As we watched the Kansas Legislature vote for state-sanctioned discrimination of LGBT families last week, one Twitter user said, "This is not my Kansas." This is a state where, apparently, the religious beliefs of the majority trump civil rights. In this Kansas, the poor get higher food taxes while the rich get to itemize their charity giving. Here, public schools are demonized as inefficient (proven false), teachers are denied due process, and taxes go to parochial school scholarships. In Kansas, we want to eliminate the checks and balances of our government because judges dare protect the Constitution.

No, this is not our Kansas, either.

The Kansas Legislative Session is over. In the end, we saw some successes where MainStream's values are concerned, and some setbacks. What can you do now to make sure Kansas keeps moving forward?

Today marks the beginning of the last week of the Kansas Legislative Session. There are still three major topics to finish up: fixing the school finance bill "error," turning back the Senate's irresponsible tax cut bill, and passing the state's budget for the next fiscal year. Here's where we are on all of these topics.

Ask the Kansas Legislature to do right by schools and fix the education bill the right way! Do it today! They go back into session tomorrow!

• Ready to act now? Click to send email to your legislators and Leadership to fix the bill

By now you’ve heard about SB 423, the education finance bill that passed two weeks ago with an error resulting in most Kansas school districts getting less money than was intended by the bill. In total, this error reduces the amount for schools by $80 million. Some large districts, like SMSD, are slated to lose as much as $2 million, an amount described as catastrophic to schools.

This week we present a guest column by Heidi Holliday, Executive Director of the Kansas Center for Economic Growth. KCEG has been at the forefront of demystifying tax policy and promoting responsible fiscal solutions for Kansas, and has been a partner for MainStream in economic topics. At issue in this column, the bill passed by the Senate to refuse almost $500 million in taxes owed to Kansas due to the Federal tax cuts. Quite simply, Kansas cannot afford to turn this money away. And who would be receiving this "windfall?" Not the poorest of Kansans. Not those who would most benefit from infrastructure jobs, a lowered sales tax on food, fully funded public education, or a stronger safety net. They claim taxes are theft? Just who is stealing from whom here?

We never really thought it was over, did we? We suspected that the $500 million education finance legislation passed last weekend was not going to be enough to satisfy the Court. We expected we would have to revisit it. We just thought it would be in a Special Session this summer.

Now, word comes that the bill that was passed has an error in it. One that will short change many school districts to the tune of $80 million. Lawmakers will have to work extra fast to pass a correction when they return April 26, to meet the Court's deadline of April 30.

The Kansas Legislature has ended the the first, and most significant part of their session. They are scheduled to return on April 26, for the so called "veto session," although there are still several issues to resolve, among them a budget for next year, and the fate of the education amendment we talked about last week.

Part of straddling the line between extremes is staying away from hyperbole. We work to encourage compromise and collaboration, and call out strident calls like "Taxes are theft!" for what they are. That said, we find we cannot emphasize this next point too much: education is under attack in Kansas, and it is time to stand up to defend it, lest we lose an entire generation of children.

This week in Topeka, hearings are underway on a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution to give control of education standards to the Legislature. If made law, this would irreparably hurt education in Kansas, and put one more nail in the coffin of the checks and balances that keep our government sound.

That sounds like a lot of hyperbole, right? Let us convince you.

In the wake of this weekend's worldwide outpouring of resistance to gun violence, and with a backdrop of little to no action on funding public schools, the Kansas Legislature is holding a hearing on a bill designed, not only to arm Kansas teachers, but to hold school districts liable should they not allow teachers to carry weapons and the unthinkable happens.

This is a terrible idea, and an incredibly tone-deaf move on the part of legislative leadership. We are stunned.

Nobody we have spoken to sincerely believes this bill (HB 2789) has the will behind it to pass, certainly not on the floor of either chamber if it makes it out of committee. So why is this bill being heard?

The Kansas Legislature is hearing bills TOMORROW (Wed, 3/21/18) that would allow religious organizations to deny adoptions to LGBT families. In addition to the moral grounds (LGBT persons should not be discriminated against), and the data-driven grounds (LGBT families are at least as stable as heterosexual families), MainStream objects to this legislation because religious morality has no place in government.