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Why CEP Is More Than a School Meals Debate in Kansas
A simple bill with a complicated question underneath Kansas HB 2402 looks simple on paper. It requires eligible school boards to consider whether to participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision, commonly called CEP, if more than 50% of students in one or more schools qualify for free meals via direct certification. The…
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2026 Kansas Legislative Session Review
The 2026 Kansas Legislative Session advanced several important education policies focused on student outcomes, workforce readiness, transparency, and long-term success. This year, Kansas lawmakers took action to strengthen classroom learning environments, improve accountability, expand education and workforce pathways, support early…
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Post-Session Analysis: 2026 Missouri Education Policy
Event Overview Join Aligned for a high-level breakdown of the 2026 Missouri Legislative Session and what it means for education policy, students, schools, and the state’s workforce moving forward. This webinar will walk through the major education issues, key bills,…
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2026 Kansas Legislative Recap
Event Overview Join Aligned for a high-level breakdown of the 2026 Kansas Legislative Session and what it means for education policy moving forward. This webinar will walk through the key bills, major priorities, and outcomes that shaped the session. We…
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Missouri’s Teacher Supply Hourglass: Why the Missing Middle Matters
This blog provides an overview of Aligned’s Missouri’s Classroom Teacher Experience Series, a three-part analysis examining how shifts in experience, placement, and credentials are reshaping the state’s educator pipeline. Over the next three weeks, we will release the full reports…
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Kansas Legislature passes state budget
This analysis originally appeared in Aligned’s weekly newsletter, where we track key education and workforce policy developments across Kansas and Missouri. Subscribe to get these updates delivered directly to your inbox. Late Thursday night into earlier this morning, the Kansas Senate (23-16) and House of…
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Kansas Enacts Statewide Cell Phone Policy
Kansas’ student cell phone legislation has become law, ultimately moving forward through a different vehicle. After additional negotiations, the Senate’s policy approach in SB 302 was incorporated into Senate Substitute for Substitute for House Bill 2299, which is now law. The final bill…
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Missouri School Funding: Rebuild or Patch?
This analysis first appeared in Aligned’s most recent weekly newsletter. We’re expanding it here to add context on the tradeoffs the Missouri School Funding Modernization Task Force is weighing as it works toward recommendations due to Governor Mike Kehoe by…
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A Closer Look at Early Literacy in Kansas and Missouri
This post continues our series on literacy policy and practice. Earlier entries traced how reading instruction evolved in the U.S. and why the science of reading has regained prominence. Here, we turn to what the data shows in Kansas and…
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Webinar: Literacy, Data, and the Science of Reading
On November 12, 2025, Aligned hosted a webinar examining how Kansas and Missouri are translating the “science of reading” into policy and practice. The session walked through recent reading data, what research says about effective early literacy instruction, and how current laws…
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Kansas Requests Federal Waiver to Unify School Accountability Systems
On Monday, October 27, Kansas joined the increasing number of states seeking to waive certain requirements of federal education law. Specifically, the waiver seeks to make a unified accountability system, merging the current state and federal systems into one within four years. This…
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Cradle to Career Listening Tour 2025
Overview In 2025, Aligned launched the Cradle to Career Listening Tour with a simple goal: listen first. We traveled across Kansas to hear directly from parents, educators, employers, and community leaders about what is working, what is not, and where…
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Access nonpartisan research and news about the policies shaping education in Kansas and Missouri.