Kansas State Department of Education makes available tables of the number of employees working in Kansas schools. Employees are classified in two broad categories, Certified and Non-Certified. Within each category, employees are further classified by job type such as Superintendent, Curriculum Specialist, and Social Worker.
Visualization of certified employees, showing Principals and Curriculum Specialists highlighted.I’ve gathered the tables back to fiscal year 2002 (the 2001 – 2002 school year) and present them in an interactive visualization. There are separate visualizations for Certified and Non-Certified employees. In each, as shown in the instruction, you may check the check boxes to add or remove types of employees. For the employee types that are shown, you may click to highlight types apart from the others.
The line charts show the relative change in the number of employees. You may learn whether the number of employee type A is growing faster or slower than employee type B.
The visualization also holds tables showing the number of employees.
Click here to open the visualization in a new window.
Reactions to the release of National Assessment of Educational Progress scores for Kansas and the nation. Also, an interactive visualization.
Results for the 2015 administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress became available October 28. The test, sometimes called the “nation’s report card,” is described as “the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America’s students know and can do in various subject areas.”
The Wichita Eagle didn’t have much to say on this, reporting “Results from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress show that Kansas scores dropped in most areas since 2013, state education officials announced Wednesday. The decreases echo a downward trend in scores nationwide on the NAEP exam, also known as the Nation’s Report Card.”
The Kansas State Department of Education reported “Results from the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, show that Kansas followed the national trend of decreasing scores. Across the nation this year, both fourth- and eighth-grade mathematic scores, as well as eighth-grade reading scores, are lower in 2015 than in 2013. Fourth-grade reading scores aren’t significantly different from 2013.”
The Lawrence Journal-Worldused the Associated Press story: “Kansas schoolchildren are faring worse on a test known as the nation’s report card. The state’s performance dip follows a national trend of falling scores on the National Assessment of Educational progress.” So too did the Topeka Capital-Journal.
The Kansas Association of School Boards noted “State and national education leaders, including KASB, are currently researching the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, which were released earlier this week. Both nationally and in Kansas the 2015 NAEP results decreased slightly. … While Kansas results decreased slightly, Kansas student achievement remained above the national average in 4th- and 8th grade math and 8th grade reading and was the same as the national average in 4th grade reading. KASB is currently doing an in-depth analysis of the NAEP results and release its findings as soon as possible.”
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback issued a statement: “Today’s NAEP scores reflect the need for real education reform to benefit our students. This is a complex issue with no single cause or solution and today’s results confirm a trend showing that even though education funding has increased by more than $1 billion over the past decade, NAEP scores have remained largely flat. … While our Kansas schools remain above the national average, we can and should do more. We want our students to excel and have the skills they need to succeed in school and life in the 21st century. To do that, we must work to get more dollars into the classroom and into the infrastructure our teachers need to improve student performance, particularly in math. We need flexibility at the local level to address students’ needs, and we should support the great efforts of the thousands of teachers who work every day to help give our students opportunity for a brighter future.”
Some of these statements compared Kansas scores to the national average. That is not appropriate if there are subgroups that score at different levels, and if the composition of these subgroups varies significantly between states or the national average. That is the case with Kansas, which has significantly lower minority populations than the nation and some states. Care must be used when making comparisons.
To assist in understanding NAEP scores, I’ve updated two interactive visualizations with 2015 data. One visualization shows subgroups based on race/ethnicity, and the other shows subgroups based on national school lunch program eligibility, which is a commonly-used surrogate for income.
Each visualization has a number of tabs that display data in different ways. Most tabs allow for filtering of data in several ways.
An interactive visualization of data provided to members of the Kansas 2015 Special Committee on K-12 Student Success.
The Kansas 2015 Special Committee on K-12 Student Success held its first meeting on October 23. As part of the meeting, data on school spending was made available. Of particular interest may be the data on instruction spending.
Dale M. Dennis, Deputy Commissioner of Education, provided committee members these definitions of instruction spending categories:
Instruction — Includes the activities dealing directly with the interaction between teachers and students. This catgory [sic] includes only regular and part-time teachers, teacher aides or assistants, homebound teachers, hospital-based teachers, substitute teachers, and teachers on sabbatical leave.
Student Support Services — Includes the following services: attendance and social work, guidance, health, psychological, speech pathology and audiology.
Instructional Support Services — Includes the following services: improvement of instruction, library and media, instruction-related technology, and academic student assessment.
Example table from visualization.Committee members were supplied with spreadsheets holding one year’s spending. I’ve gathered the spreadsheets for the three years that were provided and present them in one interactive visualization. One view of the data shows the data items for each school district, with the three years shown together. I added amount per pupil calculations.
Example from visualization.A second view shows the per-pupil values as a line graph over the three years.
This spending data represents Kansas state support only and does not include spending from federal or local funding sources. The provided data was not adjusted for inflation.
Click here to open the visualization in a new window. Visualization created using Tableau Public.
Part of the difficulty in understanding and debating school spending in Kansas is the starting point, that is, the lack of factual information. From 2012, a look at a survey that revealed the level of knowledge of school spending by Kansans.
When asked about the level of spending on public schools in Kansas, citizens are generally uninformed or misinformed. They also incorrectly thought that spending has declined in recent years.
These are some of the findings of a survey commissioned by Kansas Policy Institute and conducted by SurveyUSA, a national opinion research firm.
In a press release, KPI president Dave Trabert said “As Kansans consider how to deal with the potential fallout from another school lawsuit, pressure to expand Medicaid, ballooning pension deficits and concerns about rising property taxes, we wanted to check again to see how perceptions of the facts influences opinions. Good information is essential to informed opinions and it is clear that when given the facts, Kansans offer much different responses than what is typically reported from overly-simplistic public surveys.”
Here’s the first question of the survey, asking about Kansas state spending on schools: “How much state funding do you think Kansas school districts currently receive per pupil each year from JUST the state of Kansas? Less than $4,000 per pupil? Between $4,000 and $5,000? Between $5,000 and $6,000? Or more than $6,000 per pupil?”
The correct answer is the last category, according to Kansas State Department of Education. State spending on Kansas schools, on a per-pupil basis, is $6,984 for the most recent school year. That’s total state-funded spending of $3,184,163,559 divided by 456,000.50 full time equivalent students. 13 percent of survey respondents chose the correct category. 44 percent thought the correct answer was less than $4,000.
Opposing teacher merit pay based on fairness issues isn’t being fair to students. Instead, it’s cruel to students.
A letter to the Wichita Eagle states “I think it is impossible to develop a fair merit pay plan for education.” Reading the letter, it is clear that the writer is concerned about fair to teachers. Instead, we ought to be concerned about what is fair to students.
There is much research showing the link between good teachers and learning. Most studies show that teacher effectiveness is the most important thing under the control of schools, and far more important than class size. Paying effective teachers well is important for retaining the best teachers. But even more important: If teachers can be paid based on their effectiveness, that will provide a signal to bad teachers that they should either work to improve their skills, or leave teaching.
Is it overly cruel and harsh to say there are some teachers so bad that they should ushered out of the profession? It depends on who is most important: Teachers, or students?
Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile. And remember that a good teacher costs as much as an average one, whereas halving class size would require that you build twice as many classrooms and hire twice as many teachers.
Gladwell’s article speaks as to how teachers can be evaluated so we can find the best and the worst. That’s important, because if we retain the worst teachers and pay them the same as the best teachers, we aren’t being fair to students.
There is an update with data for a new year; click here.
Kansas school fund balances rose slightly this year, both in absolute dollars and dollars per pupil.
As Kansans debate school funding, as the Kansas Supreme Court considers ordering more school spending, and as school spending boosters insisting that school spending has been slashed, a fact remains constant: Kansas schools don’t spend all the money they’ve been given. Fund balances have been growing almost every year, including this year.
Fund balances are necessary for cash flow management. The issue is what levels of balances are necessary. Based on recent data from the Kansas State Department of Education, fund balances rose rapidly after 2008, and have remained largely level since 2011.
I’ve gathered data about unspent Kansas school funds and presented it as an interactive visualization. You may explore the data yourself by using the visualization. Click here to open the visualization in a new window. Data is from Kansas State Department of Education. Visualization created using Tableau Public.
Example from Kansas school fund balances visualization.
Why can’t Kansas public school spending advocates — especially a former Kansas state budget director — tell the truth about schools and spending, wonders Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute.
Kansas Center for Economic Growth abuses the truth on school funding … again
Duane Goossen, former Kansas state budget directorThe Kansas Center for Economic Growth and Duane Goossen steadfastly refuse to publicly debate school finance and state budget issues with us, as their work is so easily shown to be false, misleading and otherwise distorted (see here, here, here, and here for examples). Mr. Goossen’s most recent piece is another fine example of how they abuse the truth.
He has a table called State Aid and Enrollment that is sourced to page 60 of Kansas July Comparison Report, but much of the information in his table does not appear on page 60. The total amount of $4.059 billion is there and two of the smaller items but not the rest. A few items — KPERS payments, Local Option Budget Aid and Capital Outlay Aid — are close to what we found in other documents but not the $2.639 billion he calls General Classroom Aid. And you can’t find that anywhere because there is no such thing as “General Classroom Aid.”
KCEG and other “just spend more” proponents often make reference to “classroom aid” in ways to make it appear that the Legislature is not providing enough “classroom aid” but here’s the dirty little secret you (and especially teachers) aren’t supposed to know: only local school boards and superintendents decide how much money is spent on instruction. The Kansas State Department of Education has an official definition of “Instruction” spending which is often used interchangeably with “classroom” but there is no official aid classification for “classroom.” Mr. Goossen and friends are just making it up for political purposes.
Under both the old school formula and the temporary block grant system, districts get several different types of aid but they alone decide how much of the multiple discretionary amounts received are used for Instruction, Administration, Student Support, Maintenance and other cost centers. Even Capital Outlay Aid (contrary to Goossen’s implication) can used for Instruction purposes (and is) as set forth in the KSDE Accounting Manual.
Here are a few more examples of the truth being tortured by Mr. Goossen:
“The Kansas Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to increase [equalization] aid …” Not true. The Supreme Court said the legislature could increase equalization funding or they could write a new equalization formula and not spend more money. Legislators chose to spend $109 million more. Even the District Court, which didn’t get much right about Gannon, acknowledged this point.
State Special Education Aid is shown as a decline of $6 million but it is really an increase of $46 million. The original posting of the July Comparison Report didn’t include $52 million in Federal ARRA pass through but a former state budget director should know that the total was more than the amount listed for state aid. He also understated the increase in state aid by another $53 million for Federal ARRA money included in General State Aid.
KPERS is included in the amounts listed under block grants and while it has gone up, he says “… school districts must still pay the bill.” That’s true, but some of that money goes for KPERS benefits of current employees, and local school boards chose to increase employment more than 8% over the last ten years while enrollment grew by just 4%. That forces money to be diverted from regular aid to pay the higher KPERS cost, which also happens when school boards choose to have district employees perform functions that could be done in the private sector.
Capital Improvement Aid helps some districts “… with bond payments for buildings but [does] nothing to cover enrollment increases.” That’s true, but again, Goossen fails to mention that district choices to construct new buildings … sometimes larger or sooner than needed … diverts money that could otherwise be used for general aid.
“State aid for classrooms has actually gone down…” That is a false statement because there is no such thing as “state aid for classrooms” but actual Instruction spending increased by $214 million or 7.3% between 2011 and 2014 even without counting a dollar of KPERS. Of course, Instruction spending could have gone up even more if districts had chosen to direct some of the increased spending on other operating areas to Instruction, chosen to operate other areas more efficiently and spent the savings on Instruction or used some of their unused aid from prior years instead of holding it in cash reserves.
Goossen says the block grant system is “not a recipe for creating world-class schools” as though that is some sort of revelation. The block grant system is only a temporary funding mechanism put in place to allow time to build a new student-focused funding system, replacing a dysfunctional, institution-focused system that most certainly was not a recipe for creating world-class schools.
Here’s what the old system produced after the injection of nearly $2 billion over the last ten years:
Only 32% of the 2015 graduating class who took the ACT test are considered college-ready in English, Reading, Math and Science. ACT test scores have barely changed.
Only 38% of 4th grade students are Proficient in Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a test that the Kansas Department of Education declared to be valid and reliable in a November 1, 2011 press release.
Low Income 4th graders are almost 2 years’ worth of learning behind others in Math (NAEP).
Only 24% of Low Income 8th graders are Proficient in Math (NAEP) and at the current pace, it will take 240 years for them to catch up to other students, only 54% of whom were Proficient on the last exam.
27% of students who graduated from Kansas high schools in 2013 and attended university in Kansas signed up for remedial training (Kansas Board of Regents); no data is available on students who went out of state or attended a private college.
It will always cost a lot of money to fund public education but it’s how the money is spent that makes a difference — not how much. For example, Instruction spending accounts for just 55% of total education spending; $2 billion and ten years ago it was 54%. Here’s another discouraging fact: enrollment increased by 4% over the last ten years, while classroom teacher employment increased by 5% and non-teacher employment increased by 10%.
Outcomes apparently don’t really matter to KCEG and others (including many school districts and their taxpayer-paid lawyers) who continue to say there was nothing wrong with the old system … it just needed more money! Just look at what happened when more money was poured into the system.
Scores barely changed while per-pupil spending jumped from $6,985 per pupil to an estimated $13,343 last year, which is $3,223 more per-pupil than if funding had been increased for inflation since 1998. Reading proficiency remains below 40% and Math Proficiency is still less than 50%.
This is not an indictment of the many good people working hard in schools but an indictment of the old funding system. It is no one’s fault that achievement is unacceptable but it is everyone’s responsibility to acknowledge that fact and work toward a funding mechanism that puts students and outcomes first and uses efficiency savings to drive more resources to instruction and increase pay for effective teachers.
Kansas schools could receive $21 million annually in federal funds if the state had adequate information systems in place.
One of the nuggets buried in a policy brief released last year by Kansas Policy Institute is that the state is not capturing all federal funds to which it is entitled. That is, would be able to capture if the state had adequate information systems in place. Here’s a section of the policy brief:
Capture federal reimbursement of K-12 KPERS costs
States are entitled to be reimbursed by the federal government for the pension costs of school employees engaged in the delivery of federally-funded services, such as Special Education and Food Service. Kansas, however, foregoes federal reimbursement because many school districts’ payroll systems lack the ability to properly capture the necessary information. (Estimates are not permitted; the information must flow through payroll systems.) The State should require that school districts utilize a single state-provided or outsourced payroll system to capture annual federal reimbursement of $21 million.
Here is a sum of money that Kansas schools could receive if only Kansas had the necessary information systems infrastructure in place. A side benefit would likely be better management of school systems’ payroll if such a system was in place.
Is $21 million a significant sum when the state spends several billions on schools each year? The Kansas school spending establishment contends that a tax credit scholarship that might divert $10 million from the state to private schools is something that schools can’t afford. But here’s an example of twice that amount being available if Kansas school leadership had the will to obtain it.
The Kansas Policy Institute policy brief “A Five-Year Budget Plan for the State of Kansas: How to balance the budget and have healthy ending balances without tax increases or service reductions” is just ten pages in length. It may be downloaded from KPI here or alternatively from Scribd here (may work better on mobile devices). A press release from KPI announcing the policy brief is at 5 Year Budget Plan Outlines Path To Protect Essential Services and Tax Refom.
