Voice For Liberty

Tag: Education

  • Kansas school spending: the complete picture

    In an effort to drum up support for school spending in Kansas, advocates seize on a partial picture of school spending to make their case.

    An example: A recent Lawrence Journal-World editorial contained “In the last four years, per-pupil state funding for public schools has declined by about 14 percent, from $4,400 per student to $3,780.”

    Writing in the Wichita Eagle, Rhonda Holman complained of “several years of cuts totaling $653 per pupil.” (Reason to be wary, December 16 Wichita Eagle)

    Kansas school spending, as presented by the Wichita public school district.

    In a bond issue update video presentation for USD 259, the Wichita public school district, spokesperson Susan Arensman spoke of “severe loss of funding from the state.” Displayed on the screen at this time was a chart titled “State per-pupil funding.”

    These presentations of data are designed to convince Kansans that school funding has been cut, and cut severely. The actual facts, however, are quite different.

    For example, following is a chart showing spending by USD 259, the Wichita school district. Can you spot cuts or declines in spending? There is one instance on this chart where spending, on a per-pupil basis, was less than the year before. That’s an example of a cut — and the only one, considering the last ten years illustrated in this chart.

    Wichita school spending. Total spending, in red, is measured on the left axis. Per-pupil spending is in blue and measured on the right axis.

    So how do newspapers and school districts make a claim of cuts?

    They do so by looking at only one part of spending on schools by the State of Kansas: base state aid per pupil. That number has fallen, as shown in the chart in the video.

    But base state aid per pupil is only part of the spending story. It’s the starting point for the Kansas school finance formula. After weightings are applied, most school districts receive much more funding than the base figure. The Wichita school district, for example, received $6,511 per pupil from the state at a time when base state aid was $4,012.

    While Kansas school spending has declined, it has not declined as much as has base state aid. At the same time, federal funding for schools increased to make up almost all the difference. As the following chart illustrates, total spending on Kansas schools has declined slightly for the past two years. For the school year starting in 2009, total spending was down 2.61 percent. For the year starting in 2010, spending declined 0.38 percent.

    These declines are much less pronounced than the drop in base state aid.

    Which figures should we use to represent the history of spending in Kansas schools: (a) Total spending, or (b) a small slice of spending that happens to support the case of those who believe that it is impossible to spend too much on schools?

    The answer, if we are to be honest, is (a) total spending. Those who use base state aid as the only measure of spending on public schools in Kansas need to be held accountable for their misrepresentation.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Monday December 26, 2011

    Kansas computer security. This month the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit released an audit looking at how well five Kansas state government agencies kept their computers up-to-date. The audit found: “Three of the five agencies had significant vulnerabilities because of inadequate workstation patching processes, and all five could make some minor improvements to their patching process.” Patching refers to the process of keeping software updated. The most important updates, or patches, concern security vulnerabilities that have been discovered and fixed. Some of these vulnerabilities are serious and can lead to computers and networks being compromised. The report is at State Agency Information Systems: Reviewing Selected Systems Operation Controls in State Agencies.

    KPERS. Wichita financial planner Richard Stumpf contributes a piece to the Wichita Eagle on the problems with Kansas Public Employee Retirement System (KPERS). He paints a bleak picture of the plan’s finances and proposes a tax increase, writing: “I am recommending that Brownback propose a 25 percent tax increase to fund employees’ retirement plans. The commission wouldn’t cut spending. I refuse to recommend taking more money from classrooms to pay this bill. The only remaining option is a tax increase.” … As bleak as is this picture, it’s not as dark as it should be: Stumpf says the debt in KPERS is “nearly $9 billion.” More realistic analysis puts the figure much higher. Adjusting for unreported investment losses and using a realistic assumed rate of return of six percent, Kansas Policy Institute says the shortfall would be $14.1 billion. More shocking is an evaluation of state pension funds conducted by the American Enterprise Institute which uses market valuation methods. This evaluation puts the shortfall for Kansas at $21.8 billion. … Stumpf notes this: “So far this year, the stock market is up about 1.3 percent. Since KPERS is based upon an 8 percent assumed rate of return, earning 1.3 percent this year is equivalent to losing 6.7 percent.” The full editorial is at Richard Stumpf: Unions, Legislature lack guts to fix KPERS.

    Kansas Treasurer makes grand circuit. One of the jobs of Kansas Treasurer Ron Estes is to safeguard unclaimed property and seek to return it to its owners. Estes and his staff have now visited all 105 Kansas counties, holding unclaimed property return events in each. The office says that in 2011, 65,913 claims totaling $14,433,929 have been returned to Kansans. The office is holding $230 million in unclaimed property.

    Huelskamp considered objecting. The payroll tax measure passed last week in the U.S. House of Representatives was passed using “unanimous consent.” This means that there was no voice or roll call vote taken, and members did not need to be present. But if even one member had been present and had voiced an objection, the measure would have failed. Appearing on CNN, U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp, who is in his first term representing the Kansas first district, said he considered making such an objection, but could not get to Washington from Kansas in time: “Actually, I did. Problem was by the time we were notified that the unanimous consent agreement would be offered, where I come from in Kansas, I can’t get to Washington quick enough on this short notice. So that was an option, we did think about that, but there’s no way to fly in on time to make that happen. Back on the pledge to America, we talked about 72 hours where big things like this would give us an opportunity to reel read the deal, actually read the bill. And in this case they decided to not follow that rule as well.” … Huelskamp said he was disappointed with the House leadership team, noting Congress has not cut spending, did not stand up to the president on the budget ceiling debate, and did not pass a balanced budget amendment. Noting the lack of delivery after the election of a conservative majority to the House, Huelskamp wondered “what difference did it make?” He described the payroll tax measure as one of numerous losses this year.

    Obama’s regulation. Wall Street Journal Review & Outlook: “To answer the most basic question — has regulation increased? — we’ll focus on what the government defines as ‘economically significant’ regulations. Those are rules that impose more than $100 million in annual costs on the economy, though there are hundreds if not thousands of new rules every year that fall well short of that. According to an analysis of the Federal Register by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, the Cabinet departments and agencies finalized 84 such regulations annually on average in President Obama’s first two years. The annual average under President Bush was 62 and under President Clinton 56.” The Journal notes the deception used by the Obama Administration as it tries to portray itself as not regulation-hungry: “Cass Sunstein, the director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has been shopping around lower numbers that selectively compare Mr. Obama’s first two years favorably with Mr. Bush’s last two. Administrations are typically most active on the way out, and in any case the Bush regulatory record is nothing to crow about. But Mr. Sunstein’s numbers are even more misleading because they only include the rules that his office reviews while excluding the prolific ‘independent’ agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission. This means that if Congress tells, say, the Securities and Exchange Commission to write a new rule, it doesn’t enter Mr. Sunstein’s tally. So it omits, for example, some 259 rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reregulation law along with its 188 other rule suggestions. It also presumes that Mr. Obama is a bystander with no influence over his own appointees who now dominate the likes of the National Labor Relations Board.” … After presenting more evidence of the growth of costly regulation under Obama, the Journal concludes: “The evidence is overwhelming that the Obama regulatory surge is one reason the current economic recovery has been so lackluster by historical standards. Rather than nurture an economy trying to rebuild confidence after a financial heart attack, the Administration pushed through its now-famous blitz of liberal policies on health care, financial services, energy, housing, education and student loans, telecom, labor relations, transportation and probably some other industries we’ve forgotten. Anyone who thinks this has only minimal impact on business has never been in business. … Mr. Obama can claim he is the progressive second coming of Teddy Roosevelt as he did in Kansas last week, or he can claim to be a regulatory minimalist, but not both. The facts show he’s the former.” The full article is Regulation for Dummies: The White House says its rule-making isn’t costly or unusual. The evidence shows otherwise.

    The failure of American schools. The Atlantac: “Who better to lead an educational revolution than Joel Klein, the prosecutor who took on the software giant Microsoft? But in his eight years as chancellor of New York City’s school system, the nation’s largest, Klein learned a few painful lessons of his own — about feckless politicians, recalcitrant unions, mediocre teachers, and other enduring obstacles to school reform.” Key takeway idea: “As a result, even when making a lifetime tenure commitment, under New York law you could not consider a teacher’s impact on student learning. That Kafkaesque outcome demonstrates precisely the way the system is run: for the adults. The school system doesn’t want to change, because it serves the needs of the adult stakeholders quite well, both politically and financially.” … Also: “Accountability, in most industries or professions, usually takes two forms. First and foremost, markets impose accountability: if people don’t choose the goods or services you’re offering, you go out of business. Second, high-performing companies develop internal accountability requirements keyed to market-based demands. Public education lacks both kinds of accountability. It is essentially a government-run monopoly. Whether a school does well or poorly, it will get the students it needs to stay in business, because most kids have no other choice. And that, in turn, creates no incentive for better performance, greater efficiency, or more innovation — all things as necessary in public education as they are in any other field.” … Overall, an eye-opening indictment of American public schools.

    Markets: exploitation or empowerment? Do markets lead to a centralization of political and economic power, or do markets decentralize and disseminate wealth? In an eight-minute video from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies, Antony Davies presents evidence and concludes that markets and free trade empower individuals rather than exploit them.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Monday December 19, 2011

    Boeing tanker and Wichita. News reports from this morning’s press conference held by U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita indicate that Boeing will not use Wichita as the finishing plant for work on the new air refueling tanker project. It was thought that this work would require 7,500 jobs in Wichita. Political and union leaders speak of holding Boeing accountable to what they believe was a promise Boeing made to Wichita, but I don’t know how they can do that. … Pompeo’s press release states: “… the work will be done in Washington state. Until very recently, it had been my expectation based on representations made to all Kansans, personally to me and my office, and to the United States Air Force, that Boeing would create 7,500 aviation jobs in our great state should Boeing prevail in the tanker bid. We now know that Boeing intends to walk away from that promise, which severely jeopardizes the future of the over 2000 aviation jobs currently held by Boeing employees in Kansas. … Boeing fought a long and fierce battle to build the KC-46A Tanker and secured the largest defense contract in the history of the world. Over a decade Boeing won, then lost and then once again emerged victorious over its competitor EADS. Kansas aviation workers were at the very core of Boeing’s effort that entire time. During that competition, Boeing stressed — both publicly and in its formal final bid proposal submitted to the United States Air Force — that its Wichita, Kansas facility would be critical to building the next generation tanker. For years, Kansas’ elected political leadership worked diligently to secure a contract award for Boeing. In short, Kansas workers and Kansas political leaders were central to the Air Force’s decision to select Boeing over EADS. To remove Kansas from the tanker project not only violates a public trust, but it creates risk to taxpayers and to our fighting forces. … I urge the company’s leaders to do all that they can to honor the Boeing name and to take all steps available to do right by the hard-working, talented people who build the world’s greatest airplanes here in Kansas.”

    Wichita school dress code. The Wichita Eagle reports on a new dress code for teachers at USD 259, the Wichita public school district: “Mark Jolliffe, principal at Wilbur Middle School and president of the local administrators group, said the guidelines are intended to ‘enhance our professional position, and model for our students, staff and community’ the importance of professional dress.” Teachers continually complain that they are, in fact, professionals, but are not treated as such. I wonder: What does it say when you have to be told how to dress at work? What the community ought to be worried about is a school district that spends time on issues like this while students continue to receive a substandard education. … Furthermore, the mode of dress of schoolteachers ought to be something that parents decide through a market-based selection process. Those parents who believe that their children are best served by schools where the teachers dress nicely (and perhaps the students are in uniform) could choose schools like this, if we had school choice. Also, parents who believe their children would thrive in a more casual environment could select schools with this characteristic, but again, only if we had school choice.

    Kansas legislator briefing book. A very useful publication produced by Kansas Legislative Research Department is now available in a 2012 edition. Its target is legislators, but anyone who is interested in understanding state government will find the 2012 Legislator Briefing Book useful. The section on education, for example, has an explanation of the Kansas school funding formula, complete with descriptions and values for the weightings that determine how much state funding districts receive.

    Velvet Revolution voice has died. “Vaclav Havel, the playwright who led the Velvet Revolution that ended communism in Czechoslovakia, has died at 75. … Vaclav Havel helped Czechoslovakia make the transition from one of the most repressive Communist regimes to one of the most successful post-Communist countries.” More from David Boaz at Vaclav Havel, RIP.

    Open records in Wichita. “The Wichita City Council approved a $2 million payment to the city’s convention and visitors’ bureau, GO Wichita, despite objections to the lack of transparency in how GO Wichita handles taxpayer money. The Kansas Open Records Act requires that entities receiving public money be subject to the law’s transparency provisions, but one of these provisions states that if such an organization files an annual financial statement, it has complied with the law. At issue is whether a one- or two-page financial report listing total revenues and expenditures can substitute for public access to more detailed records regarding specific expenditures of public funds.” More from Paul Sourtar of Kansas Watchdog at City of Wichita Spends $2 million, Rebuffs Citizen’s Transparency Request.

    Cellulosic ethanol. The Wall Street Journal notes the debacle of cellulosic ethanol production and government involvement. This is ethanol produced from “wood chips and stalks or switch grass,” said President George W. Bush in 2006, also stating that “Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.” So what has happened? “When these mandates were established, no companies produced commercially viable cellulosic fuel. But the dream was: If you mandate and subsidize it, someone will build it. Guess what? Nobody has. Despite the taxpayer enticements, this year cellulosic fuel production won’t be 250 million or even 25 million gallons. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency, which has the authority to revise the mandates, quietly reduced the 2011 requirement by 243.4 million gallons to a mere 6.6 million. Some critics suggest that even much of that 6.6 million isn’t true cellulosic fuel.” … the Journal cites a recent report by National Academy of Sciences that states “currently, no commercially viable biorefineries exist for converting cellulosic biomass to fuel.” The $132.4 million loan guarantee for a cellulosic plant near Hugoton in southwest Kansas is noted. (More about that at Kansas and its own Solyndra.) … Concluding, the Journal writes: “To recap: Congress subsidized a product that didn’t exist, mandated its purchase though it still didn’t exist, is punishing oil companies for not buying the product that doesn’t exist, and is now doubling down on the subsidies in the hope that someday it might exist. We’d call this the march of folly, but that’s unfair to fools.” See The Cellulosic Ethanol Debacle.

    Overcriminilization. A new paper from Paul Larkin of of Heritage Foundation reports on the difficulties facing legislative solutions to the problem of overcriminilization. The abstract of the paper Overcriminalization: The Legislative Side of the Problem reads: “The past 75 years in America have witnessed an avalanche of new criminal laws, the result of which is a problem known as “overcriminalization.” This phenomenon is likely to lead to a variety of problems for a public trying to comply with the law in good faith. While many of these issues have already been discussed, one problem created by the overcriminalization of American life has not been given the same prominence as others: the fact that overcriminalization is a cause for (and a symptom of) some of the collective action problems that beset Congress today. Indeed, Congress, for a variety of reasons discussed in this paper, is unlikely to serve as a brake on new, unwarranted criminal laws, let alone to jettison broad readings of those laws by the courts. Therefore, the key to curbing overcriminalization is the American public: It is the people who, if made aware of the legislative issues that enable overcriminalization, could begin to head off such laws before the momentum for their passage becomes overwhelming.” … The conclusion to the report emphasizes the role of the people: “The legislative dynamic is not likely to serve as a brake on new, unwarranted criminal laws, let alone to jettison broad readings of those laws by the courts. The public needs to head off such laws before the momentum for their passage becomes overwhelming. And that can happen only if the public is aware of the legislative side of this problem.”

    No Wichita Pachyderm. This week and next week (December 23rd and 30th) the Wichita Pachyderm club will not meet due to the holidays. Upcoming speakers: On January 6th: David Kensinger, Chief of Staff to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. … On January 13th: Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives Mike O’Neal, speaking on “The untold school finance story.” … On January 20th: Sedgwick County Commissioner Karl Peterjohn.

    Stevens, Pachyderm President, honored. At last week’s meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club, President John Stevens received the “Tough Tusk Award.” In presenting the award, club Vice President John Todd remarked: “Once in awhile a local leader comes along who deserves recognition. From time to time The Wichita Pachyderm Club recognizes these special people. Today it is my pleasure to recognize one of our own who deserves special recognition. The Wichita Pachyderm Club awards committee would like to recognize our club President John Stevens as the recipient of our club’s ‘Tough Tusk Award’ as sponsored by the National Federation of Pachyderm Clubs. … He is a retired business owner who now spends his time volunteering with SCORE counseling small business owners and entrepreneurs. John also works as a community activist through his participation in city and neighborhood organizations. He is a past Wichita Park Board Commissioner and serves on boards and committees for Wichita Independent Neighborhoods. … In 2008 John was elected the precinct committeeman for the 101st precinct in Wichita. He has worked as a volunteer in local campaigns and has run as the Republican candidate for the 86th Kansas House of Representatives seat, concerned that Republican values, attitudes, and principles are not being represented in the 86th District. He continues to work toward having a Republican in the 86th House seat. … John has served as President of the Wichita Pachyderm Club for the past three years. Through the Pachyderm Club he is able to facilitate educating citizens about our government, our leaders and the Republican Party. … John says he is addicted to progress, and I can tell you that he works tirelessly for the betterment of The Wichita Pachyderm Club.” … I will add: Thank you, John Stevens, for a job well done.

    Occupiers and crony capitalism. “They’re rightfully angry at what’s happening in the United States today. But unfortunately they have confused capitalism and crony capitalism, and they’ve misdiagnosed the cause of their frustration.” That’s Chris Coyne of George Mason University speaking of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. He explains in more detail in the following short video. This video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies, and many other informative videos are available.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday December 16, 2011

    Kansas school finance. Reactions to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s school finance plan are coming in. Dave Trabert, president of Kansas Policy Institute gives it a grade of “incomplete.” “It’s good to give districts more flexibility in deciding how to spend aid dollars and the formula may be easier to understand, but there is nothing in this plan to substantively address his laudable goals of raising student achievement. Excellence in Education requires laser-like focus on outcomes and those elements are missing from this plan. … Funding is important but that’s not what drives achievement. Total aid to Kansas schools increased from $3.1 billion in 1998 to $5.6 billion in 2011. Yet reading proficiency levels according to the U.S. Department of Education remain relatively unchanged at about 35%.” … Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), the teachers union, notes the good points: It anticipates no further cuts to K-12 Education funding. It allows maximum flexibility in addressing student needs by removing restrictions on spending on at-risk or bilingual students. It counts kindergartners as full time students. But, the bad, according to the union: It has a TABOR-like effect that permanently locks in school funding at the current inadequate level. TABOR refers to taxpayer bill of rights, plans that some states have to limit the rate of growth of government. … While the Brownback administration believes the plan should settle lawsuits aimed at forcing more spending on education, lawyers suing the state say “Without addressing the costs of what schools need to spend in order to get the kind of performance the 21st Century demands, it is a system doomed to failure. It doesn’t do what the Kansas Supreme Court and the Kansas Constitution requires and that is fund education based on its costs.”

    No school choice for Kansas. The Brownback plan contains no mention of school choice programs of any kind, not even charter schools. The latter are possible in Kansas, but the law is stacked against their formation. School choice programs are increasing in popularity in many states, because they hold the strong possibility of better results for students and parents. Plus, as the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has found in its study Education by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006, school choice programs save money: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.” Governor Brownback could have integrated a small school choice program into the school financing plan as a way to save money and provide greater freedom for students and parents. … In what the Wall Street Journal dubbed the The Year of School Choice, Republican governors across the nation have founded or expanded school choice programs. Wrote the Journal: “But choice is essential to driving reform because it erodes the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to schools based on where they live. Unions defend the monopoly to protect jobs for their members, but education should above all serve students and the larger goal of a society in which everyone has an opportunity to prosper. This year’s choice gains are a major step forward, and they are due in large part to Republican gains in last fall’s elections combined with growing recognition by many Democrats that the unions are a reactionary force that is denying opportunity to millions. The ultimate goal should be to let the money follow the children to whatever school their parents want them to attend.” … But under governor Brownback’s leadership, this is not happening in Kansas.

    Federal budget transparency. U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp, who is in his first term representing the Kansas first district, this week expressed frustration with transparency involving the federal budget. “I appreciate the Congressman from Utah talking about transparency. The idea that just because we’re only shining some light on a particular aspect — on not on the whole process — to me that’s an argument we need more transparency on the whole process. I totally agree with that. The experience in my office in the last three days has been to make an attempt to find out what is in this Conference Committee report. It’s been three days, and at 12:37 am this morning that was posted online — 1,219 pages, not quite 11 hours ago. I’m a Member of Congress and I’m going to be expected to vote on that very quickly. There was an interesting quote in The Hill this morning. I don’t know who said it, but it quoted: ‘… [A]ppropriators are worried that the tactic could leave the omnibus text out in the public for too long, giving time for K Street lobbyists to attack it before it gets approved.’ I don’t care about the lobbyists. It’s my job. It’s a responsibility to my constituents. We need more transparency not less. We need more discussions of the tyranny of debt, not less. This type of legislation gives us that opportunity. It gives the American people more appropriately the opportunity to see what we are doing.” There is video of Huelskamp’s remarks.

    Open records in Wichita. “A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to A Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.” That’s James Madison, framer of the First Amendment, 1822. Six of seven Wichita City Council members seem not to agree with Madison, and we have a city attorney who goes out of his way to block access to information that the public has a right to know. The City of Wichita’s attitude towards open records and government transparency will be a topic of discussion on this week’s edition of the KAKE Television public affairs program This Week in Kansas. That program airs in Wichita and western Kansas at 9:00 am Sundays on KAKE channel 10, and at 5:00 am Saturdays on WIBW channel 13 in Topeka.

    Cell phone ban while driving. Sometimes regulating a behavior, even though it is dangerous, makes things even worse. “A news release from the Highway Loss Data Institute summarizes the finding of a new study: “It’s illegal to text while driving in most US states. Yet a new study by researchers at the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) finds no reductions in crashes after laws take effect that ban texting by all drivers. In fact, such bans are associated with a slight increase in the frequency of insurance claims filed under collision coverage for damage to vehicles in crashes. This finding is based on comparisons of claims in 4 states before and after texting ban, compared with patterns of claims in nearby states.” More at Texting bans haven’t worked.

    Myths of the Great Depression. “Historian Stephen Davies names three persistent myths about the Great Depression. Myth #1: Herbert Hoover was a laissez-faire president, and it was his lack of action that lead to an economic collapse. Davies argues that in fact, Hoover was a very interventionist president, and it was his intervening in the economy that made matters worse. Myth #2: The New Deal ended the Great Depression. Davies argues that the New Deal actually made matters worse. In other countries, the Great Depression ended much sooner and more quickly than it did in the United States. Myth #3: World War II ended the Great Depression. Davies explains that military production is not real wealth; wars destroy wealth, they do not create wealth. In fact, examination of the historical data reveals that the U.S. economy did not really start to recover until after WWII was over.” This video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies, and many other informative videos are available.

  • Kansas school spending facts ignored by many

    A recent Lawrence Journal-World editorial that was repeated in the Wichita Eagle made several claims about Kansas schools that don’t hold up under scrutiny. Unfortunately, the editorial is an example of how difficult it is to have a reasoned discussion of Kansas school issues.

    School spending

    The editorial makes this claim: “In the last four years, per-pupil state funding for public schools has declined by about 14 percent, from $4,400 per student to $3,780. Districts have cut the fat in their budgets and then some. It’s time to correct this dangerous trend.”

    This statement about base state aid per pupil is true. But using only that figure to describe spending on schools in Kansas is disingenuous. It hides facts that are contrary. The truth is that Kansas school spending has fallen only slightly in recent years. Charts at the end of this article that are based on figures from Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) tell the story.

    The first chart shows total spending per student in Kansas schools. Statewide, spending has declined the past two years. But while school spending advocates describe spending cuts in terms like “falling off a cliff,” the actual decline is quite mild. Using figures adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending is $331 higher than in the 2005 – 2006 school year.

    A second chart shows spending on Kansas schools considering state aid only. The drop in spending, considering only state aid, is more pronounced than when looking at funding from all sources. School spending advocates emphasize this fact, but state aid is only part of total school spending. Note also that for the most recent school year, spending per pupil rose.

    The third chart illustrates the relationship between base state aid per pupil and total spending. This is important to realize, as the Journal-World editorial notes the large drop. It’s true. Base state aid has decreased. But total state spending, as noted in the previous chart, has not fallen by near as much, and rose for the most recent year. And the line for total school spending has declined only slightly.

    Because base state aid has fallen, school spending advocates concentrate on this number. As reported in Kansas school spending: the deception, Mark Desetti, the lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union, uses this argument when he makes the case for more school spending. He’s not alone in using deception to argue for more school spending. The Lawrence Journal-World, only of our state’s largest newspapers, is helping.

    Teacher quality

    The Journal-World editorial also states: “There is no higher priority than recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and giving them classes that are small enough to manage and teach effectively.”

    This sentence is partially correct. It’s becoming clear that teacher quality is the most important factor that schools have under their control that influences student achievement. Unfortunately, Kansas schools have policies that work against teacher quality. An example are union pay scales that pay all teachers the same regardless of how good a job they do.

    Class size

    The Journal-World editorial also makes the case for small class sizes: “How can Kansas schools preserve the quality of instruction they offer students with so many fewer teachers in the classrooms? Research has repeatedly documented the positive effect that smaller class size has on educational achievement. There is no doubt that the classroom teachers who have direct contact with students on a day-to-day basis are a critical part of individual students’ academic success.”

    The editorial doesn’t cite the research it relies on. If it had to produce a citation, it might find that difficult. Research shows that class size makes a difference for very young children (below third grade), when class size can be reduced to 11 or 12 students. For everyone else, there is no evidence that class size makes a difference. Even the left-wing Center for America progress agrees that small class size is not effective, and summarizes the current research in its article The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction.

    But class size reduction remains popular, mostly because it has an intuitive appeal. It seems like it should work. We can understand parents being seduced by its appeal, and we can understand politicians pandering for their votes by supporting class size reduction. We can understand the teachers union advocating for more teachers at any cost, not matter how ineffective they may be. But newspaper editorial writers ought to know better.

    Total spending per student in Kansas schools. Spending has increased much faster than inflation.
    Kansas school spending, state aid only.
    Kansas school spending and base state aid per pupil. While bsapp has declined, other spending has not declined as much, or has held nearly steady. Focusing only on bsapp is misleading, and school spending advocates do just that.

  • Focus on Kansas school funding formula is a distraction

    Kansas is undertaking an effort to revise its school funding formula. This effort is likely to be a big deal, consuming large amounts of time, attention, and effort. But I’ve not heard one thing discussed much, the one thing which ought to be paramount: How will this affect the achievement of schoolchildren?

    As Kansas struggles with a formula for financing schools, we’re losing an opportunity to examine our schools and see if they’re performing as well as they should, both financially and academically. Here are some issues not being discussed on a widespread basis:

    School choice

    Across the country, charter schools and school choice programs are offering choice and improved educational outcomes to families. While Kansas has charter schools, the charter school law in Kansas is one of the weakest in the nation, and virtually guarantees that public schools won’t face much meaningful competition from charters.

    School choice in the form of vouchers or tax credits doesn’t exist at all in Kansas. As a result, Kansas public schools face very little of the competitive forces that have been found to spur public schools to improvement across the country.

    School choice programs save money, too. In 2007, the The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. According to the executive summary: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.”

    Kansas is overlooking several reforms that would increase freedom and educational opportunity and would save money at the same time.

    Accountability with teeth

    Recently former Florida Governor Jeb Bush explained the accountability measures that have produced great success in Florida. Measures including grading individual schools from “A” to “F,” ending social promotion, and school choice programs, which help all schools: “Choice is the catalytic converter here, accelerating the benefits of other education reforms. Almost 300,000 students opt for one of these alternatives, and research from the Manhattan Institute, Cornell and Harvard shows that Florida’s public schools have improved in the face of competition provided by the many school-choice programs.”

    Teacher quality policies

    Recently Sandi Jacobs of National Council for Teacher Quality spoke in Wichita and addressed Kansas policies regarding teacher quality. Our policies rank below the average for all states. More information from Jacob’s presentation is at Kansas ranks low in policies on teacher quality.

    Fund balances

    The Kansas Policy Institute has found that Kansas schools are sitting on large fund balances that could be used to make it through a tough budget year.

    School spending advocates dispute the use of the funds. But Kansas Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis agrees with KPI President Dave Trabert that these fund balances could be used — if the schools wanted to.

    Chief school spending lobbyist Mark Tallman of the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) has argued that “many of the funds Trabert labels reserves are restricted or necessary to cover costs before government payments are received.”

    That’s true. But this argument, just like a faulty op-ed written by Kansas school board member David Dennis, says nothing about whether the balances in these funds are too high, too low, or just right.

    The evidence we do have tells us that the balances in these funds are more than needed, because they’ve been growing rapidly. The only way the fund balances can grow is if schools aren’t spending the money as fast as it’s going in the funds.

    Focus on what works

    Class size, merit pay, salary scales, unions, teacher experience and education, certification: all need to be examined to make sure that schools make decisions based on what works. We find, however, that school districts resist reforms. As a monopoly shielded from significant competition, Kansas public schools face little pressure to reform.

    Consider class size, something that the education bureaucracy says is of utmost importance, and one of the primary reasons given for school bond issues. What the school spending lobby won’t realize is that class size is not important. Even the left-wing Center for American Progress agrees, as explained in Class size reduction not effective. Instead, the quality of teachers is much more important. Writes education researcher Eric Hanushek: “Much of the work that I have done has focused on teacher effectiveness. From this research I have concluded that teacher quality is the most important factor in determining how well a school will do. … Teacher quality is not captured by typically discussed characteristics of teachers such as master’s degrees, teaching experience, or even certification — things that states typically monitor. Requiring such things unrelated to student performance dilutes accountability and detracts from things that would make them more effective.”

    Consider the harm of union work rules: When private sector companies are forced to layoff employees, they may use the opportunity to shed their lower-performing employees first. Government schools, governed by union contracts like the one in Wichita, can’t do this. They must dismiss the teachers with least seniority first. While this might seem like a good way to keep the best teachers, it turns out that experience is only a minor factor in teacher quality.

    Test scores

    Are Kansas test scores a reliable and valid measure of student achievement? The test scores that school spending advocates use — tests administered by the state of Kansas — are almost certainly misleading. The basic problem is that scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show achievement by Kansas students largely unchanged in recent years. This is at the same time that scores on tests given by the Kansas education establishment show large improvements. We need to investigate so that we understand the source of this difference. The Kansas education bureaucracy resists such efforts.

    The cost of a suitable education

    The issue of what an education in Kansas should cost is again being examined by courts. This should provide an opportunity to examine the cost studies used by the court. The Kansas Policy Institute has published Kansas Primer on Education Funding: Volume II Analysis of Montoy vs. State of Kansas, which provides useful criticism and perspective of the cost studies used.

    Alternative remedies

    Besides ordering increased spending, courts should consider alternative remedies. These might take the form of increased opportunities for parents to escape failing public schools. An example is the parent trigger. This mechanism allows parents to force radical change on a school through the petition process.

  • School choice savings not being considered in Kansas

    According to the reporting surrounding the revision of the Kansas school finance formula, Kansas is overlooking a sure way to save money and improve Kansas schools: widespread school choice.

    While proponents of public school spending argue that school choice programs drain away dollars from what they claim are needy, underfunded public schools, this is not the case.

    In 2007 The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. According to the executive summary: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.”

    How can this be? The public school spending lobby, which in Kansas is primarily the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB), would have us believe that educational freedom would kill public education. They say that school choice program drain scarce resources from the public school system.

    But when researchers looked at the actual effects, they found this: “In nearly every school choice program, the dollar value of the voucher or scholarship is less than or equal to the state’s formula spending per student. This means states are spending the same amount or less on students in school choice programs than they would have spent on the same students if they had attended public schools, producing a fiscal savings.”

    So at the state level, school choice programs save money. They don’t cost money to implement; they save money.

    Further research on school choice programs funded through tax credits confirms this.

    At the local level, schools districts have more money, on a per-student basis, when school choice programs are used: “When a student uses school choice, the local public school district no longer needs to pay the instructional costs associated with that student, but it does not lose all of its per-student revenue, because some revenue does not vary with enrollment levels. Thus, school choice produces a positive fiscal impact for school districts as well as for state budgets.”

    But according to news reports, the Brownback administration is not proposing school choice programs — not even an expansion of charter schools — as a solution to school finance.

  • Class size reduction not effective

    Recently the Center for American Progress released a report about class size reduction in schools and the false promise it holds for improving student achievement. While I am normally quite cautious about relying on anything CAP — a prominent left-wing think tank — produces, I’ve read the report, which is titled The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction. It’s accurate.

    It’s quite astonishing to see CAP cite evidence from Eric Hanushek of the Hoover Institution and Caroline Hoxby of Stanford and Hoover. These two researchers are usually condemned by the public education establishment and bureaucracy, including teachers unions. These are some of the key constituents CAP usually caters to.

    In a nutshell, class size reduction produces very little benefit for students. (It benefits others greatly. More in a moment.) It’s also very expensive, and there are other things we should be doing instead if we really want to increase student achievement.

    The report summarizes the important studies in class size reduction, and it’s accurate, based on the reading I’ve done over the years. The upshot is that there is only one study showing positive results from class size reduction, and that effect was found only among the early grades. The effect decreased after a few years, even though small class sizes were still used.

    The report also notes that class size reduction is very expensive to implement. Because it is, the report says we should look to other ways to increase student achievement, such as policies relating to teacher effectiveness: “The emerging consensus that teacher effectiveness is the single most important in-school determinant of student achievement suggests that teacher recruitment, retention, and compensation policies ought to rank high on the list.”

    Recently the Kansas Policy Institute sponsored a trip to Wichita by Sandi Jacobs of National Council for Teacher Quality. My reporting of that event and an audio recording is at Kansas ranks low in policies on teacher quality. The importance of teacher quality is this: “In the example she illustrated, third graders who had teachers in the top 20 percent of effectiveness for the next three years went from the 50th percentile in performance to the 90th. For students with teachers in the lowest 20 percent for the same period, their performance dropped from the 50th percentile to the 37th percentile.” Kansas ranks below average among the states in its policies that promote teacher quality.

    Who benefits from class size reduction?

    If class size reduction doesn’t work, why is it so popular? The answer is it benefits many special interest groups. The first group is the parents who send their children to public schools. While class size reduction doesn’t help their children (except in limited circumstances), they think it does. Intuitively, it seems like small class size should help. More individual attention to their kids, the parents are told. And what parent doesn’t want the best for their child? This leads to an effective tactic that school spending supporters use: Any reduction in school funding, no matter how small, will cause class sizes to “explode” or “balloon” out of control, causing student achievement to “plummet.”

    Then, there’s the teachers union. Small class size means more teachers and more union members. Fewer students means an easier job for teachers, too, with less papers to grade, etc. The unions also oppose nearly all the policies that would improve teacher quality. For example, this year the Kansas Legislature spent quite a bit of time on a policy where the period before teachers are awarded tenure could be increased from three to five years in certain circumstances. This is what qualifies as “school reform” in Kansas. Remember, Kansas ranks very low in policies that promote teacher quality. Tinkering with the policy on teacher tenure is not going to improve our teacher quality, as tenure is a system that ought to be eliminated. In Kansas the teachers union is Kansas National Education Association (KNEA).

    Public school administrators benefit from class size reduction. With more classrooms and more employees, their budgets and power swell. In Wichita, one of the main reasons USD 259, the Wichita public school district gave for the necessity of passing a bond issue in 2008 was the need for more classrooms to implement class size reduction.

    Architects and construction companies. In my experience sitting in education committee hearing rooms in the Kansas statehouse, whenever there is any proposal that would reduce spending on school construction, a representative of architects is there to offer testimony in opposition. In the campaign for the Wichita school bond in 2008, an architectural firm headed the campaign, and construction companies contributed heavily. They also contribute to the campaign of school board candidates who are in favor of building more classrooms. Most of this is to support class size reduction, which is politically appealing, but we know doesn’t work. But the motivation of architects and construction companies is to build something, whether it is useful or not.

    Politicians — liberals and most conservatives — promote small class sizes. Any politician who promotes policies other than small class size has to overcome the forces listed above. Therefore, most don’t try.

    The rut we’re in

    The perceived desirability of small class sizes by parents and politicians coupled with the powerful motivations of special interests like school administrators, teachers unions, and the construction industry have placed us in a rut. It’s going to be difficult to escape, and it’s refreshing to see the Center for American Progress on the right side of this issue.

    The fact that such a well-known liberal think tank is promoting this issue provides a context other than the typical liberal vs. conservative dichotomy. We are now able to more clearly see the motivations of the special interests that benefit from high school spending and the incorrect evidence they rely on.

    The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction

    By Matthew M. Chingos, Center for American Progress

    Class-size reduction, or CSR, is enormously popular with parents, teachers, and the public in general. The latest poll results indicate that 77 percent of Americans think that additional educational dollars should be spent on smaller classes rather than higher teacher salaries. Many parents believe that their children will benefit from more individualized attention in a smaller class and many teachers find smaller classes easier to manage. The pupil-teacher ratio is an easy statistic for the public to monitor as a measure of educational quality, especially before test-score data became widely available in the last decade. …

    Parents, teachers, and policymakers have all embraced CSR as a strategy to improve the quality of public education. There is surprisingly little high-quality research, however, on the effects of class size on student achievement in the United States. The credible evidence that does exist is not consistent, and there are many low-quality studies with results all over the map.

    Continue reading at The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction.

  • Kansas schools need diversity and dynamism to engage students

    Kansas schools need to be much more dynamic and diverse in order to meet students’ needs and effectively engage them in learning. But the lack of school choice and charter schools in Kansas means that Kansas children are missing opportunities for learning that are present in some states. Until Kansas changes its educational policies, it is unlikely that schools will see any significant improvement.

    These are some of the conclusions and recommendations of a report produced on behalf of the Kansas Policy Institute titled reinventing the Kansas K-12 school system to engage more children in productive learning.

    Part of the problem is that huge increases in spending have not produced much results. Paradoxically, the education bureaucracy claims that even mild cuts in spending will have catastrophic results.

    (It’s true that tests under control of Kansas have shown increases in student achievement. But independent measures don’t have the same trend, leading to serious doubts about the validity of the Kansas tests.)

    Student engagement is the key to learning, says the report: “Typically, service recipients don’t assist in production of the service, but in education they do. Intellectual growth occurs only with the active cooperation of the clients, the students.”

    While student engagement is important, studies find that most students are not engaged in schools. The Wichita school district has used the engagement argument many times in its quest for more funding for sports, arts, and other programs.

    The report is critical of “attendance zones,” that is, the practice of assigning students to schools based on residency within a school’s boundary. Currently the Wichita school district is struggling with the process of redrawing school attendance boundaries, a process a Wichita Eagle headline describes as a “tricky job to tackle.” The Wichita school superintendent is quoted as saying “We’re talking about change, and that’s never easy.”

    The challenges that attendance zones cause are described: “While students living within public school attendance zones are often homogeneous in terms of socio-economic status and ethnic makeup, the students themselves still have very different goals, subject interests, and learning style factors that influence and motivate how they learn best. In the subject interest and learning style diverse classrooms that result from assignment by residence and mainstreaming of special needs children, the material will seem too difficult to some or confusing because they can’t learn it via the prevailing pedagogy. … Large disparities in student intellect within individual classrooms cause many teachers to lower their standards so that the majority of their students can ‘succeed’ but then many under-achieve (or worse; disrupt or drop out) because of boredom. The large differences between students within attendance zones create an impossible teaching task; namely find a uniform process to address diverse instructional needs. … ‘Watering down’ practices appear to be especially debilitating in inner city schools, where most students perform below grade level on essential subjects.”

    This is an example of how public schools are failing those who most desperately need a good education.

    Age-grouping — keeping students together with other students of the same age — leads to classrooms with students at wide levels of achievement, which is not conducive to instruction.

    The “single salary” schedule for teachers, where salary is determined by only longevity and earned educational credentials, leads to teacher shortages in certain subjects and locations. It also provides disincentive for talented teachers to remain in the schools, as they are paid the same as the very worst teachers, which the report labels “insulting and demoralizing.”

    Accountability in schools is a problem. Currently public schools are managed through top-down accountability, that is, accountability to government. Bottom-up accountability is more customer-focused: “Bottom-up accountability in the private sector forces corporations to address all possible customer concerns, even the ones that are hard to quantify into objective performance measures. Since public schools do not receive funding directly from their customers, and instead receive government financing mostly as a function of the number of students assigned to their schools, consumer accountability is minimal in the public school system.”

    Public school officials bristle at the thought of having customers. But accountability to customers leads to systems that recognize and embrace the diversity of needs and desires. Government accountability is weak (“school system personnel face few if any major repercussions when they fail to meet their objectives”) and leads to ineffective and destructive accountability laws like No Child Left Behind and “teaching to the test.”

    Past attempts at reform haven’t worked, says the report. The most often desired reform — spending more — hasn’t worked. Spending has risen rapidly and there is little to show for it, despite a “sharp narrowing of the curriculum to focus specifically on the tested items.”

    Smaller class sizes — a favorite of the education establishment — hasn’t worked, either. “The average U.S. class size fell steadily from 22.6 in the 1970s to 16.2 in 2002; a time of sharp decline in academic performance, followed by the recent leveling off in scores as more time has been spent on the core tested items and test preparation.” Reducing class size is very expensive, too.

    The solution, recommends the report, is a wide variety of schooling options that are as diverse as the student population and their needs and interests. There should be a variety of specialized schools. The present system of magnet schools provides a “small, but hopefully compelling hint” of the benefits that could be had with even more opportunities for specialization. Surprisingly, school specialization leads to overall cost savings.

    Creating a diversity of schools requires meaningful school choice, says the report. Furthermore, market-based pries signals need to be employed to match supply and demand for different types of specialized schools. This means that some specialized schools that happen to be in high demand will be able to charge students an extra add-on tuition. While this may seem a strange and even undesirable idea to many, tha lack of price signals means we have what we always have when there are price controls: “waste, shortages, stifled innovation, and declining product quality.”

    Real school choice also means that schools will have to be accountable to parents for a broad range of performance measures, not just the narrow test focus that government requires: “Meaningful school choice fosters direct accountability to parent/student clients, which provides educators the necessary strong incentives to focus on the full schooling experience, not narrowly, and sometimes fraudulently, on tested items.”

    School choice leads to competition for students. One of the byproducts is that there will be competition for the best teachers, improving the desirability of teaching as a profession. And instead of requiring that teachers be trained in ways that have been shown to not affect student achievement, schools would be free to hire and retain teachers based on their effective in actual teaching.

    The report recommends four policy options for Kansas to consider. First is open enrollment, meaning that students may attend any school within the district.

    Second, Kansas need a charter school law that actually encourages such schools. Currently, charter schools must be authorized by the local school district. As a result, there are very few in Kansas.

    Third, Kansas needs school choice through vouchers. The fourth, and related, idea is tax credits for individuals and businesses to create scholarships for children to attend privates schools.

    The report contains appendices that cover a overview of the U.S. educational system, myths surrounding school choice programs, and a summary of charter school research from the states. There are 193 footnotes.