Are “adequacy” lawsuits good public policy that drives student achievement and school performance? Not according to the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.
Its new book, Courting Failure: Education Experts Expose the Politics Behind the Nation’s School Finance Lawsuits, members of the task force, who hail from the Hoover Institution and various university departments, lay out the failures and costs of adequacy lawsuits.
Lawsuits over school funding are not unique to Kansas.
Frederick M. Hess describes the funding-through-lawsuit phenomenon.
In the 1970s, the theme was equity: “focused on reducing differences in spending between school districts in a given state. This dragged litigants into a “Robin Hood” scenario, seeking to take funds from high-spending suburban districts and give them to poorer districts. This strategy had limited political appeal and modest success, with plaintiffs triumphing only about a third of the time in court.”
In the 1980s, equity lawsuits gave way to adequacy ones, “which skirted divisive politics by promising to raise spending everywhere to some vague standard.”
In Kentucky, the highest court imposed $1.3 billion in new taxes each year, so that students would obtain “sufficient knowledge.”
The problem with these types of lawsuits–Hess counts 40 states that have been subjected to funding lawsuits–is that there is no objective way to determine how much money is enough. “There is no sensible way of determining what amount of spending is ‘adequate,’” he says.
The distribution of taxpayer money should involve politics at one point–at least that’s what you’d think when you consider that public budgets are funded through taxation, the level of which is determined by . . . politicians. But that’s not the view presented by the sue-ers.
“Suits brought by these litigators insist that rather than relying on the political process, ‘experts’ should determine exactly how much money is needed to run a good school.”
Spending decisions are by nature arbitrary. That’s why they are best left to the political process. When judges try to “scientifically” determine the “right” spending level, they cheapen the law.
As if the financial and legal costs of these suits was bad enough, there’s more: “Infusions of new money can actually make it easier to shrug off tough decisions on how schools are run, and how educators are paid, evaluated, and hired.”
Hess warns that No Child Left Behind, by setting out a goal of 100 percent proficiency, will serve the cause of adequacy lawsuits even more: “this aspirational language could ultimately mean that states are violating Constitutional protections in any locale where 100% of students are not deemed proficient in math and reading.”
The University of Arkansas recently brought together several experts to talk about improving education. The conference was sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and held at the Kauffman Conference Center in Kansas City, Mo. The University of Arkansas has a press release discussing the ideas talked about at the conference.
The Wichita Eagle editorial blog notes the one-year anniversary of Bob Corkin’s appointment to the job of Commissioner of Education.
The KC Star reminds readers of the usual criticisms, and channels the claims that charter schools aren’t really public schools.
The Topeka Capitol-Journal provides a review as well, and reminds us of what may be Corkin’s most enduring legacy–getting grants to start a data warehouse that will track individual student performance. The idea, sensible enough, is that schools should know what works at an individual level.
In its endorsements for the upcoming elections, the LJW sends some flowers to the Kansas Supreme Court: “the Kansas Supreme Court also deserves a great deal of credit for the school finance plan.”
Silly us, but we thought that budgets were a matter for governors and legislators to fight over.
A special legislative panel investigating judicial improprities has wrapped up its work, with two divided opinions.
Says the Capitol-Journal, “The committee was created by House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, to explore revelations that Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, and Sen. Pete Brungardt, R-Salina, spoke with Justice Lawton Nuss about school funding during a March luncheon in Topeka. That is the time frame in which the Supreme Court was weighing a school finance lawsuit and the Legislature was scrambling to accommodate a court order to increase state appropriations to schools.”
The KC Star runs a story on the Democratic and Republican factions on the committee as well.
In the end, Republicans issued their report, and Democrats issued theirs.
Boys-only and girls-only classrooms are now more likely, given new rules from the federal government.
Our view? The idea that children learn better when the opposite sex is removed from the room has some plausibility. It is one tool used by private schools. Let some public schools try it out.
Governor Sebelius has been pushing a universal pre-K program. Reasonable people can disagree on the merits of the idea–we think that they are oversold–but should the governor get her way, we wonder if another court fight will afflict Kansas.
This comes to mind while reading an article about a pre-K program in Florida. The Kansas connection? Sebelius’s advisor on the subject doesn’t like Florida’s program, saying that they have done it on the cheap. Abby Thorman says, of Florida, “Because of both the low per-child funding and the real absence of standards for high quality, Florida became the model of exactly what we didn’t want to do.”
The St. Petersburg Times notes that “The constitutional amendment that established pre-K in this state mandated that it be high quality. And an advisory panel recommended specific criteria to meet the mark.”
Someehow, this all sounds vaguely familiar. Imagine this: Kansas sets up a pre-K program. Some providers are unhappy with their funding. They find some enterprising lawyers, and another lawsuit is underway.
Political news in Kansas often involves the State Board of Education, so it’s no surprise that it has become an issue in the governor’s race. Kathleen Sebelius called the board “an embarassment” in a debate with her challenger Jim Barnett.
“The governor said the current school board isn’t accountable to taxpayers, parents and business leaders. Its 10 members are elected and pick a commissioner to run the Department of Education.”
(She further tells the editorial board of the Topeka Capitol-Journal: “I think we have a real institutional, structural problem in the state. The elected school board that we have in place doesn’t function in this day and age.”)
Say what you will about the decisions of the state board, but what about the allegation that they are not accountable to taxpayers? Last we checked, each member of the board was elected. Recently, the board has made some decisions that have upset many people, and the composition of the board will change after the general election. The state board of education is at least as accountable to voters as local boards are, if not more so, given their higher profile. In addition, the state board, unlike local boards, has no authority to levy taxes.
What does Barnett say about the board? He would like to make the board have an odd number of members, so as to avoid ties. That seems reasonable. He also supports the idea of electing board members. We’re of no particular position on the question.
Governor Sebelius, on the other hand, proposes increasing the power that the governor’s office has on education. “
Sebelius has said she will propose a constitutional amendment to allow the governor to appoint a secretary to oversee the Department of Education and make the 10-member board advisory.”
In all, education in the state is far too political. Granted, anytime that public money is spent, political discussions will ensure. But it would be better if more of the responsibility for spending were pushed down to people who have the most at stake in education–children, in the form of their parents and guardians.
The Capitol-Journal offers another rundown on the story, with a review of legislative proposals made concerning the board over the years. Three previous attempts to take power away from the board made it out of committee, only to die in final votes on the floor.
The federal government is nudging school districts into pay for performance. It’s about time.
The Teacher Incentive Fund gives grants to districts that set up pay systems that rewards teachers in return for results. The Wichita Eagle runs a wire service story about the program, which mentions that several districts in Ohio will share the first $5.5 million.
The teacher unions object, of course: it seems to be in their DNA. The NEA smells political opportunism in the timing of the grants (and with “bringing home the bacon” an election theme of incumbents everywhere, they may be right on the timing, if wrong on the substance.)
The AFT objects that giving grants based on tests given at one point in time isn’t a good idea. They’re right, but the solution is not to ignore incentive pay–it’s to get an adequate baseline early in the school year, and then test later on. The union also objects that incentive pay doesn’t raise overall pay. True enough–then again, that’s the point: pay for performance, not just for showing up.
The plan gives priority to schools that enroll children from poor families. Good thing. Right now, teachers have an incentive to go where the pay scale is higher–and teachers who do a better job of raising student performance could be financially punished for staying in high-poverty schools.
Should they go virtual, or not?
That’s the question facing USD 348 Baldwin City. According to the Baldwin City Signal, the school district is entertaining an offer from the Insight School of Washington, which wants to establish an office in the state in Baldwin City.
Insight School is a virtual school available free of charge to any student in the state of Washington. Diplomas are granted by the Quillayute Valley School District, of Forks, a small town in the state’s Olympic peninsula.
At a recent meeting of the Baldwin City board, member Scott Lauridsen said that Insight has grown beyond expectations: they’ve enrolled three times the number of students as expected.
So will the district forge a partnership with Insight?
“Once again,” the Signal reports, “the concern from the school board is the financial part of the contract and how the state assessment scores would be affected.”
One board member expressed concern whether the school would conform to Kansas standards. (Our guess: probably). Another person at the meeting suggested that it’s time for the district to take advantage of the financial opportunity:
“Dorathy said the board should look into it, because area virtual schools are taking Baldwin students away from this district.
‘It’s competition in a way. You are in it or you aren’t. I think it’s something that the board has to face, because virtual schools are all around us and we are losing students to area districts.’”
Indeed, the use of virtual schools will grow over time. Virtual High School, a non-profit cooperative of schools, offers school districts a variety of options. Some release students to take selected classes. Others offer classes to students from other school districts.
Fort Hays State, a leader in using technology to reinvent the delivery of education, will be using iPods to distribute supplemental lectures.
“With the new technology, professors can record and upload their lectures, create additional interactive lessons and offer extra documents online. Meanwhile, their students, both on campus and overseas, can download the material and play it back at will on an iPod or computer.”
Why not?
There are many elements of education, and what works for some subjects or some students won’t work for others. But education has been one of the last sectors of the economy to get on the productivity train. Perhaps Fort Hays State will help lead the way.
The Wichita Eagle’s editorial board takes aim at grants recently distributed to charter school start-ups. It would truly be unfortunate if the idea of charter schools got distracted by shady business practices or, more likely, the old conservative-versus-moderate debate. There’s no particular ideology that is inherent to charter schools. The first state to use them was Minnesota, a famously “blue” state, and Arizona, a “red” one by most accounts, makes heavy use of them. There’s plenty of room in charter schools for a wide range of experimentation.
At the risk of being identified too closely with everything that Steve Abrams espouses, this profile from the Ark City Traveler suggests that the outgoing chairman of the SBOE is asking some useful questions about how we deliver education, and the need for making sure that students are ready for work.
Abrams points out that there are shortages for some skilled jobs that don’t require a college education. A university degree is useful for many students, but from the point of view of social as well as personal resources, there would be a lot of waste if everyone went from high school into college.
Vocationally-oriented education is sometimes slammed as forcing students into narrowly training for jobs that won’t be here in another 20 years. It’s true that a narrow jobs-training program is unwise. But the larger point holds: not every high school student should be expected to be on a college prep track.
Abrams also makes a good point when he says that distance learning has a role to play. With the growth of Internet usage, knowledge is not nearly as localized as it used to be.
The Topeka Capital-Journal gives a brief look at some of the technology making its way into the classroom: microphones for teachers, computing fractions via a keyboard, and PowerPoint. The presence of iPods in one classroom was mentioned, though its use was, mysteriously, not explained.
As many people with a five-year-old can attest, children love to use gadgets. So the point of technology in the classroom is not that an education is incomplete without a familiarity with, say, Google or Microsoft Word. Favored technologies and programs change over time (remember reel-to-reel tape decks and WordPerfect?). On the other hand, if a technology can improve teacher productivity or help a student learn, then by all means let’s use it. And the best way to do that just may be to let schools experiment rather than impose a statewide, top-down “revolution.”
The Johnson County Sun endorses a tax increase for Blue Valley USD 229. In the editorial we find this tidbit: “The LOB is widely used. Last year all but two of the 300 school districts in Kansas were taking advantage of it. An estimated one-third of them were at the maximum allowed under the law.”
If you’re having a hard time finding workers, maybe you should reconsider your methods of findings them.
Barnes USD 223 and Marysville USD 364 have gone a long ways to recruit Spanish teachers. They’ve gone to Spain. The Marysville Advocate has a short profile of the two teachers, who are married to each other.
We don’t wish any ill will on the individuals involved. Foreign trade is good, and more people to the two teachers who are getting a chance to live in the U.S. for a while.
But maybe the difficulty in finding teachers is a wake-up call that we need changes in school staffing policies–things such as merit pay and alternative methods of certification.
The Lawrence Journal-World gives a short profile of Betty Horton, a charter school advocate. Horton speaks bluntly:
“Horton, an education consultant from Topeka, . . . said she is expecting warfare.
‘When you talk about charter schools being developed by African Americans and community people, the school district can get ugly and can do some horrific things,’ Horton said.”
Charter schools are a family thing–Horton, her husband, and her sister and brother-in-law have all received grants of $1,995 to help develop plans for charter schools.
Horton now heads the Kansas Association of Charter Schools. (The organization does not yet have a web site, it appears.). She is not getting a universal endorsement. “State Board of Education member Sue Gamble, a Republican from Shawnee, has questioned the awarding of the grants, saying those receiving the grants seem to have no connection to school districts.”
That last sentence has an interesting phrase. “No connection to school districts.” Ms. Gamble may be correct on that point (we really don’t know). But that obscures a more important question: do the people involved have a connection to education? And can they help guide would-be charter school operators into sound territory? Gamble’s comments reflect a common but misguided sentiment: “education” should be limited to what is approved by the local school district. This confuses desired end (an educated population) with one particular means–the politically elected local school board.
Independent charter schools are not for every student, nor should they be. But it’s time to recognize that the needs of students can be served by multiple educational authorities.
By the way, the sidebar in the article has some useful links.
Kansas has enacted a requirement that 65 percent of school spending be spent on classroom instruction. The idea has been discussed in many states, and enacted in a few. George F. Will comments that federal data compilers are obscuring the debate by changing the definitions that might be applied to such laws:
In July the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Education Department, undermined this national effort. A report on expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for the 2003-04 school year contained this finding: “The percentage of current expenditures spent on instruction and instruction-related activities was 66.1 percent in 2003-04 for the nation as a whole” (emphasis added). Seasoned students of government verbiage noted the suspiciously vague phrase “instruction-related activities.”
[snip]
Now that Americans’ concern is shifting from how much money is spent on education to how much education the money is buying, government has blurred the measurement in a way that says 66.1 percent of education dollars already reach the classroom. If the “instruction-related” criterion is not added, the percentage of dollars devoted to instruction has declined for five consecutive years, to 61.3.
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