Voice For Liberty

Tag: Wichita Eagle opinion watch

  • Mark McCormick’s Wichita School Bond Challenge: The Inside Story

    Recently Wichita Eagle columnist Mark McCormick challenged Helen Cochran, spokesperson for Citizens for Better Education, a citizen group opposed to the proposed Wichita school bond issue, to answer a few questions. In Sunday’s column he presented Cochran’s answers.

    I spoke to Ms. Cochran and exchanged a few email messages, and I asked her a few questions about McCormick’s column. Here’s what I learned:

    Q. Helen, how much interaction did you have with Mark McCormick during this process?

    A. I spoke with Mr. McCormick on the phone probably seven or eight times. I had hoped to interact with him face to face but he was unable to do so.

    Q. I read the position paper that’s available on the Citizens for Better Education website. Do you think McCormick’s column fairly and accurately represented the information in your paper?

    A. Mr. McCormick was only interested in covering what I deem to be the “emotional” issues of the proposal. Those are the only questions he formally and publicly posed to our group. And yes, I think, considering space constraints, he accurately represented our response. I was a bit disappointed that he chose to parenthetically counter our points with USD 259’s claims that many suggestions weren’t feasible such as nudging boundaries. They are not feasible because the district does not want to make them feasible. Boundaries will be nudged when, and if, new schools are built.

    Q. In his column where McCormick presented your response, he countered many of your points using information from the Wichita school district. Do you think the school district be used as the authoritative source for all matters relating to the bond issue?

    A. Absolutely not! What about a newspaper conducting its own investigation and research? I do believe in miracles. To McCormick’s credit I think he, too, believes that academic achievement and drop out rates are the number one priorities. My hope was to provide him with enough information and data to question the district’s existing propaganda.

    Q. Do you think that McCormick understands the issues surrounding this bond? I ask because in his column Open letter to Citizens for Better Education he talks about “students at eight or nine schools would have to be displaced in a falling-domino fashion” then immediately talks about busing kids across town. Do things like this give you cause to question his understanding of the issues?

    A. Once we interacted I think McCormick realized that we (CBE) were responsible people and not against everything. I hope a relationship for the betterment of the children in our community comes out of this. And that McCormick will begin to question some of these “critical needs” in his own mind.

    Q. Do you think that McCormick holds citizen groups like yours to a high standard that he doesn’t hold the school district to?

    A. Yes, to a much higher standard as far as being specific to alternatives.

    Q. McCormick has termed bond issue opponents the “naysayers.” Does this describe you and your group? Are you in fact one of the “standard-bearers of this cynicism” as he has called you?

    A. I suggest that anyone unwilling to explore cost effective alternatives is the real naysayer! CBE does not believe bricks and mortar will buy higher test scores, lessen dropout rates or affect the academic performance of our children. And those are, in our estimation, what the district should be focusing on as well as any opportunity that gives children and their parents a choice in how best to educate their children.

  • Carol Rupe, Kansas School Board Member, Speaks for the Wichita School Bond Issue

    In a letter to the Wichita Eagle, Kansas school board member Carol Rupe makes the case for supporting the Wichita school bond issue.
    It’s not remarkable that a member of the public school bureaucracy would support increased spending on schools. Her letter is remarkable, however, in what it says, and what it doesn’t say.

    For example, Ms. Rupe says “I think I know who will be giving money to the group supporting the bond issue.” She then lists a few parties, but leaves out a few who have a huge interest in passing the bond issue: architects like Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture and Gossen Livingston Associates, Inc. are two firms that come to mind.

    She writes that it is easier to recruit businesses to a city with good schools. That is probably true. It’s quite a leap, though, to make the case that this bond issue will improve student achievement, which I think is what parents really want. There are many low- or no-cost steps the school district could make that would increase alternatives for schools, but the district does not consider these.

    Ms. Rupe writes “Some [contributors] will be businesses that realize a bond issue will help boost the local economy.” This fiction that a bond issue boosts the economy is often repeated by the school district and bond issue boosters. But as explained in several posts (Wichita School Bond Issue: Is Economic Impact Real?, Wichita School Bond Issue Impact Is an Illusion, and Wichita School Bond Issue Economic Fallacy), the bond issue simply transfers economic activity from the private to the public sector. No wealth is created; in fact, wealth is lost.

    “Some will be families in near-northeast Wichita who don’t have enough neighborhood schools to stop forced busing.” Well, the district stopped forced busing this school year. How did that happen if there aren’t enough schools? And if new schools are in fact needed, they can be built without the very expensive bond issue being proposed.

    “Some will be retired folks who don’t wish to pay any more in taxes but who know they will pay more anyway if businesses leave.” What is the evidence or reasoning for this? I know of no firms threatening to leave Wichita because of the schools. In fact, Wichita routinely offers tax incentives to new and existing businesses that allow them to escape paying a lot of tax.

    Thankfully, Ms. Rupe decided not to run for re-election this year. Having been a member of the state board of education since 2001, Ms. Rupe must have sat through countless meetings bickering over minor issues such as science standards, and oversaw a huge increase in spending on schools. At the same she didn’t speak out in favor of reforms that other states have adopted.

  • A Flood of New Wichita Public School Students: The Other Story

    In a letter to the editor in the August 28, 2008 Wichita Eagle, Wichitan Frank LaForge makes the case for voting for the Wichita school bond issue in 2008. While doing this he inadvertently makes the case for widespread school choice in Kansas and Wichita.

    Mr. LaForge writes that if the parents of children attending Catholic or other parochial schools in Wichita were to suddenly realize that they could send their children to the Wichita public schools that they already support with their taxes, and they did so, what would happen to taxes in USD 259? Taxes would go up, he writes.

    What Mr. LaForge may not realize is the flip side of the argument he makes: if Wichita public school students leave district schools to attend parochial or private schools, expenditures on public schools — and hopefully taxes — would decline. This is the case even when school choice is enabled through vouchers or tax credits.

    Recently the The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. A few relevant excerpts:

    This study calculates the fiscal impact of every existing voucher and tax-credit scholarship program, in order to bring empirical evidence to bear on the debate over the fiscal impact of school choice.

    School choice programs have saved a total of about $444 million from 1990 to 2006, including a total of $22 million saved in state budgets and $422 million saved in local public school districts.

    Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.

    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.

    When a student uses school choice, the local public school district no longer needs to pay the instructional costs associated with that student, but it does not lose all of its per-student revenue, because some revenue does not vary with enrollment levels. Thus, school choice produces a positive fiscal impact for school districts as well as for state budgets.

    The article Will the Wichita Public School District Consider This Method of Reducing School Overcrowding? examines the effect of school choice on the Wichita school district and concludes, as does the Friedman Foundation study, that money available on a per-student increases as some students select other school alternatives.

    This is especially important now, as one of the reasons given for the need for the proposed school bond issue is to reduce overcrowding in some schools, and to reduce class size overall. School choice programs could provide the solution to both problems without more spending and a bond issue.

    The State of Kansas and the Wichita school district, however, will not consider these alternatives. Beholden to the special interests of the education lobby and the teachers union, neither body will consider solutions except those that increase the size of — and spending on — public schools.

  • Tiff over Wichita TIFs

    A post titled Keeping TIFs from a public tiff by Wichita Eagle business reporter Bill Wilson on the Eagle’s Business Casual blog reveals his bias in favor of government over individual action and preference.

    My post The Wichita Eagle’s Preference For Government documents one such example from the past. In this blog post Mr. Wilson reveals more of this preference and the faulty assumptions that go along with it.

    For example, he speaks of the need to “incentivize development.” Incentives are designed to get people to do something they wouldn’t do on their own. That pretty much describes downtown development. I’m sure that Mr. Wilson is aware that there’s lots of development going on in Wichita. It’s just not where politicians such as Wichita mayor Carl Brewer and council member Sharon Fearey want it to be. Add journalists like Mr. Wilson to this list, apparently. The Wichita Eagle editorial board has been on this list for a long time.

    There’s nothing magic about downtown. The fact that people, when spending and investing their own funds, overwhelmingly choose to take action somewhere other than downtown is direct evidence of that. How arrogant is it for politicians and bureaucrats to overrule these decisions made freely by people acting in their own best interest?

    In a comment, Mr. Wilson states “I have a hard time equating TIF money with a direct government handout …” I would encourage him to read the post Wichita City Council’s Misunderstanding of Tax Increment Financing, in which the author explains how TIF financing is, in fact, a direct subsidy to developers. I would be interested to see if Mr. Wilson can develop a refutation to this argument.

    Mr. Wilson also writes of the need for “proper analysis and monitoring” of TIF district proposals. But government is ill-suited for either task. Politicians and government bureaucrats face a different set of incentives from private developers. Politicians seek to please their campaign contributers so they can be re-elected. Bureaucrats seek to preserve their own jobs and increase their domain of influence and power.

    Market entrepreneurs, however, are directly accountable to their customers through the profit and loss system. If they do a good job anticipating what customers want, and if they are able to efficiently deliver what customers want, they’ll earn a profit. If not, they either change or go out of business.

    Politicians and bureaucrats do not face such a stern taskmaster. When their decisions turn out to be faulty, the usual response is to pour more money into something that should be allowed to die. An example is the Old Town Warren Theater.

  • Predictions of Downtown Wichita Arena’s Success are Premature

    Several Wichita Eagle editorials in recent weeks have mentioned the success of the Intrust Arena being built in downtown Wichita.

    Success, I might ask, at doing what?

    The fact that the arena structure is rising is evidence of only the smallest measure of competence by Sedgwick County officials. Having entrusted them with some two hundred million dollars, it’s the least we can expect.

    We won’t know the success or failure of this arena for five to ten years.

  • Wichita School Bond Issue Opponents: Driving What? And How?

    In his Sunday Wichita Eagle column, Mark McCormick complains that the Wichita school bond issue opponents are a) cynical, b) short-sighted, c) myopic, d) forces pulling us backwards, e) frightening voters, f) spending too much at Starbucks, g) only saying “no,” h) hiding their true agenda to replace public schools with vouchers, i) not honest advocates, j) meaning the school district no good, and k) meaning the students no good.

    I don’t know if this is a complete list. Read the column at Naysayers shouldn’t drive school bond debate and see for yourself.

    Like his colleague Bob Lutz, some people don’t see how much they already have. Lutz complained that because some athletic facilities are being considered for removal from the bond issue plan, he might change his mind and vote against the bond, following the lead of Wichita school board member Jeff Davis. Never mind how much is still in the plan, as mentioned here: Will Bob Lutz Follow Jeff Davis on the Wichita School Bond Issue?

    In this case, Mr. McCormick may not be aware that for the coming school year, it’s possible that per-student spending will exceed $13,000. Or, he may not be aware that each resident of USD 259 is taxed, on average, $1,749 each year to pay for Wichita school spending. The other night I was visiting friends, a family of four. Their tax burden is $6,996 each year to pay for Wichita public school spending. The fact that they suffer this burden while also working to pay private school tuition for their two children must mean nothing to Mr. McCormick. He thinks they should pay more.

    When it’s “for the kids” the sacrifices people make are never enough to satisfy some people.

    But what’s most curious about this column is that I get the sense that Mr. McCormick thinks bond issue opponents aren’t playing fair. May I remind him that neither of the opposition groups has a staff of paid professional employees working to develop plans and educate the public.

    We don’t have a union with several thousand members highly motivated to pass this bond issue for personal reasons.

    We don’t have tens of thousands of parents on our side, many eager to pay just a little more in taxes so that their children reap big benefits.

    We don’t have a prominent architecture firm working on a volunteer basis to promote the bond issue, hoping for a multi-million dollar payoff after its passage.

    We don’t have a column in the state’s largest newspaper.

    So, Mr. McCormick, just how is it that the naysayers are driving this issue?

  • Will Bob Lutz Follow Jeff Davis on the Wichita School Bond Issue?

    When the USD 259 (Wichita, Kansas) school board voted on February 11, 2008 to hold a special bond issue election on May 6, board member Jeff Davis was the only dissenting vote. His reason, as reported in the Wichita Eagle, was that his district wasn’t given equal consideration. His district wasn’t getting its fair share.

    Somehow he got the message that his protest vote wasn’t appreciated. Two weeks later he asked to have his vote changed.

    Now Wichita Eagle sports columnist Bob Lutz is considring a similar strategy. His column Adjustments to bond issue still tough sell goes so far as to belittle the co-leaders of Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education (CARE) as mere bond “supporters.” The quotation marks, he says, are to make a point.

    Evidently Mr. Lutz believes that this tinkering at the margins threatens community support for this bond issue. It might even cause him to vote against the bond, if that’s what “flustered now about how to vote” means.

    Never mind that millions in athletics-related spending is still in the proposed bond issue.

    Never mind that two regional football stadiums with artificial turf and all-weather tracks remain in the plan.

    Never mind that replacement gymnasiums with seating capacity of 2,000 each remain in place at several high schools.

    Never mind that taxpayers provide USD 259 with over $12,000 each year to spend on each student, perhaps approaching or exceeding $13,000 in the coming school year.

    Never mind that each person living within the boundaries of USD 259 is taxed $1,749 each year by federal, state, and local governments to pay for USD 259 spending.

    All this isn’t exactly what Bob Lutz wants.

  • Sedgwick County Taxpayer Relief?

    This was received from a friend, and was also printed in the Wichita Eagle. The writer accuses the Sedgwick County Commission of doing something “questionable.” He is being much too kind to the commission with his choice of words.

    I read with great interest “Sedgwick County budget halts jail plans” (July 17 Eagle). What really caught my eye was the opening sentence, stating that this was a “move that would save taxpayers money.”

    Why all of a sudden, after taking our tax money for two years for this purpose, did Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Tom Winters decide that we “can’t build our way out of a jail problem”? Why was this not discussed and concluded before commission members asked for a raise in the mill levy by 2.5 mills back in 2006 (for the aviation training school as well as the jail expansion), at an annual cost of $28.75 on a $100,000 home?

    Since the money was not used for the purpose intended, shouldn’t the taxpayers be reimbursed for the taxes paid so far? Instead, I guess we are supposed to be overjoyed at the 1 mill that is to be given back to us now.

    This is very questionable — taking money and not using it for the intended purpose and then giving back only a portion of our money taken.

    I believe that every one of the county commissioners should be replaced just as soon as possible with new blood, and, I hope, with people who will think before they act and will do things honestly and above reproach.

    DEL LOPEZ
    Wichita

  • KEEP’s Goal is Predetermined and Ineffectual

    Earlier this year, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius created the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP. Its goal, as stated in the press release announcing its creation, is to “…explore opportunities in all sectors of our economy to accomplish the goal of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions…”

    Nancy Jackson of the Climate and Energy Project echoed these marching orders in her recent Wichita Eagle opinion piece.

    This predetermined goal, difficult as it will be to achieve, means nothing to the earth’s climate. What Kansas could do, even if we took the most drastic measure possible, is canceled by the action of others.

    As reported in Science Daily, “The growth in China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates … Auffhammer [one of the study’s authors] said this paper should serve as an alarm challenging the widely held belief that actions taken by the wealthy, industrialized nations alone represent a viable strategy towards the goal of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.”

    The increase in China’s emissions is staggering and swamps any attempt at reductions by other countries, much less a small state like Kansas. From 2000 to 2010, it is estimated that China’s growth in emissions will be about five times larger than the reductions pledged in the Kyoto Protocol.

    How does the growth in China’s emissions compare to Kansas’ emissions? According to the Energy Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, in 2005 Kansas produced about 78 million metric tons of carbon emissions from all sources.

    Then, according the source in Science Daily, China’s average annual growth in emissions in the current decade is about 60 million tons. So even if Kansas stopped producing all carbon emissions, the effect would be overcome in about 16 months of just the growth in China’s emissions. This doesn’t take into account the huge emissions China already produces, or the rapid growth in other countries.

    The reality is that any reduction or even slowing of the growth of carbon emissions in Kansas is meaningless in the context of global emissions. We in Kansas need to ask why our governor and radical environmentalists like Nancy Jackson are willing to sacrifice the economy of Kansas for this ineffectual goal.