Based on past Wichita School District investigations, Wentz likely faces a lengthy stretch of paid administrative leave while the district decides what to do. Not long ago the district paid its school safety services supervisor for 15 months while he was charged with aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and indecent liberties with a child.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Kansas has essentially no charter schools. Here’s why we need them. AFP Foundation scores a victory for free speech and association. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 120, broadcast June 5, 2016.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Was it “Trump” or “Bernie” that incited a fight, and how does the Wichita Eagle opine? Economic development in Wichita. Blight and property rights. Teachers unions. Explaining capitalism. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 117, broadcast April 24, 2016.
KNEA says: “Jeff Melcher, the man who has fought to completely eliminate collective bargaining and other rights for teachers continued his war today with his bill intended to end teacher representation.”
The bill simply mandates elections every three years on whether teachers are satisfied with their current representation, which is almost always KNEA or an affiliate. It’s not surprising the union is opposed to this. Accountability, after all.
KNEA says: “Make no mistake, the intent of this bill is to end professional representation for teachers and leave them as at-will indentured labor.” Indentured labor!Government employees as indentured labor! By whom are teachers indentured? Other government employees (principals and superintendents)? What, do principals and superintendents get masters and doctors degrees in learning how to indenture the teachers that work for them? Why do professionals like these need a labor union to manage their relationship? Who would want to enter a profession where a labor union is needed to protect them from their bosses (or oppressors, as the teachers union would lead us to believe)?
KNEA says: “In a very fundamental way, this war on teachers and schools is about selling off public schools to the highest corporate bidder and making a quality education a privilege not a right.”
Here we see bashing of capitalism. You see, the teachers union believes that education can’t be run by the private sector. Never mind that charter schools and for-profit schools are successful in many areas of the country — but their teachers are not often union members. Second, with school choice programs the state still pays for students to attend private and charter schools. All that changes is parents have the privilege of choice for the children.
KNEA says: “Would force the teachers to pay for state mandated elections.”
No, the union pays for the elections.
Kansas National Education Association, the state’s teachers union, opposes a bill that empowers teachers.
A bill in the Kansas Senate would give teachers an ongoing voice in determining who represents them in their relationship with their employer. The bill is SB 469, titled “Recertification of professional employees’ organizations under the professional negotiations act.” It would require that the Kansas Department of Labor hold an election each year in each school district regarding whether the current representation should continue. These elections, in effect, would be referendums on the teachers union, by the teachers. (Update: The bill has been revised to call for elections every third year.)
We’ve known for a long time that the purpose of teachers unions is to advance the narrow, parochial interests of teachers instead of Kansas schoolchildren, parents, and taxpayers. Now we see that the leadership of the union is more concerned with the existence of the union and their highly-paid jobs. Who cares what teachers think?
As it turns out, the union believes it knows what teachers think. In a message, the Kansas teachers union writes: “So, in short, anyone who works in our schools — board members, superintendents, administrators, and teachers — all oppose the bill.” I’d like to know how the union knows that everyone opposes the bill. The union might be surprised to learn there are teachers who are opposed to the union. These teachers, as professional employees, might not like working under rules more suited for blue-collar labor. These teachers might not like being paid according to a schedule that pays bad teachers the same as the good. They might not like being associated with an organization that promotes a false assessment of Kansas schools that is harmful to Kansas schoolchildren. These teachers might like to work in a charter school, something that the teachers union fights. There are even more reasons why Kansas schoolteachers might not like being associated with the Kansas National Education Association and its affiliates like United Teachers of Wichita.
A bill requiring teachers unions to stand for retention elections each year would be good for teachers, students, and taxpayers.
The bill is SB 469, titled “Recertification of professional employees’ organizations under the professional negotiations act.” It would require that the Kansas Department of Labor hold an election each year in each school district regarding whether the current representation should continue. These elections, in effect, would be referendums on the teachers union, by the teachers. (Update: The bill has been revised to call for elections every third year.)
That’s a good thing. The teachers union monopoly ought to stand for retention once in a while.
The bill has an estimated cost of $340,000 annually, including the hiring of 4 employees. But this is a situation ideally suited for outsourcing to one of the many companies that can perform this work. It would undoubtedly be less expensive and would not require the hiring of employees to do a job that is seasonal in nature.
Further, the professional employees’ organization (union) that represents each district ought to bear the cost of the elections, if they want to continue representing a district.
How effective has the teachers union been in advocating for teachers? In particular, teachers in the Wichita public school district ought to be wondering about the benefit of its union. The contract for this year did not include a pay increase, although the teachers do get some additional time off as the school year was shortened by two days. (Which makes us ask: Where is the concern by the board or teachers for the welfare of the students?)
Wichita public school salaries and change. Click for larger.As far as performance over time, since 2008 teacher salaries in Wichita rose by 2.6 percent. Salaries for principals rose by 8.1 percent over the same period. Statewide, the increase in teacher pay was 7.7 percent, and for principals, 10.9 percent.
On top of that, the Wichita teachers union takes credit for providing benefits that aren’t really benefits, such as when it promoted that only United Teachers of Wichita members would receive a copy of the employment agreement. In reality, it is a public document that anyone has the right to possess.
There are many reasons why Kansas schoolteachers might be unhappy with their current union representation, including:
Creating an adversarial environment for public schools in Kansas. Instead of cooperating on education matters, the union foments conflict with taxpayers.
Forcing professional employees to work under rules more suited for blue-collar labor.
Working to deny Kansas teachers a choice in representation. 1
Promoting a false assessment of Kansas schools that is harmful to Kansas schoolchildren. 2
Forming a task force to promote a false grassroots impression of support for the teachers union, complete with pre-determined talking points on a secret web page. 3
Encouraging party-switching to vote in primary elections to protect union members’ “professional interests.” 4
Constant drumbeat for more school spending without regard to competing interests and taxpayers.5 and taxes to support it.6
Opposing the introduction of a modern retirement system, instead preferring to saddle Kansans with billions of dollars in debt.7
If Wichita public school teachers seem to be unhappy with their pay, there’s a reason why. The following charts show the average salaries for three classes of employees as well as the change over time. The increase in principal salaries is three times that of teacher salaries.
Citizens may want to keep this in mind when the district says that it is doing everything it can to direct resources into the classroom. Teachers may want to question why they pay dues to United Teachers of Wichita — their union — when they don’t get better representation than this.
To access an interactive visualization of school salaries for all districts in the state, click here.
Wichita public school salaries and change. Click for larger.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: There are worthy goals the Kansas Legislature should tackle, and the need for school choice in Kansas. Episode 107, broadcast January 31, 2016. View below, or click here to view at YouTube.
In a refreshing change, Kansas schools have adopted realistic standards for students, but only after many years of evaluating students using low standards.
The former Kansas school standards for grade four reading, showing Kansas ranking low among the states.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. But now the new Kansas standards 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. 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 the states’ own exam with that of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” The 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.
Kansas is not alone in making a change:
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. In short, the Common Core consortium has achieved one of its key policy objectives: the raising of state proficiency standards throughout much of the United States.
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.
