Last year Secretary of Education Arne Duncan created a program named “Race to the Top” which would make grants to states that are willing to make certain reforms. Two such reforms prominently mentioned by Duncan and President Barack Obama are charter schools and merit pay for teachers.
We now know that Kansas was not selected to receive a grant, at least not in the first round. Kansas had applied for $166 million.
Kansas is falling behind the rest of the states in the types of innovation that Race to the Top was designed to promote. Specifically, the Kansas charter school law is weak. Anyone wishing to start a charter school must seek approval of the local school district. Most school districts in Kansas, especially the Wichita district, are hostile towards any lessening of the government school monopoly. As a result, there are very few charter schools in Kansas. It is likely that this played a role in the decision not to award a grant to Kansas.
Besides resisting merit pay, the Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union) is also opposed to charter schools. The national teachers union is too, as the Wall Street Journal reported last year: “NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told the Washington Post last week that charter schools and merit pay raise difficult issues for his members, yet Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said states that block these reforms could jeopardize their grant eligibility.”
It turns out that the prediction of Secretary Duncan was fulfilled. Kansas, with a teachers union that blocks reform at every step, is failing to keep up with innovations in education. Kansas should implement these reforms for their own good.
Friday’s press event held by ACT (Advocates in Communities Team) of South Central Kansas provided an opportunity to learn about disabled Kansans and their families, and the challenges they face from reduced spending by the state.
The stories told at the event and in supplementary materials are compelling. If there is a role for government-provided services to those who can’t help themselves, these are the people.
But a problem that advocates for the disabled face is that the major recipient of Kansas general fund spending — that’s the K through 12 public school spending lobby — has enormous resources at its disposal. And it doesn’t like to share.
Legislators tell me that the budget this year is a battle between the school spending lobby and everyone else. I spoke to several advocates for the disabled, and they assured me that it’s not a battle between these two competing interests. But the schools have, so far, fared very well. Figures I obtained in December from the Kansas State Department of Education indicate that spending, on a per pupil basis, is estimated to drop by 3.43% for the current school year. That’s not a lot, despite the claims of the school spending lobby.
The school lobby is well-funded and the most powerful in the statehouse. The Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union) has a political action committee, which spent, according to IRS filings, $344,941 on political activity in 2008. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. KNEA itself has revenue of over $8 million annually, and can afford to pay at least four employees salaries over $100,000.
KNEA’s sister organization — they share a well-paid lobbyist — the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) had revenues of $4,167,025 in 2007. It can afford to pay its executive director $201,927 in salary and benefits in 2007, along with an expense account of $11,331.
In addition, some school districts like Wichita USD 259 employ full-time lobbyists.
The primary purpose of these organizations and lobbyists is to keep the river of taxpayer money flowing to the government schools at the expense of everyone else, including disabled people and taxpayers. Even if a “revenue solution” (that’s a euphemism for a tax increase) is found, schools will be out front arguing that they should get the largest share.
Cuts to schools mean that parents might have to pay for schoolchildren to participate in athletics. It might mean that class sizes grow a little, which is not a bad thing, despite schools’ claims. The school districts that have passed bond issues might consider delaying their building booms a few years.
None of these things seem as important as care for the disabled in Kansas.
The Kansas Watchdog piece Debunking Education Employment Claims uncovers a significant gap between numbers self-reported by Kansas schools and numbers gathered by a different source.
The Kansas State Department of Education asked school districts how many employees they will cut for the current school year. The answer — 3,701 employees to be cut across the state — is widely cited by school spending advocates like the Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) as evidence that public schools are making their share of cuts along with everyone else. Further, they say, more cuts will be harmful to the education of Kansas schoolchildren.
But evidence gathered by the Kansas Legislative Research Department finds that the actual decline in employment is only 875 jobs. That’s a lot different from 3,701.
The magnitude of this gap — the self-reported number is over four times the actual number — gives us yet another reason to carefully examine the facts that the school spending lobby produces and cites.
As the debate over the funding of Kansas public schools goes on, sometimes facts get lost in the shuffle, and school spending advocates sometimes invent “facts” in order to score political points by criticizing those working to bring inconvenient facts to light.
One particular corporation seems to drive the efforts. Kenne said, “Koch Industries’ address is the same as the Kansas Policy Institute.” “Do you want the state to be owned by Koch Industries?” she asked.
The reporter of this story, Dawne Leiker, quoted a government official who said something. I guess that constitutes news. But responsible reporting and journalism requires that there be at least some factual basis underlying the statement, or the reporter needs to say so. In this case, the facts are that the two organizations do not share the same address.
It’s worth noting that Leiker writes for the leftist blogs Everyday Citizen and Kansas Free Press. At Everyday Citizen you may read her poem Ode to Conservatism, in which she likens conservatives to “pit bulls, bedecked with luscious lips” who are offended by the existence of poor people, and that opportunity goes to those who beg for it, presumably from rich conservatives.
It’s tempting to feel a little empathy for school spending advocates like superintendent Kenne, as Kansas Policy Institute has uncovered and given publicity to large fund balances that schools could be using if they want to. And it’s not just KPI that says so. Kansas Deputy Commissioner of Schools Dale Dennis agrees.
But that’s not an excuse for playing fast and loose with facts.
Kenne may be taking her cue from the Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union). It, along with the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB), is at the forefront of defending the status quo in Kansas public school spending — that being a rapid rise. Their lobbyists and publications also show little regard for facts when scoring political points by criticizing those who uncover facts inconvenient for them.
As an example, a recent edition of “Under the Dome Today” referred to the “Kansas Policy Institute whose board of directors includes Koch Industries executives.” The facts are that of the members of the KPI Board of Trustees, two are former Koch industries employees. Neither has worked there for many years.
Misreporting simple facts like this should give us reason to question the facts used to support their larger and more important arguments.
Underlying this is the puzzle as to why Wichita-based Koch Industries is the subject of so much criticism from Kansas school spending advocates. With some 2,100 employees in Wichita and owning a large amount of property, Koch Industries and its employees pay many millions in taxes that go to school districts and other functions of government.
The company is involved in other ways, too. In 1991, Charles and Elizabeth Koch founded (and a Koch Family Foundation continues to fund) Youth Entrepreneurs Kansas, which “teaches free enterprise fundamentals through hands-on experiences and encourages students to start their own business, enhance their business skills for future career opportunities and continue into higher education.” YEK is present in many Wichita and surrounding area public schools.
As another example of Koch Foundation generosity, a page on the Wichita public school website tells of Education EDGE Koch Focus mini-grants given to support classroom projects in several areas.
Further, a recent letter appearing in the Wichita Eagle told of this: “Thanks to the support of USD 259’s administration, the financial generosity of the Koch foundation, and the expertise of Gilder Lehrman and the Bill of Rights Institute, programs such as these are having a profound positive impact on history and civics education.”
We need to carefully examine the facts and arguments advanced by school spending advocates. They could also learn to say “thank you” now and then.
This is part of the effort by the Kansas school spending lobby to pass tax increases on Kansans so that schools won’t have to face the same tough choices that businesses and families have to make.
The KNEA effort makes it easy to solicit legislators with just a few clicks of the mouse. There is a list of talking points with red arrows. By clicking on the arrows, folks who want to tax their fellow Kansans can include boilerplate text in their message to legislators.
Here are the teachers union talking points:
Kansas is in serious trouble. And it is not trouble caused by overspending; it is caused by over cutting.
Cuts made by the state in Medicaid have caused Kansans with disabilities to lose services and low-paid care-givers have seen their pay decline.
Our schools have cut employees and for the first time in generations, the educational opportunities available to our children are at risk of being cut and lost.
The safety of our communities is at risk as you approve cuts that will turn prisoners lose and close down correctional facilities.
Repairs and reconstruction on our highways will come to a halt if the state doesn’t get serious about these funding challenges.
For too long the legislature has been handing out corporate tax cuts while vulnerable programs have to cope with fewer and fewer resources. A legislature that is more interested in protecting corporate tax cuts than the vulnerable citizens of this state is a legislature that has lost its moral compass.
We have long enjoyed life in a state that knew how take care of its people, educate its children, and build great roads and highways. That quality of life is being eroded right now.
But you, as a state legislature, can turn things around. I urge you to pass a tax bill that will stop these cuts and protect our quality of life. House Bill 2475 will do that. And I for one am willing to pay a few pennies more for a loaf of bread if it means our schools stay open, our seniors have access to home-based care, the disabled are given a helping hand, our roads remain top quality, and our communities are kept safe.
Please support a revenue increase to protect the lives of Kansas citizens.
Today’s edition of Under the Dome Today — that’s the house organ of the Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union) — contains a story with the headline “Anti-Government Group launches another attack on public education.”
A more accurate headline might read “School spending advocacy group refuses to acknowledge budget solution that Kansas Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis says could be used.” But that’s a tad wordy.
The headline is over a story reporting on Kansas Policy Institute president Dave Trabert’s testimony to the Kansas House Appropriations Committee. In this testimony, according to the writer for the teachers union, Trabert “gave a presentation attacking the K-12 education system.”
KPI has found that Kansas schools are sitting on fund balances of some $700 million that could be used to make it through a tough budget year. Using these funds could let schools operate without making cuts to their budgets, and without increasing taxes or finding “revenue enhancements.”
School spending advocates dispute this. But Kansas Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis agrees with Trabert that these fund balances could be used — if the schools wanted to.
Schools, however, would rather find additional sources of revenues. Everyone else calls these taxes.
Chief school spending lobbyist Mark Tallman of the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) argued, according to the report, “many of the funds Trabert labels reserves are restricted or necessary to cover costs before government payments are received.”
The evidence we do have — uncovered by KPI — tells us that the balances in these funds are more than needed. That’s because they’ve been growing rapidly, by 53 percent over the last four years. The only way the fund balances can grow is if schools aren’t spending the money as fast as it’s going in the funds.
Mentioning facts like this somehow, according to the Kansas teachers union, constitutes an attack on public schools.
Here’s a question that Kansans should insist that school spending advocates like the Kansas teachers union and the Kansas Association of School Boards answer: Why did all school districts in Kansas except four declined to participate in efficiency audits last year? That’s an attack on the Kansas taxpayer, and also on Kansas schoolchildren who aren’t benefiting from the inefficiencies these audits could reveal.
(Kansas Liberty) “Kansas State Department of Education Deputy Commissioner says a common practice of legislators and school advocates is only citing the base state aid K-12 receives for gauging funding levels.”
(Kansas Liberty) “Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wiggans announced yesterday that he was dropping out of the race amid allegations that he had acted in an ethically questionable manner at a previous job.”
(Kansas Reporter) “Kansas’ economy — and its taxpayers — would be a lot better off if the state scrapped its current income tax system and replaced it with a single, 8 percent sales tax, says University of Kansas economist Art Hall. Hall, executive director of the university’s Center for Applied Economics, said a proposed 8 percent retail sales tax would replace 36 other state level taxes, including personal and corporate income taxes and would help make Kansas one of the most growth oriented state tax environments in the nation. Kansans would still pay local school district and property taxes, however.”
(Kansas Reporter) Kansas budget cuts mean state highways will stay snowpacked longer and wear out faster, the state’s transportation secretary, Deb Miller, told state Senate Ways and Means Committee members Tuesday. … Miller was one of 10 state executives or other officials who spoke to the Senate’s top budget writing panel about some of the challenges that an estimated $5.3 billion in Kansas tax revenues this year will present to their departments.”
(Kansas Watchdog) “The Schools for Fair Funding group met in Salina today and voted to sue the state for more funding for education. A number of Kansas media sources reported about this meeting. … None of these news sources ask questions that must be answered.”
(Kansas Watchdog) “An assistant state attorney general received permission Wednesday to work for a private tobacco ‘Master Settlement Agreement’ clearinghouse as long as he doesn’t deal with Kansas matters.”
(State of the State, Kansas) “This week we look at 6 people who served as the Governor of Kansas. We also visit the Kansas Historical Society to find out about Christmas Past in Kansas.”
(Kansas Health Institute News Service) “The state needs a higher levy on tobacco and a new nursing home tax would help the industry, the governor said today in an interview with KHI News Service. Other taxes also should be explored to help balance the budget because cuts to needed services over the past two years have gone too deep already, he said.”
School spending advocates claim that spending on schools in Kansas is declining rapidly. It’s true that base state aid per pupil, the starting point for the Kansas school finance formula, has been cut.
But when considering the total spending by schools, a quite different picture emerges. From the Kansas Liberty story:
Dale Dennis, deputy commissioner of education for the Kansas State Department of Education, said the discrepancy in reports is a result of the common practice of legislators and school advocates only citing the base state aid K-12 receives for gauging funding levels.
“They use general state aid, which is the primary operating fund,” Dennis told Kansas Liberty. “But they don’t use the total.”
On Monday and Tuesday, the Kansas House Appropriations Committee held hearings, and big topics were Kansas school funding and the Kansas budget. The reaction by school spending advocates to two speakers is illustrative of the highly divisive nature of public school operation and funding in Kansas.
We need to label them school spending advocates — and government schools at that — because it is increasingly apparent that increasing school spending (or avoiding necessary reductions in spending) at the expense of all reason is their goal. Suggestions that schools should operate more efficiently or learn to live with a little less — as many Kansas families and businesses are doing — will result in attacks on the messenger, sometimes unnecessarily personal in nature.
An example of the criticism made by government school spending advocates is that of Kathy Cook of Kansas Families for Education. In her newsletter she spoke of “Black Monday in Topeka,” writing “From House Appropriations to the Governor’s press briefing, it was nothing but bad news for our schools and our students. It was the longest drive home, and not without tears for all that is about to be lost for our kids.”
She made personal attacks on both Chappell and Corkins without making substantive criticism about their testimony.
At the Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union), the “Under the Dome Today” newsletter carried a heading reading “Walt Chappell, Bob Corkins attack public education.” I heard no such attack from either speaker. They suggested ways that schools could operate differently to save money (Chappell) and to organize their reporting and accounting to better track spending and results (Corkins).
To the Kansas education establishment, evidently, these suggestions represent unwanted meddling in school affairs.
Reacting to the testimony of Chappell and Corkins, one leftist Kansas blog took the committee and its chairman to task for holding “a hearing that was lopsided even by Adolf Eichmann’s standards.” I was there for the entire afternoon, and after these two spoke, I heard three school district superintendents plea for more funds. Then, topping off the day was chief school spending and taxing advocate Mark Tallman, the lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB). There was, believe me, much pleading for more school funding.
Some of the testimony was difficult to listen to. Fred Kaufman, superintendent of the Hays school system, said twice that there is no advocacy group for school administrators. I wonder if he has heard of United School Administrators of Kansas. This organization’s website describes itself as “a statewide ‘umbrella’ organization comprised of members of ten school administrator associations. We represent more than 2,000 individual administrators statewide.”
The backdrop of all this is that the actual decrease in Kansas school funding, when considering all sources of funding, is quite small. As of August — before the governor’s cuts on Monday — estimated Kansas school spending per pupil for the 2009 to 2010 school year, when considering all sources of school revenue, fell by only 0.64%. That’s quite a bit less than one percent. It’s a rounding error, a fluctuation that could also have been caused by events such as, say, a cold winter causing higher utility bills. It’s an event that should have no affect on the ability of the schools to educate children.
The reductions the governor made on Monday will increase the cut that schools will have to absorb. When considering this, it’s important to remember that schools fared much better than many state agencies this year. Schools still have a tremendous amount of money to work with, a fact that schools work hard to hide.
Strong evidence that schools have plenty of money is that fund balances have been increasing. The way that these funds — and we’re talking about nearly $700 million in operating funds, not capital funds — increase their balances is by more money going in than is spent.
The uncovering of the existence of these balances is strongly attacked by school spending advocates. Despite many school administrator’s claims, sunlight and transparency is not their goal.
(Kansas Watchdog) Many State of Kansas officials, including university professors, are required by law to file conflict of interest statements, called “statements of substantial interest (SSIs),” with their institutions and the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. But 33 university employees are simply ignoring their legal requirements.
(Kansas Watchdog) Star Parker, founder and president of the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), told the Wichita Rotary Club during a Monday luncheon that freedom and personal responsibility, though under attack from Washington, are the cure for poverty. She went on to say that poverty in the black community was made worse by government dependency
(Kansas Liberty) But in fact the state’s teachers’ union is a key partner in a coalition of far-left groups — including ACORN — who are demanding a ‘public option’ in health care.
The National Education Association has a reputation for supporting a liberal agenda, from its advocacy of gay marriage to its most recent position, supporting the health care plan being pushed by Democrats, including a public insurance option.
(State of the State Kansas) This week we focus on ethanol. It seems strange that something as simple as a kernel of corn is where farming, science, money and politics intersect. Over the course of the week, someone told me that it all came down to Iowa Primary politics. Iowa is in the corn belt and as the first state to cast the primary vote with their December caucus, the speaker speculated that no aspiring politician would ever cross a corn farmer.
(Kansas Watchdog) The Kansas 2010 budget is headed for a serious shortfall with two of the three most important revenue sources down significantly through September and the third poised to come up short in the coming months.
Recently Kansas University professor Art Hall, along with a co-author, published a study explaining the funding crisis in KPERS, the Kansas Public Employee Retirement system. In summary, the report states: “The key finding of the study is that the KPERS system will not be in actuarial balance over the thirty year amortization period set in GASB standards. This means that KPERS will continue to accumulate unfunded liabilities for the foreseeable future. It is highly likely that KPERS will continue to impose a heavy tax burden on future generations.”
This finding has raised quite a protest from those who expect to receive a benefit from KPERS in retirement. It may be the school districts and teachers that are protesting the loudest. What’s really strange is that they’re protesting what appear to be facts based on solid research.
An example of the blowback to this report is when Harold Schlechtweg, business representative of Service Employees International Union Local (SEIU) 513 in Wichita, addressed the board of USD 259, the Wichita public school district regarding the KPERS report. He advocated for raising taxes earlier this year in front of the Wichita City Council so that employees he represents wouldn’t lose their jobs to less expensive outsourcing.
To the school board, he said that when “people make a political intervention — and that’s exactly what that report was — I think that some requirement should be placed on them that they consider the impact of that.”
This is a puzzling statement. Is Schlechtweg asking for some sort of censorship or approval to be obtained before think tanks or advocacy groups publish their articles? I don’t think he would consent to this requirement being placed on himself, as many of his arguments wouldn’t pass any sort of sanity test.
For example, in a Wichita Eagle op-ed earlier this year, Schlechtweg said that if wages and benefits paid to Wichita parks workers were cut, the community would suffer. Let’s remind him who pays the wages and benefits he tried to protect: the taxpayers of the city of Wichita. The interests of the workers he represents are in direct opposition to that of the Wichita taxpayer.
Schlechtweg (and others) object to use of the word bankrupt, but if that accurately describes the financial condition of KPERS, why should we gloss over it?
He also mentioned the large losses in 401k plans. That’s not true for everyone. If a person’s funds were invested in, say, money market funds, there would have been no losses.
Employing the tactics often used by the left when faced with issues not favorable to their cause, Schlechtweg attacks personalities. He slams the authors of the study as “not friends of public education,” naming Americans for Prosperity, the tea party groups, and the Kochs specifically.
He praised the Kansas National Education Association or KNEA, the teachers union), for their work in providing information on this issue. Mr. Schlechtweg, if you’re going to discount the arguments of certain advocacy groups, can we agree that the teachers union is one of the most single-sided, uncompromising, and untruthful advocacy groups?
And while bashing the political motives of others, doesn’t Schlechtweg realize that the KNEA is all about politics, if about anything at all?
The fix for KPERS, he said, is to fund it. A problem, of course, is that taxes will likely have to be raised, and people don’t like to pay taxes. But to advocates like Schlechtweg and the SEIU, that’s not a problem. The taxpayer, it seems, is both their source of funds and focus of their scorn.
Mark Tallman, assistant executive director of the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB), is arguing that spending on education is more important to a state than moderate tax rates. He makes this case in a recent Topeka Capital-Journal article Education a key to prosperity.
As reported: “Tallman said action next year by Kansas lawmakers to cut spending rather than increase investment in education through tax hikes would weaken student instruction and damage prospects of long term growth in the economy.”
There are several problems with Tallman’s reasoning. First, high-tax states are suffering compared to low-tax states. A recent report by the American Legislative Exchange Council reports on what’s happening to high-tax states. Citing California, the report states:
Defenders of the high-tax and high-spending conditions that precipitated this fall into the economic cellar argue that big government policies and taxes on the wealthy are necessary to protect the poor and the disadvantaged. Yet when flight occurs away from an area, it is always the highest achievers and those with the most wealth, capital and entrepreneurial drive who tend to “get out of Dodge” first, leaving the middle class, and then eventually only the poor and disadvantaged behind. In fact, it is only those individuals with wealth who have the means and thus the ability to choose where they will reside. Consequently, the poor are left victims of the misguided liberal policies that were enacted to assist them.
Tallman is one of these defenders of high taxes and high spending. As the Capital-Journal article reported: “Nationally, [Tallman] said, high income states were more likely to be high tax states — not the reverse.”
The problem is that Tallman has the chain of events backwards. Wealthy states like New York were wealthy before they became high tax states. Now, as taxes rise in these states — and many of these are looking to raise taxes even more to combat budget deficits — the wealthy in these states are leaving, taking their tax payments with them.
We must avoid this flight of wealth in Kansas. We should be enacting policies that will attract high-tax state refugees. But when they read special interest lobbyists like Tallman calling for higher taxes, well, it doesn’t do much to attract people and capital to Kansas.
I might not be so harsh on Tallman’s advocacy if what he wants — dramatically increased spending on public schools in Kansas — was a worthwhile goal. But it’s becoming apparent that in Kansas, that after years of rapidly rising spending on schools, we have little to show for it. This is important to recognize, because one thing Tallman says is true: Education is vitally important.
Yes, our education commissioner and many local school districts claim rising test scores. This is at the same time that Kansas scores on the federal tests are flat, or rising only slowly. See Are Kansas school test scores believable? for an explanation.
If Mr. Tallman was truly concerned about the education of Kansas children rather than the special interests of the groups he lobbies for (the above-mentioned KASB and Kansas National Education Association or KNEA, the teachers union), he could do a few things that would absolutely make a difference.
First: These rising test scores, are they real? If the KASB and KNEA would call for an independent audit or investigation of these tests, we could then have some confidence that the claimed rise in performance is valid.
Then, he could realize that what would give vitality to education in Kansas is what’s working in other states: charter schools and other school choice programs. Tallman and his groups consistently and ferociously beat down any attempt to introduce these innovations in Kansas. Even President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are promoting charter schools.
Also, differential pay for teachers — another idea that Obama and Duncan promote — would accomplish several things, such as giving truly accomplished and effective teachers recognition for their achievements. It also would give credence to the idea that teachers are professionals, recognition that teachers ask for at the same time they are represented by a labor union that strips away the responsibilities that accompany professionalism.
Soutar cites a KAC report: “The long-term solution to avoid increasing budget gaps is to update and modernize the Kansas tax system in a way that accurately reflects the current economy and generates sufficient revenues for state funding needs.”
This guarded language is similar to that issued by the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union). A recent communique to its members contained this: “You see, the Kansas revenue system has something that tax folks call a ’structural deficit.’ Structural deficits result when spending increases outpace revenue collections. … When the revenue system is not structured to keep up with the cost drivers, you get a structural deficit. You can cut your way out of it temporarily but unless you address the revenue system, eventually the deficit will return. … To get Kansas out of this mess, the legislature simply must modernize the Kansas tax system! … It is long past time to overhaul the Kansas tax system.”
Modernize. It’s something everyone can agree on — until you realize that the goal of this modernization is to increase the revenue flowing to the state. Rarely is cutting spending or programs considered. Instead, more tax revenue is the solution.
According to Soutar’s reporting, Gary Brunk, president of Kansas Action for Children, said that there are programs that are “ineffective and should be defunded.” But not his program, of course: “I don’t think that process would reduce our need for funding though.”
I’ll bet the heads of all programs in Kansas feel that way.
In Kansas, as across the nation, the teachers union is an important political force. Using a powerful message that no one can oppose — the welfare of schoolchildren — teachers unions press their real agenda.
Increasing taxes to support more spending on schools.
Opposing any form of school choice, including charter schools.
Opposing the Kansas legislature’s ability to set school spending levels, as the Kansas Supreme Court has shown it is willing to spend more than the legislature will.
Increasing teacher salaries.
Opposing any form of merit pay, incentive pay, or differential pay.
Opposing any weakening of teacher tenure.
Most of these items might be what you expect from a labor union that depends on government spending to pay its members’ salaries. But that doesn’t mean these items advance the cause of schoolchildren in Kansas.
Consider differential teacher pay and charter schools, for example. These are being promoted by President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, but the existing public education bureaucracy and teachers unions are firmly opposed to these reforms.
So we really need to wonder if the message of the teachers union — “it’s all about the kids” — represents the union’s true mission and agenda.
Here’s some evidence to help you decide. Candidates for the Kansas Legislature, if they want to be considered for an endorsement by the KNEA, complete a lengthy questionnaire. This document is really more a manifesto telling candidates what they must believe and do to get the union’s endorsement and a contribution. It appears at the end of this article.
In the past, I’ve analyzed a few of these questions. Here are links to these articles:
Kansans need to be aware of the agenda of this organization and its allied school spending lobby partners. Using an unimpeachable issue — “it’s all about the kids” — this organization seeks to increase spending on public schools at great cost to Kansas taxpayers. This is at the same time it works hard to keep the government school monopoly on public dollars for education in place, stomping out any form of school choice programs that are found to be cost-saving and effective in many states.
What’s really telling about this document is its complaining of the political power of groups like Americans For Prosperity and Club For Growth. That’s because without a doubt, the richest and most powerful lobby in Kansas is the school spending lobby. Browse through the finance reports filed with the Kansas Secretary of State, and you’ll see that the KNEA spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in support of candidates for the Kansas House and Senate, and other offices too.
The document criticizes Kansas economic development spending for not producing “economic expansion or significant job growth.” But the school spending lobby is quick to highlight the purported economic benefit of government spending on schools. They don’t tell us that a dollar spent on public schools is a dollar taken through taxation. If left in the hands of its original owner, economic activity would have taken place, too.
What is the problem in Kansas?
The KNEA and the school spending lobby believes that Kansas has a revenue problem. They call it a “structural deficit.” What it means is that Kansas taxes are not high enough: “The plain fact is that the tax policy of the legislature is designed to keep Kansas in a fiscal hole. … You see, the Kansas revenue system has something that tax folks call a ’structural deficit.’ Structural deficits result when spending increases outpace revenue collections.”
Many Kansans, including Americans For Prosperity, believe that Kansas has a spending problem. According to Kansas state director Derrick Sontag, if Kansas spending had increased by even as much as 5% each year for the last five years, our state would have a $2 billion surplus.
Instead, spending has increased so rapidly that Kansas, at the start of this year, faced a $1 billion deficit.
The school spending lobby also believes that tax cuts are a “cost” to Kansas government that we can’t afford: “In a memo prepared by legislative research in response to a legislative inquiry, a list of 70 new tax cuts have been enacted between 2000 and 2008. Eighteen have come in the last four years with a total cost to the state through 2013 of $1.135 billion. This does not include $87 million in foregone revenue due to a decision to not decouple from the federal tax code last year.”
Instead of believing that money first belongs to those who earned it, the school spending lobby believes that letting people retain more of their earnings is an expense we can’t afford.
Where is the political power in Kansas?
The KNEA complains: “But it [increasing taxes] won’t happen until legislators put the good of Kansas ahead of an endorsement — and the political money that comes with it — by Americans for Prosperity and the Club for Growth.”
It’s ironic to hear the school spending lobby complain that their opponents are using “political money.” KNEA is one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in Topeka. Large school districts like USD 259, the Wichita public school district have their own full-time lobbyists — paid for by taxpayers. There’s all the campaign contributions, as mentioned above.
Plus, an endorsement by the KNEA is highly sought after. Candidates complete a lengthy questionnaire to earn its endorsement. That document is really more a manifesto telling candidates what they must believe and do to get the union’s endorsement and a contribution. You can read last year’s version by clicking on KNEA legislative questionnaire.
The single-minded goal of the school spending lobby is to spend so much that Kansas is put out of business. They aren’t shy about using political money — and taxpayer-funded lobbying and lawsuits — to achieve that goal.
Al Sharpton called school reform the civil rights challenge of our time. He said that the enemy of opportunity for blacks in the U.S. was once Jim Crow; today, in a slap at the educational establishment, he said it was “Professor James Crow.” Sharpton is only partly correct. School reform is not solely a racial issue; it’s a vital issue for the entire nation.
According to press reports, Schools for Fair Funding — the Montoy school lawsuit finance districts — is examining the possibility of re-opening the school finance lawsuit because of the cuts to education that were made by the 2009 legislature.
Speaking at at the regular weekly meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club on May 22, 2009, Kansas House of Representatives member Jason Watkins addressed the Kansas budget, Kansas Republicans, and school spending.
Regarding the budget during the past legislative session, which ended in May: Watkins felt there was an opportunity for reform that the legislature should have taken advantage of. The injection of federal stimulus money, however, reduced the urgency of the Kansas budget crisis, and no reform took place.
At one time Kansas played a leading role in education equality, as Topeka was home to the school that produced the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision by the United States Supreme Court.
Today, however, Kansas lags in educational freedom and choice. The public school lobby in Kansas does everything it can to stomp out any spark of educational freedom and choice in Kansas. The two organizations at the forefront of this effort — the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) — expend huge amounts of energy and money to protect their entrenched interests. Their interests, unfortunately, run contrary to the interests of Kansas schoolchildren and their parents.
But where they’re able to exist, charter schools usually do a good job. They often excel. And where they don’t do a good job, they usually go out of business.
This newsletter is the update of legislative action provided by KNEA, the Kansas National Education Association. For those of you who might think that an organization with such a lofty name is dedicated to the betterment of the education of Kansas schoolchildren, I must remind you that KNEA is the teachers union. Sorry about that.
Despite the fact that Kansas school spending has been increasing rapidly in recent years, and despite the fact that K-12 education has been spared the large cuts that most other state agencies are facing, it’s still okay to whine.
Today’s issue, which you can read by clicking on Under the Dome Today for April 23, 2009, contains some 417 words that hope for something to happen, without using the words that describe the thing hoped for.
The issue of Under the Dome for April 17, 2009 reveals this organization’s appetite for tax revenue is large, and they’re always on the prowl for more.
You can often tell how good a measure will be for taxpayers and prosperity by how strongly the people who live on government spending protest. When they distort arguments to the point of lying, you know it’s going to be really bad for them if a measure passes — and really good for everyone else. Proposition K, a proposal to reform property tax appraisals in Kansas, is such a case.
The “Kansas Political Action Committee,” a group associated with the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) has a questionnaire it asks candidates for the Kansas legislature to complete. After reading a few of these questions, it became clear to me that the questions are formulated to advance the interests of the teachers union and others wrapped up in — and profiting from — the public school bureaucracy and its monopoly on the use of state education funds.
The “Kansas Political Action Committee,” a group associated with the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) has a questionnaire it asks candidates for the Kansas legislature to complete. After reading a few of these questions, it became clear to me that the questions are formulated to advance the interests of the teachers union and others wrapped up in — and profiting from — the public school bureaucracy and its monopoly on the use of state education funds.
Here’s a question they asked:
KNEA opposes private school vouchers or tuition tax credits. Such proposals will divert needed resources from public schools. KNEA believes that every child in Kansas deserves a quality public school.
After reading them, it became clear to me that the questions are formulated to advance the interests of the teachers union and others wrapped up in — and profiting from — the public school bureaucracy and its monopoly on the use of state education funds.
The questions contain many statements expressing support for more taxing and spending by the State of Kansas. They serve to illustrate very well the biases and thinking of our state’s educational bureaucracy. Over the next few weeks, I want to present some of these questions and how difficult it is to answer them. Then I think Kansans will then know more about the true agenda of the people running the public school machine in Kansas.
What is the higher priority? Should the Legislature send $143 million more to schools or preserve the form of government our forefathers carefully designed over two hundred years ago? The separation of powers doctrine is fundamental to maintaining our free society because it maintains a balance of powers with the judiciary unable to control the budget. That is until last Friday when the Kansas Supreme Court blurred the lines and came out with a ruling that the Kansas Legislature should appropriate an additional $143 million to the K-12 schools, for starters. The Court expects $568 million more after that.
The powerful and left-wing National Education Association’s Kansas affiliate is working hard to raise your taxes. In a February Olathe News article Terry Forsyth, one of the Kansas National Education Association’s (KNEA) lobbyists, is quoted claiming that there is no correlation between taxes and job growth.
The Kansas Legislature blew through a $900 million surplus in two years, and now they're asking you for more. Learn more from AFP-Kansas, the state's voice for economic freedom and growth, of how we can return fiscal sanity to the Kansas Statehouse.
Government is essentially the negation of liberty. — Ludwig von Mises
It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government. — Thomas Paine
It does not take a majority to prevail, but an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. — Samuel Adams
You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor where they are, nor how many of them there are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you know, and no more: first, that they exist; second, that they will find you. — Albert Jay Nock
A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that ... it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. — Milton Friedman
As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power. — F.A. Hayek
The kind of rules we should have are the kind that we'd make if our worst enemy were in charge. — Walter E. Williams
Your principle has placed these words above the entrance of the legislative chamber: “whosoever acquires any influence here can obtain his share of legal plunder.” And what has been the result? All classes have flung themselves upon the doors of the chamber crying: “A share of the plunder for me, for me!” — Frederic Bastiat
This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government. — Thomas Sowell
While the short-run prospects for liberty at home and abroad may seem dim, the proper attitude for the Libertarian to take is that of unquenchable long-run optimism. — Murray N. Rothbard
Barbra Streisand told Diane Sawyer that we're in a global warming crisis, and we can expect more and more intense storms, droughts and dust bowls. But before they act, weather experts say they're still waiting to hear from Celine Dion. — Jay Leno
The great virtue of free enterprise is that it forces existing businesses to meet the test of the market continuously, to produce products that meet consumer demands at lowest cost, or else be driven from the market. It is a profit-and-loss system. Naturally, existing businesses generally prefer to keep out competitors in other ways. That is why the business community, despite its rhetoric, has so often been a major enemy of truly free enterprise. — Milton Friedman
Increasingly, it seems that the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals is that the conservatives know government is force. But that doesn't stop them from using it. — John Stossel
One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license. — P.J. O'Rourke
Late one night in Washington, D.C. a mugger wearing a ski mask jumped into the path of a well-dressed man and stuck a gun in his ribs. "Give me your money!" he demanded. Indignant, the affluent man replied, "You can't do this. I'm a United States Congressman!" "In that case," replied the robber, "give me my money!" — Related by Walter Block
The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives, who are often attached to the monarchical traditions of a happily obsolete European past, libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy. Libertarians are the only genuine current heirs of Jefferson, Paine, Jackson, and the abolitionists. — From "For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto" by Murray N. Rothbard
No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: “But what would you replace it with?” When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with? — Thomas Sowell
Here’s Williams’ law: Whenever the profit incentive is missing, the probability that people’s wants can be safely ignored is the greatest. — Walter E. Williams
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. — Barry Goldwater
A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. — Milton Friedman
When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself. — F.A. Hayek
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. — H.L. Mencken
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. — C.S. Lewis
When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. — Benjamin Franklin
What is euphemistically called government-corporate "partnership" is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn’t work. — Ronald Reagan
Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. — Ludwig von Mises
The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn’t much matter who controls it, because it can’t do you much harm. — Harry Browne
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. — Frederic Bastiat
It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil. — F.A. Hayek
Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom. — Milton Friedman
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. — Will Rogers
The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened. — Norman Thomas
[The political system] tends to give undue political power to small groups that have highly concentrated interests; to give greater weight to obvious, direct and immediate effects of government action than to possibly more important but concealed, indirect and delayed effects; to set in motion a process that sacrifices the general interest to serve special interests rather than the other way around. There is, as it were, an invisible hand in politics that operates in precisely the opposite direction to Adam Smith's invisible hand. — Milton Friedman
I'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard. — William F. Buckley Jr.
Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end. — Lord Acton
The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. — Milton Friedman
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens. — Adam Smith
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. — H.L. Mencken
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard. — Alan Greenspan, “Gold and Economic Freedom” [1966]
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals — the technique of the marketplace. — Milton Friedman
The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one’s property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage. — Walter Williams
In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then ... they came for me ...
And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
— Pastor Martin Niemöller
There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money — if a gun is held to his head. — P.J. O'Rourke
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community. — David Boaz
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. — Thomas Jefferson
After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet. — Walter E. Williams
One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary. — Ayn Rand
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick. ... It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. — Adam Smith
Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. — Immanuel Kant
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
