Kansas Supreme Court Invalidates School Funding Law

The Kansas Supreme Court has struck down a stopgap law for funding the state's public schools, saying it left poor districts $54 million short.

The justices ruled Thursday that the Republican-backed law enacted last year doesn't comply with the Kansas Constitution. The court gave lawmakers until the end of June to write a new law.

WIBW, the CBS affiliate in Topeka, Kansas reports the ruling came in a lawsuit that four districts, Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas have been pursuing since 2010. 

The Supreme Court has yet to decide on the larger question of whether Kansas must boost its education spending by at least $548 million a year.

Lawmakers approved the 2015 law as temporary fix. The law replaced a per-student formula for distributing more than $4 billion a year to the state's 286 school districts in favor of stable "block grants."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.