East-central Kansas candidates for state education board aim to balance authority, improve reading
The candidates seeking to represent much of Johnson and Miami counties on the Kansas State Board of Education are, from left, Steve Roberts, Jim McMullen and Amy Diediker. Republicans Roberts and McMullen will face each other in the Aug. 4 GOP primary. (Composite by Kansas Reflector from photos submitted by the candidates)
TOPEKA — The three candidates seeking to represent much of Johnson and Miami counties on the Kansas State Board of Education hope to make systemic changes concerning the cell phone ban, reading curriculum and communication with the Legislature.
The candidates, Overland Park Republicans Steve Roberts and Jim McMullen and Olathe Democrat Amy Diediker, just have different ideas on how to make those changes.
During the 2026 legislative session, the state banned Kansas students from using phones at school. The law requires districts to enforce the rule and store devices in a secure location, but did not grant funding for a storage method.
Roberts said the ban ignored the cellphone rules teachers already had in place in their classrooms.
“We’re not recognizing the authority of the teacher anymore,” he said. “We’re trying to recognize the authority of the Legislature, and that’s not the right way to run schools.”
Diediker said the Legislature imposed not only an unnecessary rule on teachers but also an extra expense.
“These schools that already had plans in place that were working,” she said, “now have to find a way to implement them without causing even more funding challenges.”
McMullen, Roberts’ Aug. 4 primary opponent, said schools shouldn’t struggle to comply with the ban.
“I saw even the members of the Blue Valley school board were like, ‘It’s going to cost us so much money,’ ” he said. “That’s so dumb. It’s not going to cost money. You just have a rule, and you have a consequence if that rule is violated.”
Schools in other states with similar bans opted to use individual lockable pouches to store phones. During February debates over the proposed ban, a legislative document estimated one pouch for 4446,000 students would cost $13.4 million. While the cost would fall on schools, the Kansas ban does not require a particular secure storage method.
The candidates
Roberts, a former math teacher, served on the state board’s Kansas City, Kansas, district from 2013-2021 and lost bids for state treasurer in 2022, Congress in 2024 and the Blue Valley school board in 2025.
He has a teaching license but works as a driver for Lyft and Uber and privately tutors math and physics because, he said, he makes more money as a driver than as a teacher.
“We should pay professional educators as professionals, and I can push for that. I am a professional educator,” he said. “We can do it right now. We don’t have to raise taxes. We just have to change our priorities.”
Steve Roberts, third from left, attends a candidate forum in Topeka during his unsuccessful 2022 Libertarian campaign for state treasurer. (Photo submitted by Steve Roberts)
McMullen, a longtime Johnson County resident and attorney, served on the Blue Valley school board from 2021 until he lost reelection in 2025. The board stripped his vice president role in 2022 over social media posts. In the 2022 posts, McMullen opposed transgender advocacy and said students have been poisoned by gender ideology.
If elected, he wants to establish a “classical” curriculum that he said Kansas schools have lost.
“There’s been a lot of de-emphasis on what I would call foundational or core principles that should be the overarching purpose for our schools,” he said.
Diediker, a first-time candidate for public office, taught elementary school for seven years, mainly in the Kansas City metro area. She stopped teaching when she had children, and stayed home to take care of her daughter, who has a rare disease. She has volunteered around the Olathe community, including as a precinct leader for Johnson County Democrats.
She said the state board sometimes makes decisions without talking to educators, which she wants to change.
“I’ve already sat down with almost every single superintendent in my district,” she said. “I think it’s just as important to listen to the educators that are in the classroom doing the day-to-day work. I also hope to at least two, three times a month, be in a classroom.”
Amy Diediker teaches summer Bible school. She spends much of her time volunteering at Olathe community organizations and public schools. (Photo submitted by Amy Diediker)
Reading
Student literacy is declining in Kansas, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a program that assesses a predetermined sample of students in each state every two years. According to the Kansas State Department of Education’s report of state assessments, nearly one-third of students scored at the limited level in English language arts in 2024.
All three candidates feel confident in Blueprint for Literacy, a project enacted by the state in 2024 to boost Kansas students’ reading skills. The initiative implements specific, evidence-based methods of teaching students how to read.
However, the candidates also have their own ideas for the reading curriculum.
Roberts proposed small class sizes, highly paid teachers and almost no digital technology for third grade and below.
“Before third grade, kids learn to read. After third grade, kids read to learn. There’s a lot of power in that, and that helps me offer solutions that are based on a greater distinction between primary and secondary,” he said. “I would have very limited access to technology in primary school.”
McMullen said Blueprint for Literacy will improve foundational reading but probably not the advanced reading and comprehension skills older students learn.
“Even in my own local school district,” he said, “I just didn’t see nearly enough emphasis on the importance of developing advanced reading capabilities in the student body.”
Diediker also wants to focus more on older students and rejected panic over Kansas’ literacy rates.
“Seventy percent of Kansas third graders can not only read but can identify themes in different texts, different facts from opinion with supportive evidence,” she said, citing 2025 data from state assessments. “I do sometimes worry that we focus on that a lot at the elementary level, which we should, but there isn’t enough focus on that in the middle school and high school level.”
Cellphone ban
Though the candidates shared distinct ideas on the cellphone ban, they all said the relationship between the state board and the Legislature needs to be better.
Lawmakers considered two laws in the 2026 session that would have mandated a fitness test, daily recess, a citizenship test and instruction on communist, fascist and socialist regimes. Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both bills. But she signed off on the cellphone ban.
Roberts said the ban was an overreach and defined how he thinks the board and Legislature should function in relationship to one another. The Legislature controls funding, he said, the board sets standards and local school districts determine the curriculum to meet those standards.
McMullen said sometimes the Legislature jumps in when the state board fails.
“In a more ideal world, there’d be a very robust partnership between the Legislature and the Board of Education, so that there’s not duplication of effort.”
Diediker said bipartisan communication could solve problems she sees between the board and Legislature.
“I think that a lot of what the Legislature has done in the last session was an overreach of power,” she said. “One of the things I hope to do as a state board member is to work closely with legislators on both sides of the aisles, so that we make sure that we are hearing each other.”