Wanting a chance
Standout KCK debater calls for a level playing field for urban schools
BY DAWN BORMANN NOVASCONE
On any given Saturday, you can expect to find Michael Franklin at a debate or forensics tournament.
The 17-year-old senior at Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences was ranked No. 1 in Kansas and No. 17 nationally for his skill last winter. It’s a spot that he has regularly earned.
It’s made him the man to defeat. The experience has also given him a rare perspective to ponder the state’s educational system. It’s given him room to see where inequities creep into education. It can be a real window on the haves and have nots. And, he believes, it happens in situations that lawmakers and taxpayers might never consider.
At weekend tournaments, Franklin and his debate partner watch as neighboring school districts from Johnson County have a team of debate coaches surrounding the students to help with evidence and strategy between rounds. One Blue Valley high school boasts a team of 10 coaches – many are experienced debaters hired from Johnson County Community College, the University of Kansas and elsewhere.
“It’s really hilarious to witness. It came to a point that (my partner) and I were outright laughing before the rounds,” Franklin says. “We even make a fake huddle of us two. All right it’s me and you, what can we do?”
The hilarity wears thin, though.
Sumner hires one head coach and one assistant. A local nonprofit sends another their way when funding allows. Their coaches are often required to judge and handle tournament duties rather than energize Franklin and other students with fresh evidence.
Franklin hears legislators and many others say that all students have the same chances, that education is equal across the state. He sees it differently.
Sometimes it’s small yet significant inequities. Sumner debate and forensic coach Jamelle Brown collects cash from each student to pay for pizza at tournaments. Sumner used to pay, but the perk was cut. Many schools have booster clubs or dedicated school funds to handle transportation, food and additional argument evidence. Franklin had time to think about it recently when his competitors hit the road for an out-of-state tournament. Sumner didn’t have the money.
If the teenager could change one thing about education in Kansas, it would be to shift how the state distributes money to school districts.
The state’s funding formula was originally designed to distribute tax money equally based on enrollment and a host of specific factors. Over the years, though, it’s proven easier for wealthier districts to draw more property taxes directly from their patrons to build new schools and stadiums, invest in technology, and offer extracurricular programs. Even though the state has provided some assistance, lower-income school district taxpayers often have trouble keeping up.
Not having access to enough resources has made a big difference for lower-income, minority, English-language learning and disabled students, according to the Kansas Supreme Court. In its most recent ruling, the court found those groups disproportionately struggling to meet state educational standards after the school-funding cuts that followed the Great Recession.
School inequities can can be brought into sharp focus in the Kansas City region, where some of the state’s wealthiest and poorest schools are situated mere miles apart. Johnson and Wyandotte county students regularly spend time in each other’s schools for basketball games, forensic tournaments and more. Years into competition, Franklin is still surprised when he walks into other schools.
“The size of these schools – the updates that they have – it’s unbelievable,” he says.
Franklin sees the sophisticated classroom technology. He strategizes in their carefully designed common areas that bring together students. He even notices that the water fountains – meant for water bottles – are updated.
“Lansing just got a brand new school that’s amazingly nice. While to extend our building, we ended up (adding) another trailer,” he says.
But it’s not just about new schools and technology upgrades, he says. He wins without that. It cuts deeper, he says.
The system has evolved to put the state’s largest concentration of minority students at a disadvantage, he says. Urban schools such as Sumner don’t have the same resources. Franklin’s classrooms get by with old textbooks. His teachers don’t have the same equipment, and the administration can’t offer some of the classes that reach students. Sumner’s teachers, including Brown, his nationally recognized debate and forensics coach, are regularly recruited by other schools.
At one point, Franklin read a story about a school lamenting that gymnastics would have to be cut due to state budget concerns.
“I just felt gymnastics. That’s never been anything offered (here),” he says. “You’re really complaining about losing a gymnastics class when we’re here not having enough space for the different groups to practice after school?”
He wonders how many Kansans see this view of the state’s education system.
“I think it’s important that you actually need to give these kids of color a chance. It feels like right now we aren’t getting the chance we deserve, because if we ask for things then it’s ‘Oh you just want handouts or you just want something given to you.’”
It’s easy to dismiss it as that, he says.
“But it’s not that,” he says. “What we want is equal opportunity, because we clearly aren’t getting it right now.”
It’s unreasonable, he says, for his urban school to increase taxes to keep pace with Johnson County schools. Wyandotte County taxpayers already shoulder a higher-than-average property tax rate.
“Despite our lack of resources, we’re still able to get things done. We’re still able to have success. But I think it’s clear that there needs to be a new frame in which we actually look at how not only funding is given toward schools. But we need to critically analyze the background of what got us to this situation in the first place,” Franklin says. “And then, only then from unworking those beliefs or epistemologies behind that, can we actually come to an effective solution to make sure that we don’t have this same disparity happen again.”
Back at the forensic and debate tournaments, Franklin and his partner have managed to perfect an alternative style of debating called critical debate that flips a debate question on its head. It’s a source of frustration for competitors, who often complain to judges that it’s unfair.
The mere idea of another team complaining about fairness sometimes infuriates Franklin.
“You can’t talk about fairness,” he says. “You won’t talk about the 10 coaches you have, a brand new school. You only talk about fairness when you’re falling behind.”
Franklin sees the debate room as his place to effect real change. He knows it makes his competitors feel uncomfortable, especially when it comes to matters of race.
“This is the only place where I can raise my voice and talk for eight minutes without you calling the cops on me,” he said at one tournament.
Reform often requires thinking about uncomfortable ideas, he says.
The funding inequities might make some give up entirely. But it motivates Franklin, who will study management and political science at Howard University in the fall.
“It ends up pushing us even more to make a difference,” he says of his forensic team, which has won state five years in a row. “It pushes us even more to want to win, to show up. See we don’t have half the things you all have, but here we are still being more successful than you.”