Voice For Liberty

Tag: Education

  • Even the New York Times recognizes testing fraud

    A July 2, 2006 New York Times editorial titled “The School Testing Dodge” realizes that nearly all states report student achievement scores, as measured by their own tests, that are much higher than what the same students do on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress exam. An extended quotation from the editorial:

    Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a research institute run jointly by Stanford and the University of California, showed that in many states students who performed brilliantly on state tests scored dismally on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is currently the strongest, most well-respected test in the country.

    The study analyzed state-level testing practices from 1992 to 2005. It found that many states were dumbing down their tests or shifting the proficiency targets in math and reading, creating a fraudulent appearance of progress and making it impossible to tell how well students were actually performing.

    Not all states have tried to evade the truth. The tests in Massachusetts, for example, yield performance results that are reasonably close to the federal standard. Not so for states like Oklahoma, where the score gap between state and federal tests has averaged 48 points in reading and 60 points in math, according to the PACE report. The states that want to mislead the government — and their own residents — use a variety of dodges, including setting passing scores low, using weak tests and switching tests from year to year to prevent unflattering comparisons over time. These strategies become transparent when the same students who perform so well on state tests do poorly on the more rigorous federal exam. Most alarming of all, the PACE study finds that the gap between student reading performance on the state and federal tests has actually grown wider over time — which suggests that claims of reading progress in many states are in fact phony.

    I have written in the past about the discrepancies between state test results and NAEP test results (see No Child Left Behind Leaving Many Behind, Schoolchildren Will Be Basically Proficient, and Every State Left Behind). What is the solution to this problem? Most families don’t have much choice except to accept and use the existing public schools in their state and their fraudulent test results. With school choice implemented through meaningful vouchers, parents will have an alternative to the public school monopoly. If parents do not believe the test results the public schools report, they will be able to do something meaningful: move their children to a different school. As of now, parents have little choice and few weapons to use against the public school bureaucracy — except for the NAEP test results.

  • No Child Left Behind Leaving Many Behind

    Recently an Associated Press article reported how the test scores of some two million children aren’t being counted, due to a loophole in the No Child Left Behind Act. (See ‘No Child’ loophole misses millions of scores at CNN, April 18, 2006.) The Wall Street Journal (“No Child Left Behind” April 29, 2006) editorializes on this as follows:

    … Last month we reported that parents and children in failing schools nationwide aren’t being notified of their school-choice transfer and tutoring options, even though notification is a requirement under NCLB. The news that [Secretary of Education] Ms. Spellings is also letting states slide on even reporting the math and reading test scores of minorities is especially disturbing because accountability is the heart of the federal law.

    NCLB makes allowances for schools that have racial groups too small to be statistically significant. But states have been abusing their freedom under the law to determine when a group is too small to count. And Washington is letting them get away with it. According to the AP, nearly two dozen states have successfully petitioned the Education Department “for exemptions to exclude larger numbers of students in racial categories.” Today about one in 14 test scores overall go uncounted. Minorities, whose test scores on average lag those of white students, are seven times as likely to have their test results ignored. That’s an odd way to enforce a law called No Child Left Behind.

    Has Kansas asked for exemptions from these reporting requirements? I spoke to an official at the Kansas Department of Education, and it appears that Kansas is not asking for exemptions like the ones reported above. That’s good news.

    But Kansas school officials, like those in nearly every other state, continue to paint a prettier picture than the actual reality. This article Every State Left Behind explains how state education officials report student proficiency rates far in excess of what the National Assessment of Educational Progress test reveals.

    The public education establishment tells us they are willing to be held accountable. As it turns out, being held accountable to a government agency may not mean very much.

    There is a simple way to hold public schools accountable to those who matter most: simply give parents meaningful school choice. Open public schools to market competition. Give parents, through vouchers, meaningful opportunities to choose schools for their children.

    With all the attention paid to schools this year in Kansas government, with all the new money about to be spent, accountability is still lacking. The education establishment insists on retaining their government-sponsored monopoly on education spending. In a few years when the impact of the increased education spending in Kansas is assessed — if we are able to get an honest evaluation — we should not be surprised to find that no progress has been made.

  • Not Everyone Agrees With Choice

    Writing from Miami, Florida

    Recently I wrote about the case of a young girl who is homeschooled, one who gives me hope in the future of youth. (See A Declaration of Independence from Public Schools.)

    There are people, however, who would deny talented and dedicated young people like Mary the opportunity to be educated in the way their parents wish. In a blog post titled It’s not homeschooling — it’s truancy we find someone who would, if I understand the author, deny everyone this opportunity.

    The article is full of stereotypes and generalities: “If you’ve even been to a GOP rally in the middle of the day, you’ve seen them.” “Everybody in the real world knows homeschool kids are socially inept …” “… so many homeschool moms who would still be working at the Sonic if they hadn’t gotten knocked up and found Jesus.” This type of bigotry is common among those who would deny parents the choice to educate their children as they see fit.

    There is also an issue of liberty to consider. It is one thing for the government to require children to attend school; it is a very different matter for the government to prescribe which school a child must attend, or the manner in which they must be educated. Even if the children didn’t receive quite the same education as they would in the public schools, it’s what the parents want for their children. But I don’t think issues of liberty are what this writer is concerned with.

    The final paragraph of the article gives us insight into the mindset of the anti-school choice crowd. It illustrates the paternalistic desire for control exhibited by those who believe they know what’s best for others. It exhibits more faith in the public schools than they have shown they deserve. Finally, having derided homeschooling families for being religious, the writer offers a prayer for them:

    And every time I’m at a rally I want to pull the homeschooled kids aside and tell them that I’m sorry their parents are so scared of the world, of the public schools, of their kids thinking for themselves. I want to tell them that the real world is more than what they get from CBN and the magazines their over-protective parents allow in the house. But instead I just say a little prayer that maybe their parents will realize what a disservice their [sic] doing to their kids, and vow I will never do the same for mine.

    It may be that attitudes like these — not to mention errors in usage — are what parents wish to avoid.

  • A declaration of independence from public schools

    Mary Moberly, a young woman just 15 years old, wrote this piece. She lives in Manhattan, Kansas. I have been reading her two websites for the past few months, ever since I saw that she referred to a post on this website.

    If you look at her two websites, Tea and Crumpets Zine and Just Go Boil Something, you will discover her wide-ranging interests and accomplishments, both remarkable for someone so young. I particularly recommend her essay What Makes a Well-Educated Person?

    I read the following article and was so impressed by it that I wrote to Mary and asked if I could reprint it here. She agreed.

    A Declaration of Independence from Public Schools

    By Mary Moberly

    Because you have taken from me seven years of imagination, seven years of creativity, and seven years of learning,

    Because you have kept me (for seven years) locked up in an artificial environment with artificial knowledge, and artificial friends, and mentors forced to be artificial,

    Because you have taught me that any friends I have must be my own age, must know little more than myself, and are only for recess and small talk,

    Because you have taught me that trees are dangerous, and made me climb artificial ones instead, while you sawed off all the real branches within my reach,

    Because you never taught me how to walk or run for the sheer joy of it,

    Because you wasted my precious time and made me stay up late, frustrated and crying, doing busywork for countless hours, forcing me to write down the answers in the book, the answers to the worksheet, and memorize the answers to the test, answers that, whether right or wrong, I had to know, to pass tests which I have no memory of,

    Because you never taught me how to learn what I want to learn,

    Because you never taught me how to truly express myself, and only constricted me with rules, and blanked my mind, so that I could not write,

    Because you never taught me that math is beautiful, that it contains the essence of the universe, and is more than just numbers and rules,

    Because you never taught me how to read music in my head, and write it, because you told me not to whistle during class, or in the halls,

    Because you have imprisoned many children within your walls, and stolen their childhood,

    Because the people who work for you were taught in you and do not know another way of teaching,

    Because you are a monster, a Frankenstein, that good people controlled at first, but which now controls them, (they do not destroy you because they are afraid),

    Because education is now considered something to “deal with” rather than something to put one’s whole heart into,

    Because your very ways are un-American, because you command everyone within your walls where to sit, what to wear, what to eat, when to eat, what to read, when to read, what to write, when to write, what to draw, when to draw, even when to use the bathroom and how to learn,

    I Declare Independence from you, Public Schools.

  • State of Kansas vs. Students

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, for this fine article.

    It would be a different matter if all this spending produced results. There is no reason to believe that increased spending on schools will do much to improve the lot of the average Kansas child. Sadly, this increased spending lets politicians, education bureaucrats, and school boards claim victory “for the children.” The needed reforms are put off for another year. Alan Rupe, have you no shame? Do you really believe you are doing the right thing for Kansas children, or are you only looking to earn a legal fee?

    Taxpayers have had to pay over millions to fund both the school districts suing the state for additional state spending, for the state’s defense of this lawsuit, and this does not include the costs for the judicial system. Instead of chasing ambulances it has now become much more remunerative for lawyers in Kansas to chase taxpayers. You as a taxpayer will have to pay a lot more in taxes due to this odious environment. Kansas is the economic loser as school district lawyers Alan Rupe and John Robb made their case for another statehouse spending spree March 5, 2006 in the Wichita Eagle.

    Kansas has been spending more per pupil in total tax funds for K-12 than all of the states in our region, more than the average in the entire United States, and does so with lower than average income. This is the 2004-05 data from the 2004-05 U.S. Statistical Abstract (chart 241, data is from 2002-03).

    StateAvg. $ per pupil
    Kansas$8,687
    U.S. average$8,428
    Colorado$8,010
    Missouri$7,674
    Nebraska$7,671
    Oklahoma$6,577


    This data does NOT include the almost $300 million increase in state spending last year, as well as additional federal, and local spending hikes that will increase this total government school spending. This increase is over $675 per pupil in state taxes alone.

    Now the school district lawyers prevaricate that this double-digit hike in state spending is somehow falling behind inflation. It would be a delirious day for Kansas workers if the average Kansas wage grew at the same rate that spending on public schools has grown last year or even since the last time school district lawyers won a lawsuit against the state for more spending in 1992. Kansans income already lags well below the national average. In 1992 the last year before Judge Bullock’s Mock decision state school spending was $1.028 billion. For 2006 state spending is $2.587 billion. This 152 percent increase in state public school spending far exceeds inflation.

    It is sad to see these school district lawyers claiming inadequate state funding when national survey’s show that Kansas not only spends more, but the state spending is among the highest percentage of all 50 states. When the school lawyers say, … “constitutionally suitable education..,” they should actually quote the Kansas Constitution which says in Article 6 Section 6(b), “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” The phrase “suitable education” is not used let alone defined in the Kansas Constitution. Sadly, the seven activist, left-wing judges on the Sebelius and Democrat dominated Kansas Supreme Court have ignored this clear sentence for some judicial legislating from the bench.

    The Supreme Court’s ludicrous 2005 school finance ruling that claims that a specific dollar amount of additional spending is some how contained in an un-named segment the Kansas Constitution has placed all Kansas government at risk. Article IV. Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution guarantees this state a republican form of government. These judges have put our republic in jeopardy with their usurpation in this case. Appropriation by appointed judicial fiat is abhorrent to this republican guarantee in the U.S. Constitution.

    The court’s spending edict has dramatically raised the risk and uncertainty of the fiscal and business climate in this state. This is hurting our state’s economy and will provide another reason for this state to be bypassed by business and growth. Jobs and income will lag even more as long as our appointed judicial oligarchy continues to reign over spending.

    The legislature must rein in this activist court, resume control over this state’s fiscal matters, and penalize school districts who are putting their lawsuits ahead of educational spending. If school districts lost $10 in state aid for every dollar spent on suing the state these lawsuits would cease. Ironically, the post audit report that these lawyers praise, would actually widen the disparity in state funding between the mid-sized school districts suing the state and the larger urban districts that are not. After this lawsuit ends another will be filed.

    The post audit report is based upon the dubious research of William Duncombe and John Yinger, two liberal New York professors who are also backing the school finance lawsuit in New York over that state’s supposedly “inadequate” public school funding. New York’s school spending is already among the highest level of all 50 states so higher is never enough there, or here. As long as the legal gravy train supporting these lawsuits continues to prosper, Kansans will suffer. Kansas high school and college graduates will receive their diplomas but many will not find jobs in this oligarchic, risky, and litigious environment of legal edicts that trash many of the principles of limited government that we fought a revolution over in 1776.

  • School choice helps those best who have least

    Writing from Miami, Florida

    An article in the March 2, 2006 Wall Street Journal by Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells of the large numbers of African-American families in Minneapolis who send their children to charter schools or to schools in other districts, thanks to Minnesota law that allows district-crossing.

    The families in Minneapolis have ample incentive to look elsewhere for schools. “Last year, only 28% of black eighth-graders in the Minneapolis public schools passed the state’s basic skills math test; 47% passed the reading test. … Today, this tradition of choice is providing a ticket out for kids in the gritty, mostly black neighborhoods of north and south- central Minneapolis.”

    Does this choice work? Are parents pleased? “At Harvest Preparatory School, a K-6 school that is 99% black and two-thirds low income, students wear uniforms, focus on character, and achieve substantially higher test scores than district schools with similar demographics.” This is a school that was founded in 1992 in the home of its founders, showing that it doesn’t take a lot of money to start a good school.

    My advocacy of school choice has been criticized. Some people tell me that parents, especially those with little education, will not be able to judge the merits of a school. People tell me that some parents are incapable of making a wise, informed choice, and that someone else must do it for them. Besides being condescending, it is simply wrong:

    The city’s experience should lead such states to reconsider the benefits of expansive school choice. Conventional wisdom holds that middle-class parents take an interest in their children’s education, while low-income and minority parents lack the drive and savvy necessary. The black exodus here demonstrates that, when the walls are torn down, poor, black parents will do what it takes to find the best schools for their kids.

    One has to be quite confident — arrogant, I would say — to deny parents the choice of where to send their children to school, especially when the choice forced upon parents is to compel children to attend our present schools with their history of poor performance.

    Well-to-do families have school choice. They can afford private school tuition, or they can afford to move to cities or neighborhoods where the schools are better. In most places, poor families don’t have this choice. What is it that prevents our politicians, education bureaucrats, and school boards from realizing this, and doing something to truly help those who need it most?

  • Schoolchildren Will Be Basically Proficient

    Writing from Miami, Florida

    A few months ago I wrote how most states, when testing their schoolchildren, post results such as “80% of our state’s students are proficient in reading or math,” but when tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the number judged proficient falls to 30% or so. (See Every State Left Behind.) It was noted that local education officials are eager to tell parents and taxpayers that students are doing well. The NAEP test hasn’t felt such pressure.

    Now a commentary in the February 27, 2006 Wall Street Journal by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Diane Ravitch tells us that under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which uses the NAEP tests — not the state tests — to measure student progress, there is pressure to water down the NAEP test so that more students test at the proficient level.

    This movement to weaken the standards of what has to this point been an objective, nation-wide measure of student progress will let politicians at the federal level claim that students are doing better, just as politicians at the state and local level do with the dumbed-down state tests.

    Politicians, education bureaucrats, and teachers unions will claim victory, citing “proof” that increased funding for schools has been successful in increasing student achievement. But with the standard of proficient slipping to what has been until now called basic, will the students even be able to understand how they’ve been harmed?

    This is more evidence of why we need to take control of education away from the government.

  • Lack of Literacy is Threat to Liberty

    Writing in a recent commentary, Stephen M. Lilienthal of the Free Congress Foundation expresses concern over the literacy skills of recent college graduates. The findings of some recent studies are quite troubling.

    A recent study by the American Institutes for Research (“AIR”) contains what should be very unsettling news. The study, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, surveyed the literacy skills of graduates of four-year colleges and two-year community and junior colleges. The ability of the students to analyze newspaper stories, comprehend documents and balance a checkbook was assessed. Over half the graduates of four-year colleges and three-quarters of the graduates of junior and community colleges could not be categorized as possessing these “proficient” skills. A link to the press release announcing the study is at http://www.air.org/news/documents/Release200601pew.htm. Here are a few of the findings:

    More than 75 percent of students at 2-year colleges and more than 50 percent of students at 4-year colleges do not score at the proficient level of literacy. This means that they lack the skills to perform complex literacy tasks, such as comparing credit card offers with different interest rates or summarizing the arguments of newspaper editorials.

    Students in 2- and 4-year colleges have the greatest difficulty with quantitative literacy: approximately 30 percent of students in 2-year institutions and nearly 20 percent of students in 4-year institutions have only Basic quantitative literacy. Basic skills are those necessary to compare ticket prices or calculate the cost of a sandwich and a salad from a menu.

    Students about to graduate from college have higher prose and document literacy than previous graduates with similar levels of education; for quantitative literacy, differences between current and former college graduates are not significant.

    There are no significant differences in the literacy of students graduating from public and private institutions. Additionally, in assessing literacy levels, there are no differences between part-time and full-time students. No overall relationship exists between literacy and the length of time it takes to earn a degree, or between literacy and an academic major.

    The AIR study is not the only source of bad news regarding adult literacy. As Mr. Lilienthal reports:

    The AIR Study follows the release last November of a study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (“AACU”) which reported a disparity between what students believed they were learning in college and national studies that measure their writing, mathematical and critical-thinking skills. An AACU press release issued in conjunction with the report states, “While 77 percent of students report significant improvements in their writing skills in college, standardized tests show that only 11 percent of seniors scored at a ‘proficient’ level in writing. Standardized tests results indicate that only 6 percent of seniors graduate at the ‘proficient’ level in critical thinking skills, while 87 percent of students believe that college contributed a great deal to improving their skills in this area.”

    A significant point of the AIR study is that “rapid changes in technology make it necessary for adults of all ages to use written information in new and more complex ways.” Higher levels of literacy are needed to enable workers to adjust to increased demands.

    Some conclusions that we may make:

    First, what does this tell us about the state of our schools, especially public schools and universities? When the majority of college graduates — presumably having learned at least something more than what they knew when they graduated from high school — aren’t considered proficient at basic intellectual tasks, how can we have confidence in the quality of our schools? For those who believe our schools are performing well, I would ask what they make of these findings.

    Second, it is not surprising that people who can’t balance a checkbook have trouble with other financial matters. Things like understanding a credit card offer and agreement, what it means to be in debt, understanding the implications of different types of mortgages, understanding the powerful effects of compounding over time, or how to save and invest for the future seem to be beyond the grasp of someone who has trouble with a checkbook.

    Third, we should also not be surprised that people fail to understand, or even to be interested in, the policies of our various governmental bodies and how they impact our lives. That is, how these policies really impact us, rather than how politicians say they impact us. This is what I see as the greatest threat to liberty. A society with more liberty, which is to say one with less government, places greater responsibility on individuals to provide for themselves and their families. In order to defend our liberty, we must be on the alert for false arguments and faulty reasoning. This requires citizens who care about liberty and are equipped to defend it.

    As an illustration, recently I wrote how an advocate for increased spending on schools in Kansas (I was going to say increased spending on education, but given the findings of the above studies, I am hesitant to call it that) made a misleading argument. (See Kansas Families United for Public Education (KFUPE) on State Aid to Schools.) To show how it is misleading, I had to perform some calculations to convert nominal dollars to real dollars, that is, spending adjusted by the rate of inflation. Now I wonder if many people understand the difference and its importance, much less whether many people could analyze this evidence in the way that I did. Converting nominal dollars to real dollars, I should mention, is not very difficult to do.

    If converting nominal dollars to real dollars appears difficult, then what about more thoughtful analysis of our economy and government policies? Analyzing policy means looking at the obvious effects, but also seeking to discover what might not be obvious: the unseen effects. Frederic Bastiat, in his pamphlet titled “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen” http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html said this:

    Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen, and also of those which it is necessary to foresee. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, — at the risk of a small present evil.

    The economist Walter E. Williams summarizes the broken window fallacy that Bastiat recognized in his article:

    Bastiat wrote a parable about this that has become known as the “Broken Window Fallacy.” A shopkeeper’s window is broken by a vandal. A crowd forms, sympathizing with the man, but pretty soon, the people start to suggest the boy wasn’t guilty of vandalism; instead, he was a public benefactor, creating economic benefits for everyone in town. After all, fixing the broken window creates employment for the glazier, who will then buy bread and benefit the baker, who will then buy shoes and benefit the cobbler, and so forth.

    Those are the seen effects of the broken window. What’s unseen is what the shopkeeper would have done with the money had the vandal not broken his window. He might have employed the tailor by purchasing a suit. The broken window produced at least two unseen effects. First, it shifted unemployment from the glazier, who now has a job, to the tailor, who doesn’t. Second, it reduced the shopkeeper’s wealth. Explicitly, had it not been for the vandalism, the shopkeeper would have had a window and a suit; now, he has just a window.

    As Professor Williams also brought to our attention, even educated people such as Princeton economist Paul Krugman failed to take into account all factors — the broken window fallacy that Bastiat illustrates — when he wrote in The New York Times that the destruction of the World Trade Center “could do some economic good.”

    By failing to perform a little analysis on our own, we are liable to fall for whatever arguments politicians may make. But given the state of adult literacy, literacy that is a product of our public schools, how can we expect to be any different?

  • Kansas Families United for Public Education (KFUPE) on state aid to schools

    As of today (February 2, 2006), the website for Kansas Families United for Public Education (KFUPE) (located at http://fundourpublicschools.com) states, under the heading “The Crisis”: “State aid has failed to keep pace with inflation.”

    I was puzzled by this statement, as I thought we were spending more and more on education each year. So I decided to investigate.

    The Kansas State Department of Education has a table of recent education expenditures in Kansas. The data is located at http://www.ksde.org/leaf/data_warehouse/total_expenditures/d0Stateexp.pdf.

    Here is the table of spending data:

    Spending in Nominal Dollars
    Total SpendingPer Student
    SchoolFTE*StateFederalLocalTotalStateFederalLocalTotalTotal
    YearEnrollmentAidAidRevenueExpenditures**AidAidRevenueExpendituresIncrease
    1993-1994437,210.11,468,606,823137,260,1141,011,858,0242,617,724,9613,3593142,3145,9873.44
    1994-1995440,684.21,558,335,916140,485,2961,012,554,5702,711,375,7823,5363192,2986,1532.77
    1995-1996442,465.91,604,933,171150,316,6231,061,918,7932,817,168,5873,6273402,4006,3673.48
    1996-1997445,767.31,618,449,030181,533,3201,121,816,1832,921,798,5333,6314072,5176,5552.95
    1997-1998448,609.01,815,684,144189,120,4621,058,428,6633,063,233,2694,0474222,3596,8284.16
    1998-1999448,925.72,035,194,082202,565,7251,004,736,6393,242,496,4464,5334512,2387,2235.79
    1999-2000448,610.32,110,484,390220,780,3501,071,444,1323,402,708,8724,7044922,3887,5855.01
    2000-2001446,969.92,152,622,486261,038,1531,172,918,4803,586,579,1194,8165842,6248,0245.79
    2001-2002445,376.62,200,529,799310,104,6781,269,928,1133,780,562,5904,9416962,8518,4885.78
    2002-2003444,541.42,277,804,680340,728,6481,335,185,5463,953,718,8745,1247663,0048,8944.78
    2003-2004443,301.82,124,578,761376,908,1211,592,564,7284,094,051,6104,7938503,5939,2353.83
    2004-2005441,867.62,362,223,172398,667,0401,528,524,3314,289,414,5435,3469023,4599,7075.11

    Here is the Consumer Price Index for the relevant years:

    CPI
    (1982-84 = 100)
    YearCPIInflation
    1993144.5
    1994148.22.6%
    1995152.42.8%
    1996156.93.0%
    1997160.52.3%
    1998163.01.6%
    1999166.62.2%
    2000172.23.4%
    2001177.12.8%
    2002179.91.6%
    2003184.02.3%
    2004188.92.7%

    Applying some arithmetic to the figures in the spending table produces this table of inflation-adjusted spending:

    Spending Change Year to Year, Real Dollars
    Total SpendingPer Student
    SchoolFTE*StateFederalLocalTotalStateFederalLocalTotal
    YearEnrollmentAidAidRevenueExpenditures**AidAidRevenueExpenditures
    1993-1994
    1994-19950.8%3.5%-0.2%-2.4%1.0%2.6%-0.9%-3.2%0.2%
    1995-19960.4%0.2%4.0%2.0%1.0%-0.3%3.6%1.6%0.6%
    1996-19970.7%-2.1%17.3%2.6%0.7%-2.8%16.3%1.9%0.0%
    1997-19980.6%9.7%1.8%-7.8%2.5%9.0%1.4%-8.4%1.8%
    1998-19990.1%10.4%5.5%-6.5%4.2%10.3%5.2%-6.6%4.2%
    1999-2000-0.1%1.5%6.6%4.3%2.7%1.5%6.7%4.4%2.7%
    2000-2001-0.4%-1.3%14.4%5.9%2.0%-0.9%14.8%6.3%2.3%
    2001-2002-0.4%-0.6%15.5%5.3%2.5%-0.2%15.9%5.6%2.9%
    2002-2003-0.2%1.9%8.2%3.5%3.0%2.1%8.3%3.7%3.2%
    2003-2004-0.3%-8.8%8.2%16.6%1.2%-8.5%8.5%16.9%1.5%
    2004-2005-0.3%8.3%3.0%-6.5%2.1%8.6%3.4%-6.2%2.4%

    As you can see, there are some years, most notably 2000 to 2004, where the “State Aid” figures, adjusted for inflation, are mostly decreasing. The statement on the Kansas Families United for Public Education website, therefore, could be construed as true. But over the period 1994 to 2005, “State Aid” increased by 61%, while inflation increased by 41%. So to make that statement true, you have to be looking at only recent history.

    Also, to make that statement true, you have to be looking at only a small part of the total picture. “State Aid” is only part of the total source of funds that schools have. Schools also receive money from “Federal Aid” and “Local Revenue.” For 2004-2005, “State Aid” was 55% of the total spent on schools in Kansas, and for the period in the tables above, “State Aid” was 57.6% of total spending. When you consider the total amount spent, there is no year in which the increase in total spending was less than the rate of inflation for that year.

    Then, there is even the larger picture. In recent years the number of students in Kansas has been declining. This means that the total spent per student increases at a faster rate than total spending.

    Does it matter that “State Aid” might not be increasing as fast as total school spending? I don’t think the schoolchildren in Kansas can tell. But I should not make such a hasty conclusion. Given the mountain of regulations that public schools must comply with, there may be restrictions on how funds from certain sources may be spent, and those regulations might mean that the total available for schools to spend can’t be allocated optimally.

    But I think I can safely conclude this: when advocates for school spending make the case that “State aid has failed to keep pace with inflation,” we should examine the total picture.