Private and Public Schools: Inevitable Conflict?

Columnist Mark McCormick asks some questions about two candidates for the board of USD 259 Wichita, and asks, “can someone who supports scholarships to private schools be on the school board? How about someone who has opposed tax increases?”

The second question is easily aynswered. The members of the board should serve the public, making sure that it gets good service for the price that it pays. This responsibility may lead a member to call for more funding to meet an unmet need. It may also lead the same person to oppose more funding on the grounds that more can be done with existing funds. A good supervisor should be prepared to do both.

As to the first question, the answer is also easy if we ask another question. Which is more important: the system, or the children? Some children do well enough in government-run schools, which is what we think of as “public schools.”

Other children need alternatives, including privately owned and operated schools. Yet they too are part of the public, and their education benefits the rest of us, just as a good education provided to a child in a government-run school benefit the rest of us.

In short, “public education” occurs in many places.

Source: School board candidates have intriguing loyalties, Wichita Eagle, January 28

You Just Can’t Please Some People

From the Wichita Eagle:

“TOPEKA, Kan. – An unprecedented three-year, $466 million boost to school funding approved last year might have been enough to satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court, but school lobbyists and some lawmakers are far from happy with the deal.”

Johnson County complains that it pays for a greater share of the state’s spending (one third) but receives much less of state money (one tenth), while poor districts complain that it’s hard for them to keep up with Johnson County.

Sounds like an inevitable clash, as the mere existance of a state inevitably involves some areas subsidizing others.

Meanwhile, a lobbyist for the KCK school doesn’t like having to compete for teachers against better-endowed districts: “In a large metro area with over a dozen (districts), hiring and retaining teachers and administrators is difficult if your neighboring districts can offer significantly higher salaries.” He’s probably not alone.

Will this all lead to a call for the state to take over all financing of districts? It might, but that would only shift the terms of the debate, not resolve it.

Source: “Lawmakers, lobbyists still not happy despite $466M boost,” Wichita Eagle, January 29

See also Friction persists on dividing school funds, Lawrence Journal World, January 28

Five Charter Applications in KCK, One Approval

One for five.

That’s what charter schools are doing in Kansas City lately. The KCK school board approved a charter school application for the Maurice R. Holman Academy of Excellence, but rejected the application for the Pleasant Green Academy of Excellence.

Also rejected: the Walnut Boulevard Institute of Learning Charter School, Freedom Academy and Meta-Center High School.

We favor allowing multiple authorities to authorize a charter school.  Under Kansas law, only local school districts are allowed to oversee charter schools. We need not embrace a bad-faith model of school boards to recognize that there is an inherent conflict-of-interest here when an organization that gets its budget from enrollment numbers must decide whether to allow another organization, which would draw from its student body, to exist.

Source: Charter school proponent says board may have intentionally picked worse applicant, Kansas City Kansan, January 26.

KCK Charter School Approved

The board of USD 500 Kansas City approved one charter school application: the Maurice R. Holman Academy of Excellence Public Elementary Charter School, which might open as early as the 2008-2009 school year. The State Board of Education, whose approval is not certain, must also approve the application. It is the first proposal to get even this far.

According to the Kansas City Star account of the action, the delay to the 08-09  year was unusual. But given the work involved in setting up a charter school, eight or nine months of planning to get the school ready for the 20 07-08  year may not be enough.

The school would serve about 100 students, and have an entrepreneurial emphasis.

USD 500 officials say that the school, founded by Chiquita Coggs, executive director of the Northeast Business Association, have a burden to outperform the district’s own schools.

“If we approve something, we want it to be a success. This is new to everyone, said one member of the board. The president added, “Our district has made some outstanding gains. I would like for the charter school to go over and beyond. We are doing an outstanding job at making these gains.”

Of course, some parents choose charter schools because their children’s behavior, grades, or both, have plummeted to such measures that they are desperate, suggesting that the children are even harder to educate than the rest of the district’s enrollment. Never mind; urban charter schools have outperformed their regular school counterparts in Chicago. We hope for the children’s sake and the community that this school goes well.

Source: Charter schools: District says yes to one, no to another, Kansas City Kansan, January 24; KCK Charter School OK’d, Kansas City Star.

He’s Got a Ticket to Ride … the School Bus

Current law requires (and funds) district-provided transportation to students living within 2.5 miles of their assigned school. About 90,000 students who live between 1 and 2.5 miles of their school would get bus rides, if the legislature passes and funds a proposal under discussion. The cost would be $26 million, or about $290 per student per year.

Source: Lawmakers want to give children a free ride, ABC 49/AP, January 22

All-Day K for Lawrence?

The district debates a plan to enact all-day K. Currently 15 out of the district’s 17 buildings have all day, partial day classes. (See numbers, in PDF, from the KSDE.)

The move would cost local taxpayers $1 million per year. If implemented statewide, the move would add another $75 million to public obligations. Currently, the state gives districts money for half-day enrollment. Governor Sebelius would like to phase in support for all-day classes.

The superintendent says that as for USD 487, it’s a matter of priorities:  “For us, it’s a facilities issue, in some respect. For us, it’s mostly a general fund issue. We’ve chosen to spend money in other areas and tried to keep our costs down.”

Is Hard Work Good Enough?

While No Child Left Behind is sometimes criticized for being too tough and inflexible, its requirements do raise the question: do we expect enough from schools, or do we make excuses?

Here’s what one PTA president said recently:

“The long and short of it is that teachers are working long and hard to get kids to learn what they need to learn to survive. Everybody is doing the best they can.”

Perhaps everyone is doing the best they can. But what would happen if you continually failed to perform your job at an acceptable level? Would your boss say “That’s OK; you’re doing the best that you can.” Or would you be looking for new employment?

This quote comes from an article in the KC Star about No Child Left Behind. The paper finds that districts can find a lot of wiggle room in meeting the accountability standards required by the law.

“[The use of confidence intervals] is similar to the margin of error commonly seen in poll results. For the purposes of No Child Left Behind, this calculation adjusts for statistical variations based upon the size of the student groups being tested.

Under safe harbor, schools and districts are credited for making significant annual improvement in the percentage of students meeting state expectations, even if they fall short of their target scores.”

How important are these statistical … adjustments?

“The Star’s analysis found that in nearly one of every four instances, Missouri student groups met the law’s mandates through use of confidence intervals, safe harbor, or a combination of the two.

In Kansas, that figure was about one in eight.”

There’s another curiosity in this article, when a school superintendent “defended taking improvement into account, arguing that a school making steady progress is better than one with high marks that has reached a plateau.”

Really? If you are a parent stuck with a bad school, are you much satisfied with the fact that your child’s school is on a path to making the grade …. someday? Or would you rather have the ability to send your child to a school that is doing well TODAY, even if it hasn’t improved on its performance in a while?

Reading further in the article, we find another person, this time a school employee, who buys the “but we’re working hard” standard of excellence: “Teachers are working hard, she said, to improve instruction and provide support for lagging students. If we weren’t doing that,” she said, “I might feel differently (about the confidence interval), but I don’t.”

If you buy a product or a service as a consumer, do you consider the price and value of what you are considering? Or do you instead think of the amount of effort that the company’s employees put into it?

Why should schools be any different?

Now, we’re knowledgeable enough about statistical analysis to appreciate the value of confidence intervals in scholarly research and opinion polling. But its use, when combined with the “we’re trying hard” rationale, is troubling.

Source: Methods can hide lagging scores, Kansas City Star, January 21

Middle School at the End?

Kansas City, Missouri’s superintendent, Anthony Amato, thinks that the district should eliminate middle schools.

“That model (K-8) has less suspensions, less expulsions and higher academic results,” Amato has said.

Says the Star, “K-8s have seen a revival, particularly in large-city school districts with high poverty that have struggled with academic performance and declining enrollment.”

Source: Middle Schools’ End May Begin, KC Star, January 17.

Governor Fills “Commission on Healthy and Prepared Schools.”

Governor Sebelius created a new commission. A few days ago, she selected 13 people to sit on it. The executive order creating the commission reflects the governor’s plan to push for more early childhood education.

Standards on Evolution have how much Effect?

From the Topeka Capital-Journal, on the topic of the flip-flopping (and next month, flipping again) of the state standards on science and the topic of evolution:
When it comes down to the heart of the debate — what should children learn in science classrooms — the fight may have little effect.

“It’s such a small part of our science curriculum it really hasn’t had any effect at all on us,” said Mike Mathes, superintendent in Seaman Unified School District 345.

The article quotes several other teachers and advocates on both sides of the question. They come to the same conclusion: tempest in a teapot.

(Source: 2005 Standards had little effect, Topeka Capital-Journal, January 15)

Wichita Catholic Schools Adapting

The Wichita Catholic schools are becoming a model for Catholic school education, says local and national educators.

“‘The diocese doesn’t charge parents tuition for their children to attend any of its schools as long as they’re active families in the church” says the superintendent of the schools, Bob Voboril.

This is getting national attention: “Sister Dale McDonald, director of public policy and education research at the Washington, D.C.-based National Catholic Education Association, said Wichita has become a model for other dioceses trying to reverse declining enrollment.”

What to make of this? It’s an exercise of freedom-of-association. It’s hard to tell how the tuition is being handled just by reading the story, but the diocese could simply be offering the equivalent of scholarships to parishioners, to be redeemed at the schools.

The diocese’s schools enroll over 9,700 students, of which 7,200 are in Sedgwick County.

Source: Wichita Catholic Schools offer model for tuition,  January 14.

School to Age 21?

Reg Weaver, the head of the NEA, the nation’s largest union, recently spoke to the editorial board of the Kansas City Star.

In the interview, Weaver says that the federal law known as No Child Left Behind has some “decent” provisions, including disaggregating data by race and income. “Providing parents with information, that’s a good thing,” he adds.

Has it helped close the achievement gap? “I would say no.”

Weaver also says that the NEA believes “that all the way up to 21 it should be mandatory that kids earn a high school diploma.” But a big problem with American schooling is that the longer a cohort of students stay in school, the worse they do. Why would extending the school career of children in such a system do anything but extend the problem?

In a surprising move, he says that if a person under 21 is put into prison, his release should be conditioned on earning a diploma: “if they are supposed to be released before they graduate, that release would be delayed until graduation occurs.” (And we thought that when a person served his time, he served his time, and should be released.)

While Weaver calls for an expanded jurisdiction of teachers, he reiterated the union’s opposition to merit pay. He brings back the argument that some schools are funded better than others. That may be true, but it would be a moot point if teachers were paid not for the absolute achievement levels of their students, but the gains that those students made under their tutelage.

Source: “Critical Issues for Teachers,” Kansas City Star, Kansas City Star, January 14.

Governor Calls for Expansive Plans

In her state-of-the-state address, Governor Sebelius called for a state budget of $12.39 billion (Sebelius unveils $12.39 billion state budget proposal, Wichita Eagle, January 11).

In the budget proposal: $6 billion in general fund revenues, with the rest coming through federal sources. On education, the governor calls for “$15 million to begin a five-year implementation of all-day kindergarten.”

That’s just for 5-year olds. The governor wants to bring government services to an even younger age group, in the name of early-childhood education:

Another supporter of the governor’s plan is Marni Vliet, president of the Kansas Health Foundation.

She said Kansas has patched together a system to take care of kids, but “not until it’s universal can we give the respect we need to the children.”

Sebelius singled out Vliet and her organization by name when calling for expansion of early-childhood education.

Vliet received a standing ovation when Sebelius cited the foundation’s work, including the Opportunity Project in Wichita.

“This wonderful early-learning program is a great example of a public-private partnership at work,” Sebelius said.

Vliet said the program, funded by Wichita philanthropists Barry and Paula Downing, operates in north and south Wichita.

Vliet said she was “just overwhelmed and humbled” by the support for early education.

There’s a world of difference between a privately funded program and a state-run program. Does the governor really want to jump from one to the other?

(Source: Sebelius’ goal: health care for all, Wichita Eagle, January 11)

Lock Away Third-Year Spending?

The Kansas Senate approved the idea of using $122.7 million in next year’s budget for the third year of the three-year, $466 million plan the legislature enacted last year. (Of course there is much more to the budget than $466 million; that is just a supplement.)

The idea is both a good one, and of limited value. Good in that it recognizes that there may be a shortfall when the commitment comes due, of limited value because there’s probably no guarantee that it won’t be spent on something else. Then the legislature would have to fill a hole through some other means.

Source: GOP Presents its Wish List, Kansas City Star, January 10.

Baldwin City Inks Contract for Virtual School

Another virtual school is coming to Kansas.

“High school students in Kansas will have one more option for virtual schools come next fall. A unanimous vote by the Baldwin Board of Education approved the contract with Insight Schools Monday night.”

Negotiations between the district and Insight Schools, the virtual school operator, have taken over a year. Students will not pay tuition for the school. The district, for its part, gets some money from the state for each student who enrolls.

The number of students who enroll could make a big difference for the district: “the virtual school enrolled 1,000 students during its first year it would generate a surplus of $7.5 million. However, if the school brought in 500 students, the surplus would only be $1 million.”

Source: Board Signs Dotted Line, Baldwin City Signal, January 11.

Will Demands Outstrip Resources?

If there’s a law of economics that is empirically verifiable, it may be this: the appetite for more goodies is insatiable. That includes items paid for by taxes.

Is it possible to have “too much” education? Health care?

The Kansas City Star, in analyzing the start of the legislative session, brings home an obvious point: without the legislature focused on dealing with the demands of the state’s supreme court, the ability “to dream” may outstrip the ability “to pay,” even with the significant reserves that the state has at the moment.

Without a ready-made crisis awaiting lawmakers, they are instead compiling wish lists that, at the very least, guarantee the session will have something for everyone:

Renewable energy. Affordable health care. The $700 million maintenance backlog at state universities. Economic development. Gambling. All-day kindergarten. Stem-cell research. Tax relief. The state’s burgeoning prison population.

[snip]

One key challenge may be avoiding the temptation to drain the state’s suddenly healthy bank account, which is many millions of dollars above last year’s estimates.

The Legislature still has to make sure it pays for the second and third years of the $466 million school finance plan passed last year. Old debts are coming due. The cost of providing social service programs to the poor and disabled continues to rise.

“The revenue increase has been phenomenal,” said Sen. John Vratil, a Leawood Republican. “…But we still have more demands on our available resources than we have available resources.”

Source: Wish lists offer something for everyone, Kansas City Star, January 8.

Teacher Shortage? Use Merit Pay, Reduce Certification Headaches

The Kansas State Board of Education is looking at ways of retaining existing teachers and attracting new ones. Old ideas (pay everyone more, pay more for mentoring programs) are floated, as are missionary-style “come join us” proposals to entice middle school and high school students.

Left unsaid are two things that would recognize the value of teaching and make it more attractive as well: use merit pay so that teachers are paid according to how much they help students learn (rather than how long they stay on the job), and streamline the certification process so that mid-career professionals have less of a hurdle to join the ranks of teachers.

Meanwhile, the LJW says that “some districts are reaching beyond the country’s borders to countries such as Spain and India to recruit teachers to fill vacancies, although the Lawrence district has not done so.”

(Source: Kansas Acts on Teacher Shortage, Kansas City Star, January 8; Program Addresses Teacher Shortage, Lawrence Journal-World, January 9)

The State of KPERS: Bleak

There has already been a lot of talk about the costs of deferred maintenance at state universities. There’s something that’s even more significant, however: deferred pension funding.

Public pensions around the country are taking on red ink, and changes in accounting standards are only making the implicit problems explicit. It’s easy for politicians both state and local, to promise pension benefits beyond what the current budget will support. The promise of benefit increases makes government employees (including teachers) happy now. But too often, the costs are shifted into the future.

In a preview of the legislative session, the Journal-World lets this bit of information fly: “The Kansas Public Employee Retirement System has 250,000 active and retired members, and $12.2 billion in assets. But the gap between its assets and future obligations to provide pensions has grown to $5.1 billion, a 10 percent increase from the previous year.”

The gap is 5.1 billion–over 40 percent of assets on hand. Simply put, public employees (including teachers) have been overpromised.

Source: What can Kansans gain from their 2007 legislature? Lawrence Journal-World, January 8.

Charter School Proposal Rebuffed

Another charter school proposal is rebuffed. The Topeka school board recently rejected 3 proposals for a charter school. In Kansas (unlike most states), if a charter school petition is rejected by the local district, there is no recourse.

According to one press account, “It took only minutes for the seven Topeka school board members to reject the plans at a meeting Thursday night. Many said they lacked enough information and were concerned about what it would cost to get the two aging buildings ready by August.” (Source: Charter-school advocates say their fight won’t end, Wichita Eagle, January 5).

In an essay published by the Wall Street Journal the day before the decision (What’s the Matter With Kansas?), Jason L. Riley drew on the symbolism of Topeka: “the project has another significant backer in the person of Cheryl Brown Henderson, a daughter of the lead plaintiff in the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision that ended 300 years of legal black oppression.”

“Current school board members,” Riley continued,  “don’t share the racial animus of their predecessors, to be sure, but like other local school boards nationwide they do have a vested interest in preserving the public education status quo. Either way, the result is that a disproportionate number of minority students and families who’ve long been ill-served by Topeka’s traditional public schools are being deprived of viable alternatives.”

They are being deprived, he says, by a preference for maintaining the status quo that makes it unnecessarily difficult for charter schools to open:

“When opponents can’t prevent a state legislature from enacting a charter law, they work hard to keep the law as weak as possible. And the most effective way of blocking charters is by giving union-controlled local school boards exclusive authority over their creation, as Kansas has done.”

Legislature to Look at Funding, Again

 There’s no lawsuit (yet) forcing the hand of the legislature, but funding for schools will be an issue.

Here’s what the Topeka Capital-Journal has to say:

“Efforts will be made to redefine how school districts spend money. A bipartisan proposal will try to place money to complete the three-year deal in a reserve fund. Raising the amount districts can raise through local-option budgets will be on the table.”

It also mentions that KPERS, the retirement system that includes teachers, will be up for discussion:

“Options include higher employee contribution rates, lower early-retirement subsidies, and adjustment of benefits for future employees.”

(Top issues of the session, January 7)

Lessons from China?

Writing in the Kansas City Star, Sen. Chris Steineger (Kansas City, Kansas) thinks that “China’s committment to education” is an economic advantage.

True enough, a well-educated workforce is important. But we’re not sure what to make of some of the senator’s observations, which include the fact that Chinese universities (at the least the ones he visited) have a 10p.m. curfew. Chinese universities also have spartan accommodations.

The easy way out for Americans to increase their “commitment to education” is, of course, to increase funding. But is putting more money into the same old systems–to be fair, not something that Steineger says in this piece–really going to get us far?

Source: AS I SEE IT: China’s advantage is its commitment to education, January 7, KC Star

What Should the Legislature Should do About At-Risk?

The Topeka Capital-Journal offers a review of its recommendations for the legislative session. Front and center: education.

“We’d all feel better about the second and third years of the education plan,” an editorial reads, “if you could assure us Kansas has enough money to pay for it. A better-than-expected state revenue forecast helps ease our concern somewhat, but we’d suggest you find a way to lock away once and for all the millions and millions of dollars demanded by your friends across the street at the Supreme Court.”

On the related matter of at-risk students, the paper had this to say:

“We’d encourage a closer look at the controversial and difficult-to-monitor issue of “at-risk” students. Turns out, the already rather pricey education bill might be unnecessarily padded because of confusion about the number of at-risk students.”

We’re all in favor of sound accounting practices, of course. But instead of simply giving more money to schools based on their head count of “at risk” students, why not help out those students by giving money to their parents, in the form of a voucher that can be used at the school of the family’s choice? That’s one way to avoid the conflict of interest that arises when the schools that certify students as being “at risk” automatically get the extra funding for having an at-risk student.

Source: 2007 Legislative Session–Get to Work

Meanwhile, the Emporia Gazette reports that the definition of “at risk” could be up for debate:

“Some details of the school finance plan may also get some tweaking, said Rep. Don Hill, R-Emporia, such as how to define an “at-risk” student. Right now, that’s based on whether the student qualifies for a free or reduced-cost school lunch. Changing the definition could impact districts with high “at risk” populations, including Emporia.

‘It’ll be looked at, for sure, to see if there might be a better way to put those numbers,’ Hill said. ‘It’s certainly not perfect. The question is, to the extent that it has flaws, can it be improved on?’”

(Source: Lawmakers prepare for new term, Emporia Gazette, January  6)

Lottery for Scholarships?

The Pittsburgh Morning Sun editorializes in favor of using state lottery money for college scholarships.

Source: “Still better way to  use lottery money,”

Healthy and Educated

Writing in the Wichita Eagle blog, Randy Scholfield notes that people without a high school diploma tend to live shorter lives than people with one.

There’s not much new there, but it does bear repeating. Given the correlation between schooling and income, and income and health, the lesser schooled population is in general not as healthy.

Year of Government-Paid Preschool?

The Wichita Eagle wonders if 2007 will be the Year of the Preschooler. The reason: the Legislature will discuss plans to expand the state’s role in the preschool business.

The governor would like to spend $2 million of tax money, and she’s got the backing of some business interests. An advocate of organized pre-school is rather excited about the prospects of expanding the state’s Pilot Pre-K program.

Says the Eagle’s Suzanne Perez Tobias:

“Kansas certainly has room for improvement. A statewide study released last year showed that more than half of Kansas kids start kindergarten unprepared to learn. And a new Education Week report ranks Kansas among the lowest in the country in per-capita spending on early-childhood programs.”

And yet if Kansas is regularly touted as a top state–”everything is fine here, no need for vouchers or charter schools–why the rush to pre-K?

Several important groups will be advocating it anyway, including the Kansas Health Foundation and Visioneering Wichita. Advocates point to academic benefits and studies of brain development.

Says Marni Vliet, director of the Kansas Health Foundation,

“This is the time to think about flip-flopping where we put our resources. If we start to focus on the beginning of the cycle instead of the end, we wouldn’t be in the Band-Aid business. We’d be in the prevention business.”

Does this mean that upward pressure on K-12 spending would go down if pre-K was universal? Given the track record of government, that’s not likely.

Of course, funding all this will be another issue entirely. The best programs that we’ve seen call for spending on a scale that rivals if not exceed a full year of K-12 school.

Advocates are calling for a mix of providers, which in itself is a good thing.  Says Jim Redmon, executive director of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund, “We want a mix of pre-K sites, whether that’s at a school, a child care center, a private preschool, a church….”

Source: “Year of the preschooler,” Wichita Eagle, January 7