A southeast Kansas school superintendent says he was shocked to learn Gov. Sam Brownback was going to use welfare funds for a program aimed at raising fourth-grade reading scores.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports Brownback recently announced a plan to take $12 million from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to pay for the initiative in southeast Kansas.

The administration has said the program is an appropriate use of TANF funds because studies show girls who read at grade level are less likely to become unwed mothers.

But Erie-Galesburg Superintendent Steve Woolf says it’s morally wrong to take food from people in need to pay for the program.

Woolf’s district wasn’t included in the program, but he says even if it had been he would have turned it down.