Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas State Department of Education

  • Wichita school district spending on administration

    Wichita school district spending on administration

    Could the Wichita public school district reduce spending on administration to previous levels?

    In fiscal 2006 (the school year ending in 2006), the Wichita public school district spent $32,799,723 on administration. The amount rose and fell and rose again, with the district spending $42,353,120 in 2015.

    Wichita school district spending on administration. Click for larger.
    Wichita school district spending on administration. Click for larger.
    If we express these figures on a per-student basis and adjust them for inflation, the district spent $851 in 2006, and $896 in 2015. Like spending in total dollars, that figure rose, then fell, and then rose again.

    Could the Wichita public school district cut administration spending to 2006 levels, on a per-student, inflation-adjusted basis?

    If the district could do this, that would reduce costs by $45 per student. With FTE enrollment for 2015 at 47,254.4, the district could save $2,126,448. Or it could use those savings to offset reductions in spending in other areas.

    It’s up to the Wichita school district to decide.

    —
    Spending data is from USD 259 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 2015, Miscellaneous Statistics, page 122.
    Enrollment data from Kansas State Department of Education, available at http://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/School%20Finance/data_warehouse/total_expenditures/d0259exp.pdf.
    Data adjusted for inflation using Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  • Kansas state school board member should practice what he preaches

    Kansas state school board member should practice what he preaches

    By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute.

    District 9 Kansas State School Board member Jim Porter published the following piece outlining what he considers to be deceptive statements about school funding and state taxes. He urges political leaders to “tell the whole story” but doesn’t practice what he preaches, as we found a dozen deceptive statements in his piece.

    We are consistently hearing from those political leaders who are resisting what many of us consider to be the adequate funding of education that Schools are receiving more state support than ever and that support is increasing every year. Typically they say that people need to know the facts. Well, that is part of the story and although not a false statement it is certainly deceptive. I will make an attempt to explain the part of the story that they are not telling.

    Continue reading at Kansas Policy Institute.

  • Kansas school salaries

    Kansas school salaries

    Kansas school salaries for superintendents, principals, and teachers presented in an interactive visualization for each district, updated for 2016 data.

    Recently Kansas Policy Institute noted the discrepancy in salary increases for Kansas public school management as compared to teachers. See Pay raises to superintendents and principals far outpace those to teachers.

    In the article, David Dorsey writes: “A widely-shared solution to improving student outcomes is to put more money in the classroom. What does it say about the importance of student achievement to local school boards and administrations when pay increases are disproportionately higher to those who are not in the classroom?”

    And later: “Much has been documented about teacher shortages, especially due to those leaving after only a few years in the profession. One way to reverse that trend would be for districts to make spending choices that would support the commitment to keeping quality teachers.”

    Kansas State Department of Education has released salary figures for districts for the current school year, fiscal year 2016. Statewide, since 2008, the KSDE data shows these cumulative salary increases:

    Superintendents: 12.2 percent
    Principals: 11.8 percent
    Teachers: 8.8 percent

    If we start the comparison in 2009 the difference is larger, with increases of 8.2 percent for principals and 4.9 percent for teachers.

    It’s also useful to look at individual districts. For example, for the Wichita public school district, there are these cumulative salary increases since 2008:

    Superintendent: 53.9 percent
    Principals: 7.0 percent
    Teachers: 2.3 percent

    The Wichita district has just one superintendent, so no matter how much the salary rises, it’s still the salary for just a single person and has a negligible effect on total district payroll costs. There are, however, 89 principals, so the increase for this category of employee matters much more.

    But you have to wonder: What about the teachers?

    I’ve gathered the data and present it in an interactive visualization. You may select any single district, or use district 999 for statewide totals. Click here to open the visualization in a new window. Data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Figures include fringe benefits and are not adjusted for inflation. Visualization created using Tableau Public. There are several missing values which can make the percentage change invalid for a single year.

    Kansas school salaries. Click for larger.
    Kansas school salaries. Click for larger.
  • Math quiz on Kansas spending

    Math quiz on Kansas spending

    The average Kansan is misinformed regarding Kansas school spending, and Kansas news media are to blame, writes Paul Waggoner of Hutchinson.

    Math Quiz on Kansas Spending

    By Paul Waggoner

    Math questions, one would think, are very straight-forward and easy to answer. At least easy to guess the right answer in a simple multiple choice test. Such is not the case however with the average Kansan who follows state issues relying on the headlines in the Kansas press.

    The reality of how poor a job the Kansas press is doing with numbers is found in a December 2015 SurveyUSA study of 500 plus registered voters in Kansas. This scientific study of voters’ knowledge of educational spending in Kansas was virtually ignored by the Kansas media. Most likely because its implications don’t fit the media narrative on education in this Year 5 of the Age of Brownback. Even worse, the poll was commissioned by a conservative think tank, the Kansas Policy Institute.

    As to voter (mis) understanding this 15 question poll hit the jackpot. All the questions were multiple choice with only 4 options given.

    Question #6 asked how much state funding do you think Kansas school districts receive per pupil? The correct answer is well over $7,000 per student. 39% of Kansas voters thought it was under $4,000, another 22% thought between $4,000 and $5,000. Only 7% of voters guessed properly.

    The follow-up, Question #7, was how much total (federal/state/local) funding do you think Kansas school districts receive per pupil? The correct answer in 2015 was over $13,000 per pupil. Only 5% of registered Kansas voters got that one right. 40% thought the total was under $7,000, and 21% said $7,000 to $10,000 which were the two most inaccurate options!

    At this point I was even wondering how the accepted wisdom is so far removed from the truth. So I went to ksde.org, the website of the Kansas State Department of Education, to verify the precise figures. At that website every school district in the state is listed.

    What our local school districts spend is very close to the state averages. The Hutchinson USD 308 budget was over $60,000,000 in 2014 with 4,836 full-time students or $12,449 spent per pupil. 5 years earlier the USD 308 budget was $57 million, 5 years before that it was about $41 million.

    The comparable figures for USD 313 Buhler are $12,360 per pupil in 2014 with a $26,300,000 budget that 5 years earlier was $22,200,00 and 5 years before that was $18,000,000. For USD 313 that meant students were educated for just $9,000 per pupil as recently as 2005.

    Kansas school districts total spending is $2.0 billion higher now than just 10 years ago ($6 billion versus $4 billion). That is an incontrovertible fact. Which leads to two immediate questions: How can the Supreme court keep claiming the spending is constitutionally inadequate? And what exactly do taxpayers have to show for the extra $2,000,000,000 every year?

    The reality of those numbers are nowhere in the publics’ consciousness currently. For instance, SurveyUSA question #8 was “over the last 5 years how much do you think total per pupil funding has changed?” The correct answer is that it is actually up 9.92%. But fully 47% of Kansas voters confidently said it had dropped over 5%! Another 15% were sure it had dropped but thought the percentage was smaller. Only 7% of voters knew that school spending was up “over 5%’.

    The budget trajectory has changed and is on a much flatter curve than ever before. Taxpayers are mostly rejoicing, tax spenders (and their allies) are howling mad.

    My revised school spending narrative is frankly the story of the entire Kansas budget (as can be easily accessed at budget.ks.gov “Governors Budget Report FY 2017”).

    The state general fund budget first hit $1 billion in 1980 and grew consistently under Governors Carlin/Hayden/Finney at about a 6.5% annual rate.

    Under Graves and Sebelius that accelerated growth rate continued until the 2008-09 recession when the state budget dropped dramatically for 1 year under Governor Parkinson. This made a cumulative annual growth average of around 3% for those three administrations.

    Under Governor Brownback the general fund budget is still going up, but at a 5 year annual growth rate of 1.8%.

    On February 20th one Hutchinson News columnist’s headline blasted the “Deliberate financial starving of the state of Kansas.” I see this as more of a diet, and I say it is about time.

    The numbers on the state budget spending (and taxation) are readily available online. The execution of the plan for this new governmental trajectory leave something to be desired, but that is the topic for another day.

    Paul Waggoner is a Hutchinson resident and business owner. He can be reached with comments or questions at waggonerpm@gmail.com.

  • Lawrence school funding and employment

    Lawrence school funding and employment

    A Kansas school board president complains about funding, but the district has been able to grow employment faster than enrollment.

    A newspaper article features the Lawrence school board president complaining about school funding. (Advocates rally for school funding amid competing claims about cuts, March 14 Lawrence Journal World)

    There are competing claims. Some look at total spending. Others, as noted in the article, say analysis of spending must be nuanced by consideration of “special education, retirement fund contributions and aid for special budget funds such as bond and interest funds and capital outlay.”

    The same article also notes: “But because lawmakers converted school funding to a block grant system last year, combining several different kinds of aid into a single grant, exact comparisons to previous years are difficult to make.”

    All this is true to some extent. But there is a way to clear some of the fog, and that is to look at the number of employees in a school district compared to the number of students.

    Schools tell us that their largest expenditure is on personnel costs. Across the country, the portion of current expenditures going to salaries and benefits hovers around 80 percent. 1

    So looking at the number of employees tells us a lot — almost everything, in fact — about how the school district is faring.

    When we look, we find that starting in 2011 the number of employees in the Lawrence school district has risen faster than the number of students. (The count is divided into certified employees and K-12 teachers, and does not include special education teachers.) Correspondingly, the ratios of these employees has fallen over the same period. The pupil-teacher ratio has fallen from 17.28 to 15.47, and the certified employee-pupil ratio has fallen from 11.70 to 10.85.

    So however spending is compartmentalized, whether KPERS contributions are included or not, whether the funding comes from state or local sources, whether spending is adjusted for inflation, the Lawrence school district has been able to improve its employee-pupil ratios substantially.

    Data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Visualization created using Tableau Public. You may use the visualization to view figures from all Kansas school districts here.

    Lawrence school district employment and enrollment. Click for larger.
    Lawrence school district employment and enrollment. Click for larger.
    1. National Center for Education Statistics: The Condition of Education, Elementary and Secondary Education, Finance, Public School Expenditures. Available at: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmb.asp. ↩
  • Kansas school salaries

    Kansas school salaries

    Kansas school salaries for superintendents, principals, and teachers presented in an interactive visualization for each district.

    Recently Kansas Policy Institute noted the discrepancy in salary increases for Kansas public school management as compared to teachers. See Pay raises to superintendents and principals far outpace those to teachers.

    In the article, David Dorsey writes: “A widely-shared solution to improving student outcomes is to put more money in the classroom. What does it say about the importance of student achievement to local school boards and administrations when pay increases are disproportionately higher to those who are not in the classroom?”

    And later: “Much has been documented about teacher shortages, especially due to those leaving after only a few years in the profession. One way to reverse that trend would be for districts to make spending choices that would support the commitment to keeping quality teachers.”

    Statewide, since 2009, KSDE data shows these cumulative salary increases:

    Superintendents: 7.9 percent
    Principals: 7.4 percent
    Teachers: 3.9 percent

    It’s also useful to look at individual districts. For example, for the Wichita public school district, there are these cumulative salary increases since 2009:

    Superintendent: 39.9 percent
    Principals: 4.7 percent
    Teachers: -0.8 percent, a decline

    The Wichita district has just one superintendent, so no matter how much the salary rises, it’s still the salary for just a single person and has a negligible effect on total district payroll costs. There are, however, 89 principals, so the increase for this category of employee matters much more.

    But you have to wonder: What about the teachers?

    I’ve gathered the data and present it in an interactive visualization. You may select any single district, or use district 999 for statewide totals. Click here to open the visualization in a new window. Data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Figures include fringe benefits. Visualization created using Tableau Public. There are several missing values which can make the percentage increase invalid for a single year.

    Kansas school salaries and change, statewide, through 2015. Click for larger version.
    Kansas school salaries and change, statewide, through 2015. Click for larger version.
  • Kansas school spending: Visualization

    Kansas school spending: Visualization

    An interactive visualization of revenue and spending data for Kansas school districts.

    This visualization has been updated to include recent data. See Kansas school spending: Visualization.

    The accompanying visualization holds both nominal dollar amounts and amounts adjusted to reflect 2015 dollars. Data includes state aid, local aid, federal aid, and total spending for each school district, both total and per pupil. The visualization includes both tables and charts.

    Spending and revenue data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Inflation-adjusted data calculated using Consumer Price Index, All items, 1982-84=100 — CUUR0000SA0 from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Visualization created using Tableau Public.

    Click here to open the visualization in a new window.

    An example from the visualization. This shows statewide spending, per pupil, adjusted for inflation. Click for larger version.
    An example from the visualization. This shows statewide spending, per pupil, adjusted for inflation. Click for larger version.
  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Goals for the Kansas Legislature, school choice in Kansas

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Goals for the Kansas Legislature, school choice in Kansas

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: There are worthy goals the Kansas Legislature should tackle, and the need for school choice in Kansas. Episode 107, broadcast January 31, 2016. View below, or click here to view at YouTube.

  • After years of low standards, Kansas schools adopt truthful standards

    After years of low standards, Kansas schools adopt truthful standards

    In a refreshing change, Kansas schools have adopted realistic standards for students, but only after many years of evaluating students using low standards.

    The former Kansas school standards for grade four reading, showing Kansas ranking low among the states.
    The former Kansas school standards for grade four reading, showing Kansas ranking low among the states.
    For years Kansas schools have used low standards to evaluate students. That is, Kansas was willing to say students are “proficient” at a much lower level of performance than most other states. But now the new Kansas standards are more in line with those of other states, and present a more truthful assessment of Kansas schoolchildren.

    This is the finding of the EducationNext report After Common Core, States Set Rigorous Standards. EducationNext is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution and the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School that is committed to careful examination of evidence relating to school reform.

    The report compares the proportion of students considered “proficient” on the states’ own exam with that of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” The report explains:

    Data from both the NAEP and state tests allow for periodic assessments of the rigor of each state’s proficiency standards. If the percentage of students identified as proficient in any given year is essentially the same for both the NAEP and the state exams, we can infer that the state has established as strict a proficiency standard as that of the NAEP. But if the state identifies a higher percentage of students as proficient than the NAEP, we can conclude that the state has set its proficiency bar lower than that of the NAEP.

    From 2003 to 2013 the Kansas standards were weak, earning letter grades ranging from “C” to “D” in the EducationNext reports. In another similar study, the Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto NAEP Scales series from National Center for Education Statistics, Kansas standards were also found to be low compared to other states. NCES is part of the United States Department of Education and the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. It has not yet examined the 2015 NAEP and state exam scores.

    Now, after comparing Kansas state assessments to the 2015 NAEP exam, Kansas earns a grade of “A” from EducationNext for the strength of its standards.

    This grade of “A” does not reflect the performance of Kansas schoolchildren on tests. Instead, it means that the state has raised the definition of “proficient” to a higher level. A presentation by Kansas State Department of Education to the Kansas State Board of Education explains the relationship of the new standards to the former:

    The Kansas College and Career Ready Standards are more rigorous than the previous Kansas Standards. The Mathematics test is more demanding than even the ACT and taken a year earlier. The assessment is also more demanding than the NAEP assessment. Kansas takes seriously the current issues of college dropout and remediation rates and feels higher standards are necessary to help remedy the problem.

    Kansas is not alone in making a change:

    The results are striking: The last two years have witnessed the largest jump in state standards since they were established as part of the federal accountability program. Overall, 36 states have strengthened their standards since 2013, while just 5 have loosened them, and 7 have left their standards essentially unchanged. In short, the Common Core consortium has achieved one of its key policy objectives: the raising of state proficiency standards throughout much of the United States.

    This is a refreshing change for Kansas. It means that after many years of evaluating students with weak standards and low expectations, Kansas now has reasonable standards.