” she adds.

One of the sources the team shared was the website www.myamericanfarm.org. My American Farm is a place eager, young learners can explore and discover information about food, fiber and energy. The site also includes free games and other educational resources.

In addition to the educational materials on myamericanfarm.org, the Kansas State University students learned about the latest agricultural facts and statistics including:

• Less than 2 percent of the U.S. population is made up of farmers and ranchers. They represent a diverse vocation growing conventional, biotech and organic crops.
• One U.S. farm feeds 168 people
• Nearly 100,000 of the 3.2 million U.S. farm operators are Spanish, Hispanic and Latinos
• African American farmers total nearly 45,000
• American Indian approximately 58,500
• Women nearly 970,000
• 97 percent of U.S. farms are owned by families
• 3 percent are owned by non-family corporations
• Every year, farmers produce more food with fewer inputs like labor, seeds, feed and fertilizer.

The ag duo also discussed potential careers in agriculture and shared other agricultural games designed for elementary students.

The student teachers’ obvious curiosity and excitement about the classroom resources bode well for the future of agriculture education.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

Remember your mother telling you that there are some things you just don’t ask about?

You never ask about now much money people make, or why that diet apparently just isn’t working…or, how much money the local board of education pays the football coach.

Those are just off-limits sorts of things that…wait…that last question got asked last week at a meeting of the K-12 Student Success Committee.

The committee which is studying school finance—but probably more particularly whether school districts are spending state aid money the way that conservative legislators want it spent—raised that question.

The panel is trying to figure out a formula to provide suitable—and constitutional—levels of state aid to the nearly 280 unified school districts in Kansas. It’s a fresh start operation because last session, lawmakers literally erased the 20-plus year old school finance formula that appeared to provide adequate and constitutional levels of financing to school districts. Key is that every K-12 school student in Kansas has the opportunity to receive a quality education regardless of the taxable wealth of their district. It’s an equalizing process in which the state evens-up the money available for those students’ education.

Apparently that old formula worked until the Legislature didn’t appropriate enough money to provide that equal educational opportunity to pupils without regard to whether they lived in a property tax rich district or a property tax poor district.

So, while awaiting a decision from the Kansas Supreme Court on whether the state is providing enough money to districts to provide that suitable education statewide, legislators are looking for ways to provide that support at rock bottom prices.

That’s where the expenditures approved by locally elected school boards come into play…and whether the state has a responsibility to pay for not only the math and science and English classes, but maybe the football and basketball and cross-country coaches.

Mom would have said don’t ask that question because in most school districts, even patrons who don’t have a potential gold-plated quarterback at school want their sports teams to excel. And, they want a way to spend Friday nights watching football games in which their teams whip their neighboring high schools.

Now, districts don’t just hire coaches. They hire a teacher who may teach a little math or physical education—or a full day of teaching conventional subjects—and receive a bonus or stipend for the extra hours spent as a coach.

The amount of that supplemental contract likely varies widely—we’ll learn next month when Kansas Department of Education grinds the coaching stipends out of local school boards—and Kansans will learn who gets paid what.

It’s unlikely that the education department is going to have a chart that shows the coaching stipend along with the won-loss record of the team, but we’re figuring that sportswriters around the state will do the math. Not sure that legislators are going to be able to compute what a winning football team means for enhancing pride in one’s school or the willingness of patrons to support those schools.

Starting to look like one of those questions that deals with an admittedly minute portion of the school finance issue, but one that will flare up, see school districts defending their decisions on important local social issues…having the best team in the league or in the state, or maybe just in the county.

There may be amazing numbers next month on those coaching salaries.

But, at least no legislator asked about whether schools and the state could save money…if cheerleaders’ skirts were shorter…

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.