Tag: Education

  • Wrong direction for Wichita public schools

    Wrong direction for Wichita public schools

    A letter in the Wichita Eagle illustrates harmful attitudes and beliefs of the public school establishment.

    The letter is titled “Wrong direction.” It was submitted by John H. Wilson, was published on February 26, 2017, and may be read here.

    What’s wrong in this letter? Here’s one thing: “First, the ill-founded assertion is that parents are well equipped to identify the best school for their children. Wrong.”

    This is an incredibly bigoted assertion. This is one of the standard arguments against school choice, that parents — particularly minority and low-income families — don’t have the ability to make wise choices in schools for their children. Instead, an educated elite, of Wilson is a member, must make these decisions, they say.

    There is a whif of plausibility in Wilson’s claim. In Wichita, where there is no school choice except for a small tax credit scholarship program, parents don’t have much experience making decisions regarding schools for their children. Across the country, however, where parents are given choices, we see parents becoming involved. With school choice programs, parents have a chance to make a difference.

    Here’s something else that is rich in irony. With school choice, Wilson says, “Public schools organization and management would become a nightmare.” The private sector, however, manages situations like this every day. The irony is that the fleet of public school administrators hold many advanced degrees in public school administration. But school choice, evidently, is too complicated to manage.

    Finally, Wilson references “a highly successful and proud institution, our public schools.” I’d like to call his attention to the nearby chart of results from the Kansas school assessments for the Wichita school district. According to the Kansas State Department of education, “Level 2 indicates that the student is doing grade-level work as defined by the standards but not at the depth or level of rigor to be considered on-track for college success. Level 3 indicates that the student is performing at academic expectations for that grade and is on track to being college ready.”

    Looking at fourth grade reading — a very important benchmark — we see that considering college-level readiness, 35.5 percent of students are at that standard. But only 17.6 of African-American students are at that level, and 29.7 percent of Hispanic students. The performance is worse for math, and worse again at eighth grade for both subjects.

    I don’t think this is “highly successful,” and I don’t see how Wilson is proud of this legacy. Except: He’s part of the public school establishment, which vigorously protects itself from any meaningful competition.

    Kansas school assessments for Wichita. Click for larger.
  • WichitaLiberty.TV: James Franko of Kansas Policy Institute

    WichitaLiberty.TV: James Franko of Kansas Policy Institute

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: James Franko of Kansas Policy Institute joins Bob Weeks and Karl Peterjohn to discuss education in Kansas and the state budget. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 141, broadcast March 5, 2017.

    Shownotes

  • State and local government employee and payroll

    State and local government employee and payroll

    Considering all state and local government employees in proportion to population, Kansas has many, compared to other states, and especially so in education.

    When considering all state and local government employees, Kansas spent $254 per person on payroll (March only).1 This was 15th highest among the states, District of Columbia, and the nation as a whole. There were 14.9 citizens for each FTE (full-time equivalent employee), which ranks fourth highest.

    Example from the visualization. Click for larger.
    In other words, Kansas has many government employees compared to other states, and these employees are costly, again compared to other states. This is data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2015, the most recent year for which data is available.

    When considering all elementary and secondary education employees, Kansas spent $95 per person on payroll (again, March only). This was 12th highest among the states, District of Columbia, and the nation as a whole. There were 34.3 citizens for each FTE (full-time equivalent employee) working in elementary and secondary education, which ranks third highest.

    In other words, Kansas has many elementary and secondary education employees compared to other states, and these employees are costly, again compared to other states.

    Similar results are found for higher education employees. Fortunately, Kansas has zero employees working in state-owned liquor stores.

    In the visualization you may create your own tables. Click here to access the visualization. Source of data is U.S. Census Bureau2 and author’s calculations to derive per-capita figures. Visualization created using Tableau Public.


    Notes

    1. For total payroll (both full-time and part-time employees), the Census Bureau reports a value for a single month, that being March.
    2. U.S. Census Bureau. 2015 Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll. www.census.gov/govs/apes/.
  • Kansas state school assessments

    Kansas state school assessments

    An interactive presentation of Kansas state school assessment scores at the state, district, and building levels.

    Kansas State Department of Education makes available school assessment results at its website Kansas Building Report Card, available at ksreportcard.ksde.org. The present assessments were first given in 2014, although results for that year were not made available.1

    KSDE background explains that scores on the tests are categorized in four levels: “Kansas assessment results are now reported in four levels. Level 1 indicates that student is not performing at grade-level standards. Level 2 indicates that the student is doing grade-level work as defined by the standards but not at the depth or level of rigor to be considered on-track for college success. Level 3 indicates that the student is performing at academic expectations for that grade and is on track to being college ready. Level 4 indicates that the student is performing above expectations and is on-track to being college ready.”

    When KSDE presents assessment results through the report card website, it shows the percent of students whose scores fall into each category. While this is useful, I present the data in a different way, using these categories:

    • Level 1
    • Level 2 or higher
    • Level 3 or higher
    • Level 4

    Thus, “Level 2 or higher” holds the percentage of students doing grade-level work or better, and “Level 3 or higher” holds the percentage of students on track to being college ready or better.

    There are three visualizations, one for building-level results, another for district-level results, and another for state-level. (Because of the differing sizes of buildings and districts, it is not possible to simply aggregate statistics to a higher level.)

    Here are the links to the visualizations:

    Example from the visualizations. Click for larger.


    Notes

  • Kansas teachers union versus students

    Kansas teachers union versus students

    There’s no surprise that a labor union would support its members over all other considerations, even Kansas schoolchildren.

    Kansas National Education Association, the Kansas teachers union, wants to restore due process rights to teachers.

    The union believes that without due process, also called tenure, teachers are subject to arbitrary dismissal. A common story is that a school board member whose child isn’t made — say, quarterback on the football team or head cheerleader — could pressure school administrators to take action against the responsible coach or teacher. Pressure could even be brought to change grades.

    That could happen. It probably happens. But this is not a reason to saddle schoolchildren with bad teachers, which is what due process does. In a recent survey, teachers said five percent of their colleagues are failures, earning the grade of F.1

    Given that teacher quality is the most important factor success factor that schools can control,2 3 4 why are these five percent still working in schools as teachers?

    Due process laws are the answer. This is the system the Kansas teachers union wants to restore. If successful, the winners are the union and bad teachers. The losers are Kansas schoolchildren.


    Notes

    1. “If we use the traditional definition of a C grade as ‘satisfactory,’ then the public, on average, thinks about one-fifth of teachers in the local schools are unsatisfactory (13% D and 9% F). … Even teachers say 5% of their colleagues in local schools are failures deserving an F, with another 8% performing at no better than the D level.” No Common Opinion on the Common Core. http://educationnext.org/2014-ednext-poll-no-common-opinion-on-the-common-core/.
    2. Center for Public Education. Teacher quality and student achievement: Research review. http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/Teacher-quality-and-student-achievement-At-a-glance/Teacher-quality-and-student-achievement-Research-review.html.
    3. RAND Corporation. Teachers Matter: Understanding Teachers’ Impact on Student Achievement. http://www.rand.org/education/projects/measuring-teacher-effectiveness/teachers-matter.html.
    4. Hanushek, Eric. Teacher Quality. http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/teacher-quality.
  • Kansans say no to more taxes

    Kansans say no to more taxes

    A statewide poll finds little support for raising taxes as a way to balance the Kansas budget.

    Kansas Policy Institute has commissioned another public opinion poll gauging the preferences of Kansans. The poll released this week asked questions about how to balance the budget in the current year and next year, raising the gasoline tax, schools, paying for Medicaid, and voting on local tax increases.

    In a press release announcing poll results, KPI president Dave Trabert noted, “Once again, scientific public opinion surveys show that special interests pushing for enormous, record-setting tax increases are completely out of step with the general public. Kansans expect government and school districts to make efficient use of their tax dollars. They don’t want their income taxes or gasoline taxes increased. The question is whether legislators will listen to citizens or special interests that want higher taxes for more spending.”

    The poll with the text of all questions, results, and methodology may be viewed at Results of SurveyUSA Mkt Research Study #23415.

    Some may recognize a discrepancy between the results of this poll with last year’s elections for the Kansas House and Senate. Those elections have been widely interpreted as a referendum against an unpopular governor and his policies. This poll, however, finds little support for raising the taxes that the governor and legislature cut.

    A possible explanation is that in elections for office, voters are selecting people to serve in office. Voters must choose candidate A or candidate B (or maybe C or D). Voters must take the entire package of positions associated with a candidate. It isn’t possible to select some positions from candidate A, and others from candidate B.

    But in a poll with specific and narrow questions, voters can express their preferences with more precision.

    There’s a difference between voting for politicians and voting for — or expressing preference for — specific policies and issues. When given a chance, Wichitans have often voted contrary to the wishes of the city council, city hall bureaucrats, and Wichita’s political class. Whether a special tax giveaway to a hotel, a general sales tax increase, reduction of penalties for marijuana possession, or fluoridation of water: Wichitans voted in opposition to the policies that were supported by the people they voted to place in office.

  • Public education factbook for 2017

    Public education factbook for 2017

    The fifth edition of data on public schools in Kansas is available.

    Kansas Policy Institute has released a new edition of its Public Education Fact Book. KPI describes this book:

    KPI’s fifth annual Public Education Fact Book is a one-stop shop for data on public school information from The Sunflower State. Numerous scientific surveys show that citizens are grossly misinformed on many pertinent facts of public education in Kansas. Aid and spending per-pupil are much higher than many Kansans believe, and student achievement is lower than understood. This fact book series aims to rectify this situation.

    This document is available to read online here, or contact KPI for a printed copy.

  • Accountability in Kansas public schools

    Accountability in Kansas public schools

    Critics of school choice say there is no accountability outside the traditional public schools. Here are the standards Kansas used to hold its schools accountable.

    Are non-traditional public schools held properly accountable? Do charter schools and private schools escape the accountability standards states use for their traditional public schools, particularly in Kansas?

    A standard argument against school choice is that charter schools and private schools are not held accountable. Underlying this argument is the assumption that parents have neither the time nor technical expertise to properly evaluate the schools their children attend. Only those with special training can do this, goes the argument.

    This argument is troubling because it is often directed at parents of minority children, or parents who are from low-income households, or parents who may not be highly educated. Besides being elitist and bigoted, it doesn’t recognize the poor job that Kansas state education officials have done holding public schools accountable. Fortunately, Kansas school officials have corrected this, but it doesn’t make up for the years that Kansas purposefully used low standards to evaluate students, and told us students were doing well.

    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. Click for larger.
    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. Worse than that, during the 2005 to 2009 time period, Kansas actually weakened its standards.1 Coincidentally, this was during the time that Kansas courts ordered more spending in Kansas schools, and the legislature generally complied.

    The new Kansas standards, however, 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.2 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 states’ own exams with that of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” The EducationNext 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.3 4

    Kansas is not alone in making a change, according to the EducationNext report:

    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.

    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.

    But who do we hold accountable for the years of having low standards and further weakening them, while at the same time telling us Kansas students were performing well on tests?


    Notes

    1. Weeks, Bob. Kansas has lowered its school standards. https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-kansas-schools/kansas-has-lowered-its-school-standards/.
    2. http://educationnext.org/after-common-core-states-set-rigorous-standards/.
    3. Kansas State Department of Education. Cut Scores for the Kansas Assessment Program. Archived at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97azj3TSm9MdTJhRVBEeEg3NTA/view.
    4. Also, see Kansas State Department of Education, Office of the Commissioner. Kansas College and Career Academic Readiness Asessment. http://www.ksde.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=KCpy0dXYuzc%3D&tabid=561&portalid=0&mid=3121.
  • School choice in Kansas: Some have it. Many do not.

    School choice in Kansas: Some have it. Many do not.

    Kansas non-profit executives work to deny low-income families the school choice opportunities that executive salaries can afford.

    Kansas Association of School BoardsKansas Association of School Boards
    Executives and annual salaries 1
    John Heim, Executive Director $182,471
    Donna Whiteman, Assistant Executive Director $120,041
    Brian Jordan, Assistant Executive Director $106,568
    Douglas Moeckel, Deputy Executive Director $109,425
    David Shriver, Assistant Executive Director $103,845

    These executives can afford to send their children to any school.

    Kansas National Education AssociationKansas National Education Association
    Executives and annual salaries 2
    Mark Farr, President $118,314
    Claudette Johns, Executive Director $149,553
    Kevin Riemann, Executive Director $139,327
    David Schnauer, General Counsel $142,630
    Marjorie Blaufuss, Staff Counsel $123,584
    Anthony White, Uniserv Director $119,782
    Burle Neely, Uniserv Director $116,559
    Gregory Jones, Uniserv Director $117,559

    These executives can afford to send their children to any school.

    All the above lobby vigorously against any form of school choice.

    Zip code 67214 in Wichita from Google mapsZip code 67214, Northeast Wichita
    Median family income $29,637 3

    Can this family afford school choice? Probably not. It is these minority children and children from low-income families that most need school choice. The cruel irony is that the highly paid executives work to deny school choice to these families.

    Above the line, families have enough income to pursue many forms of school choice. Below the line, school choice is probably not affordable. Click for larger.

    Notes

    1. IRS Form 990 for 2014
    2. IRS Form 990 for 2015
    3. U.S. Census, 2014