Voice For Liberty

Tag: KASB

  • School choice in Kansas: Some have it. Many do not.

    School choice in Kansas: Some have it. Many do not.

    Kansas non-profit executives work to deny low-income families the school choice opportunities that executive salaries can afford.

    Kansas Association of School BoardsKansas Association of School Boards
    Executives and annual salaries 1
    John Heim, Executive Director $182,471
    Donna Whiteman, Assistant Executive Director $120,041
    Brian Jordan, Assistant Executive Director $106,568
    Douglas Moeckel, Deputy Executive Director $109,425
    David Shriver, Assistant Executive Director $103,845

    These executives can afford to send their children to any school.

    Kansas National Education AssociationKansas National Education Association
    Executives and annual salaries 2
    Mark Farr, President $118,314
    Claudette Johns, Executive Director $149,553
    Kevin Riemann, Executive Director $139,327
    David Schnauer, General Counsel $142,630
    Marjorie Blaufuss, Staff Counsel $123,584
    Anthony White, Uniserv Director $119,782
    Burle Neely, Uniserv Director $116,559
    Gregory Jones, Uniserv Director $117,559

    These executives can afford to send their children to any school.

    All the above lobby vigorously against any form of school choice.

    Zip code 67214 in Wichita from Google mapsZip code 67214, Northeast Wichita
    Median family income $29,637 3

    Can this family afford school choice? Probably not. It is these minority children and children from low-income families that most need school choice. The cruel irony is that the highly paid executives work to deny school choice to these families.

    Above the line, families have enough income to pursue many forms of school choice. Below the line, school choice is probably not affordable. Click for larger.

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    Notes

    1. IRS Form 990 for 2014 ↩
    2. IRS Form 990 for 2015 ↩
    3. U.S. Census, 2014 ↩
  • Government schools’ entitlement mentality

    Government schools’ entitlement mentality

    If the Kansas personal income grows, should school spending also rise?

    Kansas Policy Institute has noticed something about the Kansas public school spending establishment, in particular Kansas Association of School Boards. KPI president Dave Trabert wrote “KASB published a three-part series last week, making the case that school funding and other government spending hasn’t kept up with the growth in personal income.”1 KASB believes that if Kansans’ personal income rises, so too should school spending, and in proportion.

    This is not the first time KASB has made this argument. Last year I wrote “If Kansas personal income rises but the school spending establishment doesn’t get its cut, something is wrong, they say.”2

    I also wrote: “Another indication of the perversity of this argument is that spending less of a share of our income to obtain a product or service is usually viewed as an advancement, not a situation to be cured. For example in 1929, American households spent 23.4 percent of disposable personal income on food. In 2013 it was 9.8 percent. This is a good thing.”

    Read the complete article from KPI at Government’s Entitlement Mentality — Part 1.

    —
    Notes

    1. Trabert, Dave. Government’s Entitlement Mentality — Part 1. https://kansaspolicy.org/governments-entitlement-mentality-part-1/. ↩
    2. Weeks, Bob. For Kansas schools, a share of your income is the standard. https://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-kansas-schools/kansas-schools-share-income-standard/. ↩
  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Charter schools in Kansas, and a victory for speech and association

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Charter schools in Kansas, and a victory for speech and association

    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.

    Shownotes

  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Goals for the Kansas Legislature, school choice in Kansas

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Goals for the Kansas Legislature, school choice in Kansas

    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.

  • After years of low standards, Kansas schools adopt truthful standards

    After years of low standards, Kansas schools adopt truthful standards

    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.
    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.

  • Kansas schools and other states

    Kansas schools and other states

    A joint statement released by Kansas Association of School Boards, United School Administrators of Kansas, Kansas School Superintendents’ Association, and Kansas National Education Association makes claims about Kansas public schools that aren’t factual.

    The Kansas public school establishment is proud of Kansas schools. In a joint statement released at the start of this year’s legislative session, satisfaction with schools is evident: “Our Kansas public schools are great. … The results are there. Working with parents and communities, Kansas schools rank in the top ten nationally on every measure on reading and math tests, high school completion and college preparation.”

    According to National Center for Education Statistics, Kansas does have a high percentage of students that graduate from high school. But this is the only bright spot for Kansas students. In many other measures Kansas is near the middle of the states, and in some cases much below the middle.

    In the recent report Quality Counts by Education Week, Kansas ranked twentieth overall among the states.

    For last year’s ACT scores, Kansas ranked twenty-first in composite score. Kansas ranked twentieth in readiness for college in English, and twentieth also for math readiness.

    In U.S. News and World Report’s How States Compare in the 2015 Best High Schools Rankings, we find Kansas ranked forty-fifth among the states, with 1.3 percent of its high schools earning a gold or silver medal. There were no gold medals; only silver.

    The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” reveals the unfortunate weakness in Kansas schools. NAEP is a test that is the same in all jurisdictions. Consider fourth grade math, looking at the percent of students who score “proficient” or better. For all students, Kansas ranks twenty-second, a little above the middle. But when we look at subgroups, something else appears. For black students Kansas ranks thirty-eighth, for Hispanic students the rank is thirty-fourth, and for white students the rank is twenty-ninth. Similar patterns exist for math and reading in grades four and eight. The highest Kansas ranks in any subgroup is fifteenth for grade eight math for Hispanic students. (Click here for a pdf version of these rankings. An interactive visualization of these scores is here.)

    NAEP Scores, Kansas and National. Click for larger version.
    NAEP Scores, Kansas and National. Click for larger version.
    When comparing Kansas NAEP scores to the national average, using appropriate subgroups, we find that often Kansas underperforms the national average. The reason for this anomaly is Simpson’s Paradox, in which aggregated data hides differences between subgroups. Given that white students across the nation score higher than black or Hispanic students, and that Kansas has a high proportion of white students compared to the nation and many states, Simpson’s Paradox makes Kansas NAEP scores — only when considering all students — appear high. But if you are a parent with young black children learning to read, would you rather be in Kansas (thirty-seventh in reading for black students, grade four), Louisiana (twenty-fifth), or Colorado (third)?

    It’s unfortunate that Kansas does not rank better in all these measures. What’s worse is the insistence that Kansas schoolchildren are doing well. Notwithstanding this evidence, after listing all the ways Kansas schools and teachers work to make school great, the joint statement says “This is how the Kansas school system operates. We are good at.”

    But it isn’t good for Kansas schoolchildren to be in a system that does not recognize the truth.

  • Must it be public schools?

    Must it be public schools?

    A joint statement released by Kansas Association of School Boards, United School Administrators of Kansas, Kansas School Superintendents’ Association, and Kansas National Education Association exposes the attitudes of the Kansas public school establishment.

    In a joint statement by the leaders of the Kansas public school establishment the clear theme is that education must be provided by public schools. Not schools in general, but public schools.

    There’s no reason that education must be provided by government, and many reasons to keep government out of education. Across the spectrum of human activity, government provides services at high cost, with low levels of diversity and innovation, and with low accountability. School choice programs allow parents and children to find alternative non-governmental sources of education (although charter schools are public schools).

    Defenders of public schools over school choice programs note that parents do have choice. Parents can, they say, enroll their children in private schools. But these parents still must pay for the public schools, which severely reduces their ability to pay private school tuition. That isn’t much choice. And for parents in poor neighborhoods, such as Wichita’s zip code 67214 where the median family income is $29,637, there isn’t much money available for private school tuition, or to move their households to suburban school districts. The latter is a form of school choice available to middle-class and wealthy parents that isn’t available to low-income families.

    Across the country 393,467 students participate in school choice programs, in this case defined as vouchers, tax credit scholarships, or education savings accounts. 1 There are around 49 million students in public schools. So for every one student in these school choice programs, 125 students remain in public schools.

    Despite the small number of students enrolled in school choice programs, the anti-choice establishment vigorously fights against any school choice program, even the small Kansas tax credit scholarship program. Kansas State Department of Education reports that since the beginning of the scholarship program, there have been 73 students awarded scholarships which totaled $108,384. 2

    Seventy-three students. $108,384. The public school establishment describes this as a grave threat, something that drains public schools of funds. For a bit of context, there are executives of Kansas Association of School Boards and Kansas National Education Association that earn more than $108,384 per year. These executives earn these salaries, in part, by blocking the type of school choice programs that benefit children living in Wichita’s zip code 67214 with its median family income of $29,637.

    Why is the public school establishment so firmly against school choice? Private schools don’t pay dues to the Kansas Association of School Boards. Teachers not in traditional public schools are not members of Kansas National Education Association, the teachers union. Without this revenue, it might be difficult to pay the high salaries of KASB and KNEA executives and staff.

    But there’s more. The ideological bent of these groups is for more government, more taxes, more government spending, and more governmental control over the people of Kansas. Consider this sentence from the joint statement: “Now, we turn our attention this week to the Statehouse in Topeka where the Legislature is gathering to consider how to provide for the people of Kansas.” (emphasis added)

    In a nutshell, there is the paternalistic governing philosophy of our state’s public school establishment: Government provides for us.

  • School choice in Kansas: The haves and have-nots

    School choice in Kansas: The haves and have-nots

    Kansas non-profit executives work to deny low-income families the school choice opportunities that executive salaries can afford.

    Kansas Association of School BoardsKansas Association of School Boards
    Executives and annual salaries 1
    John Heim, Executive Director $158,809
    Donna Whiteman, Assistant Executive Director $105,872

    Can afford to send their children to any school.

    Kansas National Education AssociationKansas National Education Association Political Action Committee
    Executives and annual salaries 2
    Karen Godfrey, President $98,234
    Claudette Johns, Executive Director $125,052
    Kevin Riemann, Associate Executive Director $123,143
    David Schnauer, General Counsel $114,886
    Marjorie Blaufuss, Staff Counsel $116,731
    Mark Desetti, Director of Governmental Relations $115,106
    Anthony White, Uniserv Director $112,605
    Burle Neely, Uniserv Director $111,199

    Can afford to send their children to any school.

    All the above lobby vigorously against any form of school choice.

    Zip code 67214 in Wichita from Google mapsZip code 67214, Northeast Wichita
    Median family income $29,637 3

    Can this family afford school choice?

    School Choice in Kansas - The Haves and Have Nots b

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    Notes:

    1. Source: IRS Form 990 for 2013 ↩
    2. Source: IRS Form 990 for 2013 ↩
    3. Source: U.S. Census, 2014 ↩
  • Survey finds Kansans with little knowledge of school spending

    Survey finds Kansans with little knowledge of school spending

    As in years past, a survey finds that when Kansans are asked questions about the level of school spending, few have the correct information. From Kansas Policy Institute.

    Survey Finds Kansans Misled on School Spending

    December 14, 2015 — Wichita — Kansas Policy Institute released a new Survey USA Poll of 509 registered voters in Kansas showing a significant disconnect between voters’ perception of Kansas school spending and true expenditures.

    The survey found 47% of Kansans believe per-pupil funding has dropped more than 5% in the last 5 years. Another 15% believe it has dropped less than 5%. In fact, school funding has increased by 6.4%. Only 7% of those surveyed believe there have been such increases.

    “The narrative coming out of school districts is intentionally misleading,” said Kansas Policy Institute President Dave Trabert. “District officials aided by their government funded lobbyists are telling parents and students that because they didn’t receive increases as big as they want, they are being ‘cut’. This is patently false.”

    Citizens have also been misled about actual funding amounts. The survey found 61% of Kansans believe per-pupil funding from the state is less than $5,000 when in reality, it was $8,567 last year; 61% also believe total funding is less than $10,000, while actual funding was $13,124 per pupil. Less than 10% of Kansans identified true funding levels. “Knowing the extent to which school districts have misled Kansans, it’s no wonder that so many are upset about school funding,” said KPI President Dave Trabert.

    However, when voters are faced with the factual data of per pupil spending and cash reserve balances, a majority reject the idea of paying more taxes to fund schools, 50% somewhat or strongly disagree to 41% somewhat or strongly agree.

    “Every Kansan wants to do what is best for their child’s education. Unfortunately, too many Kansans haven’t been trusted with the complete truth and won’t have the opportunity to make sure their children are in the best possible situation to succeed,” said KPI Vice President and Policy Director James Franko.

    The survey also found that 66% agree, somewhat or strongly, that spending on out-of-the-classroom expenses should be provided on a more efficient, regional basis to divert savings back into classroom spending. only 21% are somewhat or strongly opposed.Support for this common-sense concept extends across all geographic and ideological boundaries, yet local school boards remain fiercely opposed.

    “Kansans need to know the truth about record-setting school funding”, said Dave Trabert. “Only through an informed citizenry can we create sound economic policy and improve education outcomes for our students.”

    The survey was of 509 registered voters with a 4.4% margin of error. Full results of the survey can be viewed here.