Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas Association of School Boards

  • Kansas advocates for disabled face well-funded challenger

    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.

  • Kansas school spending advocates exaggerate employment losses

    Yesterday I reported how Kansas school spending advocates lie about facts in order to score political points with their constituencies. Today we again see how the school spending lobby distorts facts, this time in a very substantial way concerning an important matter.

    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.

  • To Kansas school spending advocates, criticism comes fast and loose

    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.

    Besides spending advocates, journalists can get caught up in this. In a recent news story in the Hays Daily News, the paper reported a claim made by Linda Kenne, Victoria USD 432 superintendent. Here it is:

    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.

  • For Kansas teachers union, fund balances are an illusion, not a solution

    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.”

    That’s true. But this argument, just like a faulty op-ed written by Kansas school board member David Dennis, says nothing about whether the balances in these funds are too high, too low, or just right.

    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 school spending advocates: no alternative views welcome

    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.

    Monday’s education-related testimony started with Kansas State Board of Education member Walt Chappell, followed by former Kansas Education Commissioner Bob Corkins. My reporting of their testimony is at At House Appropriations, Chappell presents Kansas school funding ideas and Corkins testifies on school finance history, recommendations.

    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 needs education for prosperity

    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.

  • Lack of data, oversight raises questions on Kansas school spending

    In the following report, investigative reporter Paul Soutar of the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy takes a look at school spending in Kansas. Particularly troubling is the decision to abandon an audit already in progress.

    A recent decision by the 2010 Commission to not complete an efficiency audit of K-12 schools in Kansas may undercut the case for increased spending on schools.

    In its 2005 session the Kansas Legislature increased state funding for school districts by more than $145 million for the following school year. The same bill also created the 2010 Commission and charged it to, in part, “conduct ongoing monitoring of the school district finance act” and directed it to “ensure that the Kansas system is efficient and effective.”

    Three years into its existence, the 2010 Commission asked Legislative Post Audit (LPA) to conduct the first efficiency audit of K-12 school districts. But in its June 29 meeting, Commission members voted to cancel the second half of the audit. Commission chair Rochelle Chronister told members that district administrators are too busy dealing with budget cuts to complete the audit.

    2010 Commission member Dennis Jones supports the decision not to complete the audit as originally requested. “We’re in a time of severe economic stress for everyone and school districts are also feeling the pinch. It seems to me that it’s not the best or most efficient use of the districts’ time to be inundated with a bunch of housekeeping questions about efficiency. I think it’s better use of manpower to get budgets prepared and to prepare for next school year.

    Districts can voluntarily complete the audit but so far only two of the state’s 294 districts, Derby and Ellinwood, have chosen to do so.

    The Legislative Division of Post Audit (LPA) was originally asked to analyze district staffing and expenditure data to identify areas where spending appeared to be out of line with their peers. The intent was to answer two questions:

    • Do the districts manage their personnel, facilities, and other resources in an efficient and economical manner?
    • Do the districts follow best practices for financial management to ensure that their financial resources are protected?

    In the first phase LPA collected data from districts for analysis. According to the report released July 25, “The second phase called for following up on a sample of districts to evaluate their processes in the areas that appeared to be out-of-line to determine if there were ways they could reduce costs.”

    The 2010 Commission suspended the second phase of the audit at its April 2009 meeting, and asked LPA to review the available data looking for trends or patterns that shed light on districts’ efficiency. At the May meeting, the commission asked LPA to contact districts and offer help in finding ways to operate more efficiently. The second phase of the audit was effectively canceled and the new scope of the audit was: How do school districts compare on various measures of efficiency?

    The utility of that evaluation is limited, according to the LPA report, because districts do not uniformly report statistics to the Kansas Department of Education (KSDE). Reporting errors could be evaluated and corrected by completing the original audit plan.

    School districts don’t report certain types of data consistently, making meaningful comparisons difficult. According to LPA, some district employees don’t know the accounting standards or ignore training. For example, the LPA report says the Goessel district reported spending an average of $4 per student on student support services for 2006-07 and 2007-08 when, on average, the 121 districts examined in the report spent $242 per student in that category Goessel officials told LPA they reported certain contracted student support services as instruction expenses.

    Previous LPA reports, a Standard & Poor’s audit and even administrators at KSDE have stressed the need to follow standardized accounting practices.

    Stephen Iliff is a CPA and is the only member of the 2010 Commission not connected to or retired from government or public schools. He wrote dissenting minority reports for several of the commission’s annual reports to the legislature and says district accounting staff must be trained and held accountable so comparable information can be obtained. “Public school accounting practices would not be tolerated in the private sector.”

    In his dissent from the commission’s 2006 report Iliff wrote, “Legislators are continually being asked to provide more funds for education and do not understand where the money is going or how it is being used. This is like writing a blank check to the school system by the taxpayers.”

    The report goes on to say, “At least 6 out of 12 duties given to the 2010 Commission include words like determine, evaluate, monitor, review and ensure the Kansas system is efficient and effective. All of these words and duties are meaningless without a system that will capture information in a comprehensive, methodical, orderly and consistent fashion.”

    A March 2002 LPA audit found that laws, policies, and practices related to school district budgets are flawed in some areas including inconsistent reporting that makes it difficult to know how much money a district is taking in or how money is being spent. Iliff says those problems still exist.

    Dissent Discouraged

    State Board of Education member Walt Chappell, the lone dissenter in the state school board’s July 15 decision to ask the Legislature for $282 million in additional funding, says the vote was rushed and lacked serious discussion. “What I was concerned about is that we were just going through the motions. We didn’t discuss whether schools needed the money or had other priorities or whether some should go to vocational programs.”

    According to Iliff dissenting opinions are not sought in school oversight. “Not only do they not ask for it but Rochelle Chronister tried to cut out three pages of one minority report and I had to go above her to a lawyer to keep it in.”

    “The people Chronister asks to to speak to the Commission appear to create a stacked deck,” Iliff said in a recent phone interview.

    Nine district superintendents appeared before the commission June 29 and each asked for more money, either through additional state revenue (more or higher taxes), funding to levels previously budgeted by the Legislature or adjustments in the formula. Their testimony was punctuated with stories of dramatic increases in the number of poor and special needs students and English language learners. Most had data purporting to show significant increases in student performance as measured against State assessment tests, but no comparisons were made to national achievement tests, which show much lower proficiency levels.

    Mark Tallman, Assistant Executive Director/Advocacy for the Kansas Association of School Boards was the concluding witness before the 2010 Commission on June 29 and presented data in support of the superintendents’ pleas for more money.

    Data used use to show increases in student performance are connected to increased funding is deceptive according to Iliff. “Before the increases in cash because of the Supreme Court decision the graphs were already heading upward.” Iliff says he believes the trend is more the result of the standards and sanctions put in place by No Child Left Behind.

    A 2008 LPA report on district’s use of increased funding says, “student outcomes had been improving for several years before the changes to the funding formula, and have continued to improve.” The report goes on to say, “because student performance is the result of years of accumulated instruction, it’s too early to tell how the new funding has affected performance.”

    School superintendents also made their case for increased funding.

    Brenda Dietrich, superintendent of USD 437, Auburn-Washburn schools in Topeka, asked the commission to urge the legislature to provide the funding that was initially budgeted in conjunction with court-mandated spending increases. Proponents of increased funding say the legislature is in violation of the Kansas Supreme Court’s order if they don’t provide the funding.

    Dietrich noted, “There was plenty of money in our state treasury to fund education and all other agencies a mere three years ago.” She also put the onus squarely on state legislators, “Through the state’s budget process they single-handedly control the conditions under which the children of Kansas can access a quality education.”

    Dennis Stones, superintendent of USD 441, Sabetha, asked that the legislature seek additional revenue streams and enact a moratorium on tax breaks and tax cuts. His district is cutting activities including some athletic games and freshman football.

    Chronister told Stones he should do more than cut a few coaches and games. “If you cut football programs suddenly a tax increase might not look so bad.”

    When asked in a later phone interview to clarify her comment, Chronister said, “I’m going to ask what have you done to really wake your patrons up. I know some people the only thing they care about is who’s coaching the football team and who’s wining games. I also know we seldom have people come and yell and scream about the math teacher but it’s not uncommon to have people yelling about the football coach.”

    Beth Reust, superintendent of USD 270, Plainville, said her district tried to eliminate driver’s education to help balance their budget. After strong reaction from the community it was reinstated along with a $350 tuition charge. The district planned for 28 students but only 15 signed up because some parents found a better deal; a neighboring district offers the class for $150.

    Reust also asked that the legislature ramp spending down rather than cutting it all at once. “If you have $60,000 then get $90,000 and start living on $90,000 you get accustomed to it.”

    Jill Shackelford, superintendent of USD 500, Kansas City, Kan., also mentioned getting accustomed to budget increases. “I started as superintendent the first year of the Montoy increase. I thought that honeymoon was going to last forever.”

    Iliff says, “Some people in education spend like there’s no tomorrow.”

    Legislature responsibility

    “The legislature either needs to belly up to the bar, so to speak, or change the law,” Chronister said during the phone interview. “If they change the law they are going to be in a position that the courts are going to be right back at them for not providing the money for a public education for every child as the state constitution charges them.”

    According to Chronister the current focus of the commission is urging the legislature to find additional money for schools.

    Jones thinks that’s a mistake. “If we wanted to be California that might be a position to take. The legislature still has the constitutional authority to determine a suitable provision for finance. In these times of dire economic stress the legislature has to have flexibility to meet the needs of all of Kansans.”

    Jones sees flaws in the formula. “We were far better off when local districts had some autonomy over how much to spend and how to spend it. We’ve taken that away from local districts and said every student in Kansas is lumped in category A and then some other sub-categories. That hamstrings the local school board.”

    Jones also believes the legislature is unduly bound. “The Supreme Court has determined that an opportunity for a quality education is a basic right of every student in Kansas and we’re going to measure that with outputs and with an arbitrary funding formula. I think to some extent that hamstrings the legislature.”

    “The most important single function the state of Kansas provides is the education of its students,” Jones said. “We must give our young people an opportunity to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. And in an ideal world the funding would be whatever it takes. Unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world. Schools are going to have to share in the sacrifice asked of everyone.”

    Donald Adkisson, Director of Finance for USD 260, Derby, says Derby’s decision to voluntarily proceed with the LPA audit is an opportunity to get some more information. “We’ve made so many cuts in the last 10 years, we’re at the point we’re willing to hear ideas from anyone.” Transparency and efficiency are important in Derby according to Adkisson, “We don’t hide anything. Come in and look at us. We’re going to do as much as we can to keep the costs low for the taxpayers.”

    Iliff says asking for increased funding in the current economy is arrogant. “It’s insensitive to the struggles of the common person who has lost his job. A lot of people are foregoing a lot of benefits just to make ends meet. The people asking for increases seem like they’re impervious, a new dynasty or political class.”

  • School choice is a civil rights issue

    Why does America tolerate this?

    In his commentary Dumbest Generation Getting Dumber, Walter E. Williams reports on some new research about our public schools:

    McKinsey & Company, in releasing its report “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools” (April 2009) said, “Several other facts paint a worrisome picture. First, the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.” That’s a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get.

    Williams reports that for black and Latino students, the situation is far worse, with these students being two or three years behind in learning. It’s such a problem that even traditional black leadership is noticing:

    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.

    We need the type of competition in education that school choice provides. In Kansas, the public school lobby — firmly opposed to even the gentlest of reforms such as charter schools — retains its firm grip.

    Wichita and Kansas schools claim years of rising test scores. But when we get test results that the Kansas school bureaucracy doesn’t control, we find that test scores are flat. There’s a discrepancy there that needs investigation.

    In the meantime, schoolchildren, especially minority children, remain stuck in a failing system.

  • Watkins addresses Kansas budget, Republicans, schools

    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.

    Watkins represents House district 105, which includes parts of west and northwest Wichita. He is Vice-Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which was the center of some fast-paced legislative action this year as it worked on the Kansas budget.

    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.

    Kansas received about $1.8 billion in federal stimulus, with about $1 billion under the control of the legislature or the governor. The rest went directly to state government agencies.

    About $50 million, Watkins said, went to the Kansas Weatherization Office. That office has one man on its staff, and he told Watkins he had no idea how to spend all that money.

    True budget reform has been delayed, but is needed.

    Watkins said that there’s no doubt that the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) is the most powerful lobby in Kansas.

    In 2008, Watkins said he had four children in the public school system. “Based on what the KNEA and the other education lobbyists told us this year, my kids must have gotten a horrible education in 2008. … Because the cuts we were talking about making would have taken K-12 education back to 2008 levels.” But the spending lobby painted a picture of failing schools if these cuts were made. Schools could absorb no cuts, they said.

    As a result, Kansas was forced to make large cuts in spending on programs such as assistance for the mentally and physically disabled in order to “empire build” in the Kansas public school system system.

    Addressing the need for budget reform, Watkins said that the present system, where each year’s budget is based on the past year’s plus an increase, produces anomalies. He illustrated a case where an agency might be able to get some federal money if the state spends some if its own. It might be, say, a three-year program. So the legislature authorizes and appropriates the funds.

    Then three years later the federal money is gone, so the program ends because the state funding alone is not sufficient for continuation. But the money the state allocated is still in the agency’s base budget — even through the program no longer exists.

    We need either zero-based budgeting or performance-based budgeting, Watkins said. Every state that’s done zero-based budgeting, however, has backed away from it, he said. There must be some type of performance measure, however.

    Watkins also said Kansas needs a legislative budget office. Presently the legislature receives a budget from the governor and works from that.

    In 2012, Watkins said the Kansas budget will face a huge challenge, as that’s the first budget year without the federal stimulus money.

    The budget that finally passed this year is full of problems, Watkins said. The budget was not debated on the floor of the Kansas House of Representatives, as that body simply voted to concur with the bill that the Senate passed. A group of moderate Republicans decided to team with Democrats to accomplish this, he said.

    With Republicans controlling the legislature, how did that happen? Watkins said “We do have people in the Republican Party who are Republicans in name only.” Republicans can disagree on issues, he said, but they shouldn’t vote with the Democrats 95% of the time. There are a group of about 16 Republican House members that constantly vote with the Democrats, and that produces a number large enough to pass legislation.

    In responding to a question about new Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson, Watkins said that while Parkinson said he’s not going to run for governor is 2010, no one’s asked him whether he’s going to run for senate in 2010. The compromise on the coal plant that Parkinson agreed to may have laid the groundwork for a state-side campaign.

    A question asked how does the school spending lobby have so much power? Watkins told how his opponent last year had never even voted. The KNEA gave him $500 (the maximum amount allowed) for the primary election, and that amount again in the general election. Yet, Watkins said his opponent never campaigned.

    It’s also not just the KNEA. There are other allied special interest groups. If the Democrats need something, these are the groups they go to.

    Watkins said the school spending lobby has a powerful argument unless people are presented with the facts and figures. That is, of course: “I’m for kids. Why do you hate them?” Because we have a disengaged public, Watkins said, people go along with this argument, which helps to further the cause and power of the education lobby. There is no question this lobby is the “bully in the Capitol.”

    He also said that the media doesn’t want to fight the school system. He told how one spending advocacy group refused to speak out at a meeting because they didn’t want to get the “schools made at them.” This is more evidence of how powerful the school spending lobby is.