Tag: Wichita and Kansas schools
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Are Teachers Paid Fairly?
The school bond issue in Wichita and those occurring in surrounding districts overlook one crucial necessity: a fair wage for teachers. They are critically underpaid for all levels of education, service and abilities. (From The Wichita Eagle Opinion Line, April 27, 2008) This writer is misinformed on several levels.
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Wichita school expulsion myths
Recently Lynn Rogers, a USD 259 (Wichita, Kansas public school district) board member, made this statement: “I know there are kids from many Catholic schools that have come to public schools when the Catholic schools have kicked them out.” This attitude reflects a common perception or myth: that private and religious schools kick out the…
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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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Wichita school district values its information highly
Recently members of Wichitans for Effective Education asked USD 259, the Wichita public school district, this question: How many classrooms (and portables) are there in 2007-08? For 2006-07? This would seem a fairly simple question for the school district to answer. After all, part of the district’s argument for the proposed bond issue in 2008…
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Wichita school board action is very expensive
In a column in the April 6, 2008 Wichita Eagle, columnist Mark McCormick writes about the proposed $350 million bond issue for USD 259, the Wichita public school district, and states: “For the average Wichitan, taxes will rise about $45 a year.” How he arrived at this figure is unknown. He may be referring to…
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Wichita School Bond Issue: Explain Again the Need for a Delay
If Mr. Rogers believes the bond issue will be approved by voters on any election date, why is he willing to forgo these cost savings? And why is he willing to delay the opening of a high school by one year? Or were these facts they used to make their case really just fiction?
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Wichita School Board Poisons Democracy
This action of the board of the Wichita school district poisons democracy. It gives the board and its apparently allied campaign group a tremendous advantage that no other group has, and by law, cannot have. The opposition groups can’t control the election schedule to suit the needs of their campaigns. We have to trust that…
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In Wichita, don’t take photographs of the school administration building!
While standing on a public sidewalk and taking a photograph of a public building, I was ordered to stop.
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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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Wichita school bond issue: “But I didn’t have kids 20 years ago”
“I agree, but I didn’t have kids 20 years ago.” A statement like this, uttered by a member of Citizens Alliance For Responsible Education, a group that supports a bond issue for USD 259, the Wichita public school district, illustrates the fact that the proposed bond issue is, plain and simple, a measure that benefits…
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Low Wichita school utilization, not bond issue, is solution to overcrowding
One of the main reasons given for the necessity of a bond issue in 2008 for USD 259, the Wichita public school district, is overcrowding. Too many students; not enough classrooms. Utilization numbers supplied by USD 259, however, show that there is a possible solution that district officials haven’t considered, as well as another solution…