Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas State Department of Education

  • Teacher quality report issued; Kansas needs improvement

    National Council on Teacher Quality has released its new edition of its State Teacher Policy Yearbook. Kansas doesn’t do well.

    Kansas earned a grade of D+, the same as the previous year. That’s also the average state grade.

    Under the heading “Critical Attention” the report states “Kansas does not ensure that teacher preparation programs admit candidates with strong academic records.” Also in this category: “Kansas does not ensure that new elementary teachers are ready to teach to the Common Core Standards” and “Kansas does not hold its teacher preparation programs accountable for the effectiveness of the teachers they produce.”

    There is some good news: “Kansas is on track to ensure that new middle school teachers will be prepared to teach appropriate grade-level content.”

    The full report for Kansas is at Improving Teacher Preparation in Kansas.

  • Kansas parents lack power

    Compared to other states, parents in Kansas have little power to exercise control over school decisions, according to the Center for Education Reform.

    The center’s recent Parent Power Index ranks Kansas forth-seventh among the states. Its overall assessment of Kansas is “The Sunflower State has a less than sunny outlook for reform, making it more difficult for parents to find new and more effective options for their children. Like other rural states, Kansas offers some access to digital learning modalities, but other than that, parents have few choices and few assurances that teacher quality is acceptable.”

    For the report for Kansas, click here.

  • Kansas school test scores, in perspective

    We hear a lot about how Kansas shouldn’t strive to become more like Texas, especially regarding schools. Defenders of high school spending in Kansas portray Texas as a backwater state with poor schools.

    Superficially, it looks like the Kansas school spending establishment has a valid point. Scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress, a test that is the same in all states, has Kansas scoring better than Texas (with one tie) in reading and math, in both fourth and eighth grade.

    That makes sense to the school spending establishment, as Kansas, in 2009, spent $11,427 per student. Texas spent $11,085, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Considering only spending deemed by NCES to be for instruction, it was Kansas at $6,162 per student and Texas at $5,138.

    Texas also has larger class sizes, or more precisely, a higher pupil/teacher ratio. Texas has 14.56 students for each teacher. In Kansas, it’s 13.67. (2009 figures, according to NCES.)

    So for those who believe that school spending is positively correlated with student success, Kansas and Texas NAEP scores are evidence that they’re correct in their belief.

    But let us take another look at the Kansas and Texas NAEP scores. Here’s a table of 2011 scores.

    kansas-texas-naep-test-scores-2011

    Notice that when reporting scores for all students, Kansas has the highest scores, except for one tie. But when we look at subgroups, all the sudden the picture is different: Texas has the best scores in all cases, except for two ties. Similar patterns exist for previous years.

    Kansas students score better than Texas students, that is true. It is also true that Texas white students score better than Kansas white students, Texas black students score better than Kansas black students, and Texas Hispanic students score better than or tie Kansas Hispanic students. The same pattern holds true for other ethnic subgroups.

    How can this be? The answer is Simpson’s Paradox. A Wall Street Journal article explains: “Put simply, Simpson’s Paradox reveals that aggregated data can appear to reverse important trends in the numbers being combined.”

    The Wikipedia article explains: “A paradox in which a trend that appears in different groups of data disappears when these groups are combined, and the reverse trend appears for the aggregate data.”

    In this case, the confounding factor (“lurking” variable) is that the two states differ greatly in the proportion of white students. In Kansas, 69 percent of students are white. In Texas it’s 33 percent. This large difference in the composition of students is what makes it look like Kansas students perform better on the NAEP than Texas students.

    But looking at the scores for ethnic subgroups, which state would you say has the most desirable set of NAEP scores?

    Kansas progressives and those who support more spending on schools say we don’t want to be like Texas. I wonder if they are aware of Simpson’s Paradox.

  • Citizens generally misinformed on Kansas school spending

    When asked about the level of spending on public schools in Kansas, citizens are generally uninformed or misinformed. They also incorrectly thought that spending has declined in recent years.

    These are some of the findings of a survey commissioned by Kansas Policy Institute and conducted by SurveyUSA, a national opinion research firm.

    In a press release, KPI president Dave Trabert said “As Kansans consider how to deal with the potential fallout from another school lawsuit, pressure to expand Medicaid, ballooning pension deficits and concerns about rising property taxes, we wanted to check again to see how perceptions of the facts influences opinions. Good information is essential to informed opinions and it is clear that when given the facts, Kansans offer much different responses than what is typically reported from overly-simplistic public surveys.”

    Here’s the first question of the survey, asking about Kansas state spending on schools: “How much state funding do you think Kansas school districts currently receive per pupil each year from JUST the state of Kansas? Less than $4,000 per pupil? Between $4,000 and $5,000? Between $5,000 and $6,000? Or more than $6,000 per pupil?”

    The correct answer is the last category, according to Kansas State Department of Education. State spending on Kansas schools, on a per-pupil basis, is $6,984 for the most recent school year. That’s total state-funded spending of $3,184,163,559 divided by 456,000.50 full time equivalent students. 13 percent of survey respondents chose the correct category. 44 percent thought the correct answer was less than $4,000.

    To get a reading about respondents’ level of knowledge regarding total school spending, the survey asked “How much funding per pupil do you think Kansas school districts currently receive from ALL taxpayer sources per year, including State, Federal and Local taxpayers? Less than $6,000 per pupil? Between $6,000 and $9,000? Between $9,000 and $12,000? Or more than $12,000 per pupil?”

    According to KSDE, the spending per pupil from all sources of funding is $12,656. On the survey, seven percent chose the correct category. 39 percent thought the answer was less than $6,000, which is less than half the actual spending.

    What the trend in school spending? The survey asked: “Over the last 5 years, do you think per-pupil school district funding from the State, Federal Government and local property taxes has gone down by more than 10%? Has remained about the same? Has gone up by less than 5%? Or has gone up by about 10%?”

    Here are the figures: For 2011-2012, spending per pupil was $12,656. Five years ago, the 2006-2007 school year, spending was $11,558. That’s 9.5 percent. Only 15 percent chose the correct answer, “up by about 10%.” Fully 61 percent thought spending had declined.

    The level of knowledge revealed in this survey is not a surprise. In 2010 KPI commissioned a survey that asked similar questions, with similar results.

    A national survey, Is the Price Right? Probing American’s knowledge of school spending, a 2007 project produced by EducationNext, a project of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, produced similar results:

    How well informed is the public about these financial commitments? Not very. Among those asked without the prompt listing possible expenses, the median response was $2,000, or less than 20 percent of the true amount being spent in their districts. Over 90 percent of the public offered an amount less than the amount actually spent in their district, and more than 40 percent of the sample claimed that annual spending was $1,000 per pupil or less. The average estimate of $4,231 reflects the influence of a small percentage of individuals who offered extremely high figures. Even so, the average respondent’s estimate was just 42 percent of actual spending levels in their district.

    Why the low level of correct information?

    Given that citizens have a consistent record of underestimating the amount spend on schools, we might ask why. There are several answers.

    First, school officials lie to the public. That’s unfortunate, but there’s no other way to characterize comparisons between their statements and the facts.

    In July, a Wichita Eagle news story quoted John Allison, superintendent of USD 259, the Wichita public school district thusly: “We’re still at 2001 funding levels. If only our costs were at 2001.”

    In March, Wichita school board member Connie Dietz wrote in an Eagle op-ed: “But what neither I nor any of my fellow board members planned on was building a fiscal year 2012 budget based on 1999 funding levels.”

    Looking at the facts, these claims are demonstrably false. Considering Allison’s claim specifically: From the 2001-2002 school year to the 2011-2012 year, spending per pupil from state sources increased from $4,812 to $7,501, an increase of 55.8 percent. Spending per pupil from all sources grew from $8,393 to $12,734, an increase of 51.7 percent.

    During the same time, the Consumer Price Index, the primary measure of inflation, rose about 27 percent, about half the rate that Wichita school spending increased.

    I don’t know why these school leaders makes these claims that are so divergent from the facts. I do know, however, that our opinion leaders aren’t doing any better. A Lawrence Journal-World editorial that was repeated in the Wichita Eagle made several claims about Kansas schools that don’t hold up under scrutiny. The editorial made this claim: “In the last four years, per-pupil state funding for public schools has declined by about 14 percent, from $4,400 per student to $3,780. Districts have cut the fat in their budgets and then some. It’s time to correct this dangerous trend.”

    This statement about “base state aid per pupil” is true. But using only that figure to describe spending on schools in Kansas is disingenuous. It hides facts that are contrary.

    School spending advocates present base state aid per pupil as the primary benchmark or indicator of school spending, despite the fact that it is only part of the Kansas school spending formula and disguises the overall level of spending.

    Specifically, base state aid per pupil for the last school year was $3,780. But the state spent an average of $6,983 per pupil that year, which is an additional $3,203 or 84.7 percent more than base state aid. Overall spending from all sources was $12,656 per pupil. Both of the latter numbers are higher than the previous year.

    As can be seen in the chart, base state aid has declined, but total state spending has increased.

    Why do school spending supporters focus only on base state aid? Its decline provides the grain of truth for their larger and false argument about school spending. As explained in Kansas school spending: the deception this grain of truth enables school spending advocates like Mark Desetti (Director of Legislative and Political Advocacy at Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union) to be accurate and deceptive, all at the same time.

    Finally, people want schools and students to succeed. Our future depends on it. A good education is a valuable investment. So there’s a built-in bias in favor of schools, and school spending advocates use this to their advantage. Anyone who simply brings attention to the facts — not to mention criticism — is blasted as “anti-education” or “anti-child.”

    People are shocked when they learn the level of spending by schools. When they — either through their own observations or measures of student achievement — compare that spending to the product produced by public schools, citizens become truly alarmed — and they should be.

    Base state aid compared to Kansas state spending and total spending. State and total spending has risen even though base state aid is mostly flat.

  • Kansas Democrats wrong on school spending

    While the Kansas Democratic Party apologized last week for misstating candidates’ voting record on two mail pieces, the party and its candidates continue a campaign of misinformation regarding spending on Kansas public schools.

    Many of the allegations are made against Kansas Governor Sam Brownback for purportedly cutting school spending. An example is on the Kansas Democratic Party Facebook page, which can be seen nearby.

    As part of the party’s website, on a page titled Restore Education Funding, Kansas Democrats make this claim:

    An Education Fact

    Between FY2008-2009 and FY2011-2012, general state aid to education was cut by nearly $400 million. In just thee [sic] years, that’s a reduction of $620 for every schoolchild in the state.

    This claim is repeated on candidates’ web sites, such as this example from senatorial candidate Tim Snow, which reads: “In the last three years, conservatives in Topeka have slashed education spending by $620 per student.”

    The problem is that these claims aren’t factual. Consider the numbers from the Kansas Democrat website. In 2008-2009 Kansas state spending on schools was $3,287,165,278, according to the Kansas State Department of Education. In 2011-2012, that figure was $3,184,163,559. That’s a difference of $103,001,719, which is a long way from $400 million, the number claimed by Democrats.

    Looking at spending per pupil figures, the change was from $7,344 to $6,983. That’s $361, not $620 as Democrats claim.

    The Democrats are also considering only Kansas state spending on schools, neglecting federal and local sources of funds. In the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 schools years, federal aid soared as a result of the Obama stimulus program. These funds almost made up for the decline in state spending, meaning that total spending on Kansas schools declined only slightly.

    (You’d think that Kansas Democrats would want to remind us of the supposedly wonderful things the Obama stimulus accomplished, but evidently not when the facts are inconvenient.)

    Then, who was Kansas governor during the years that Kansas state spending on schools declined? Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson. They’re Democrats, I believe.

    There are more examples of Democrats misleading Kansans. Here’s Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley: “But Gov. Brownback is acting on the assumption that schools aren’t stretching every dollar to the last cent, even after he made the largest cut to public education in Kansas history.” (Dems seek input from parents, educators on impact of school funding cuts.) (emphasis added)

    Paul Davis, the Kansas House of Representatives Minority Leader, was quoted in the Lawrence Journal-World as saying “Instead of hosting an online forum to complain about public schools, why not discuss all the innovative ways our teachers and administrators have done more with less since Gov. Brownback implemented the largest cut to education funding in Kansas history?” (emphasis added)

    Hensley and Davis are two of the top Democrats in Kansas, absolutely so in the Kansas Legislature.

    It’s easy to understand why Democrats focus on school spending. It’s easy to persuade parents — and anyone, for that matter — that if we want the best for Kansas schoolchildren, we need to spend more.

    More spending in schools means more spending in largely Democratic hands, and more public sector union members, a key Democratic constituency.

    The school spending advocates have done a good job promoting their issue, too. On a survey, not only did Kansans underestimate school spending levels, they did so for the state portion of school funding, and again for the total of all funding sources — state, federal, and local. Kansans also thought spending had declined, when it had increased. See Kansans uninformed on school spending. Similar findings have been reported across the country.

    Spending more on schools is seen as an easy way to solve a problem. But the problems facing Kansas schools will require different approaches, and the Kansas school establishment won’t consider them. For a list of reforms that are needed, but resisted, see Kansas school reform issues.

    Kansas Democrats should consider themselves fortunate that our governor isn’t pressing for the reform that Democrats really hate: school choice.

  • Kansas school test scores haven’t declined, despite early reports

    In the wake of news stories reporting a decline in scores on Kansas school assessment tests, a decline in school funding is said to be the cause, as “funding was reduced to the 1992 level,” according to an op-ed penned by Karen Godfrey. She is president of Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union.

    In her op-ed, titled “Why is this a surprise?” Godfrey makes several claims that deserve examination before Kansas considers implementing the fix she wants, which is, as always, more spending.

    First, there are mistakes in the scores released in September. The revised scores, according to a press release from the Kansas State Department of Education, “show a leveling out of performance on reading and math assessments.” Not the “slight decline,” as a previous press release stated.

    So those who claim a reduction in funding caused a drop in test scores are operating on a false premise. It may have been unknowing, but it conveniently fit their narrative that more spending is needed.

    What’s troubling is this: Godfrey, in her article, can hardly contain her glee in the apparent finding that with declining funding, there were declining test scores. Therefore, there is the proof that the teachers union and school spending establishment needs: Spending less money equals lower achievement, and vice versa.

    Instead, we should be relieved that the test scores are not as bad as first believed.

    Godfrey also claims that school funding is back to the 1992 level, after accounting for inflation. Like most of the school spending establishment, this argument is based on only a small portion of state spending: base state aid per pupil. This figure has gone down. But at the same time, overall school spending has increased.

    Specifically, base state aid per pupil for the last school year was $3,780. But the state spent an average of $6,983 per pupil that year, and overall spending from all sources was $12,656 per pupil. Both of the latter numbers are higher than the previous year.

    It is a happy accident for the Kansas school spending establishment that base state aid per pupil has fallen at the same time that overall spending on schools has increased in almost every year. It allows the school spending lobby to make an argument that is superficially true, but deceptive at the same time.

    Base state aid compared to Kansas state spending and total spending. State and total spending has risen even though base state aid is mostly flat.

  • Kansas school test scores should make us think

    A publication by Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) touts “Kansas student proficiencies in reading and math have increased 40 percent over the past decade and exceed 80 percent at every level.”

    Kansas public school officials also boast that Kansas does well compared to other states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), called the “nation’s report card.”

    But the confidence of Kansas public school leaders has been shaken a bit with the recent release of test results for the recent school year. Results are down. The Kansas Commissioner of Education will form a task force to investigate. Already excuses are being proffered, with some officials saying they always knew that scores would reach a plateau.

    (Later it was discovered that the reported decline was due to a mistake in tabulating results, and that overall, test scores were mostly unchanged.)

    While Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker is conducting an investigation, here’s two questions she ought to ask.

    One: Why have scores on Kansas assessments risen, while scores on the NAEP haven’t? Some know the answer, but it would be refreshing to hear the bureaucracy admit it: The Kansas State Department of Education has lowered standards on the tests it controls. When a state board of education member tries to ask questions about this, he isn’t allowed to have his questions answered.

    Second question: Let’s understand why Kansas NAEP scores are high, relative to other states. Here’s a table comparing Kansas with Texas (shaded cells indicate the state with the highest score):

    Notice that for all students, Kansas has the highest scores, except for one tie. But when we look at subgroups, all the sudden the picture is different: Texas has the best scores in all cases, except for two ties.

    How can this be? The answer is Simpson’s Paradox. A Wall Street Journal article explains: “Put simply, Simpson’s Paradox reveals that aggregated data can appear to reverse important trends in the numbers being combined.” (When Combined Data Reveal the Flaw of Averages: In a Statistical Anomaly Dubbed Simpson’s Paradox, Aggregated Numbers Obscure Trends in Job Market, Medicine and Baseball.)

    In this case, the confounding factor is that the two states differ greatly in the proportion of white students. In Kansas, 69 percent of students are white. In Texas it’s 32 percent.

    Texas, by the way, spends much less per student, and has a higher pupil/teacher ratio.

    Kansas liberals and those who support more spending on schools say we don’t want to be like Texas. I wonder if they are aware of Simpson’s Paradox.

    Will DeBacker and her task force will be interested in the answers to these questions? Kansans should be, especially as we wait the verdict on the school finance trial.

  • At Kansas Board of Education, some questions aren’t allowed

    At a meeting of the Kansas State Board of Education, it became clear that there are certain topics and questions that aren’t to be discussed in public.

    At September’s meeting (video here), BOE chair David Dennis interrupted questioning by board member Walt Chappell and proceeded to the next member’s questions. Chappell was asking whether “cut scores” had declined and whether definitions of “meets standard” and “proficiency” had changed. Dennis would not allow these questions to be answered.

    It’s clear that Dennis — and the entire Kansas public school bureaucracy — doesn’t want to talk about these questions. Here’s why.

    Until this year, scores on Kansas-administered and controlled assessments have been rising — “jumping,” in the recent words of Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker. But scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for Kansas students don’t reflect the same trend. Scores on this test, which is given every two years, haven’t been rising as they have on the Kansas-controlled test scores. Sometimes they decline.

    We now know why the Kansas-controlled test scores have risen: The Kansas State Department of Education has lowered standards. Kansas Policy Institute has done the research.

    In Removing Barriers to Better Public Education, updated in June with new data, KPI concludes: “In 2000 and 2001 a student needed at least 87% correct answers in Reading to be Proficient (the second-highest performance level), but from 2002 through 2005 they only needed 80% correct answers to be Proficient (the third highest level) on the same test; Proficiency in Math required only 48% correct answers, down from 60%.”

    It’s not only KPI that has noticed that Kansas schools have low standards. Data from U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reveals that Kansas has low standards for its schools, compared to other states.

    These are the types of things the Kansas school public school establishment doesn’t want Kansans to know. Board of Education chair David Dennis uses his authority to silence those who might mention these facts.

    While Dennis squelches those who ask inconvenient questions about Kansas public schools, he floated a proposal to increase regulation of homeschooling in Kansas. It’s simply incredible that someone presiding over a failing system — and proud to be part of that system — would want to extend his influence and control over people who have taken great effort to escape the public schools.

    Related: Test scores decline; educators quick to blame funding cuts

  • Steve Rose defends Kansas school spending

    Attitudes toward Kansas public schools, or facts about them: Which is most important? For boosters of the Kansas school spending establishment, attitude is all that matters. The actual facts about Kansas schools — if we were honest enough to recognize and confront them — need not be considered.

    Kansas City Star columnist Steve Rose is a case in point. His recent op-ed Negative attitude toward public schools is scary is scary itself for its vigorous and misinformed defense of a system that isn’t working very well for Kansas schoolchildren.

    Kansas Policy Institute president Dave Trabert left this comment to Rose’s article:

    It’s quite telling that your basis for saying schools operate very efficiently and spending has only kept up with inflation is a lobbying group that advocates for more spending rather that actual figures from the Dept. of Education of the state budget office.

    Here are the facts according to official government data for the period 2001 to 2011:

    • Inflation was 24.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Midwest Urban Cities)
    • FTE enrollment increased 1.8% (KSDE)
    • Taxpayer support of public education increased 55.8%; state aid +37.6%, federal +155.4% and local +67%. (KSDE)
    • 2012 is expected to be a record-setting year for taxpayer support of public education, at $5.672 billion (KSDE)

    Here are a few more facts that, like those listed above, are not generally known to the public and are routinely denied by education officials.

    • $402 million more in state and local aid was not spent between 2005 and 2011 but was used to increase operating cash reserves (KSDE)
    • Instruction spending per-pupil increased 84% between 1999 and 2011 (KSDE) while inflation was up only 32% (BLS)
    • Taxpayer support of public education in Kansas increased from $3.1 billion in 1998 to $5.6 billion in 2011 (KSDE) yet student proficiency levels are well below 50% (US Dept. of Ed.)

    Telling parents the inconvenient truth is not attacking schools, teachers or anyone else. It is giving them the facts they need to make fully informed decisions about what needs to be done to improve public education.

    Kansas Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook was mentioned in the Rose op-ed and offered this response:

    In his commentary on my response to a candidate survey from Americans for Prosperity at www.afpks.org, Steve Rose used the term “hogwash” to describe this statement, with which I agreed: “Parents, teachers, and taxpayers should have a transparent system so they know how much money is being spent in each school and school district.” He stressed that I had put the statement in bold-face type.

    It’s a bold-faced belief. Repeatedly, I have heard frustration from parents, teachers and taxpayers who say they do not know how tax money is being spent. This is especially true in education, which represents a huge investment by the taxpayers of Kansas. I agree with Mr. Rose that “how much” is being spent at the school district level is a matter of public record. However, what is not known is how much is being spent at “each school,” and more precisely, “how it is being spent” at each school. Individual schools have substantial budgets. How much ends up in the classroom? How much goes to fund lobbying for more money by the school administration? How much goes to fund activities and programs that are more properly described as something other than education?

    It is important to remember that school based budgeting not only exposes inefficiencies and problems but it also highlights positive areas, as well. However, without the information, we are not fully equipped to make informed decisions regarding our schools. Parents, teachers, and taxpayers should have a transparent system so they can have more input over local school decisions. Mr. Rose thinks that kind of information is “hogwash.” This will come as a surprise to many of his readers, no doubt.

    On the bright side, it is amusing that Mr. Rose quotes “facts” from the Kansas Association of School Boards, a lobbyist group that continually insists on tax increases and demands more funding without any accountability for public education, while at the same time saying that my figures “came right out of the conservative propaganda.” Actually, the data I used came from the Kansas State Department of Education.

    Maybe Mr. Rose forgot that just a few years ago the Shawnee Mission School District dropped its membership with the KASB because the KASB uses taxpayers’ money to continually lobby against local control, something many taxpayers think is urgently needed for schools in Johnson County.

    Mr. Rose’s bogeymen-of-the-moment, “ultra-conservatives Charles and David Koch of Wichita,” have never lobbied the state of Kansas for any special interest money that would benefit only themselves, their companies or their industry. In my experience, their interest is advocating tax policies that would be beneficial to every Kansas citizen.

    I typically bold-face responses in questionnaires and surveys to help distinguish between my response and the questions offered. It’s a formatting choice, not a rhetorical weapon. But in this case, let me use boldface to reiterate a very simple point: I believe parents, teachers, and taxpayers should have a transparent system so they know how much money is being spent in each school and school district.

    If Mr. Rose believes otherwise, he can boldface his “hogwash” as much as he likes. After all, it’s his ink — and his hogwash.