In March 2015, Gov. Sam Brownback signed the law that eliminated Kansas’ funding plan for public schools.

Now, 18 months later, he has finally started work on a replacement plan.

Typically, government and business officials have a replacement ready before throwing out an old system. But not in Topeka, where conservative Republicans tried to outmaneuver the courts.

State legislators and Brownback trashed the funding formula in an effort to circumvent court rulings that found inequities in the way the state funded its schools. Their simplistic thinking: If there was no funding formula, how could it be unconstitutional?

The state Supreme Court didn’t fall for the ploy. But the irresponsible move left local school boards and administrators to navigate uncertain and unsound ground.

Development of a new school finance formula is complicated by ongoing court action. The Supreme Court still has not completed its rulings on the adequacy of funding for public schools.

While the court’s looming decision isn’t a minor consideration, it also is no excuse for failing to develop a reasonable plan for funding the state’s K-12 schools.

It’s not a task that takes 18 months. That fact is reflected in the governor’s approach. Brownback is now soliciting opinions and suggestions that presumably will be used to develop a new school finance formula within the next six months.

Skeptics might wonder whether the governor is just going through the motions of asking the public for ideas.

After all, Brownback and Republican leaders in the Legislature not only trashed the school funding plan, but in 2014 they eliminated many due process rights for public school teachers – in the middle of the night and without the usual hearings and committee consideration.

One of those leaders, Senate President Susan Wagle, now says she’s a champion of transparent and responsible state government.

Wagle has launched BETTER Kansas in an effort to appeal to moderate voters and colleagues. But if you visit Wagle’s website, betterkansasplan.com, you find the rhetoric is, at best, squishy.

One principle reads: “Senate Republicans … believe that we need to tax Kansas individuals and corporations at the lowest and most flat tax rate possible, that will allow the state to thrive.”

Here’s another: “Senate Republican nominees will make student achievement and progress our top priority. When we write a new school formula, we must provide flexibility in spending and long term stability for all school districts. We refuse to allow the one size fits all model we have seen fail in our federal government be implemented by liberal Democrats in Topeka. We believe in local control. Local school boards, teachers and parents should decide what is best for their schools. …”

Wagle and her website don’t say whether her coalition will reverse course on the income tax cuts that have blasted a huge and enduring hole in the state budget.

And they don’t say why lawmakers keep passing mandates for schools if they believe in local control.

What Wagle has said is that if the state Supreme Court rules that current school funding is inadequate, it would show that the judges are activists overstepping their role.

How does her “local control” rhetoric square with her belief that the court should automatically decide for the state, rather than possibly conclude that the local districts that initiated the lawsuit are correct?

BETTER Kansas appears to be a gimmick, a way for Wagle to feint a move to the middle and hang onto her leadership position.

Experience should make Kansans wary of rhetoric from Wagle and Brownback. Repeatedly, they have pushed unfair taxes and added debt, while cutting funds for public education, from kindergarten through college.

Their recent appeals to more moderate voters show they might be pressed to do what they claim they are doing – listening to the public.

So Kansans should take the governor and Senate president up on their offers and let them know what they’re thinking.

Contact the governor at StudentsFirst@ks.gov

The contact email provided at Wagle’s website is paje.resner@gmail.com

Firm and steady pressure applied by the public is our best chance of returning moderation and reason to state government.

Four more weeks.

That’s how long Republicans and Democrats have to convince voters that their nominee belongs in the White House – or at least that the opposing candidate does not.

So far, their arguments and tactics have given Americans cause to detest both parties and mourn the loss of reason.

Republican nominee Donald Trump is the easiest target of contempt.

Granted, it’s fun to watch his supporters make excuses for his inexplicable lies and boorish insults.

But entertainment value isn’t what most Americans want sitting in the Oval Office.

So the best argument Republicans can make for Trump is that he’s not Hillary Clinton.

A statement that could be made with as much conviction about more than 300 million other Americans. That the argument has traction, however, is an indication of how much voters despise the Democratic nominee.

Hillary Clinton has proved she is willing to do whatever it takes to get people to vote for her: promise more entitlements for health care; offer bigger handouts for day care and student loans; change her stance on trade policy.

She was even willing to apologize for breaking the law – but only after lying about her illegal use of a private email system for sensitive government communications didn’t work.

Like Trump’s supporters who blame others for their candidate’s poor poll ratings, Democrats claim that more Americans would trust and support Clinton if Republicans didn’t spend so much time tearing her down.

And just like Trump, the Clintons aren’t above blaming the media for their faults.

So when Donald Trump tweets insults about a former beauty contestant, his running mate blames the media for paying attention.

And Bill Clinton blames the media for giving any attention or time to the FBI investigation into Hillary’s Clinton email scandal.

Have the media’s conduct been unassailable?

Of course not.

According to the polls, about the only thing voters detest more than Trump and Clinton are the media.

But it’s worth remembering that the media are not monolith. They are made up of several thousand fallible humans who work for several hundred imperfect organizations.

More and more of those organizations are guided in part by a bias toward a candidate or political view. That’s especially true of cable TV companies and online journalism ventures.

Bias in the media is not new. It’s a practice that dates back to the founding days of the United States. Just as old are complaints from politicians about media coverage.

Not even Trump’s vows to punish journalists who attack him are new. The list of presidents who have sought revenge against journalists dates back to John Adams, and includes more recent residents of the White House, such as Richard Nixon.

What is new are this year’s attempts to sell two candidates that so many Americans dislike.

So far the efforts have been largely unsuccessful.

Poll data on RealClear Politics, a conservative-leaning media website, show that more people view Clinton and Trump unfavorably now than at the beginning of 2016.

Clinton’s unfavorable rating has gone from about 51 percent to 54, while Trump has seen what likely is an insignificant bump from 57 percent to 58.

During that same time, Trump has seen an increase in the percentage of people who view him favorably. His poll numbers moved from 34 percent to 38 percent between Jan 1 and Oct. 1.

Clinton, during that same time, saw her favorable rating move only from 42 to 43.

That still leaves Clinton with a 4-point advantage – both in the favorable ratings and in the unfavorable ratings.

Republicans’ only way to the White House is to drive Clinton’s numbers lower – which will help keep voters at home even if it doesn’t persuade more people to vote for Trump.

In contrast, Democrats’ best bet is to scare voters into going to the polls to keep a deceitful dunderhead from getting to the White House.

So don’t expect Republicans and Democrats to spend much of the next four weeks explaining why their candidate deserves your vote.

They will be way too busy explaining why their opponent doesn’t.