Voice For Liberty

Tag: Education

  • Public Charter Schools Help Students and Save Tax Dollars

    This press release spotlights the fact that charter schools operate much more efficiently than to public schools. Kansas could save money and increase parent satisfaction if our state had more charter schools. The education establishment in Kansas — the teachers unions, administrators, and school boards — are happy with as few charter schools as possible, and they spend significant sums lobbying for laws that suppress charter schools. Meanwhile, students, parents, and taxpayers suffer.

    Buckeye Institute Study: Public Charter Schools Help Students and Save Tax Dollars

    Columbus — The Buckeye Institute today released a study showing public charter schools provide a great value to Ohio’s K-12 education system. Report co-authors Matthew Carr and Beth Lear found closing existing public charter schools will result in reduced per pupil spending levels in each of the “Big 8” city school systems. Significant property tax increases would be required to maintain current per student funding levels.

    The report examined the financial impact of public charter schools on the finances of nearby traditional public schools. Specifically, it analyzed the implications for taxpayers in each of Ohio’s “Big 8” city school systems if the charter school program were discontinued and all students returned to their residentially assigned traditional public schools.

    The study is available at http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/charterschools.pdf.

    “The public relations war against educational choice by Ohio’s government school bureaucracy has often focused on how alternative schools are financed,” report co-author Matthew Carr said. “Our research carefully examined claims made regarding public charter school finance and its financial impact on nearby traditional public school districts.”

    “Public charter schools are not funded by local property tax dollars,” co-author Beth Lear added. “This fact is often overlooked by school choice opponents. Our findings should help inform the ongoing educational choice debate.”

    The report’s major findings include:

    Ohio’s public charter schools do not, in any instance, receive funds raised by school district property taxes.

    Public charter schools operate with substantially less revenue per student in each of the “Big 8” city school systems. The largest difference is in Youngstown, where charter schools operate with an average of $7,126 less per student. The smallest difference is in Canton, where charter schools operate with an average of $1,809 less per student.

    Every “Big 8” city school system receives a net gain in revenue, on average, for each student choosing to attend a charter school. The largest gains are in Cincinnati, where each student departing for a charter school provides the district an increase of $4,030. The smallest gains are in Canton, where each student departing for a charter school provides the district an increase of $918.

    The return of public charter students to each “Big 8” city school district would result in a net per pupil loss of revenues for the district. As a result, these districts would face either lower per pupil spending levels or significant property tax increases to maintain current spending levels. The largest tax increase would be required in Youngstown (roughly $3,200 per $100,000 of home valuation). The smallest increase would be required in Akron (roughly $300 per $100,000 of home valuation).
    “Big 8” refers to Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown city schools. The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions is a nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to individual liberty, economic freedom, personal responsibility and limited government in Ohio.

  • Wichita student writing makes me wonder

    A comment left to one of my videos on YouTube reads exactly like this:

    no we need the bond issue because hes not in school and some schools do not have things that good like rich schools and they need to vote yes and plus it would give us a good sports things and more space in hallways like my school who has 1,170 kids in my school

    According to this person’s profile on YouTube, he (or she; I can’t tell) is 16 years old. That’s well into high school; maybe even just a year from graduation.

    It’s common that when writing email messages or in other online media contexts, people are often less formal than when writing in other situations. But shouldn’t a student who writes like this, especially regarding a school matter, cause us to question the product that USD 259, the Wichita public school district, produces?

    Related: Wichita School Bond Won’t Fix This.

  • Let Parents Choose. School Choice Works.

    The Alliance For School Choice has a new campaign called “School Choice Works.” The website supporting this effort is at www.letparentschoose.org.

    If you care about the future of education in Kansas, I urge you to sign up to join this effort. You’ll receive some useful things from them, including a free School Choice Works bumper sticker, a copy of their new FastFacts handout, and a subscription to School Choice Activist and School Choice Digest newsmagazines.

    “America’s hardworking families should have the right to choose the schools that work best for their children,” said School Choice Works Campaign Director Andrew Campanella. “Special interests have long dominated the public debate over vouchers, but our campaign will present the true life-changing stories of the families who have benefited from school choice programs. We also look forward to providing new ways for our supporters to help advance this important cause.”

    “Despite what defenders of the status quo have told us for decades, more money alone will not solve this problem,” said Alliance President Charles R. Hokanson. “How to improve schools is not a mystery. It simply requires the will to make the necessary changes. Wherever school choice has been tried, it has worked for participating children and parents. If we are truly serious about improving graduation rates and preparing our children to compete in the 21st century global economy — expanded parental choice must be a readily available option.”

  • Wichita school bond won’t fix this

    Wichita school employees and students are happy that the bond issue passed. As Wichitans watch new facilities being built — and as we start to pay for them — we need to remember that there are some things that this spending isn’t capable of fixing.

    Both Helen Cochran and I received email messages from a young man who says he graduated from one of the Wichita school district’s large high schools in 2007. The writing of this recent graduate reveals a problem within Wichita’s schools.

    A quick analysis of the writing tells us that person has no idea of when a writer should stop one sentence and begin the next. He repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t understand the difference between to and too. When to use there versus their is a problem, too.

    Helen responded to him and expressed concern about his writing. His response? “No disrespect mam but I averaged a 4.0 GPA in highschool, I had no idea that you were going to judge me on my sentences otherwise I would have checked every single bit of my typing.”

    Both Helen and I were shocked that someone who writes like this would have earned the grade of “A” in any writing class. What’s really curious is that he seems to claim the he could write correctly if he knew he was going to be graded. If, however, someone knows how to write correctly, if someone knows when to use there versus their, why not be correct all the time? It would take extra effort to “dumb down” correct usage to what this former student sent us.

    Furthermore, this is a problem that the bond issue isn’t going to fix. Of all the things the bond issue will do, probably the one that would most directly address this young man’s problem is the district’s claim that smaller class sizes are better for student achievement. Does anyone believe, however, that the problem here is that this student was in classes that were slightly overcrowded? Did overcrowding cause teachers to grade writing like this with an “A”?

    It might be that this student is lying to us about earning straight “A” grades. If so, that’s another problem, one that bond spending can’t fix. But if we take this student at his word, there is a severe problem within the Wichita school district that bond spending won’t fix.

  • Charter Schools on the Rise in Kansas City, But Not in Wichita

    Parents in Kansas City, Missouri are making widespread use of an educational option that’s not available in Wichita.

    As reported in today’s Kansas City Star (Charter schools on the rise in KC), about 23 percent of Kansas City schoolchildren attend charter schools.

    As I’ve written before in posts like Charter Schools Are Mostly Okay Despite Misconceptions, parents love the choice and options that charter schools provide. If they are not satisfied, parents have other options. For the charter schools that continually perform poorly, they usually close. That doesn’t happen with public schools.

    So how many charter schools do parents of children in the Wichita school system have to choose from? The answer is none. The Kansas charter school law makes it clear that competition for the existing public establishment is not desired. The Wichita school board and administration endorse this attitude.

  • Wichita test scores largely mirror Kansas

    Officials at USD 259, the Wichita school district, and school bond issue supporters are quick to point out that the Wichita schools have an 11-year record of rising test scores. That’s a good thing, as long as the tests are reliable and valid measures of student learning and achievement.

    But whether this record is evidence of extraordinary accomplishment at USD 259 is another question. I’ve gathered some data that will help us compare the test scores of the Wichita school district to the scores of all Kansas schools.

    The results, which may be viewed in graphical form here, show that the trend in Wichita test scores follows the trend of our state as a whole, at least for the years 2003 through 2008. (Note: Data for 2003 through 2005 is presented separately from data for 2006 through 2008 due to a change in the tests used.)

    So it looks like Wichita is keeping pace with the rest of the state. That’s good, but hardly evidence of extraordinary accomplishment.

    What about the 11 years of rising test scores? A document from USD 259 titled “Introduction to Long-term Achievement Trends” and made available in September makes this disclaimer:

    The following line graphs show the performance for the major summative assessment(s) in use during the specified years. The school district has utilized a variety of assessments to measure student achievement over the past eleven years. Although one may determine improvement from these assessments, they are not directly comparable because 1) they measure different knowledge and skills in different ways across various groups of students and 2) different tests employ scoring and performance level determination are markedly different. This makes summary statistics derived from the aggregation of data across a group of discrete tests erroneous and not interpretable for measuring student performance. (emphasis added)

    Sources of data: Kansas data from Kansas State Department of Education Report Card 2007-2008, at http://online.ksde.org/rcard/index.aspx, accessed 10/23/2008. Wichita data from “Wichita Public Schools Achievement Trends” dated 9/15/2008.

  • Wichita School Superintendent Martin Libhart: What’s Wrong With “Government Schools?”

    In a recent email from Wichita School Interim Superintendent Martin Libhart to Wichita school employees, he took issue with those who, using his words, “openly refer to public education as ‘government schools.’”

    It seems as though Mr. Libhart regards the term “government schools” as derogatory. Or at least as something that should be used only in secret, instead of “openly.”

    Why, I wonder?

    Would you please explain this, Superintendent Libhart?

  • Documentary Suggests Alternatives To Public School Orthodoxy

    By Jim Erickson. Reprinted by permission of East Wichita News.

    It’s called Flunked, and this documentary, narrated by Joe Mantegna, is a shopping list of successful ideas to improve our schools. Those interested in the school bond issue and education in general might want to catch this movie at The Orpheum on October 8.

    Though sponsored by the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy and Citizens for Better Education (CBE), no school bond discussion will take place. This is the first of several efforts by CBE, which opposes the bond issue, to present a positive event, according to Helen Cochran, spokesperson. Ideas for change range widely, from simple matters of raising pay to such farout ones as abandoning public schools altogether. There isn’t time, in a movie less than an hour long, to develop these ideas in detail, but there will be a question and answer session following led by producer Steve Maggi.

    A number of the ideas would involve no immediate costs, such as installing administrations that would back up the faculty in cases of unjustified complaints and giving classroom teachers more authority.

    Not all ideas agree — one teacher lauds the results of banning computers; another advocates providing each student a new one. General emphases are on dealing with ethnic minorities and offering a variety of kinds of schools, as well as with managing on the budget you have instead of seeking more money.

    Nobody is going to agree with every idea, but it’s hard to see how anybody could see Flunked and not get some idea or other.

    I wish the movie were longer and went into more detail. In the case of stronger classroom discipline, what would be done with students who had to be removed? How many were there in the class mentioned? Was the local juvenile crime rate affected? Did any savings in the school get lost in expenses on the street? One hopes that there will be people in attendance who can handle such questions.

    Though it’s a ways off, education enthusiasts will want to mark your calendars for October 8 for this free showing. A reception opens the evening at 5 p.m. with the screening at 6 p.m. The sponsors are asking for donations of school supplies to be given to USD-259.

    Editor’s note: This screening is on Wednesday, October 8. A reception with free concessions and cash bar will be held at 5:00 pm at the grand historic Orpheum Theater (First and Broadway in downtown Wichita), followed by the movie at 6:00 pm and a Q&A session with producer Steve Maggi at 6:45 pm.

    Click here to go to the Flint Hills website and make your reservation for this free event.

  • Charter Schools Are Mostly Okay Despite Misconceptions

    A recent Wichita Eagle Editorial Blog post mentioned charter schools in Arizona. A comment writer wrote “Arizona found out, ‘Charter schools tend to be fly by night’ schools operated by entrepreneurs looking for new profit centers at the giant expense of the public school system.”

    I looked for evidence that Arizona had trouble with charter schools. I found an Education Week article from 2004 (Progress, Problems Highlighted In Arizona Charter Study) which seems to present balanced news about Arizona charter schools.

    It appears that there have been a few problems with charter schools. Certainly not a tendency, as the comment writer suggested.

    In fact, it would be difficult to imagine that there could be widespread dissatisfaction with charter schools that would last for any length of time. That’s because, even though charter schools are still government schools, the students that attend them are there by choice. And if the charter school doesn’t meet their needs, they have another choice: return to the regular public school system.

    Contrast this with the existing public school system. It operates, at least in Kansas, with a government-granted monopoly on the use of public funds for the provision of schooling. Parents who are not satisfied with these schools have little recourse unless they have enough money to move somewhere else, or unless they can afford private or parochial school tuition — and they’ll still have to pay to support a system they now realize they can’t use.

    This type of monopoly power is considered unjust and immoral when wielded by private industry, but is somehow acceptable when possessed by government.

    This leads to another complaint expressed, obliquely, by the comment writer: these charter schools are looking to make a profit! I wonder if this writer knows that in the absence of a government-granted monopoly of the type that the public schools in Kansas enjoy, the only way a business can earn a profit is by satisfying customers, and doing so efficiently. And businesses have to earn that profit. They have no guaranteed source of revenue, as do government agencies. They have no stream of customers forced to use their service, as do the public schools.

    Finally, the comment writer states that charter schools operate at the “giant expense of the public school system.” Two points: Charter schools are part of the public school system. They could be in Kansas, if we had a better charter school law. Also, charter schools typically receive much less funding per student than do the regular public schools. They almost always operate more efficiently, and therefore save money.