Voice For Liberty

Tag: KNEA

  • Kansas Speaker: Schools don’t spend all they have

    Based on choices that many school districts have made in response to legislation giving them flexibility to spend fund balances, Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives Mike O’Neal questions whether a school funding crisis actually exists.

    O’Neal, a Republican from Hutchinson, addressed members and guests of the Wichita Pachyderm Club at its regular Friday luncheon meeting. He started his talk by giving a quick history of recent Kansas school finances, especially litigation.

    In 2005 there was the Montoy II ruling, which resulted in a special session of the legislature in response to a ruling of the Kansas Supreme Court. O’Neal described this as “nearly a constitutional meltdown,” because the was not a party to the lawsuit, but the Court ordered the Legislature to appropriate a specific amount of money to schools, or schools would close. O’Neal said this was an unconstitutional usurpation of the separation of powers.

    Nonetheless, the Legislature did respond to the Court’s order and agreed to spend as directed.

    O’Neal cited two provisions in the Kansas Constitution that relate to spending and education. One, Article 2, Section 24, states: “No money shall be drawn from the treasury except in pursuance of a specific appropriation made by law.” The other is Article 6, Section 6(b), which reads: “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.”

    Before Montoy II, this had been interpreted to require an appropriate and equitable mechanism for distributing available funds be in place. But after Montoy II, the Court interpreted this clause to apply to adequacy, that is, the Court can determine whether enough money is being spent on education.

    O’Neal said there are now two pending amendments to the Kansas Constitution. One would make it clear that the Supreme Court can’t order an appropriation, and the other is a clarification to the “suitable provision” clause. “It’s trying to keep courts out of the business of education and school finance funding, and putting it in the hands of those who are elected and closest to the people,” O’Neal told the audience.

    After this review of school finance litigation, O’Neal switched to the topic of whether schools are underfunded, as is the claim of the education community.

    The claims of the school spending lobby are that the cuts are “devastating,” O’Neal said. But the facts, he said, do not support this contention. Since 2005 schools have enjoyed “a pretty healthy increase in funding.” The cuts that we hear about, he said, are not cuts in the sense that most people would use. Instead, there have been reductions in the amount of annual increases that have been experienced.

    O’Neal said that during the last legislative session he spent a great deal of time investigating the status of school funding. He also said he tried to give schools authority to utilize funds in a way that would help address any funding crisis. He was aided by the Kansas Commissioner of Education, and also the Assistant Commissioner.

    O’Neal said there are about 28 separate funds related to school funding. The Legislature created many of these in an effort to track how appropriated funds are being spent. One — the contingency reserve fund — is generally thought of as the primary reserve fund for schools.

    At the end of 2011, the balance in all funds was $1.7 billion, O’Neal said, emphasizing the “b” in “billion.” He said this is a substantial increase over the prior year. Some of these funds are encumbered or spoken for, he said. In an effort to be fair, an analysis removed items like bond and interest and KPERS obligations. Taking away everything that could be argued as encumbered, O’Neal said there was still $640 million.

    These balances are not distributed evenly across school districts, he added.

    Referring to the 2005 Montoy decision, O’Neal said that the Court said the school finance formula distributed funds equitably, but there was not enough money in the pot. Noting the irony, he said “I would respectfully suggest today, based upon our analysis, that the Court not only got it wrong, but it was completely opposite. Why do we have a situation where some school districts have zero, with very conservative administration and management, and we have other schools districts that are sitting on tons of reserves.”

    Using the Wichita school district as an example, he said the unencumbered balances are $39 million.

    O’Neal asked the Kansas Department of Education this question: “Is this money that should be available to schools, and should they be utilizing that to educate Johnny and Susie?”

    The answer he received was yes: There are funds, other than the contingency reserve fund, that have balances that ought to be available.

    O’Neal said the analysis didn’t consider fund balances only at a particular point in time, but looked at the trend in balances over a period of five years. These balances, he said, are increasing over time, and at a “pretty hefty rate.”

    The balances in some funds — he mentioned special education and at-risk — are growing rapidly. This, he said, is an indication that schools can’t spend all the money the state has sent. “But, it’s a devastating situation nevertheless, according to the education community.”

    In response to recent cuts in Kansas base state aid per pupil funding, O’Neal said in 2011 the Legislature passed a bill giving school districts authority to spend up to $154 million to back-fill losses in base state aid. KNEA — the teachers union — and the Kansas Association of School Boards approved the bill.

    But O’Neal said he was terribly disappointed in the result. Only 77 school districts (Kansas has nearly 300 districts) elected to spend any of the fund balances. The total amount involved was $23.4 million, which O’Neal said was 15 percent of the total authority granted by the Legislature, and a much smaller fraction of the total unencumbered fund balances.

    Based on this, O’Neal questioned whether school funding is really inadequate. He said that schools could use these fund balances to compensate for cuts in base state aid, and could avoid laying off teachers. But many districts chose not to spend fund balances.

    Regarding the ending balances in the Kansas general fund, O’Neal said there will be calls to spend more on education. “My question becomes: If you’re not spending the money you have already, why do you want the state to spend down its reserves, and send you more money that’s likely only to end up increasing some of your ending balances.”

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Wednesday January 11, 2012

    A legislator would do this? In his At The Rail column, Kansas statehouse reporter Martin Hawver speculates that even routine procedural votes, as well as votes in committee, may be material for campaign ads and mailers in this election year. “You’ve seen the mailings in election years, you know, the ones with a photo of a few lines apparently ripped from the official journal of the House or Senate. The scrap is always tilted a bit to make it more visually interesting. And, by gosh, that bit of an official document almost always shows — usually with a swipe of yellow highlighter — that a candidate voted for or against something that the rest of the brochure deems politically or fiscally or culturally important. … So, we’re going to be watching closely, to see whether a vote in a committee on something relatively unimportant becomes the theme of a campaign or two out there, and whether the public will be much moved by a vote even when it is dramatically presented as a fact ‘ripped from the official record’ of some committee or another. Key might be that it’s the final votes, not necessarily some little acting-out behavior in a committee, that is the real indication of just where a legislator is on legislation that you care about.” … I should tell you this: I’m more than a little shocked to learn this goes on in Topeka.

    Where to see, listen to State of State Address. Tonight’s 6:30 pm address by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback can see seen on television by tuning in to KTPS (Wichita), KTWU (Topeka), or Smoky Hills Public Television. Radio coverage is on Kansas Information Network, KSAL-Salina 1150 AM, KANU-Lawrence/Topeka/Kansas City FM 91.5, KANH-Emporia FM 89.7, KANV-Olsburg/Junction City FM 91.3 and in Manhattan on FM 99.5, KANZ- Garden City FM 91.1, KZNA-Hill City FM 90.5, KHCC-Hutchinson/Wichita FM 90.1, KHCD-Salina/Manhattan FM 89.5, KHCT-Great Bend/Hays FM 90.9, KMUW-Wichita FM 89.1, KRPS-Pittsburg KS FM 89.9, KCUR-Kansas City Missouri FM 89.3, and online at www.KWCH.com, kslegislature.org, www.khi.org, and www.am580wibw.com.

    Kansas Policy Institute launches blog. In its newsletter, the Kansas Policy Institute announces the start of a blog: “We believe this will be a venue to have an open discussion on the challenges facing our state and advancing liberty and freedom. Of course, we will continue the work we’ve been doing, but this is an opportunity to provide more real time analysis, share videos and stories from around the web, and allow concerned Kansans can debate the issues of the day.” The blog is located at KPI Blog. … KPI’s primary communications with Kansans have been through policy analysis and reports, and through newspaper op-ed columns. The blog should make KPI a more familiar source of news and information.

    Kansas House Speaker criticized. “Continuous abuse of power and nepotism” along with his role in a lawsuit against the State of Kansas are the charges leveled against Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives Mike O’Neal. The writer of the letter with the charges is Kansas Representative Owen Donohoe of the 39th district, which covers parts of Johnson, Leavenworth, and Wyandotte counties. … In 2010 O’Neal faced an legislative ethics panel investigation into his role as attorney for clients suing the state. The panel decided that O’Neal broke no rules, but that the legislature’s ethics rules should prohibit what O’Neal was doing, citing the “appearance of impropriety” such actions create. … In 2009, O’Neal faced a complaint relating to nepotism, and a panel found there was insufficient evidence to support the charges. … Last year O’Neal made several committee reassignments that were seen as motivated by a desire to silence critics of policies that O’Neal supported. These included Rep. Charlotte O’Hara for her position on health care issues, Rep. Kasha Kelly for her position on state spending, and Donohoe himself. Coverage is at More trouble brewing for House Speaker O’Neal and Kansas Republican legislator blasts House Speaker Mike O’Neal. … The public policy issue is this: Does legislative leadership — Speaker of the House, Senate President, Committee Chairs — have too much power? From my observation of the Kansas Legislature over the past few years, my answer is: Yes.

    Kansas presidential caucus. Kansas Republicans will hold their presidential nominating caucus on Saturday, March 10th. Participants must be registered as Republicans to participate, and the last day to register as such is February 17th. Photo ID will be required for admission.

    Democrats urged to help Republicans. In an email, Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), the teachers union, urges Kansas Democrats to help Republican select their nominees in the August primary elections. Writes the union to its minions: “Given the registration advantage that Republicans have over Democrats in Kansas, it is not surprising that many elections are decided in the August primaries. In many districts the Republican nominee will likely win. This means that unaffiliated and Democratic voters are very limited in the influence they can have on who will be their Representative or Senator. The reality is that, while it might feel good to register your disgust with both parties by registering as an unaffiliated voter, it dramatically reduces the influence of your vote in the election. … If you want your vote to have a greater influence this year, then we would urge you to consider your registration and participation in the primary election in August. If you live in a district that will likely elect a Republican in the general election, wouldn’t it be nice to have a say in which Republican that will be? If you want that voice, you will need to be a registered Republican by July 16, 2012.”

    Kansas health issues. The Kansas Health Institute News Service has identified the issues related to health that are important in this year’s legislative session. Medicaid reform and health care exchanges are the first two mentioned, with Medicaid reform a very large and important issue. The article is Health issues facing the 2012 Legislature.

    Separation of art and state. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback may be wavering on his opposition to state funding for the arts in Kansas, according to Lawrence Journal-World reporting. I recently urged legislators — borrowing a term from David Boaz — to respect the separation of art and state. In his book The Politics of Freedom: Taking on The Left, The Right and Threats to Our Liberties, Boaz explained why this is important: “It is precisely because art has power, because it deals with basic human truths, that it must be kept separate from government. Government, as I noted earlier, involves the organization of coercion. In a free society coercion should be reserved only for such essential functions of government as protecting rights and punishing criminals. People should not be forced to contribute money to artistic endeavors that they may not approve, nor should artists be forced to trim their sails to meet government standards. Government funding of anything involves government control.”

    Numbers trouble Americans. “Many Americans have strong opinions about policy issues shaping the presidential campaign, from immigration to Social Security. But their grasp of numbers that underlie those issues can be tenuous.” The Wall Street Journal article Americans Stumble on Math of Big Issues covers this topic. “‘It’s pretty apparent that Americans routinely don’t know objective facts about the government,’ says Joshua Clinton, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. Americans’ numerical misapprehension can be traced to a range of factors, including where they live, the news they consume, the political rhetoric they hear and even the challenges of numbers themselves. And it isn’t even clear how much this matters: Telling people the right numbers often doesn’t change their views.”

    Capitalism. “The Occupy Wall Street movement expresses valid frustrations, but do the protesters aim their accusations in the wrong direction? Economics Professor Chris Coyne draws the distinction between crony capitalism and legitimate capitalism. Crony capitalism is government favoritism fueled by handouts and is responsible for the plight of the 99%. Legitimate capitalism, on the other hand, uses competition to align consumer and producer interests and serves to improve everyone’s standard of living. … Coyne says: “What we need is constraints on government … The minute you open the floodgates of government handouts, people are going to start lining up to grab them. And the people that are going to tend to get those handout are those that have money and political connections. So the solution to this is simple. Instead of spreading out losses, we need to do is to allow people to earn profits when they produce things that people value, and suffer losses when the fail to do so. When you have that type of system, the only way to earn wealth is to improve peoples’ standards of living.”… This video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies, and many other informative videos are available.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday December 16, 2011

    Kansas school finance. Reactions to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s school finance plan are coming in. Dave Trabert, president of Kansas Policy Institute gives it a grade of “incomplete.” “It’s good to give districts more flexibility in deciding how to spend aid dollars and the formula may be easier to understand, but there is nothing in this plan to substantively address his laudable goals of raising student achievement. Excellence in Education requires laser-like focus on outcomes and those elements are missing from this plan. … Funding is important but that’s not what drives achievement. Total aid to Kansas schools increased from $3.1 billion in 1998 to $5.6 billion in 2011. Yet reading proficiency levels according to the U.S. Department of Education remain relatively unchanged at about 35%.” … Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), the teachers union, notes the good points: It anticipates no further cuts to K-12 Education funding. It allows maximum flexibility in addressing student needs by removing restrictions on spending on at-risk or bilingual students. It counts kindergartners as full time students. But, the bad, according to the union: It has a TABOR-like effect that permanently locks in school funding at the current inadequate level. TABOR refers to taxpayer bill of rights, plans that some states have to limit the rate of growth of government. … While the Brownback administration believes the plan should settle lawsuits aimed at forcing more spending on education, lawyers suing the state say “Without addressing the costs of what schools need to spend in order to get the kind of performance the 21st Century demands, it is a system doomed to failure. It doesn’t do what the Kansas Supreme Court and the Kansas Constitution requires and that is fund education based on its costs.”

    No school choice for Kansas. The Brownback plan contains no mention of school choice programs of any kind, not even charter schools. The latter are possible in Kansas, but the law is stacked against their formation. School choice programs are increasing in popularity in many states, because they hold the strong possibility of better results for students and parents. Plus, as the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has found in its study Education by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006, school choice programs save money: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.” Governor Brownback could have integrated a small school choice program into the school financing plan as a way to save money and provide greater freedom for students and parents. … In what the Wall Street Journal dubbed the The Year of School Choice, Republican governors across the nation have founded or expanded school choice programs. Wrote the Journal: “But choice is essential to driving reform because it erodes the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to schools based on where they live. Unions defend the monopoly to protect jobs for their members, but education should above all serve students and the larger goal of a society in which everyone has an opportunity to prosper. This year’s choice gains are a major step forward, and they are due in large part to Republican gains in last fall’s elections combined with growing recognition by many Democrats that the unions are a reactionary force that is denying opportunity to millions. The ultimate goal should be to let the money follow the children to whatever school their parents want them to attend.” … But under governor Brownback’s leadership, this is not happening in Kansas.

    Federal budget transparency. U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp, who is in his first term representing the Kansas first district, this week expressed frustration with transparency involving the federal budget. “I appreciate the Congressman from Utah talking about transparency. The idea that just because we’re only shining some light on a particular aspect — on not on the whole process — to me that’s an argument we need more transparency on the whole process. I totally agree with that. The experience in my office in the last three days has been to make an attempt to find out what is in this Conference Committee report. It’s been three days, and at 12:37 am this morning that was posted online — 1,219 pages, not quite 11 hours ago. I’m a Member of Congress and I’m going to be expected to vote on that very quickly. There was an interesting quote in The Hill this morning. I don’t know who said it, but it quoted: ‘… [A]ppropriators are worried that the tactic could leave the omnibus text out in the public for too long, giving time for K Street lobbyists to attack it before it gets approved.’ I don’t care about the lobbyists. It’s my job. It’s a responsibility to my constituents. We need more transparency not less. We need more discussions of the tyranny of debt, not less. This type of legislation gives us that opportunity. It gives the American people more appropriately the opportunity to see what we are doing.” There is video of Huelskamp’s remarks.

    Open records in Wichita. “A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to A Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.” That’s James Madison, framer of the First Amendment, 1822. Six of seven Wichita City Council members seem not to agree with Madison, and we have a city attorney who goes out of his way to block access to information that the public has a right to know. The City of Wichita’s attitude towards open records and government transparency will be a topic of discussion on this week’s edition of the KAKE Television public affairs program This Week in Kansas. That program airs in Wichita and western Kansas at 9:00 am Sundays on KAKE channel 10, and at 5:00 am Saturdays on WIBW channel 13 in Topeka.

    Cell phone ban while driving. Sometimes regulating a behavior, even though it is dangerous, makes things even worse. “A news release from the Highway Loss Data Institute summarizes the finding of a new study: “It’s illegal to text while driving in most US states. Yet a new study by researchers at the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) finds no reductions in crashes after laws take effect that ban texting by all drivers. In fact, such bans are associated with a slight increase in the frequency of insurance claims filed under collision coverage for damage to vehicles in crashes. This finding is based on comparisons of claims in 4 states before and after texting ban, compared with patterns of claims in nearby states.” More at Texting bans haven’t worked.

    Myths of the Great Depression. “Historian Stephen Davies names three persistent myths about the Great Depression. Myth #1: Herbert Hoover was a laissez-faire president, and it was his lack of action that lead to an economic collapse. Davies argues that in fact, Hoover was a very interventionist president, and it was his intervening in the economy that made matters worse. Myth #2: The New Deal ended the Great Depression. Davies argues that the New Deal actually made matters worse. In other countries, the Great Depression ended much sooner and more quickly than it did in the United States. Myth #3: World War II ended the Great Depression. Davies explains that military production is not real wealth; wars destroy wealth, they do not create wealth. In fact, examination of the historical data reveals that the U.S. economy did not really start to recover until after WWII was over.” This video is from LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies, and many other informative videos are available.

  • Kansas school spending facts ignored by many

    A recent Lawrence Journal-World editorial that was repeated in the Wichita Eagle made several claims about Kansas schools that don’t hold up under scrutiny. Unfortunately, the editorial is an example of how difficult it is to have a reasoned discussion of Kansas school issues.

    School spending

    The editorial makes 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. The truth is that Kansas school spending has fallen only slightly in recent years. Charts at the end of this article that are based on figures from Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) tell the story.

    The first chart shows total spending per student in Kansas schools. Statewide, spending has declined the past two years. But while school spending advocates describe spending cuts in terms like “falling off a cliff,” the actual decline is quite mild. Using figures adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending is $331 higher than in the 2005 – 2006 school year.

    A second chart shows spending on Kansas schools considering state aid only. The drop in spending, considering only state aid, is more pronounced than when looking at funding from all sources. School spending advocates emphasize this fact, but state aid is only part of total school spending. Note also that for the most recent school year, spending per pupil rose.

    The third chart illustrates the relationship between base state aid per pupil and total spending. This is important to realize, as the Journal-World editorial notes the large drop. It’s true. Base state aid has decreased. But total state spending, as noted in the previous chart, has not fallen by near as much, and rose for the most recent year. And the line for total school spending has declined only slightly.

    Because base state aid has fallen, school spending advocates concentrate on this number. As reported in Kansas school spending: the deception, Mark Desetti, the lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union, uses this argument when he makes the case for more school spending. He’s not alone in using deception to argue for more school spending. The Lawrence Journal-World, only of our state’s largest newspapers, is helping.

    Teacher quality

    The Journal-World editorial also states: “There is no higher priority than recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and giving them classes that are small enough to manage and teach effectively.”

    This sentence is partially correct. It’s becoming clear that teacher quality is the most important factor that schools have under their control that influences student achievement. Unfortunately, Kansas schools have policies that work against teacher quality. An example are union pay scales that pay all teachers the same regardless of how good a job they do.

    Class size

    The Journal-World editorial also makes the case for small class sizes: “How can Kansas schools preserve the quality of instruction they offer students with so many fewer teachers in the classrooms? Research has repeatedly documented the positive effect that smaller class size has on educational achievement. There is no doubt that the classroom teachers who have direct contact with students on a day-to-day basis are a critical part of individual students’ academic success.”

    The editorial doesn’t cite the research it relies on. If it had to produce a citation, it might find that difficult. Research shows that class size makes a difference for very young children (below third grade), when class size can be reduced to 11 or 12 students. For everyone else, there is no evidence that class size makes a difference. Even the left-wing Center for America progress agrees that small class size is not effective, and summarizes the current research in its article The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction.

    But class size reduction remains popular, mostly because it has an intuitive appeal. It seems like it should work. We can understand parents being seduced by its appeal, and we can understand politicians pandering for their votes by supporting class size reduction. We can understand the teachers union advocating for more teachers at any cost, not matter how ineffective they may be. But newspaper editorial writers ought to know better.

    Total spending per student in Kansas schools. Spending has increased much faster than inflation.
    Kansas school spending, state aid only.
    Kansas school spending and base state aid per pupil. While bsapp has declined, other spending has not declined as much, or has held nearly steady. Focusing only on bsapp is misleading, and school spending advocates do just that.

  • Wichita Eagle on KPERS misses the mark

    A recent Wichita Eagle editorial by Phillip Brownlee misses understates the magnitude of the problem with Kansas Public Employee Retirement System, or KPERS, and fails to recognize problems with possible solutions. ($8.3 billion question, November 4, 2011 Wichita Eagle)

    The first problem is stating the magnitude of the problem. Brownlee, like most sources, states the funding shortfall at $8.3 billion. Using that number is nothing short of fraudulent. KPERS acknowledges that there are about $600 million in market losses that aren’t included in the $8.3 billion figure because government accounting rules don’t require such reporting. Plus, this valuation relies on assumed rates of return that are higher than the private sector uses. Adjusting for these factors, and using a realistic assumed rate of return of six percent, Kansas Policy Institute says the shortfall would be $14.1 billion.

    More shocking is an evaluation of state pension funds conducted by the American Enterprise Institute which uses market valuation methods. This evaluation puts the shortfall for Kansas at $21.8 billion.

    Either way, the magnitude of the problem is far larger than Brownlee acknowledges.

    Brownlee also writes that moving to a defined-contribution plan isn’t the solution. He says that “future contributions would be diverted to the new plan,” but these contributions are needed to prop up the current system. The teachers union and organizations that advocate for state employees have made similar claims, with the KNEA writing: “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)

    These admissions that the contributions of young workers are used to fund the benefits of retirees is admission of a Ponzi scheme. Instead of new members’ contributions being invested 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. It must be stopped.

    Very troubling is Brownlee’s discussion of a proposal to borrow $5 billion to prop up KPERS. The only objection Brownlee finds is that it could be risky if the stock market falls. Yes, part of the problem with KPERS is that the stock market is down and there have been losses in recent years. Although we can’t predict when the market will fall and by how much, we know that there will be ups and downs over long periods of time, and that’s the domain of pension funds — long periods of time.

    That the state might even consider borrowing $5 billion to fund KPERS is an admission that the state has been running deficits for some years, despite a requirement for a balanced budget. We are left with the realization that the legislature has committed itself to obligations that it chose not to fund. $5 billion is nearly one year’s general fund spending. It’s a lot of money in Kansas, and even this much would not close the gap in KPERS.

    This deficit has not appeared in any budget. The legislature and governors have said we’ve balanced the budget. But when the liabilities the state has incurred, but not paid for, are added, we realize that we’ve not been told the truth. Mr. Brownlee’s editorial does nothing to advance this truth to Kansans.

    The first thing Kansas must do is realize that the state has not shown responsibility in running a defined-benefit pension plan, and it must stop admitting new employees.

  • School choice savings not being considered in Kansas

    According to the reporting surrounding the revision of the Kansas school finance formula, Kansas is overlooking a sure way to save money and improve Kansas schools: widespread school choice.

    While proponents of public school spending argue that school choice programs drain away dollars from what they claim are 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.

    Further research on school choice programs funded through tax credits confirms this.

    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.”

    But according to news reports, the Brownback administration is not proposing school choice programs — not even an expansion of charter schools — as a solution to school finance.

  • Class size reduction not effective

    Recently 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.

    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.

  • Kansas school spending: the deception

    At a September rally at the Kansas Capitol, Mark Desetti presented a picture of Kansas school spending that is accurate but deceptive, all at the same time.

    Desetti is Director, Legislative and Political Advocacy at Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union. In other words, he’s a lobbyist whose job is to try and garner as much money as possible for the members of his union — all in the name of “the kids,” of course.

    In video of the rally, he told the audience that “Base funding for education in Kansas has dropped to the 1999 level for 2012, and that’s not adjusted for inflation.”

    Desetti is correct — nearly so — in this assertion. But “base funding,” also known as base state aid per pupil, tells only part of the school spending story. And a small part, at that.

    According to the Kansas State Department of Education, BSAPP for the school year starting in 1999 was $3,770. For the school year starting in 2011 (fiscal year 2012), the figure is $3,780. (Let’s not quibble over the $10 difference.)

    Listening to school spending advocates like Desetti, you might think that BSAPP is the only funding that schools receive. But BSAPP is only part of the funds that schools receive.

    For the 1999 school year, Kansas spent $1,815,684,144 on state aid to schools. For the 2009 school year, the most recent year for which KSDE supplies data, state aid was $2,867,835,438 — an increase of over one billion dollars, or 58 percent.

    Looking at total Kansas school spending for the same years, spending increased from $3,063,233,269 to $5,589,549,135 — an increase of about 2.5 billion dollars, or 82 percent.

    These are the types of figures that school spending advocates don’t like to talk about. Instead, they focus on a small portion of total spending — one that has gone down quite a bit from its recent peak — and use it as a surrogate for total school spending.

    Is this telling a lie? No. Desetti is correct — as much as he wanted to be. But if we look at the entire spectrum of school spending in Kansas, we see that Desetti — like most of the school spending advocacy and bureaucracy in Kansas — is deceptive in focusing on only one component of school spending.

    It’s no wonder that Desetti and others won’t appear in public forums where they don’t control the message.

  • KNEA: Let’s just raise taxes

    Recently Blake West, who is president of Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union, penned a piece defending his union and attacking critics of public school spending and results achieved in Kansas.

    Titled Fighting for education, it starts off with a reminder of what is wrong with public education in Kansas: It’s a government program. It’s funded through taxation. It’s managed by bureaucrats spending someone else’s money. It incubates the well-known problems that exist when there’s a disconnect between receiving something that other pay for. It caters to a union that pretends to still be the professional association it once was, but now has all the harmful characteristics of modern labor unions and the government employee unions modeled after them.

    In a civil society, we shouldn’t have to fight over the education of children. This is a matter that once was handled very well in America through markets, that is, through voluntary cooperation. But now, as Kansas Policy Institute’s Dave Trabert aptly notes, “KNEA wants to raise taxes.”

    Beyond that, KNEA and the public school spending machine block all attempts at reforms, except those that come from university colleges of education, and the evidence is that those don’t work very well.

    Interestingly, West criticizes accountability accomplished through “useless questions that oversimplify student achievement as a list of things that are easy to ask, easy to grade, easy to quantify.” Undoubtedly referring to the federal No Child Left Behind law, it’s confusing to see West criticize government at the same time he defends government schools. But the teachers unions and the school spending bureaucracy reject market-based accountability, too.

    West, in his piece, stands up for teachers and defends them against the criticism he says is leveled at them. But his defense is misplaced. Most critics of public schools criticize the system, of which the teachers union that West heads is part. And with the dismal results that schools turn in, year after year, West — his union machinery and the system he defends — justly deserves criticism.

    Kansas education officials refuse to discuss better learning opportunities

    By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute

    According to the U.S. Department of Education, only a third of Kansas students are proficient in reading and roughly one out of four are functionally illiterate. You might expect that education officials would welcome an opportunity to examine what other states are doing to address these unacceptably low achievement levels, but sadly they refuse to even have a discussion.

    Some are even deliberately mischaracterizing efforts to do so. A recent editorial by Kansas National Education Association president Blake West falsely described the premise of Kansas Policy Institute’s proposing public forums as: “Since we can’t afford great schools in tight budget times, what would you be most willing to cut from public education?”

    Mr. West and the KNEA know that’s not true. Earlier this year KPI asked KNEA, the Department of Education, State Board of Education and the Kansas Association of School Boards if they “… would be willing to participate in some type of open, public discussion of all the issues.” The invitation was prompted by their public ridicule of public forums KPI held to share Florida’s remarkable progress on raising achievement levels, which many attribute to a broad array of reforms.

    This group met but KPI couldn’t agree to their insistence on excluding education experts from outside the state, so we moved forward with our own event and invited them all to participate. The Why Not Kansas Education Summit is on September 15 in Overland Park. National experts on charter schools, vouchers and tax credit scholarships for the underprivileged and special needs students, expanding online learning and retaining and rewarding effective teachers will talk about how many states are using these learning opportunities to raise achievement levels. Kansas education officials are invited to participate in a panel discussion about these opportunities; most have declined, but the discussion will still be held with legislators.

    The KNEA solution is essentially “just spend more.” Mr. West writes, “The most important question is: ‘What educational opportunities for our children do we believe are so important that we WANT to pay taxes to fund our schools?’”

    And there you have it. KPI wants to talk about expanding learning opportunities. KNEA wants to raise taxes.

    We’ve already tried the “just spend more” solution but it’s been a miserable failure. Proficiency levels are relatively unchanged since 1998 while total funding for Kansas public schools increased by $2.5 billion. Thank goodness spending isn’t the answer, because if $2.5 billion barely moves the needle, we’d never have enough money to provide students with the effective education they deserve.

    This isn’t about hating kids, attempting to destroy public education or the other false accusations thrown at those who dare to question the status quo. We have to acknowledge the disappointing truth about student achievement levels and find new approaches. Some students certainly get a good education, but pretending most students have high achievement levels only hurts them in the long run.

    States all around the country are stepping up to the challenge and adopting a combination of student-focused reforms. We hope education officials reconsider our invitation and join us to discuss how new approaches can help more students reach their full potential.

    For more information on the event mentioned, click on Why Not Kansas Education Summit.