Funkhouser’s ‘Schools First’ program bypasses basic math

During his Sunday morning speech, Mark Funkhouser took on the role of teacher.

As the mayor of Kansas City gave his State of the City address to a full house at All Souls Unitarian Universalist church, he had the audience follow along with a set of hand-outs. The packet was surely familiar to anyone who’s followed city politics since Funkhouser’s election in 2007. Each page featured a census map with red dots highlighting population loss across the metro. In each of the maps, Kansas City’s urban core had a serious case of chicken pox.

In the past 40 years, Funkhouser emphasized, the inner city has hemorrhaged more than 100,000 people. Back in 1970, Kansas City resident took home 40 percent of regional income; now that’s a paltry 18 percent. The center of the city is devastated, he said. “This is a metro-wide disaster unfolding in front of us,” he warned.

How to reverse the mass migration? “I hear this every time: schools,” Funkhouser said. So the mayor asked the audience to turn to packet number two — an outline of his new School’s First plan.

But while Funkhouser had plenty of stats on the decline of the urban core, he was shaky on even the basic math of his latest initiative.