Voice For Liberty

Tag: Education

  • Jayhawk Judgment

    A few quotes from an excellent editorial in the June 22, 2005 Wall Street Journal titled “Jayhawk Judgment.” The link is here, although you probably have to subscribe to read it. Articles on some of these topics have recently appeared on this website.

    Kansas already spends a shade under $10,000 per student in the public schools — the most in the region and above the national average even though Kansas is a low cost-of-living state. Also ignored by the courts were the volumes of scientific evidence that the link between school spending and educational achievement is close to nonexistent. Perhaps one reason schools in Kansas aren’t as good as they might be is that the state ranks 47 out of 50 in education money that actually finds its way inside the classroom.

    The travesty of all these court interventions is that they promulgate the fundamental logical fallacy that has long undermined the U.S. public education system: that we should measure performance by inputs, not outputs. Every other industry in America is obliged to cut costs and get more for less; in education, parents and kids keep getting less for more.

    Describing the more than $1 billion in additional spending ordered by a judge in the Kansas City, Missouri school system:

    The result of this deluge of money was further declines in test scores. In that case even the judge himself later admitted he had erred in thinking that more money would improve dismal schools.

  • How teaching math is politicized in public schools

    The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “Ethnomathematics” (June, 20, 2005, available at this link, although registration may be required) tells us of the transformation of mathematics from a universal language and tool for understanding and problem-solving to a “tool to advance social justice.”

    For example:

    In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 “contemporary mathematics” textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics. In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter “F” included “factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions, and functions.” In the 1998 book, the index listed “families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study, feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan, flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises, and fund-raising carnival.”

    Now mathematics is being nudged into a specifically political direction by educators who call themselves “critical theorists.” They advocate using mathematics as a tool to advance social justice. Social justice math relies on political and cultural relevance to guide math instruction. One of its precepts is “ethnomathematics,” that is, the belief that different cultures have evolved different ways of using mathematics, and that students will learn best if taught in the ways that relate to their ancestral culture.

    Another topic, drawn directly from ethnomathematics, is “Chicanos Have Math in Their Blood.” Others include “The Transnational Capital Auction,” “Multicultural Math,” and “Home Buying While Brown or Black.” Units of study include racial profiling, the war in Iraq, corporate control of the media, and environmental racism.

    It seems terribly old-fashioned to point out that the countries that regularly beat our students in international tests of mathematics do not use the subject to steer students into political action. They teach them instead that mathematics is a universal language that is as relevant and meaningful in Tokyo as it is in Paris, Nairobi and Chicago. The students who learn this universal language well will be the builders and shapers of technology in the 21st century. The students in American classes who fall prey to the political designs of their teachers and professors will not.

    If you do not want your children to attend schools where this type of mathematics is taught, you may not have much choice if your family is of modest means. If you want to send your children to a schools where meaningful, traditional mathematics is taught, you may not be able to because of the near-monopoly that government has on schools. It is time to end the government’s monopoly on education and bring meaningful schools choice to parents. Parents who are happy with the type of education the government is presently providing will still have that available for their children, if that is what they want.

  • Base School funding on research, not feelings

    On the surface, it would seem like smaller class sizes would produce better educational outcomes. Intuitively, this makes sense.

    Research tells a different story, however. Research by Harvard economist Caroline M. Hoxby titled “The effects of class size on student achievement: New evidence from population variation”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115 :4 (2000), 1239-1285, which can be read here: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/effects.pdf makes a different conclusion. Some quotes from the study:

    I identify the effects of class size on student achievement using longitudinal variation in the population associated with each grade in 649 elementary schools. I use variation in class size driven by idiosyncratic variation in the population. I also use discrete jumps in class size that occur when a small change in enrollment triggers a maximum or minimum class size rule. The estimates indicate that class size does not have a statistically significant effect on student achievement. I rule out even modest effects (2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation in scores for a 10 percent reduction in class size).

    Using both methods, I find that reductions in class size have no effect on student achievement. The estimates are sufficiently precise that, if a 10 percent reduction in class size improved achievement by just 2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation, I would have found statistically significant effects in math, reading, and writing. I find no evidence that class size reductions are more efficacious in schools that contain high concentrations of low income students or African-American students.

    As we in Wichita and Kansas prepare to make important decisions on school funding, let’s use research, not feelings, to make informed and rational decisions.

  • Disgraceful decision will hurt Kansas

    This is a reprise of a January 10, 2005 column, which is worthwhile to read again.

    Disgraceful Decision Will Hurt Kansas
    by Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    The Kansas Supreme Court’s school finance decision is deeply flawed both in substance and in procedure. This five page judicial edict (www.kscourts.org see case no. 92,032) announced January 3 is designed to pressure the legislature into voting for more spending for public schools without saying by how much. Many tax and spend advocates are now claiming the court is requiring a tax hike, but no such specific language is contained within this decision.

    This claim is supposedly based upon language contained within the Kansas Constitution and various statutes enacted in Kansas. This Constitution itself is unchanged since the 1994 Kansas Supreme Court decision that said the school finance system was constitutional. At that time, state school spending was almost $700 million a year less than it is today. This decision is inconsistent with the 1994 case and the school spending facts between 1994 and now.

    Neither this legal edict or any language within our state constitution suggests whether increased school spending of four percent or fourteen percent or forty four percent more will make anything constitutional. The only positive for Kansas taxpayers in this ruling was the court’s decision to keep this case out of judicial activist Terry Bullock’s courtroom and Bullock’s explicit billion dollar spending and tax edict.

    Plaintiff and trial attorneys for the school districts that brought this lawsuit are already claiming that a billion dollars in additional state spending is required. The leading plaintiff attorney is Alan Rupe who has been involved in all of the school finance lawsuits in Kansas going back to the 1980’s and has been repeating this claim. Ironically, the Augenblick and Myer study (A&M) that the plaintiffs rely upon in their lawsuit uses a much smaller figure. The actual A&M report, which is often discussed but seldom actually quoted says, “we are suggesting that total (public school) spending needs to increase by $229 million,” (page ES-4).

    So the court came up with a judicial edict that said state spending on public schools was inadequate without saying by how much. The court went on to say that some unspecified increase in spending might not be enough to make it constitutional either. This is a strong indication on how the rule of law in Kansas is being replaced by the rule of a new super-legislature that consists of seven black robed lawyers. It is interesting to note that 57 percent of this court/super legislature, or more than twice the statewide average of 26.8 percent of registered voters in Kansas, are registered Democrats according to a check of public records.

    The Kansas Supreme Court managed to come up with this ruling despite a lack of evidence in any of this litigation that Kansas spends less per pupil on public schools than our neighboring states. In fact, anyone who wants to check the federal government’s figures will see that Kansas spends more than our surrounding states despite having lower income than the national average. In some of these surveys Nebraska is ranked as spending as much or slightly more than Kansas but all of the other neighboring states get by with much less government school spending. A couple of days after this decision was released a national survey by Education Week confirmed that the government school system in Kansas is adequately funded. Kansas received a “B” grade on this scorecard for funding (see www.edweek.org).

    A few days earlier the latest state data came out showing that Kansas’ average spending grew 3.8 percent in 2003-04 or $341 per pupil to average of $9,235. In 2004-05 the schools have budgeted school spending to grow by 10 percent, breaking the $10,000 per pupil mark. The average per pupil (FTE) in Kansas will have $10,162 spent during 2004-05 according to this most recent Kansas public school budget data.

    However, the court’s unsigned and non-final edict lacked many of the important characteristics of judicial rulings. This edict was unsigned by anyone and news articles claim that such an edict must be unanimous to be issued this way by the court. Of course, this is not guaranteed as a final decision either. So this decision is vague concerning the state’s constitutional language and leaves important legal issues unspecified beyond a general decision that more spending is required with the court positioning itself to second guess the legislature’s after first adjournment and April 12.

    Last month the court was narrowly and bitterly divided when it overruled its own 2001 decision by a 4-to-3 margin on the constitutionality of the Kansas death penalty. At least in that decision, Kansans were able to find out where the judges actually stood and there was a signed opinion.

    In theory Kansas voters are supposed to have a say on judicial positions. However, since judicial retention elections were established in 1958 in Kansas, not a single appellate or supreme court member has ever lost their position after a retention election. These judicial appointments are almost as good as getting an explicitly lifetime federal judicial appointment. The pay and pension perks are similar and only slightly smaller too. Four of the Kansas Supreme Court judges had judicial retention votes in 2004 and will continue on the court for terms for at least six more years assuming that none resign or leave the court for other reasons.

    The basis for this government school finance decision is the court’s vague position on what this constitutional language, “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state,” means. It is very clear that the Kansas Constitution does not mean that the judiciary system in Kansas should try to make a mess out of Kansas schools like federal judge Clark did in the Kansas City, Missouri school system beginning in the 1980’s and that continued for years.

  • Frisky Flunkies in Atchison County

    From Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    The Wall Street Journal’s “Tony & Tacky” section mentioned one Kansas school district on the day the Kansas senate was debating the largest one-year state spending hike for public schools in this century and according to one legislator, in state history. The $127 million increase in state spending would be in addition to the current $2.7 billion the state is already spending. School districts in Kansas are already spending millions of dollars to lobby the legislature, promote student and school employee contacts to try and influence legislators, and sue the state over school finance. School superintendents, like Wichita’s tax ‘n spend Winston Brooks, have been busy at speaking appearances promoting public school spending growth in excess of $1.4 billion.

    In the 1980’s the Kansas City, Missouri schools spent well over a $1 billion proving that throwing tax money at the public schools did not improve student achievement or educational quality. This school district, which has an pupil enrollment similar to Wichita’s, spent all this money and still saw student test scores dropped.

    A wise philosopher warned, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Kansas is continuing to try and emulate the Kansas City, Missouri public schools spending policy.

    Kansas spending for public schools that includes all state, local, and federal tax funds has far exceeded inflation during the last dozen years and now tops $4 billion (KTN has posted at www.kanstaxpayers.com school KS Department of Education finance data on all Kansas public schools from the late 1980’s through the 2003-04 school year). There are slightly less than 445,000 public school students in Kansas. The brief article cited below from today’s Wall Street Journal provides some clues as to more important educational problems than simply throwing taxpayers’ money at the schools and hoping that some of it sticks. Let’s hope that Kansas follows Atchison High School’s policy instead of Atchison County’s D- plan.

    The Wall Street Journal said:

    Tony & Tacky

    Friday, March 25, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
    FRISKY FLUNKIES: Right now, students in Atchison County, Kan., need a C average in order to participate in extracurricular activities. As of next year, however, even a D-minus average will be good enough. A district school board in northeastern Kansas voted last week to lower its threshold after asserting that efforts to determine eligibility under the C rule were distracting teachers from their job of helping pupils learn. Not everyone is buying that argument. Terrance Jordan, the principal and sports director of Atchison High School–which, despite its name, is in a different district–told the March 16 Atchison Daily Globe that his school is considering stricter guidelines: “We’re here to educate kids; extracurricular activities are a bonus. . . . Kids have to be able to do what they’re asked to do before they can play.”