Tag: Education
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Wichita school bond issue: solve overcrowding this way
According to USD 259 (Wichita public school district) officials, one of the prime reasons a bond issue is needed in 2008 is that schools are overcrowded. New classrooms and new schools must be built, according to district officials, to solve this overcrowding problem. This is another way to reduce overcrowding, and it won’t require spending…
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Wichita School Bond Issue: It’s not the $40, it’s the $1,749
The proposed USD 259 (Wichita public school district) school bond issue in 2008 is estimated to cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $40 per year in additional taxes. Proponents divide that into a monthly cost of about $3.33 per month, or sometimes a daily cost of $.11, to dramatize how little this bond…
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Voucher opponents: uninformed or untruthful?
“The AFT supports parents’ right to send their children to private or religious schools but opposes the use of public funds to do so. The main reason for this opposition is because public funding of private or religious education transfers precious tax dollars from public schools …” This is a typical criticism of school vouchers,…
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A Monopoly by Any Other Name
What’s in a name? Apparently, to a government school monopoly, it’s everything. Last month, Pittsburgh Public Schools announced the district would be dropping the word “Public” from its name in order to avoid the negative connotation often associated with public schools. A paid marketing consultant helped develop the plan, which will also result in renaming…
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Adjusting the Testing Gap
In the July 25, 2006 Wall Street Journal Charles Murray has a commentary titled “Acid Tests” which describes how the way that the No Child Left Behind program uses test scores is misleading. Actually, misleading is too mild a word. The subtitle of Murray’s article is “No Child Left Behind is beyond uninformative. It is…
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Curious Logic
There’s something about our nation’s capital that converts many leading Democrats to school choice. But in most cases this extends only to their own children — not to the millions of children in failing public schools.
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Higher Education Wants A Spending Spree
Soaring spending has not been spent evenly. The six Regents universities in Kansas initially asked for $727 million to fix deeply neglected buildings at these campuses. Governor Sebelius has performed a valuable service by responding that the Kansas Turnpike have higher tolls to fund this spending.
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Market forces and teacher (mis)-education
In a system governed by market forces, teacher pay would be based on how well students learn, not how many superfluous degrees teachers accumulate
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Rhonda, markets are the answer
Now it is no secret that Ms. Holman disagrees with some of the actions the board has taken the past few years. I am quite certain that if she agreed with what the board has done, she would have not written this editorial, and the governor would have not criticized the board. After all, both…
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The Kansas school lawsuit that makes sense
Recently The Wichita Eagle editorialized on the recent school finance lawsuit in Kansas, quoting USD 259 (Wichita) school board president Sarah Skelton as pleased with the “great return” on the district’s investment in funding the suit. As much more money as the public schools will be receiving, it is not as much as was asked…
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Kansas Board of Education election demonstrates one thing
Looking at some of the comments left on various discussion forums in the state of Kansas, the victors are joyously gleeful in their win and vindictive towards the defeated. I would hazard to guess that the victors were more interested in victory for its own sake, and more motivated by hatred for their rivals, than…
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Adjusting the testing gap
Charles Murray has a commentary titled “Acid Tests” which describes how the way that the No Child Left Behind program uses test scores is misleading. By adjusting what states use to measure “proficiency,” states can appear to be closing the gap between different groups of students. In Texas, the gap between the percentage of white…