Tag: Education
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Complacency is Not an Option: Kansas Needs to Drop its Dropout Rate
Is a high school graduation rate of 39 percent acceptable? That was the record of USD 457 Garden City and USD 501 Topeka, according to a report issued by the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy. USD 500 Kansas City did only slightly better, with a 49 percent rate.
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Wichita School District Economic Impact
In February 2008, Janet Harrah of the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University produced a report titled “Wichita Public Schools: Impact Analysis Operations Impact, Bond Impact and Success Measures.” This report painted a glowing picture of the USD 259 (Wichita, Kansas public school district) bond issue in 2000. The district…
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Wichita Public Schools as a Public Good
Supporters of the proposed bond issue for USD 259, the Wichita, Kansas public school district, portray Wichita’s public schools as a “public good.” Therefore, the entire community should pay for — and be happy to pay for — the ongoing operations of the schools, and should be willing to invest in a large bond issue…
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Let’s Spend on Wichita School Facilities, But Not Maintain Them?
A writer in The Wichita Eagle (May 21, 2008) makes the case that since one of the persons opposed to the proposed USD 259 (Wichita public school district) bond issue in 2008 hasn’t been in a Wichita public school for many years, he isn’t as credible as he could be. If he would take a…
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Everything you love you owe to capitalism
This is an excellent article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. An excerpt: I’m convinced that Mises was right: the most important step economists or economic institutions can take is in the direction of public education in economic logic. There is another important factor here. The state thrives on…
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Focus on class size in Wichita leads to misspent resources
A popular measure proposed to produce better educational outcomes in public schools today is to reduce class size. The Wichita, Kansas public school district is currently proposing a bond issue with a partial goal of reducing class size. At least some of the recently-mandated increase in school spending in Kansas was used to reduce class…
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Wichita School Bond Issue: The Election That Wasn’t, and Maybe Shouldn’t Be
Wichitans for Effective Education wish to remind the residents of USD 259 (the Wichita, Kansas public school district) that on February 11, 2008, the board of USD 259 passed a resolution declaring that a special election was to be held today, May 6. That resolution asked the citizens of this community to approve a $350…
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Universal Preschool Wastes Money, Imperils the Good Society
If K-12 schools fail to graduate one in four students on time, does it make much sense to enroll children in public programs at an even younger age? That’s one problem with proposals for universal, taxpayer-funded preschool, as outlined by a new report issued by the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy. Read “Plato’s Republic…
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Martin Libhart is qualified in what way?
But what about Martin Libhart, the man who succeeds Winston Brooks, if only as the interim superintendent? According to a news release on the USD 259 website: “Because Libhart does not currently possess a district level leadership certificate, the district is working with the Kansas State Department of Education for a restricted certificate as permitted…
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The arithmetic of school choice in Wichita
As the residents of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, consider a bond issue whose purpose, partly, is to reduce overcrowding, we should consider a way to reduce overcrowding in schools that would be much less expensive. The district is not likely to consider this method. Whenever school choice implemented through vouchers or tax…
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Private salary supplements to public officials is a problem
USD 259, the Wichita public school district, outgoing superintendent Winston Brooks has been receiving a supplemental salary paid for by private interests. This salary supplement, supporters say, was necessary to prevent Mr. Brooks from leaving Wichita for somewhere else where he would be paid more. One way to look at this salary supplement is that…