Uncategorized – Kansas Policy Institute: Recent Episodes
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Yes, another school year is almost upon us. Summer flies by, doesn’t it? You teachers know exactly what I mean. This really is the calm before the storm, in terms of the education environment. There aren’t a lot of controversies, at least not presently for the coming school year. The districts are flush with cash and, in many cases, still scrambling with what to do with all that pandemic money the feds flooded the economy with.
Gannon has been put to bed, so there are no lawsuits pending. However, Kansas being Kansas, it’s likely it won’t be long until another one rears a litigating head. Be it the federal money “running out” or the bureaucracy not getting their “fully funded” special education money. After all, education lawsuits in Kansas are as predictable as the weather is unpredictable.
All that aside, here are five things to keep an eye on as the school year unfolds:
- State assessments
The annual state assessment scores from this spring will be released sometime during the fall. Chances are the scores will continue to be abysmally low, but watch for signs of euphoria on the part of Commissioner Watson and the state board if there are any signs of improvement. Any signs. Will they be trying to ignore/explain away if scores are no better, or will Commissioner Watson be leading board members in a conga line around the capitol building?
- NAEP scores
With a new schedule due to school closings, NAEP is now given in even number years. Prior to the pandemic NAEP was administered in odd number years. Like the state assessments, the 2024 NAEP results will be released likely before Thanksgiving. After the dismal performance of the 2022 results, both nationwide and particularly in Kansas, it’s hard to imagine the 2024 scores could be any lower. Expect Commissioner Watson and the state board to spin any improvement as testimony to the state’s commitment to student success. Is that another conga line on the horizon I see?
- Open Enrollment
In 2022, the Kansas Legislature passed an open enrollment law that allows students to leave their “home” district for another. That law takes effect this fall. Don’t expect a seismic shift in student enrollment, or for it to cause an “end of representative government” as was claimed by a state board member after the law passed.
Oh, and there’s a catch. Each district is required to post how many available ‘seats’ they have for interlopers wanting to switch. Districts are required to post the number of open enrollment seats available by May 1 for the next school year. And there are not many. For example, the Johnson County Blue Valley district has made available a whopping 86 open enrollment seats. And these are at only two schools – Aspen Grove Elementary (46) and Blue Valley Southwest High School (40). Blue Valley (USD 229) has an enrollment of over 21,000 students across 38 schools. In the state’s largest district – Wichita USD 259 – the open enrollment essentially mirrors Blue Valley. USD 259 has more than 80 schools with an enrollment of about 45,000. Yet they claim to have only room for 455 out-of-district students, about 1% of total student population. I think representative government will survive.
- Overall enrollment
The forced school closings during the COVID pandemic precipitated a drop in overall student enrollment at traditional public schools in Kansas. The official count day in September and the release of that data in the fall will reveal the state of enrollment in traditional public schools. Up? Down? About the same? We’ll find out in the coming months.
- Kansas Legislative Election
This November Kansas voters will elect a new Legislature (but not governor – the next gubernatorial election is 2026). This cycle has both the House and Senate on the ballot (House elections are every two years, the Senate seats are on the ballot every four years.) What impact a new Legislature has on education policy obviously is to be determined. In fact, with many House and Senate districts, the “real” election will be the primary taking place even as you may be reading this piece.
If the legislative make-up in terms of Republican/Democrat split remains essentially unchanged, the Republicans have a veto-proof majority – currently 85-40 in the House and 29-11 in the Senate. This gives the GOP the green light to finally get on board the expansion of school choice train, as so many other states have in the past 2 years.
Will legislators give parents more power in terms of their education choices? Will there be a move to introduce Education Spending Accounts? According to EdChoice there are currently 17 states with that parental empowering law.
Will there be a change in the way charter schools are authorized? The law in Kansas currently allows only school districts to authorize charters, which is the reason there are only about a dozen charter schools in the state even though charters have been allowed in the state for 30 years. Oh, yeah, and those dozen or so charter schools are nothing more than alternative schools within districts.
That reality violates the basic principle of charter schools which is to educate students outside the scope of traditional public schools. No charter school exists in Kansas that would qualify as an independent charter in the way education policy wonks have come to know them in Hollywood feelgood movies or documentaries like Waiting for Superman.
Or will a tax credit scholarship program similar to the one passed in Oklahoma gain legislative traction in Kansas?
Stay tuned. Some kind of storm will surely form.
Apparently there is considerable internet “chatter” in response to a blog that I wrote for KPI last week. The piece was in response to a vote to close a KCMO charter school due to poor performance. The “chatter” is in regard to the line, “Ultimately, all publicly-funded schools need to be held to the same accountability standards. It is unacceptable that accountability is dependent upon what kind of school it is.”
At this time, the Kansas legislature is considering an ESA bill that would give money directly to parents to choose education alternatives for their children, including private school tuition. The education establishment is vehemently opposed to this and they using all kinds of spurious, fear-inducing arguments to make their case.
The argument here is that the “all publicly-funded schools” accountability should apply to private schools (tutors, therapists, and other educational expenses would also be eligible for ESA dollars) that accept tuition from families who have been granted an ESA. This is where they show the true colors of school choice fear. They are attempting to put ESAs in the same school choice box as a charter school. But there is no such thing as an “ESA school.” ESAs are much different, since the money flows directly to the individual child through a parent to decide how it is spent. In short, private school choice such as ESAs or tax credit scholarship programs fund students, not schools. Public charter schools receive taxpayer dollars directly from the state, as do traditional public schools.
It’s quite ironic that this argument against ESAs is rooted in regulation (accountability). The educrats feign concern that students might actually attend an unregulated school (including a home school) or get tutoring services from someone who is – daresay – not government approved!
The irony lies in the fact that the public education establishment is exempt from performance-based accountability. Just look at state assessment results – the same kind of scorecard that led to the closing the KCMO charter school. As stated in the previous blog, can you imagine a public hearing regarding the closure of a traditional public school due to low performance? Of course not. However, doesn’t stop them from decrying any school choice as somehow not being accountable.
It never ceases to amaze how “concerned” the anti-choice community is for those who might choose to leave the public school system, while simultaneously doing NOTHING to improve the performance of those confined to a zip code-based traditional public school. They believe in the doctrine of “rules for thee but not for me.”
Let me be perfectly clear, it is non-sensical that KPI would support any school choice option that would add state regulations to private schools, home school families, or other non-public school educators. We believe that parents should have control over how their children are educated, not bureaucrats`. As a point of fact, HB 2218, the ESA bill, contains this language: ““Nothing in this act shall be construed to permit any governmental agency to exercise control or supervision over any nonpublic school or home school. Any qualified school or tutor that accepts a payment from a parent of a qualified student participating in the program is not an agent of this state.” (emphasis added)
That’s good enough for me.
The post Streamlining State Regulations: A Review of State Legislative Proposals appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
Dear Governor Kelly, As I’m sure you know, Kansans have been hit with enormous property tax increases over the last twenty years. Property tax on real estate jumped 222% since 1997, which is more than four times the rate of inflation, and Kansas now has some of the highest effective property tax rates in the
The post KPI submits letter urging Gov. Kelly to provide relief to property taxpayers appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
This week, Mark Janus is visiting the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka to share his story. On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case, Janus v. AFSCME, that every public worker has a constitutional right to resign from a union whenever they want. Mark was a State of Illinois employee who disagreed
The post Who is Mark Janus? appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
There will be no mention of basketball in this essay despite the fact that as a Phoenix Suns fan throughout my adult life, nothing could be worse than LeBron James joining the despicable, hated Los Angeles Lakers. (If there any Suns fans out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about.) Ok, that’s the only
The post LeBron’s “I Promise” school – a model Kansas should emulate appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
The Kansas Supreme Court’s latest ruling that a six-year, $854-million funding increase is inadequate has renewed talk of amending the constitution, and that has evoked emotional responses from opponents. Some proponents have even been accused of being anti-education and ignoring the rule of law. Blanket charges of that nature are neither fair nor accurate; everyone
The post The Case for a Constitutional Amendment on School Funding appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
The post A-F Improved Districts by County 2018 appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
Between memories of “I’m Just a Bill” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” we all have visions of how the legislative process is supposed to look. Soaring rhetoric and epic clashes of statesmen, and women, doing battle over the issues of the day. The slow, deliberative process of a bill going from the committee, to
The post Politics Too Often Trumps Policy in Topeka appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
A recent blog post by the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) Associate Executive Director Mark Tallman says “Total school district funding is, in fact, at an all-time high, expected to top $6.1 billion this year” but “…the part of school funding available for day-to-day operating costs is not keeping up with inflation and enrollment.” There are
The post Even by KASB standards, school operating spending is $3.9 billion ahead of inflation appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
Kansas Policy Institute Vice President James Franko discusses government transparency with Seth Etter and Bob Weeks. Etter is the organizer of Open Wichita, an initiative to bring the benefits of open data and civic hacking to Wichita. Weeks blogs at Voice for Liberty in Wichita where he advocates for government transparency and accountability and uses
The post Government Transparency Round Table Discussion appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.
Kansas Policy Institute President Dave Trabert summarizes the major accomplishments of the 2015 Kansas Legislature including changes to: K-12 school funding, renewable energy mandates, tax credit scholarships, property tax reform and avoidance of Medicaid expansion.
The post 2015 Legislative Wrap-up appeared first on Kansas Policy Institute.