KANSAS EDUCATION

[Ross]

WICHITA

Improve outcomes
An Eagle editorial praising the Kansas State Board of Education for asking that school funding be increased repeated the tired mantra of "show your support of education by spending more" ("Invest in education," Sept. 24 Opinion). That's an institutional focus that ignores outcomes.

Kansas taxpayers invested nearly $2 billion more in K-12 education over the past 10 years, and here's what we have to show for it:

▪  Only 32 percent of the 2015 graduating class who took the ACT test is considered college-ready in English, reading, math and science.

▪  Only 38 percent of fourth-graders are proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

▪  27 percent of students who graduated from Kansas high schools in 2013 and attended a university in Kansas signed up for remedial training.

These unacceptable outcomes aren't necessarily anyone's fault, but they are everyone's responsibility – especially the Legislature's – to fix.

The Eagle editorial board should be calling on the State Board of Education to demand cultural change to improve outcomes, rather than simply ask that more money be poured into the system that produced these unacceptable results. Let's really start putting students first instead of just funding institutions.

DAVE TRABERT

PRESIDENT

KANSAS POLICY INSTITUTE

http://www.kansas.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article36628668.html

[Ross]

(Emphasis is Mine.)

Education funding
The Sept. 20 Kansas City Star editorial, "Brownback's feuds with schools harm Kansas," appears to be a regurgitation of Duane Goossen's recent commentary for the Kansas Center for Economic Growth.

Both refer to "general classroom aid" as though it's an official designation, but no such category exists. Local school boards alone decide how much money goes to instruction. Legislators and governors have no control over the allocation.

Total funding increased nearly $2 billion over the last 10 years. Instruction spending, available only through FY 2014, increased by $845 million since 2005 without counting a dollar of KPERS.

Here's where things stand on achievement:

▪ Only 32 percent of the 2015 graduating class that took the ACT test is considered college-ready in English, reading, math and science.

▪ Only 38 percent of fourth-graders are proficient in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

▪ Twenty-seven percent of students who graduated from Kansas high schools in 2013 and attended a university in Kansas signed up for remedial training (Kansas Board of Regents).

These unacceptable outcomes aren't necessarily anyone's fault, but they are everyone's responsibility — especially the Legislature's — to fix.

And just spending more on a system that for whatever reasons produced these results isn't a solution.

Dave Trabert

President

Kansas Policy Institute

Olathe

http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article36320622.html

[Ross]

New School Payroll Listings
on KansasOpenGov.org

Posted by Patrick Parkes on Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Payroll listings for 22 school districts, representing nearly 49% of total statewide public school enrollment for the 2014-2015 school year, are now available on KansasOpenGov.org. The data was collected through Open Records requests and includes all compensation but not benefits.  Each year's updates can bring a host of changes from previous years, but the recurring themes that surface from year to year are perhaps most telling as we look to suggest ways in which schools can make better use of available resources in providing a quality, student-focused education to all Kansas kids.

1). Record-setting administrative payouts continue to divert resources from Kansas classrooms and saddle Kansas taxpayers with mounting long-term pension costs.

The adjacent table highlights the payouts three school administrators received upon leaving their respective positions. These payouts are common practice across districts and can represent—among other things—prearranged deferred compensation agreements, banked sick leave that goes unused over the course of an individual's career, or buyouts of remaining balances on employment contracts. Offering these payouts is within each district's prerogative, but the practice of doing so is problematic in two primary respects.

Firstly, funds used to this end are funds that could otherwise be used in Kansas classrooms and/or in other ways that are actually student-focused and targeted toward improving educational outcomes.

Secondly, large one-time spikes in pay can inflate the average salary figures used in calculating the state-sponsored pensions to which individuals receiving payouts may also be entitled. In this sense, payouts become not just a one-time expense to school districts but also a longer-term, continued and compounded expense to all Kansas taxpayers. See an earlier blog here for more information on this concept of "pension spiking."

2). School districts continue to employ many non-Instruction workers at above-market wages and benefits, diverting resources from students and leaving state taxpayers with added pension obligations in the process.

Another prominent commonality across school districts is that they are employing individuals to perform services that could be contracted out at potentially much lower prices in the private sector. The table below provides a sampling of positions and services that could be evaluated in this vein.

Contracting these services out at lower prices would provide immediate costs savings that could be re-directed to classroom instruction and would also reduce pension liabilities.

3). Teachers of non-core subjects are some of the highest-paid across the districts we sampled.

As the adjacent table illustrates, many of the highest paid teachers in our collection of payrolls teach non-core subjects like art, drama, physical education, and music. These subjects are certainly valuable in their own right, but the illustration is indicative of the fact that teachers are paid based on seniority rather than on effectiveness and relative importance of subjects taught.

Taken together, the three overarching observations on school payrolls discussed above underscore the fact that school districts are not operating efficiently and do not always spend money in a student-focused
manner.

http://www.kansaspolicy.org/KPIBlog/128854.aspx

My questions:

                      How does all the money spent on professional sports fields help in the class room?

                      How does $200,000 for educating 26 children from a different school district where the
                                      $200,000 state aid is paid to help in educating the children of our district in
                                           the class room?

   

[srkruzich]

Heres a novel idea, why not dismantle the current system reallocate the assets, and return the schools to the local areas.  Make them budget a set amount per student using private schools as a model. Private schools educate students at 1/3 the cost of government schools.
Dissolve the sports cabal, and return it to the way it used to be. After school, paid for by the parents, not the taxpayer. 
Relegate all funds to what it will take to educate. That would be reading writing, arithmetic and sciences.  Band, and sports, and other non preparatory classes being returned to the way it originally was, supported by the parents of the kids participating in it. Other than that no other taxpayer should have to foot that bill. 
If it doesn't prepare the kids to be able to research, use critical thinking skills in order to plan and obtain a good paying job in the future, then it doesn't need to be taught.

[Diane Amberg]

Then what becomes of kids who aren't "perfect?" They get hidden at home? What happens to the autistic kids, the blind kids, the deaf kids, the mentally incompetent or mentally disturbed kids? The MS or MD. kids, etc?   
Sad to say, but the parents do think they are taxpayers too.
Our before and after school care is paid for separately by the parents.
The top brass all need to take a lesson from the successful Charter Schools.They educate much cheaper, but are public, not private schools, and the parents are very much involved. They are not whiny parents looking for excuses for their children.
Keep in mind, a lot of what you consider wasteful now was demanded by the parents, not the teachers.
Where did you get the idea that school sports and music was at one time supported only by the parents of the kids who participated? That sure wasn't true here when I was in school many years ago.
If job preparation is all there is to education, then we should return to the apprentice system, which would be fine, but kids often don't know at that age what they eventually want to do. Not so simple is it?
As far as DOE is concerned, it could be disbanded and there wouldn't even be a ripple .It never was needed.

[redcliffsw]

You're right about the DOE, it never was needed.

Education is an important part of the system of government worship to the socialists.  They'll demand that a tax increase for the schools and sooner or later the schools will get it.

[srkruzich]

Then what becomes of kids who aren't "perfect?" They get hidden at home? What happens to the autistic kids, the blind kids, the deaf kids, the mentally incompetent or mentally disturbed kids? The MS or MD. kids, etc?   
Sad to say, but the parents do think they are taxpayers too.

That would depend, if they get a refund every year they don't pay taxes.IF they aren't property owners they don't pay school taxes.

Our before and after school care is paid for separately by the parents.

As it should be.  I am not responsible for someone else's kid.  That's their responsibility to make sure that their care is paid for not mine or any other taxpayer.

Where did you get the idea that school sports and music was at one time supported only by the parents of the kids who participated? That sure wasn't true here when I was in school many years ago.

MY parents were required to fund all sports, music, band etc.  And kids managed to do well without it.

If job preparation is all there is to education, then we should return to the apprentice system, which would be fine, but kids often don't know at that age what they eventually want to do. Not so simple is it?

What else would it be for? Job preparation is the NUMBER 1 key goal for education. Its to prepare you to be able to do research into a field that will support you, prepare you to use critical thinking skills to obtain the best possible job after you educate yourself beyond the required compulsory 12 years.  There is no excuse to be flipping burgers at mcdonalds the rest of your life.

As far as DOE is concerned, it could be disbanded and there wouldn't even be a ripple .It never was needed.

Sure it would.  The ones who want a education would get it, those who piss it away today wouldn't.  That's life.  Sucks sometimes but maybe after having a major hard time in life they might actually attempt to work for something in their life.

Several states now are waking up and stopping the taxation of people that have no kids. Its about time to take that burden off of the folks who have raised their kids and place it on those who have kids and want them to be indoctrinated by the government system

[srkruzich]

You're right about the DOE, it never was needed.

Education is an important part of the system of government worship to the socialists.  They'll demand that a tax increase for the schools and sooner or later the schools will get it.

Personally i wanna know why a superintendent gets 600k a year.  I've not seen anyone in education thats worth that much money and the folks that are screaming teachers aren't paid enough, well by God 102,000 dollars is a damn fine pay check.  IF they can't live on that, then to hell with them

[redcliffsw]

You're right, they're overpaid.  But they're part of the ruling government and they're favored.

The Republicans are champions of government schools.  If you think Repuiblicans are much different than Obama then you can't see that both the Republicans and Obama oppose the values of the founding fathers and the Confederates. 

There's many good reasons to be opposed to the Republicans and reconstructed Democrats.

Don't put your kids in government schools unless you want them to be trained to be communists.

[Diane Amberg]

Interesting .Here in Delaware beginning public school classroom teachers average $39,338. The average of all classroom teachers here is $59,679. I think we are about 11th in rank of all states, not figuring in cost of living. If any are making over $100,00.00, I'm going back to work!
Having an advanced degree pushes it up somewhat.  When I was teaching there ,Maryland had a requirement that we had a period of time to get our Master's or lose our job. Even most public school supers here make around $148,00.or so.
If you have public school supers in Kansas who make $600,000 ,I'm coming out there to work! Most college presidents don't make that much. Where are you getting your information?