The Kansas House failed Wednesday to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the courts from telling legislators how much money to spend. Though lawmakers’ concern about the growing cost of education is serious, the main cause of the problem isn’t activist judges: it’s an activist Legislature, Congress and the State Board of Education that keep increasing demands on local schools.
In deciding whether the state was meeting its constitutional requirement to “suitably finance” public education, the Kansas Supreme Court didn’t legislate from the bench. Rather, it looked at what the state and federal lawmakers and the state board are requiring of schools. And two recent studies, both ordered and paid for by the Legislature, have concluded that the state is not providing schools with enough funds to meet those performance standards.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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38 Comments
You forgot to add the Teachers Unions in the list that puts an increase demand on public schools for financial resources.
The courts must do the job that the GOP controlled legislature will not…..namely funding the schools.
One wonders at folks opposed to school funding. What is their agenda?
The average Wichita public school teacher’s salary is $44,493. In Shawnee Mission School District in Johnson County the average teacher salary is $53,736. Are these “suitable” salaries for teachers?
These are figures from the Kansas Department of Education:http://www.ksde.org/leaf/reports_and_publications/salary_reports/teachers/2004-2005_teachers_salary.pdf
Besides having the summer off, and several “in service” days throughout the school year, how much more do teachers need for a “suitable” salary so they can provide a “suitable” education in Kansas?
Sebelius has now packed the Kansas Supreme Court with 5 Democrats but only 2 Republicans when only 27% of Kansas voters are Democrats. http://www.kansasmeadowlark.com/2005/07-22.htm Does the Supreme Court give us justice, or are they promoting the agenda of the Democratic Party? Do we have a “suitable” Supreme Court in Kansas?
The salary for the Chief Justice in Kansas is $128,451 plus $45,426 benefits. The remaining justices are only paid $125,089 plus $44,567 benefits. Are these “suitable” salaries for Supreme Court judges? Do Kansans get their money’s worth for these salaries? [Aren't the legislators grossly underpaid in comparison?]
The Superintendent of Shawnee Mission Schools is only paid about $220,000/year — this is for a government job. Last I knew poor Governor Sebelius only made $103,813 or so per year. Are these “suitable” salaries for the Superindendent and the Governor?
So at least one Superintendent in Kansas makes more than the Vice President of the United States, the US House Speaker, the US Chief Justice, and the Secretary of Education of the whole country. Is this a “suitable” salary? Does the average Kansan understand this?
Do Kansans who struggle to pay bills understand why the Wichita Eagle and other papers in Kansas want to raise their taxes, or promote gambling for schools?
And where was the Eagle’s discussion of Andy Rooney’s recent statement saying making poor people poorer through gambling was not a legitimate function of government. See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/16/60minutes/rooney/main1412330.shtml How will using gambling money to support schools help Kansas when it makes the poor even poorer?
Will raising taxes for schools only accelerate the population decline in many Kansas counties? Can we tax or gamble ourselves into prosperity? [Would someone at the Eagle play the "Sim City" computer game and see what happens in a simulated city when taxes are increased. The same thing happens in the real world.]
Will we ever see fair, balanced and objective reporting about this? It’s truly incredible this is all about the word “suitable.”
Wow the trolls you do encounter when you stay up late.
Let’s us fund the schools by taxing those who most exploit the product of those schools.
Let us have a luxury tax, capital gains and inheritance tax to fund the schools. You know……so the very folk who live off the labor of workers pay to educate those workers.
The true is that it does not matter how much or how little an education cost. If the education is no good. There needs to be a good look at what is taught, if the child learns how to play well with other and not how to blance a check book or count change back.
To teach them how to think abstractly but no real facts. It will only hurt them in the real world.
I would rather see them figuring on a chalk board and knowing how to figure then have a computer and know only how to play a game.
Ted Powers R-Mulvane put it well: ““When we use our political wiles to make someone look bad and we use our voters as the pawns to do it,” Powers said, “this is diabolic.””
Republicans are playing the same game with education they are playing with workers comp.
Yeah Ben, you may be the exception, but they played the same game with the hate amendment. Seventy percent of kansans fell for it.
What is it the germans say?
“Ve be too soon olt, und too late schmart.”
Agreed Ben & KFG:A place to start on cleaning up our mess would be to vote out each legislator listed in the link at the start of this thread. I would love to help Brenda Landwehr pack up her office.
I emailed Brenda “Labors for TABOR” Landwehr and asked her if there was ANY taxation she supported. Didn’t get an answer from her. I think I knew the answer, already, though.
Hey, KS Meadowlark. Why is it a crime for teachers – people who educated themselves so they can educate your children – to make a decent living salary. As a teacher’s kid, I know they don’t just work 9 months a year. They attend class in the summer, most of them have to have a summer job because of the lousy salary they receive. A great many of them suplement their lousy salaries with part-time jobs – driving school buses, coaching, etc. Don’t give me that crap about them being overpaid. Consultants and executive directors are overpaid. Teachers set the tone for civilization.I’ll stop ranting now. But boy am I tired of people who don’t know better blathering on about how little teachers work.
Gittin’:Kansas MeadowLark is a ultra conservative blogger who writes and advocates the Kansas Republican Assembly (”the conscience of the Kansas Republican Party”) line. To think he has anything worthwhile to say would be a serious mistake.
See this link for info on the KRA:
http://www.ks-ra.org/
On the above home page, this group gave space to Steve Abrams, the head of the KS BOE, for his vile rant about classic literature being pornography. Is the picture becoming clearer?
Actually, KS Meadowlark, pretty infrequently, comes by and leaves us some meadlark birdpoop to marvel at. We don’t want to encourage any more contact.
DD, you are right on the money as usual. Ksmeadowlark also blogs on the salina journal website. Check their for the true flavor of the koolaide he drinks.
http://www.saljournal.com/
“meadowlark bird poop . . .”
there…dammit!
And as for brenda, bonbon, kay oconnor etc…
I’ll bring the strapping tape :) if we are helping them pack!!
I think they have their own plastic bubble wrap, only slightly used, but kept on hand to cushion the blows to their heads caused by collision with reality.
Alternately, said bubble wrap also serves to prevent logic from entering their heads.
Hell, if they are packing up and moving home, I’ll even drive the uhaul van…lolololol.
KFG,I thought of you when I was reading the KRA website homepage. They link to some books on the subject of changing homosexual orientation.
They represent every extremist Republican idea one can think of. There was a time not long ago when people were ashamed to declare this degree of bigotry. Not so, now.
Sad but true DD.
In kansas, it is now COOL to be both bigoted AND anti-science.
Hell, it’s cool in kansas to be bigoted and AGAINST education in general.
Gee, do ya think there is a connection there?
DD, Kind of like a reverse coming out of the closet, huh? Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll go back in.
DD & KFG,How can one *change* their sexual orientation? I don’t understand this logic. I thought it was part of who you are and some people repress it but it’s still inherently part of the person.(Since I’ve been lambasted on another thread I’m feeling rather stupid right now.) Could you help me out here?
I’ll join Gittin madder;
As a former teacher (12 years), I’ll agree – teachers are not overpaid, nor did we get “time off.” What we get, in fact, is a nine-month contract with a planned lay-off period. I went back to school to keep my certificate, at my cost, of course. In most businesses, when employees must go to school for certification, the business pays for it. Not teachers.
I’ll agree with you on the administrative costs, however. Kansas education is top-heavy, no question about it.
Now: as to the meat. Read Montoy. There is in fact legitimate disagreement as to what is a “suitable” education; the legislature made one determination, the courts another. Frankly, whether this or that consultant recommended X or Y dollars makes not one whit of difference. Appropriations is a political decision, specifically authorized for the legislature to make. If Kansans decide that the legislature is not making suitable accomodation for education, we have a political remedy for a political issue: elect someone else.
When the Montoy court strikes down the funding statute as unconstitutional, it is judging. That is proper, even if I may disagree with the decision. When the court goes on to specify exactly how much must be spent, and on what programs, it is no longer judging, it is legislating. And that is not proper.
Remember: the legislature is also a co-equal branch. What if the legislature refuses to comply – then what? Does the Court have the authority to hold the legislature in contempt? I don’t think so; that would raise the court to status superior to the legislature, not a co-equal branch. Just how does the court propose to enforce such an order? Instead, the branches play chicken with the schools.
The kind of legislative acts seen and criticized as “court-bashing” are exactly the kinds of inter-branch warfare that a system of check and balances forsees. Remember – this system was not designed to be efficient, it was designed to limit gov’t power by, in effect, promoting gridlock. This is not unusual; despite Justice O’Conner’s laments, this is part of the system too. It will play out, and the republic will go on.
Walker,
There is an interesting war going on inside of the Kansas Republican Party. I am cheering for the Force, but I fear the Dark Side has a pretty strong hold on things.
Time and maybe us guerilla Republican primary voters (where real change happens) will tell the story.
I am an unaffiliated voter. I switch to Republican to vote against Susan Wagle, then re-register as an unaffiliated voter the day after the primary.
I support my Republican Representative, JoAnn Pottorff on most things she does. She is willing to listen to radicals like me. Her district is primarily east side urban Wichita. She does polling, and last year our district was against “concealed and carry” by something like a 70 to 30 percent margin. JoAnn voted against the constitutional amendment that started this thread. There are some good Republicans. There are some evil ones. The same is undoubtedly true about democrats.
Julie -
People usually don’t change their sexual orientation. Even when tortured to do so by some of the awful interventions designed to bring about this change.
One of the simplest arguments against the line that sexual orientation is a choice, came from none other than Larry King. It went something like: why would people chose a life that guarenteed their mistreatment by others? Very simple and to the point.
KFG can speak better to this topic than me, I am sure.
GMC70,
I believe you make some good points. However, I think that what happened last year that led to the special session was that it was politically expedient for the legislature to say “we are not going to do our constitutionaly required job [providing a 'suitable' education for KS children] because nobody [voters] seem(s) to mind” The Court stepped in and said “Sorry, this political dodge is not going to work any more.” Of course, the legislators screamed like cats whose tail had been stepped on. The amendment referenced here was a ploy to return to their do-nothing game. Too bad, that not enough legislators would go along with the game (note sarcasm). Conservatives have the option of doing some work to redefine “suitable” so that it is affordable. I will bet that they will avoid doing that, however. It will be easier and a better politcal move to go along with higher costs and complain about them all the way. Republicans as victims plays so very well, even if it is completely divorced from reality.
You did just fine DD!!
Julie, could you change your sexual orientation? Is there anything anyone could do to make you gay?
I dont mean just having a fling, but I mean really being gay. Hell, I’ve slept with men too, but it didnt make me any less gay. Obviously.
I mean really, could anyone force you into the “gay lifestyle”? (BTW, it is my LIFE not lifestyle)
Do you remember when you “chose” to be straight? If being straight were against the law, would that stop you from being straight? If straight marriage were illegal, would you still have fallen in love with your husband and wanted to have children?
Again, is there anything anyone else could do to change you into a lesbian?
If the answer is no, that you could not be changed into a gay person, you can take it to the bank that we are the same way. We cant change the way we were born.
We could ignore it and be celibate or we could live a lie (like I did while I was married to a MAN for eight years) but we can not be something we are not. And I can tell you, the cost of living a lie is HUGE. Way more costly than being truthful about being gay.
Just like you could likely never change your orientation, I cant either.
Nor, for the record, would I WANT to be a different person! (well, maybe a RICHER person) I like being gay just fine.
I dont like having to fight for my life and my liberty every single day. I dont like mindlessly being dismissed as an evil person. I hate being personally responsible for the agony of christ.
And I damn sure dont like being blamed for the cultural demise of western civilization as we know it!
But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, I really dont mind being gay :)
I wouldnt change it, even if I could. So I was both born this way…and I chose it.
How ’bout you?
Great post about education DD.
I liked this:
“Of course, the legislators screamed like cats whose tail had been stepped on.”
And getting them to do their jobs will be very much like herding cats!
KFG & DDThanks for confirming what I thought. The theory that one can choose never made sense to me (hmm I think today I’ll be…)
Great Post KFG.I want to make one more off-topic comment on the gay identity subject. I have a woman friend, who is pretty smart, who continues to believe that being gay is a choice. She bases this opinion on women whom she has known who following traumatic events in their lives (such as suffering physical abuse from their ex-husbands) will opt to try same sex relationships. They find for whatever reason that this option was not for them and they revert to hetero relationships. I believe that such things happen. I also believe that men in prison can have same-sex partners, and return to hetero behavior upon release from prison. These instances are not the same as having a hetero- or homo- sexual identity. The sometimes fluidness of human sexual behavior makes for the confusion some people seem to have about identity.
Thanks DD.
Still off topic but…
I didnt choose to be gay because of anything my exhusband did or didnt do.
In fact, being gay has surprisingly little to do with sex. I declared myself gay long before I ever had sex with another woman. I know that is hard to understand.
Martina Navratalova had a great comment that explains it all for me as well.
She said “I can go to bed with a woman or I can go to bed with a man, but I prefer to wake up with a woman.” :)
Can any of these stay off the gay issue… isn’t this supposed to be about schools and funding…talk about a one track mind… and you have the nerve to say I am pushing what I think on you… come on already!!
Answer my questions on the other thread rockl.
I too prefer to wake up with a woman!
I am glad you do!! :)
At first I thought this was funny…………then,I realized it was real!!
Tax his land, tax his wage,Tax his bed in which he lays.Tax his tractor, tax his mule,Teach him taxes is the rule.Tax his cow, tax his goat,Tax his pants, tax his coat.Tax his ties, tax his shirts,Tax his work, tax his dirt.Tax his tobacco, tax his drink,Tax him if he tries to think.Tax his booze, tax his beers,If he cries, tax his tears.Tax his bills, tax his gas,Tax his notes, tax his cash.Tax him good and let him knowThat after taxes, he has no dough.If he hollers, tax him more,Tax him until he’s good and sore.Tax his coffin, tax his grave,Tax the sod in which he lays.Put these words upon his tomb,”Taxes drove me to my doom!”And when he’s gone, we won’t relax,We’ll still be after the inheritance TAXHey maybe you’ll get a refund!!Accounts Receivable TaxBuilding Permit TaxCDL license TaxCigarette TaxCorporate Income TaxDog License TaxFederal Income TaxFederal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)Fishing License TaxFood License TaxFuel permit taxGasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)Hunting License TaxInheritance TaxInterest expense (tax on the money)Inventory taxIRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)Liquor TaxLuxury TaxesMarriage License TaxMedicare TaxProperty TaxReal Estate TaxService charge taxesSocial Security TaxRoad usage taxes (Truckers)Sales TaxesRecreational Vehicle TaxSchool TaxState Income TaxState Unemployment Tax (SUTA)Telephone federal excise taxTelephone federal universal service fee taxTelephone federal, state and local surcharge taxesTelephone minimum usage surcharge taxTelephone recurring and non-recurring charges taxTelephone state and local taxTelephone usage charge taxUtility TaxesVehicle License Registration TaxVehicle Sales TaxWatercraft registration TaxWell Permit TaxWorkers Compensation Tax
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and ournation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutelyno national debt, had the largest middle class in the worldand Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened?
wow that’s an eye opener!!
Here’s the thing. Do you look at education as a societal overhead expense? Do you look at it as a strategic investment in children and Kansas. These two things generate completely different scenarios and costs.
For example, public education was originally designed by industrial capitalists to create a tractable industrial workforce. The idea was to create a workforce whose individual productivity was low, but whose mass-aggregate production was enormous. It worked fabulously well.
The wage-laborers carried out orders. The thinking was done by their superiors.
The rub is that we are no longer in a period of rapid industrial expansion, that requires ever-more workers, we are in a period of industrial labor-force contraction. This was actually laid out in the 1950’s.
So now, we have to train kids to think for themselves. They have to be able to do math and write.
We don’t need to reform public education, we need to reinvent public education. The people running ed schools don’t know how to do this. Our current teacher corps is not qualified to do this. Think about proposing to General Motors that it convert itself to a software-design company. “Our plants aren’t designed for that. Our people don’t have the skills sets for that.”
You have to understand that when the economy fundamentally changes, the education system must fundamentally change. Newsweek’s January article “The Trouble with Boys” points out that boys are being treated as “defective girls”. Boys are better at exploring, and challenging presuppositions. But in public ed, these talents are treated as “defects”. Bad mistake.
Most Kansas schools do not know how to teach mathematics and science to gifted boys. You’re wrecking God-given talent. If you think, “That’s okay because people in Chicago, New York and Washington will figure out how to use our ill-educated sons,” you’re misinformed. They’re choosing to go to Asia.
Many of you have boys and girls who can’t master algebra and geometry. Teachers present something in school. They have homework assignments, but you can’t help them. The result is that instead of Kansas college-hopefuls getting a 28 ACT math median, which means 80% math knowledge retention, they have a 21 median, which means 45% knowledge retention. So most of your 4-year-university-admitted students take algebra over again in college. “College algebra” is an oxymoron. The ACT tests students on the subject matter taught in “college algebra”. This is a high-school deficiency-remediation course. But most of you don’t even know this. Your kids teachers who took “college algebra” don’t know this.
The State, acting under capitalists’ instructions, separated your grandparents from your great-grandparents Your great-grandparents didn’t want this, but as immigrants, they didn’t challenge the State, because if they did, they could be deported.
Every generation of parents since has lost contact with its children. Every generation of parents has lost parenting skills. Teachers say, “We can’t be parents,” but in fact the public education system was DESIGNED to severe kids from their parents, and MAKE THE TEACHERS ACT AS PARENTS. You can’t blame today’s “negligent parents” who were separated from their own parents, and forced to attend public schools. They don’t know how to parent because they didn’t receive training in how to parent.
What is the best solution? Education at home, with kids taking publically-funded classes that can’t be taken at home, e.g. lab sciences, advanced mathematics, and foreign languages. Solution #2 is to reinvent the teachers corps. Pay teachers $50,000 to start, and $100,000 to the best senior teachers. Educate them under the liberal arts and sciences faculty, and after they complete regular degrees, give them MAT training under education-school faculty.
The truth is, ed school faculty are “soshy” types who didn’t do well in math and science. Because THEY didn’t do well, they have a prejudice against math and science. But the 21st century economy is based on math and science. So the current ed-school administrators and faculty are obsolete, as executives of the public education system. What they know is counterproductive, in the 21st century economy.
In last year’s Math League Press 20-state grouping, the top school was Lexington (KY) Magnet School. It teaches 2 hour math classes, to its MOST-GIFTED students. If there is anyone in a Wichita school that is doing this, public or private, please raise your hand.
“We’re teaching 50-minute math classes, just like schools did in 1900. We know what we are doing, because we’re doing what our predecessors did then to IMPEDE gifted students’ learning, because they didn’t want dirty immigrants’ children to aspire to go to colllege.”
For Kansans the choice is to either reinvent your public education system for THIS century, or follow the prescriptives of the LAST century, and watch Kansas DIE. Don’t believe me. Go visit the rural towns surrounding Wichita. Examine US Census data on Wichita’s median household income vs. the national average. Ask our elected leaders how many new jobs have been created in which locally-owned companies sell products to OUTSIDERS in the past 5 years. Ask them how many companies have set up shop here, because their executives found Wichita a place that they found suitable to educate their own children. Our region is imploding. Poor education is a major cause. Read U.S. News and World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges”. See where WSU ranks (bottom tier). Ask why it is that Newman and Friends Universities senior professor salary averages are lower than Shawnee Mission’s K-12 senior K-12 teacher salaries.
Heartlander, you stated
“The truth is, ed school faculty are “soshy” types who didn’t do well in math and science. Because THEY didn’t do well, they have a prejudice against math and science.”
Do you have data to support this claim?
Sure. You can’t make progress without data. The KU SOE Dean Rick Ginsberg’s undergrad degree is in history and political science. KSU’s COE Dean Mike Holen’s ug degree is in history and literature.
These majors are what engineering, math and natural science students call “soshy” disciplines, i.e. social sciences and humanities.
Let’s look at some more hard data. These are from US News and World Report’s “America’s Best Graduate Schools 2006). USNWR reports GRE General Test Quantitative and Verbal scores for Education and Engineering. The GRE Q is a mathamatics reasoning test, specifically very similar to the old SAT Math test. (The new SAT is less math-reasoning based, and more hs content based, following the ACT’s lead, but the old SAT was designed to test basic quantitative-reasoning ability, which in turn is vital for understanding the natural sciences, i.e. physics, chemistry and biology.)
Let’s look at top-ranked ed and eng schools’ GRE scores Q and V scores.
Northeast:Ed#1 Harvard 652 Q 587 V#2 Teachers Coll NYC 634, 547
Eng#1 MIT 770, 574# 2 Carnegie-Mellon 756, 556
We note here that the Eng Q scores represent 95%+ correct answers to quantitative reasoning questions, the Ed Q scores represent 75-80% correct answers. The Eng school scores represent master’s and doctoral students. The Ed scores represent doctoral students only, i.e. future ed school professors and researchers, and large-district superintendents who must manage budgets. The two ed schools here are among the nation’s very best. Yet their PhD/EdD students can only comprehend 75-80% of fundamental mathematical principles. If you don’t master math, you can’t perform substantive math-and-statistics-dependent research.
All grad-school applicants study for the GRE. The test matter is well covered in study guides, as well as in prep courses. Even with prep, doctoral ed students just don’t “get” math.
We should note as well the V scores. In the two top engineering schools more than half the students are from foreign countries. They do about as as well in American-language (second language for them) verbal testing as to American-native doctoral ed students.
MidwestEd#1 Northwestern 678 Q, 592 V#2 U Michigan 620, 537
Eng#1 U Illinois UC 769, 551#2 U Michigan 768, 537
SouthEd#1 Vanderbilt 646Q 560V#2 U Florida 605, 504
Eng#1 Georgia Tech 755, 529#2 U Florida 744, 527
SouthwestEd#1 U Texas-Austin 618Q 528V#2 Texas A&M U Not reported 2004: 537, 477
Eng:#1 U Texas-Austin 765, 550#2 Texas A&M U 742, 498
WestEd#1 UCLA 691Q 528V#2 Stanford 676, 581
Eng#1 Stanford 774, 567#2 UC Berk 766, 555
Kansas and nearby states:
U Iowa Ed 618 Q 515 CIowa State U Eng 766, 545
U Missouri Ed 616, 498Wash U StL Eng 751, 545
U Colorado Ed 631, 551U Colorado Eng 751, 545
U Kansas Ed 590, 500No ranked Eng school in Kansas
Other Great-Lakes statesU Wisconsin-Madison Ed 644Q 533 VUW-Madison Eng 786, 593
U Minnesota-Twin Cities Ed 606, 520U Minn-TC Eng 752, 516
Indiana U Ed 615, 544Purdue U Eng 738, 528
Ohio State U Ed 583, 471Ohio State U Eng 766, 546
These latter data demonstrate that the Midwest/Prairie states’ flagship engineering schools attract students’ quantitative abilities are close to the nation’s top engineering students on the coasts,but our doctoral education program students lag their coastal top-school peers, except at Northwestern and Wisconsin. Kansas doctoral students in particular can only answer about 2 out of every 3 questions correctly, after prepping for the test.
These data do not tell us explicitly what the ed or engineering schools’ FACULTY’s GRE scores were, but like attracts like, and the same ed schools that issue Ph.D.’s also feed themselves and their cohorts with newly-minted Ph.D. program graduates as junior faculty. At the undergrad level, student talent can be quite lower than the faculty talent level. For example, U Colorado’s ugACT profile is only slightly higher than KU’s and KU’s. But CU is a world-class research university (KU and KSU are not), so its doctoral students have far higher academic talents, as a group, than the CU undergrads, as a group. These are viewed as young proteges, and their test scores are commensurately close to those of their mentors.
What most people do not understand is that public pre-collegiate education teacher training has a completely different history from research university/liberal arts college preparation. The original normal schools in America trained 14 year old girls for a year. Then they trained high school graduate young women for 1 year, then 2 years, then 4 years, and ultimately added master’s degree programs, and in some cases doctoral programs. Well-educated young male private academy graduates, and later public high school graduates (and a few women) went to traditional colleges, many of which became research universities. Even where ed schools were housed in traditional universities, they were separate, for example not requiring ug students to take the college-entrance ACT or SAT exams, until the 1980’s.
Teachers do not understand traditional liberal arts/science university education, so they do not know how to train students for it. Even in state universities that were once normal schools, math and science faculty often complain that the ed schools don’t “get” math and science.