Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas National Education Association

  • CAP: Class size reduction not effective

    Last week the Center for American Progress released a report about class size reduction in schools and the false promise it holds for improving student achievement. While I am normally quite cautious about relying on anything CAP — a prominent left-wing think tank — produces, I’ve read the report, which is titled The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction. It’s accurate.

    It’s quite astonishing to see CAP cite evidence from Eric Hanushek of the Hoover Institution and Caroline Hoxby of Stanford and Hoover. These two researchers are usually condemned by the public education establishment and bureaucracy, including teachers unions. These are some of the key constituents CAP usually caters to.

    In a nutshell, class size reduction produces very little benefit for students. (It benefits others greatly. More in a moment.) It’s also very expensive, and there are other things we should be doing instead if we really want to increase student achievement.

    The report summarizes the important studies in class size reduction, and it’s accurate, based on the reading I’ve done over the years. The upshot is that there is only one study showing positive results from class size reduction, and that effect was found only among the early grades. The effect decreased after a few years, even though small class sizes were still used.

    The report also notes that class size reduction is very expensive to implement. Because it is, the report says we should look to other ways to increase student achievement, such as policies relating to teacher effectiveness: “The emerging consensus that teacher effectiveness is the single most important in-school determinant of student achievement suggests that teacher recruitment, retention, and compensation policies ought to rank high on the list.”

    Recently the Kansas Policy Institute sponsored a trip to Wichita by Sandi Jacobs of National Council for Teacher Quality. My reporting of that event and an audio recording is at Kansas ranks low in policies on teacher quality. The importance of teacher quality is this: “In the example she illustrated, third graders who had teachers in the top 20 percent of effectiveness for the next three years went from the 50th percentile in performance to the 90th. For students with teachers in the lowest 20 percent for the same period, their performance dropped from the 50th percentile to the 37th percentile.” Kansas ranks below average among the states in its policies that promote teacher quality.

    Who benefits from class size reduction?

    If class size reduction doesn’t work, why is it so popular? The answer is it benefits many special interest groups. The first group is the parents who send their children to public schools. While class size reduction doesn’t help their children (except in limited circumstances), they think it does. Intuitively, it seems like small class size should help. More individual attention to their kids, the parents are told. And what parent doesn’t want the best for their child? This leads to an effective tactic that school spending supporters use: Any reduction in school funding, no matter how small, will cause class sizes to “explode” or “balloon” out of control, causing student achievement to “plummet.”

    Then, there’s the teachers union. Small class size means more teachers and more union members. Fewer students means an easier job for teachers, too, with less papers to grade, etc. The unions also oppose nearly all the policies that would improve teacher quality. For example, this year the Kansas Legislature spent quite a bit of time on a policy where the period before teachers are awarded tenure could be increased from three to five years in certain circumstances. This is what qualifies as “school reform” in Kansas. Remember, Kansas ranks very low in policies that promote teacher quality. Tinkering with the policy on teacher tenure is not going to improve our teacher quality, as tenure is a system that ought to be eliminated. In Kansas the teachers union is Kansas National Education Association (KNEA).

    Public school administrators benefit from class size reduction. With more classrooms and more employees, their budgets and power swell. In Wichita, one of the main reasons USD 259, the Wichita public school district gave for the necessity of passing a bond issue in 2008 was the need for more classrooms to implement class size reduction. Now progress is in a “pause and study” phase, as the district has realized that funding to run the new schools and classrooms on an ongoing basis may not be available. (The bond issue pays for construction, but not operation, of new schools and expansion of existing schools.)

    Architects and construction companies. In my experience sitting in education committee hearing rooms in the Kansas statehouse, whenever there is any proposal that would reduce spending on school construction, a representative of architects is there to offer testimony in opposition. In the campaign for the Wichita school bond in 2008, an architectural firm headed the campaign, and construction companies contributed heavily. They also contribute to the campaign of school board candidates who are in favor of building more classrooms. Most of this is to support class size reduction, which is politically appealing, but we know doesn’t work. But the motivation of architects and construction companies is to build something, whether it is useful or not.

    Politicians — liberals and most conservatives — promote small class sizes. Any politician who promotes policies other than small class size has to overcome the forces listed above. Therefore, most don’t try.

    The rut we’re in

    The perceived desirability of small class sizes by parents and politicians coupled with the powerful motivations of special interests like school administrators, teachers unions, and the construction industry have placed us in a rut. It’s going to be difficult to escape, and it’s refreshing to see the Center for American Progress on the right side of this issue.

    The fact that such a well-known liberal think tank is promoting this issue provides a context other than the typical liberal vs. conservative dichotomy. We are now able to more clearly see the motivations of the special interests that benefit from high school spending and the incorrect evidence they rely on.

    The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction

    By Matthew M. Chingos, Center for American Progress

    Class-size reduction, or CSR, is enormously popular with parents, teachers, and the public in general. The latest poll results indicate that 77 percent of Americans think that additional educational dollars should be spent on smaller classes rather than higher teacher salaries. Many parents believe that their children will benefit from more individualized attention in a smaller class and many teachers find smaller classes easier to manage. The pupil-teacher ratio is an easy statistic for the public to monitor as a measure of educational quality, especially before test-score data became widely available in the last decade. …

    Parents, teachers, and policymakers have all embraced CSR as a strategy to improve the quality of public education. There is surprisingly little high-quality research, however, on the effects of class size on student achievement in the United States. The credible evidence that does exist is not consistent, and there are many low-quality studies with results all over the map.

    Continue reading at The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction.

  • KPERS problems must be confronted

    This week the Kansas Legislature may work on the problems facing the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System, or KPERS. Past legislatures have failed to enact reforms necessary to put this system on a sound financial footing, and the legislature has shown itself incapable of managing a system where it’s easy to pass on the problem to future generations. Now Kansas faces an unfunded liability of some $9.3 billion in KPERS. The most important thing the state can do is to stop enrolling new employees in this failing system.

    When confronted with the realities of the finances of KPERS, the response of state government employee representatives is first, attack the messenger. This is taking place now in response to a report released by the Kansas Policy Institute (A Comprehensive Reform of Kansas Public Employees Retirement System). It also happened in 2009 when Art Hall and Barry Poulson released their research in The Funding Crisis in the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System.

    The second response of state government employee representatives is to attack the only solution (short of massive tax increases) to providing for workers’ retirements: the defined-contribution plan. These plans, often called 401(k)-style plans, allow workers to contribute into a special type of tax-advantaged retirement account. Usually employers, in this case the State of Kansas, make additional contributions on employees’ behalf. Employees generally have a variety of investments to choose from. Employees also own their retirement accounts and their assets. The value of the account — and therefore the benefits available to retirees — depends on the performance of the investments.

    KPERS is a defined-benefit plan, sometimes called a traditional pension plan. When employees retire, they are paid a benefit based on their final average salary, number of years of service, and a multiplier. KPERS funding relies on employee contributions, employer contributions (these are the state’s taxpayers), and investment returns.

    The main problem is that the legislature has not provided enough funding to KPERS to keep it in balance. That’s easy to do, as retirement systems like KPERS operate on time horizons of decades, and it’s easy to say let’s deal with the problem next year. It’s also easy for legislators to promise and write into law a higher level of benefits than they’re willing to fund. Problems with lack of funding may not show up until long after the legislators who voted for them are out of office. With defined-contribution plans this isn’t possible. Each party — worker and employer — funds the plan each pay period, and that is the extent of the obligation of each party.

    Misinformation spread

    In its message to its followers, Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) wrote this about the problem with defined-contribution plans: “First, they claim that a DC plan gives the employee control over their own retirement. And if you have lots to invest and have the time and knowledge to do so effectively, that might be true. Of course, even if you do, you can end up like the folks who found Enron to be a great investment or trusted Mr. Madoff. The fact is most of us are not prepared to do our own analysis and investment.”

    There’s quite a bit of misinformation here. But before that, a huge irony is that this information is aimed at Kansas schoolteachers, and their union assumes they are not intelligent enough to plan for their own retirement.

    In fact, planning for retirement is quite easy and simple. All one needs to do is select low-cost index stock and bond mutual funds, of which there are many. These funds, over the long time horizon appropriate for retirement investing, beat the performance of all managed funds, meaning funds managed by professionals who attempt to analyze markets and earn greater than average returns through an active trading strategy. This is not disputed by anyone except by those who sell actively-managed mutual funds.

    “The evidence is clear. Low-cost index funds regularly outperform two-thirds of actively managed funds, and the one-third of actively managed funds that outperform changes from period to period. Even the very few professional investors who have beaten the market over long periods of time — Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Yale University’s David Swensen, for instance — are quick to advise that investors are likely to be much better off with simple low-cost index funds than with expensive actively managed funds.” (Burton G. Malkiel, ‘Buy and Hold’ Is Still a Winner. Also, see the author’s book The random walk guide to investing: ten rules for financial success.)

    Generally, most investors would select just one or two funds in which to place their contributions. Over time, investors may want to change the balance or characteristics of the funds they invest in. This again is easy to do. In fact, large mutual fund companies like Vanguard have index funds that automatically shift the balance between stocks and bonds as investors move along towards retirement.

    The idea that the teachers union believes that professionals like schoolteachers are not capable of becoming informed and making these decisions is laughable if it weren’t the actual belief of the union. Suggestion: An actually useful and productive role for the teachers unions would be to help their members learn to invest for their retirement.

    The problem cited about Enron and Madoff is that some people placed all or nearly all their investments with these two firms. That’s a bad strategy for anyone to follow with their retirement investments. Using index funds will not expose investors to the risk of losing all their money.

    The claim by the KNEA that “lots to invest” is required is false. The companies that manage defined-contribution retirement plans accept new employees into the plan no matter how little they have to invest, and they accept their periodic contributions each pay period no matter how small. Scale — the amount available to invest — is not an issue, contrary to the assertions of the teachers union.

    One claim made by KNEA is true: defined contribution plans give workers control over their retirement savings. This is a benefit. If a worker has a low tolerance for risk, they can keep their contributions in cash (actually treasury bonds would be the choice for these people). Others who wish to take an active role in the retirement investing can do so, as most plans offer funds that have targeted goals such as real estate, growth stocks, short-term bonds, long-term bonds, etc.

    But in KPERS, all members are invested in the mix of investments that the KPERS trustees decide on. (When Jane Carter of Kansas Organization of State Employees asks “Do you really want to take your retirement security and gamble it on the stock market?” she may not be aware that KPERS is invested in the stock market, and those returns are essential to funding KPERS benefits.) The investments that the trustees choose may not be suitable for each individual member. But KPERS members have no choice.

    By the way, the KPERS investment fund has proven irresistible to politicians seeking to invest in Kansas for various reasons. In the 1980s a series of bad investments were made in Kansas companies. As reported in the Wichita Eagle on October 16, 1989: “For many Kansas legislators, the lure of using KPERS money for economic development was tempting. So KPERS, under considerable legislative pressure, agreed to target nearly 10 percent of its fund for business expansions in Kansas.” Many of these investments lost money, and lawsuits went on for years.

    The point is that the worker is in control, not the KPERS trustees or the legislature. That’s important, as the legislature, over the years, has not made sufficient contributions to KPERS. They keep pushing the decision down the road to future legislatures, and the burden on future taxpayers who will need to make the necessary contributions. But in a defined benefit plan, employees, through their employers, make contributions each pay period. If for some reason the employer fails to make the contribution, it’s easy to notice it before years go by.

    New members needed to prop up existing

    Reading the material put out by KPERS defined-benefit supporters, it becomes clear that KPERS depends on the contributions of new members to pay for the benefits of those already in the system. Here’s a claim made by KNEA, the teachers union: “If all new employees came in under a defined contribution or 401(k) plan, their investments would be essentially personal investments and not used to contribute to benefit payments to current or future defined benefit members. This means that each person who retires will be replaced by someone who is not paying into the defined benefit system.” (emphasis added)

    The KNEA has also written to its members: “The state would have the obligation to continue funding the defined benefit (DB) plan since it depends on new employees contributing to fund at least a portion of the benefits to retirees. (emphasis added)

    This claim was echoed in testimony given by Coalition for Keeping the Kansas Promise, which states: “In fact, the creation of a defined contribution plan for KPERS, which will remove revenues used to reduce the unfunded actuarial liability, will only accelerate the insolvency of the KPERS fund for current KPERS members and retirees from FY 2033 to an uncertain, though more immediate, date in the future, and place the entire KPERS funding obligation upon Kansas taxpayers.”

    There could be no clearer admission that the KPERS contributions of young workers are used to fund the benefits of retirees. Instead of the new members’ contributions being invested and growing to provide for their own retirement, their contributions are needed to pay for current retirees. This is a system that guarantees being perpetually under-funded.

    Who is the employer?

    The Kansas Policy Institute report states: “Employers in the state/school plan currently contribute 9.37 percent of payroll. To fully fund that part of the plan at the market value of assets employers would have to contribute 15.26 percent of payroll. Employer contributions into the state/school plan would have to increase from $393 million to $640 million annually, a 63 percent increase.”

    Now when most people read this and other information about KPERS they probably don’t associate “employer contributions” with what this term means. Since KPERS covers government employees, the employer is the state’s taxpayers.

    That’s right. It is the taxpayers who will be called upon to correct the unfunded KPERS liability. The KPI report is accurate but understates the political reality when it concludes: “Kansas legislators are not likely to find an additional $247 million in the current budget to fully fund the KPERS pension plan; and they are even less likely to find the money to fully fund the plan in future years as unfunded liabilities accumulate, especially if the plan fails to generate the projected 8 percent rate of return on assets.”

    Most Kansans realize that KPERS is part of the cost of having state employees. Citizens pay taxes so that these employees can be paid, and KPERS is part of their package of pay. The problem is that citizens expect that the cost of paying employees be paid each year. But now we learn that the legislature has not been doing this. The legislature has not been paying all that is required into the KPERS system. Essentially, taxpayers will be asked to pay now for payments not made in years past for work that was performed years ago.

    Investors or combatants

    The current system of retirement for state employees creates a situation where there is conflict. We see it right now, where state employees and their lobbying groups insist that the state make good on its promise to its workers. The pushback comes from those who realize that taxpayers are tired of ever-increasing spending. This is especially true when taxpayers are being asked to make up for the deficits of legislatures past. So there’s conflict. One class is trying to extract payment from another. It isn’t pretty, and it’s not productive. It’s the political system at its worst.

    Advocates for state employees say there’s nothing wrong with KPERS that can’t be fixed by funding it properly. In other words, more taxes and more spending: more conflict. We need to find a way out of this trap, and enrolling new state employees in defined-contribution retirement plans is the way.

    The benefit of defined-contribution plans is that people, including state employees, become investors. They own something. They have a rooting interest in the success of the economies of Kansas, America, and the world.

    Kansas state employees have a choice to make. Do they want to become investors in America and own their retirement funds, or do they want to continue to rely on the political system for their retirement?

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Sunday March 13, 2011

    Wichita city council this week. There is no meeting of the Wichita City Council this week, as most members will be attending a meeting of the National League of Cities in Washington, DC. These conferences are designed to help council members be more effective. But for three of the council members that will be attending, their future service on the council is measured in days, not years. These three lame duck members — Sue Schlapp, Paul Gray, and Roger Smith — will be leaving the council in April when their terms end. Their participation in this conference, at taxpayer expense, is nothing more than a junket — for lame ducks.

    How attitudes can differ. At a recent forum of city council candidates, one candidate mentioned the five or six police officers conducting security screening of visitors seeking to enter Wichita city hall, recognizing that this doesn’t create a welcoming atmosphere for citizens. Vice Mayor Jeff Longwell said he thought the officers are “accommodating and welcoming.” It should be noted that Longwell carries a card that allows him to effortlessly enter city hall through turnstiles that bypass the screening that citizens endure. Further, it’s natural that the police officers are deferential to Longwell, just as most employees are to their bosses. … This attitude of Longwell is an example of just how removed elected officials can be from the citizens — and reality, too. Coupled with the closing of the city hall parking garage to citizens and the junket for lame ducks described above, the people of Wichita sense city hall elected officials and bureaucrats becoming increasingly removed from the concerns of the average person.

    Private property and the price system. In The Science of Success, Charles Koch succinctly explains the importance of private property and prices to market economies and prosperity, how government planning can’t benefit from these factors, and the tragedy of the commons: “Private property is essential for both a market economy and prosperity. There cannot be a market economy without private property, and a society without private property cannot have prosperity. To ensure ongoing innovation in satisfying people’s needs, there must be a robust and evolving system of private property rights. Without a market system based on private property, no one can know how to effectively allocate resources. This is because they lack the information that comes from market prices. Those prices depend on voluntary exchanges by owners of private property. Prices and the resulting profit and loss guide entrepreneurs toward satisfying the needs of consumers. Through this system, consumers are able to direct entrepreneurs in efficiently allocating resources through knowledge and incentives in a way no central authority can. … The biggest problems in society have occurred in those areas thought to be best controlled in common: the atmosphere, bodies of water, air, streets, the body politic and human virtue. They all reflect aspects of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and function much better when methods are devised to give them characteristics of private property.”

    Toward a free market in education. From The Objective Standard: “More and more Americans are coming to recognize the superiority of private schools over government-run or ‘public’ schools. Accordingly, many Americans are looking for ways to transform our government-laden education system into a thriving free market. As the laws of economics dictate, and as the better economists have demonstrated, under a free market the quality of education would soar, the range of options would expand, competition would abound, and prices would plummet. The question is: How do we get there from here?” Read more at Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?. … This week in Kansas a committee will hold a hearing on HB 2367, known as the Kansas Education Liberty Act. This bill would implement a system of tax credits to support school choice, much like explained in the article.

    Are lottery tickets like a state-owned casino? This week a committee in the Kansas House of Representatives will hear testimony regarding HB 2340, which would, according to its fiscal note, “exempt from the statewide smoking ban any bar that is authorized to sell lottery tickets under the Kansas Lottery Act.” The reasoning is that since the statewide smoking ban doesn’t apply to casinos because it would lessen revenue flowing to the state from gaming, the state ought to allow smoking where lottery tickets are sold, as they too generate revenue for the state.

    Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve. This month’s meeting of the Wichita chapter of Americans for Prosperity, Kansas features a DVD presentation from the Ludwig von Mises Institute titled “Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve.” About the presentation: “Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood “The Monster.” But to most Americans today, Federal Reserve is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates.” The event is Monday (March 14) at 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Lionel D. Alford Library located at 3447 S. Meridian in Wichita. The library is just north of the I-235 exit on Meridian. For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Wichita-area legislators to meet public. Saturday (March 19th) members of the South-Central Kansas Legislative Delegation will meet with the public. The meeting will be at Derby City Hall, 611 Mulberry Road (click for map), starting at 9:00 am. Generally these meetings last for two hours. Then on April 23 — right before the “wrap-up session” — there will be another meeting at the Wichita State University Hughes Metropolitan Complex, 5015 E. 29th Street (at Oliver).

    Pompeo to meet with public. If you don’t get your fill of politics for the day after the meeting with state legislators, come meet with United States Representative Mike Pompeo, who is just completing two months in office. Pompeo will be holding a town hall meeting at Maize City Hall, 10100 W. Grady (click for map) starting at 1:00 pm on Saturday March 19th.

    Losing the brains race. Veronique de Rugy writing in Reason: “In November the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its Program for International Student Assessment scores, measuring educational achievement in 65 countries. The results are depressingly familiar: While students in many developed nations have been learning more and more over time, American 15-year-olds are stuck in the middle of the pack in many fundamental areas, including reading and math. Yet the United States is near the top in education spending.” … A solution is to introduce competition through markets in education: “Because of the lack of competition in the K–12 education system. Schooling in the United States is still based largely on residency; students remain tied to the neighborhood school regardless of how bad its performance may be. … With no need to convince students and parents to stay, schools in most districts lack the incentive to serve student needs or differentiate their product. To make matters worse, this lack of competition continues at the school level, where teacher hiring and firing decisions are stubbornly divorced from student performance, tied instead to funding levels and tenure.” The author notes that wealthy families already have school choice, as they can afford private schools or can afford to move to areas with public schools they think are better than the schools in most urban districts.

    Teachers unions explained. A supporter of the teachers unions is questioned about her belief that the unions need more money and power. In Kansas, the teachers union in the form of Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) and its affiliates consistently opposes any attempt at reform.

  • KNEA, the Kansas teachers union, open to reform?

    Do the teachers unions in Kansas, particularly Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), have the best interests of schoolchildren as their primary goal? Are teachers unions open to change and reform?

    An op-ed written by Claudette Johns, who is executive director for KNEA, claims that the union is open to new ideas, and that the goal of the union is “to make public schools great for every child.” But when we look at what teachers unions in Kansas actually do, we see that the unions are a roadblock to better schools.

    There are many ways that teachers unions work against the interests of children. For example, the contract for teachers in USD 259, the Wichita public school district, provides for two ways for teachers to earn a higher salary (besides taking on extra duties like coaching): they can teach more years, and they can gain additional education credentials.

    There are several problems with this approach to teacher pay. First, there is compelling research that indicates that beyond the first few years, additional years of experience contribute nothing to teacher effectiveness in the classroom, with one exception.

    As to gaining extra education: “The evidence is conclusive that master’s degrees do not make teachers more effective,” according to a summary of research prepared by the National Council on Teacher Quality. Amazingly, some studies have found that as teachers gained more credentials, their effectiveness in the classroom declined. Yet, the contract negotiated by the Wichita teachers union — and most unions across the country — requires that districts pay teachers more as they gain these credentials which do nothing to increase effectiveness.

    Even if you discount these studies, are we to believe that all teachers increase in effectiveness in lockstep as they advance in seniority and gaining additional training? Of course not. But the teachers union contract says this is the way teachers are to be paid. Effectiveness in the classroom — which is what children need — is not a consideration.

    The teachers unions have created a system where teaching effectiveness — how well someone does their job — means nothing as to how much teachers will be paid. That’s important, as we are becoming aware that there is a very large difference in the learning experiences of students based on teacher effectiveness. Even President Obama recognizes the absurdity of this situation, and he and Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan have advocated merit pay. This is a system where teachers are evaluated on their effectiveness and paid accordingly, just like almost all private sector workers are paid and rewarded.

    But the teachers union will vigorously oppose any efforts to implement anything that smells like merit pay. It’s one of the union’s most important reasons for existing, and it perpetuates a system that drives motivated teachers out of the schools.

    Another important goal of teachers unions is to protect the policy of granting tenure, after which it is virtually impossible to fire a teacher for poor effectiveness. This is another teachers union policy that works against teacher effectiveness and student learning. In Kansas, the teachers union strongly opposes changing the probationary period before the granting of tenure from three to five years.

    The teachers union, when it promotes these policies, has an argument on their side that has some validity. It is said that school administrators — in a system without tenure and rigid salary schedules — would practice “crony” hiring and promotion practices. They would reward their friends and family and punish their enemies or those they simply don’t like.

    These things happen in a system insulated from market competition, and institutions don’t suffer when they do. In the private sector, when a manager makes staffing decisions based on cronyism — rather than hiring and retaining the best possible employees — the profitability of the company suffers. If managers’ compensation is tied to profitability, they suffer when making staffing decisions based on cronyism rather than merit. The company could perform so poorly that it goes out of business.

    A system of market competition, however, forces each institution — schools, too — to be the best they can possibly be. When schools compete for students and funding, principals might learn to like, promote, and reward their very best teachers.

    School administrators also might learn how to evaluate and recognize the best teachers. This is vitally important, because of the factors under the control of schools, teacher quality is by far the most important factor in student success. It’s much more important than class size, which is another thing teachers unions constantly advocate for.

    The merits of this argument don’t mean that we should have teachers unions that operate more like industrial unions than a group representing workers that seek to be treated as professionals. Instead, it means we need more ways to hold school administrators accountable for the actions, and in turn, teachers. The best way to do this is to introduce market competition through various forms of school choice. Charter schools in Kansas would be a good start. But school choice and market competition is another reform the teachers unions oppose — again putting their own interests first.

  • Kansas school reform issues

    As Kansas struggles to find funding for its public schools and other functions of government, we’re losing an opportunity to examine our schools and see if they’re performing as well as they should, both financially and academically. Here are some issues not being discussed on a widespread basis:

    School choice

    Across the country, charter schools and school choice programs are offering choice and improved educational outcomes to families. While Kansas has charter schools, the charter school law in Kansas is one of the weakest in the nation, and virtually guarantees that public schools won’t face much meaningful competition from charters.

    School choice in the form of vouchers or tax credits doesn’t exist at all in Kansas. As a result, Kansas public schools face very little of the competitive forces that have been found to spur public schools to improvement across the country.

    School choice programs save money, too. In 2007, the The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. According to the executive summary: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.”

    Kansas is overlooking several reforms that would increase freedom and educational opportunity and would save money at the same time.

    Accountability with teeth

    Recently former Florida Governor Jeb Bush explained the accountability measures that have produced great success in Florida. Measures including grading individual schools from “A” to “F,” ending social promotion, and school choice programs, which help all schools: “Choice is the catalytic converter here, accelerating the benefits of other education reforms. Almost 300,000 students opt for one of these alternatives, and research from the Manhattan Institute, Cornell and Harvard shows that Florida’s public schools have improved in the face of competition provided by the many school-choice programs.”

    Teacher quality policies

    Recently Sandi Jacobs of National Council for Teacher Quality spoke in Wichita and addressed Kansas policies regarding teacher quality. Our policies rank below the average for all states. More information from Jacob’s presentation is at Kansas ranks low in policies on teacher quality.

    Fund balances

    The Kansas Policy Institute has found that Kansas schools are sitting on fund balances of over $700 million that could be used to make it through a tough budget year.

    School spending advocates dispute this. But Kansas Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis agrees with KPI President Dave Trabert that these fund balances could be used — if the schools wanted to.

    Chief school spending lobbyist Mark Tallman of the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) has argued that “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 tells us that the balances in these funds are more than needed, because they’ve been growing rapidly. 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.

    Focus on what works

    Class size, merit pay, salary scales, unions, teacher experience and education, certification: all need to be examined to make sure that schools make decisions based on what works. We find, however, that school districts resist reforms. As a monopoly shielded from significant competition, Kansas public schools face little pressure to reform.

    Consider class size, something that the education bureaucracy says is of utmost importance, and one of the primary reasons given for school bond issues. What the school spending lobby won’t realize is that class size is not important. Instead, the quality of teachers is much more important. Writes education researcher Eric Hanushek: “Much of the work that I have done has focused on teacher effectiveness. From this research I have concluded that teacher quality is the most important factor in determining how well a school will do. … Teacher quality is not captured by typically discussed characteristics of teachers such as master’s degrees, teaching experience, or even certification — things that states typically monitor. Requiring such things unrelated to student performance dilutes accountability and detracts from things that would make them more effective.”

    Consider the harm of union work rules: When private sector companies are forced to layoff employees, they may use the opportunity to shed their lower-performing employees first. Government schools, governed by union contracts like the one in Wichita, can’t do this. They must dismiss the teachers with least seniority first. While this might seem like a good way to keep the best teachers, it turns out that experience is only a minor factor in teacher quality.

    Test scores

    Are Kansas test scores a reliable and valid measure of student achievement? The test scores that school spending advocates use — tests administered by the state of Kansas — are almost certainly misleading. The basic problem is that scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show achievement by Kansas students largely unchanged in recent years. This is at the same time that scores on tests given by the Kansas education establishment show large improvements. We need to investigate so that we understand the source of this difference. The Kansas education bureaucracy resists such efforts.

    The cost of a suitable education

    The issue of what an education in Kansas should cost is again being examined by courts. This should provide an opportunity to examine the cost studies used by the court. The Kansas Policy Institute has published Kansas Primer on Education Funding: Volume II Analysis of Montoy vs. State of Kansas, which provides useful criticism and perspective of the cost studies used.

    Alternative remedies

    Besides ordering increased spending, courts should consider alternative remedies. These might take the form of increased opportunities for parents to escape failing public schools. An example is the parent trigger. This mechanism allows parents to force radical change on a school through the petition process.

  • Kansas legislative forums should be for citizens

    This week’s meeting of the South-Central Kansas Legislative Delegation with citizens featured a number of speakers who — while citizens, of course — are working for taxpayer-funded agencies. Many of these also have a strong lobbying presence in Topeka. The large-scale presence of these speakers at this meeting was a matter of concern for one legislator who contacted me, suggesting that so many taxpayer-funded speakers crowded out regular citizens, which is who these meetings are designed for.

    Government agencies have their own meeting with legislators each year at this time in Wichita. Furthermore, many government agencies like USD 259, the Wichita public school district, have their own year-round, highly-paid lobbyists to represent them.

    The taxpayer-funded group that stood out the most was United Methodist Youthville, an agency that contracts with the state to provide a variety of child protective care services. Youthville sent six speakers to this meeting, and they, one after another in tag team fashion, presented their case to the legislators.

    One of the speakers for Youthville was Heather Morgan, who is listed at the Secretary of State’s office as a lobbyist for Youthville.

    Undoubtedly part of the reason for Youthville’s large presence was to counter criticism of their operations, which is often a topic at the legislative forums. The Youthville representatives, which spoke very near the start of the meeting, left as soon as they had delivered their message to the legislators.

    School spending advocates made their appearance. Randy Mousley, who is vice-president of United Teachers of Wichita (the teachers union), spoke in favor of more school spending — at least I think so, as his message to the legislators could be interpreted several ways. But the entire goal of the UTW, which is an affiliate of Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), is that there must be more spending on schools, and it lobbies for this quite effectively. Brent Lewis, a board member of UTW, also spoke in favor of government and school spending.

    Other taxpayer-funded entities made their appearance in the persons of Mark McCain, general manager of Wichita Public Radio, and Michele Gors, President of Kansas Public Television. These heads of these at least partially taxpayer-funded organizations made their case for more state government funding.

    These executives have the time and wherewithal to travel to Topeka to lobby legislators. Citizens — especially if they’re not local to Topeka — don’t have the ability to do this. And when they do, their travel is not paid for by their companies or unions.

    As legislators told me, these taxpayer-funded agencies make their case — often at taxpayer expense — very well in Topeka. They shouldn’t be crowding out citizens at legislative forums.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Wednesday December 1, 2010

    Tax incentives questioned. In a commentary in Site Selection Magazine, Daniel Levine lays out the case that tax incentives that states use to lure or keep jobs are harmful, and the practice should end. In Incentives and the Interstate Competition for Jobs he writes: “Despite overwhelming evidence that state and local tax incentives are having little to no positive effect on promoting real economic growth anywhere in the country, states continue to up the ante with richer and richer incentive programs. … there are real questions as to whether the interstate competition for jobs is a wise use of anyone’s tax dollars and, if not, then what can be done to at least slow down this zero sum game?” As a solution, Levine proposes that the Internal Revenue Service classify some types of incentives as taxable income to the recipient, which would reduce the value and the attractiveness of the offer. Levine also correctly classifies tax credits — like the historical preservation tax credits in Kansas — as spending programs in disguise: “Similarly, when a ‘tax credit’ can be sold or transferred if unutilized it ceases to have a meaningful connection to state tax liability. Instead, in such circumstances the award of tax credit is merely a delivery mechanism for state subsidy.” In the end, the problem — when recognized as such — always lies with the other guy: “Most state policy makers welcome an opportunity to offer large cash incentives to out-of-state companies considering a move to their state but fume with indignation when a neighboring state uses the same techniques against them.”

    Yoder: No business as usual. Kansas Watchdog reports on a speech by newly-elected U.S. Congressman Kevin Yoder from the Kansas third district. Said Yoder: “Business as usual has to stop in Washington.” They always say this. Let’s hope Yoder and the other new representatives from Kansas mean it, and can resist the inevitable pressures. Remember the assessment of Trent Lott, a former Senate majority leader and now a powerful lobbyist, as reported in the Washington Examiner: “‘We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,’ Lott told the Washington Post, referring to the conservative South Carolina senator who has been a gadfly for party leadership and a champion for upstart conservative candidates. ‘As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.’”

    Kansas revenue outlook was mixed in November . From Kansas Reporter: “Kansas’ economy and the state government’s cash flow continued to struggle in November, preliminary tax revenue numbers indicated Tuesday. A Kansas Department of Revenue calculation of state tax receipts during November showed the state collected $384 million in taxes during the month, a whisker-thin $783,000, or 0.2 percent, less than forecasters calculated just three weeks ago, but nearly $30 million, or 8.5 percent more than in November, 2009.” The 8.5 percent growth from a year ago is partly from the increase in the state’s sales tax. “This suggests that actual retail sales activity, on which state officials are counting to hit future revenue targets, may be trailing year-earlier levels by about 2.4 percent.”

    Teacher organization offers alternative to KNEA . “The Kansas Association of American Educators says it offers the benefits of a union membership, but doesn’t involve itself in partisan issues.” More at Kansas Reporter.

    Kansas education officials may overstate student performance. Kansas schools claim rapidly rising test scores while other measures of student performance remain largely unchanged, even falling in some years. Kansas Watchdog reports: “There are nagging questions about the validity of claims based on state assessments and the tests are only one measure of the education system’s performance. Several national education watchdogs and the U.S. Department of Education have questioned the rigor of state tests, proficiency standards, graduation rates and graduates preparation for college and the workforce.” The story is Kansas Education Officials May Overstate Student Performance.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday November 26, 2010

    Bill Gates on school reform. Microsoft Chairman and founder Bill Gates, in an effort to help the states save money on schools, recently gave a speech, as reported by the New York Times: “He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement. He also urges an end to efforts to reduce class sizes. Instead, he suggests rewarding the most effective teachers with higher pay for taking on larger classes or teaching in needy schools.” This is a refreshing take on the issue of class size. For more background on these issues from Voice for Liberty, click on Focus on class size in Wichita leads to misspent resources, Wichita public school district’s path: not fruitful, In public schools, incentives matter, and Wichita school district policy is misguided. For what it’s worth, incoming Kansas governor Sam Brownback doesn’t seem to have these issues on his agenda for education reform.

    Now the schools look for savings. The Lawrence Journal-World reports on an initiative to save on utility costs in the Lawrence public school system. “Teachers are unloading their refrigerators, flipping off computer monitors and unplugging their coffee pots — all to help the Lawrence school district save a few bucks over the Thanksgiving break. It’s all part of an ongoing program to trim utility costs, thus far saving the district at least $3.6 million.” I wonder: why hasn’t the school district been doing this already? This is more evidence that spending can be cut in ways that won’t harm children, despite the shrill claims of school spending advocates when they, like Wichita Representative Jim Ward or outgoing governor Mark Parkinson, claim that spending has already been “cut to the bone.” Lawrence, USD 497, contributed to the 2005 Kansas schools lawsuit, but is not a member of this year’s group suing taxpayers for more money. Give a small measure of credit to this district, that they’re trying to cut costs first instead of suing taxpayers.

    Business climate under Brownback. A poll by the Wichita Business Journal indicates that Kansans think the state’s business climate will improve under incoming governor Sam Brownback — barely. 53 percent of respondents clicked on “Yes, it will get better.” The rest thought the business climate will remain the same or get worse. This is not a scientific poll, but represents the sentiment of those readers who chose to participate.

    The parent trigger. A law in California allows parents whose children are in failing public schools to petition the school to become a charter school, close down, other undergo other reform. Called the “parent trigger,” the law was promoted from the political left, unlike most reform proposals which come from the political right. The Center for School Reform at the Heartland Institute explains in the policy brief The Parent Trigger: A Model for Transforming Education. As the full report states: “America’s $400 billion public education system exists primarily to serve grown-ups — bureaucrats, unions, and other special interests — not kids.” The primary opposition to this measure comes from — naturally — the teachers union: “Because many parents will likely choose to have their schools convert to charters and most charter schools are not unionized, powerful unions like the California Teachers Association view parental empowerment as a threat.” Anyone who has read much about school reform knows that the teachers unions and schools spending advocacy groups are the greatest threat to any meaningful reform. In Kansas, the two groups that consistently oppose meaningful reform are Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB).

    Public or private parks? John Stossel asks whether parks should be public or privately owned. A video clip shows several interviewees insisting that parks must be public. Unknowing to these people, they were all interviewed in a privately-owned park. In this video clip, Stossel explains the tragedy of the commons and the benefits of private property. His written article concludes: “What private property does — as the Pilgrims discovered — is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there’s a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.”

    Kansas Rep. Jim Morrison. Kansas Representative Jim Morrison of Colby has died. Services are pending.

    Kansas City Mayor not happy with job poaching. The flow of jobs from Kansas City Missouri across the border to Kansas needs to stop, says Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser. The Promoting Employment Across Kansas (PEAK) program is to blame, he says. This program allows companies to use nearly all the payroll withholding taxes its employees pay for its own benefit instead of supporting the Kansas budget. In urging Missouri to step up its ability to offer incentives, Funhouser used the term “nuclear deterrence.” He seems to indicate that the ability of one state to counter another state’s incentives might stop companies from moving just to get incentives. See Kansas City Star article Loss of jobs to Kansas irks Kansas City’s mayor. It’s a little ironic to hear Missouri complain about generous Kansas incentives, as Kansas politicians like Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer often complain about the incentives other states offer that Kansas can’t match, and how they wish they had other “tools in the toolbox.” Also, Star columnist Mary Sanchez is wrong when she writes “Present-day market realities call for upfront capital incentives for companies to relocate.”

  • Kansas school spending advocates sue; opportunity for reform is overlooked

    Lost in the news last week was the announcement of a taxpayer-funded lawsuit against Kansas taxpayers in order to gain more funding for public schools. But now that the election is over, Kansans are starting to turn their attention to this lawsuit. So far, the discussion is missing something that could solve our problems without spending any additional money.

    In its search to find a solution to the problem of funding its government schools, Kansas is overlooking a sure solution: widespread school choice.

    While proponents of public school spending argue that school choice programs drain away dollars from needy, underfunded public schools, this is not the case.

    In 2007 The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. According to the executive summary: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.”

    How can this be? The public school spending lobby, which in Kansas is primarily the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB), would have us believe that educational freedom would kill public education. They say that school choice program drain scarce resources from the public school system.

    But when researchers looked at the actual effects, they found this: “In nearly every school choice program, the dollar value of the voucher or scholarship is less than or equal to the state’s formula spending per student. This means states are spending the same amount or less on students in school choice programs than they would have spent on the same students if they had attended public schools, producing a fiscal savings.”

    So at the state level, school choice programs save money. They don’t cost money to implement; they save money.

    At the local level, schools districts have more money, on a per-student basis, when school choice programs are used: “When a student uses school choice, the local public school district no longer needs to pay the instructional costs associated with that student, but it does not lose all of its per-student revenue, because some revenue does not vary with enrollment levels. Thus, school choice produces a positive fiscal impact for school districts as well as for state budgets.”

    The problem is that while school choice programs save money for the state and its taxpayers, it reduces money flowing to the public, or government, schools. School spending advocates don’t like that. While these advocates, such as Mark Tallman, assistant executive director of the KASB, present themselves as advocates for Kansas schoolchildren, their true function is to direct as much spending as possible to Kansas public schools.

    If we need evidence of the never-ending appetite of schools for money and what spending advocates like Tallman consider their mission, consider a story told by Kansas House Speaker Pro Tem Arlen Siegfreid (R-Olathe) of a conversation he had with Tallman: “During our discussion I asked Mr. Tallman if we (the State) had the ability to give the schools everything he asked for would he still ask for even more money for schools. His answer was, ‘Of course, that’s my job.’”

    Besides full-fledged school choice, charter schools save money too. Kansas has one of the weakest charter school laws in the nation, described by the Center for Education Reform as a “law in name only.” As a result, there are very few charter schools in Kansas. That’s the way Tallman and other Kansas school spending advocates like it.

    What is the outlook for the future? So far, I am not aware of any legislators who are proposing school choice or charter school legislation. While incoming governor Sam Brownback had an education plan as part of his campaign, he did not campaign on charter schools or teacher merit pay. School choice was not mentioned, either.

    The danger over the next few years is that Kansas will waste its time fussing over a school financing formula that, in the end, still funds a government school monopoly at the exclusion of choice, even the mildest form of choice: charter schools. Consequently Kansas misses out on the improvement and diversity that choice brings. Brownback and the new conservative legislators should take this opportunity to radically reform Kansas education.