Is Public Education in Kansas Meeting Students' Needs?

[dlgoff]

... Not a current event but still relevant to me.

I'm just looking for feedback. My girlfriend and I have discussed this much. I'd like to know what other members think of public educations in the US. Particularly here in Kansas after seeing this video; if you care to comment.

 

[edward]

The same thing is happening in Arizona.

Arizona must immediately pay $317 million in back payments to public schools, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled this week.

Judge Katherine Cooper's decision in the lawsuit challenging the state's funding of public education requires the governor and Legislature to boost funding this fiscal year, though it is likely lawmakers will delay any action until January, when a new governor takes office, reports The Arizona Republic.

After the required $317 million for this year, the court said the state owes schools additional back payments of $1.3 billion.

The state plans to appeal the ruling.

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/...rders-arizona-to-pay-schools-317-million.html

 

[leroyjenkens]

Forget schools. Let's use the money that could fund 10 schools for a year and build an airplane to go blow up something in the middle east.

 

[edward]

This really concerns me.

When more than 5,000 American students sat down with old-fashioned pen and paper to take a two-hour test that would show how they stacked up in reading, math and science against their peers from around the world, the results were alarming.

Kids from China, South Korea, Finland, Australia and many other countries had bested ours . For American parents and educators, the news dropped like a bomb. “We have to see this as a wake-up call,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.” The exam that started the furor was the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), given every three years to 15-year-olds around the globe by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a global group that promotes growth and trade. Among the 65 countries that participated, the U.S. ranked 15th in reading, 23rd in science and a dismal 31st in math.

http://www.parenting.com/article/failing-public-schools

Schools need to be adequately funded there is no doubt about that In AZ politicians seem to think that if they fund the schools they should run the schools.

Ten years ago state politicians spent $20 million to hire a consulting company to develop an achievement test. It was called the AIMS test. Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards. All high school students then had to pass the test, no matter what their grades in school had been, in order to graduate. After ten years of teachers "teaching to the test" the state is now going to dump the AIMS test and spend $30 million to hire a new consulting firm.

In the meantime they have cut school funding by over $1 billion.

There is a surprising lack of correlation between the state’s K-12 achievement and the presence of policies Education Week identified as important. Five of the 10 states with the best achievement scores are among the worst in the country for setting standards and using assessment techniques that are most likely to be effective, according to Education Week. Meanwhile, Louisiana and West Virginia are the second- and third-best states for standards, but they are both among the five worst states in student achievement.

http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/01/14/states-with-the-best-and-worst-schools-2/

 

[dlgoff]

Thanks Edward. I'm following all the replies. Keep 'em coming.

 

[edward]

Arizona's old test, the AIMS test: Arizona Instrument To Measure Standards, has now been officially replaced. There was a ten year period of agony trying to get enough students to pass the AIMS test. After a few years the state legislators passed a law that would terminate (fire) those teachers who didn't have a certain percentage of students pass the test. And the politicians did this despite the fact that the State Superintendent of Public Education could not pass the math portion of the test.

Teachers countered this by teaching the blasted test and ignoring other essential elements of education. So now the new $30 million test has arrived to solve all of our problems. It is called: AzMERIT , Arizona’s Measurement of Educational Readiness to Inform Teaching. No one at the State Board of Education seems to be able to explain exactly how it will be different from AIMS.

And apparently only politicians know how Arizona's Measurement of Educational Readiness to Inform Teaching is going to inform teaching?

Should politicians be making these decisions. ? These are the same politicians who passed a law allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit and without any weapons training.

The new buzzword is rubric. There is a rubric for just about every stage of education. How did we ever get along without rubrics?

OK my little rant is over already.

 

[DivergentSpectrum]

Oh yeah that makes sense decrease education funding to keep rich people from having to pay higher taxes.
No way at all this could adversely affect the wealth gap in america.
but what do you expect from a state that gives creationism precedence over evolution

 

[dlgoff]

Oh yeah that makes sense decrease education funding to keep rich people from having to pay higher taxes.

Exactly

 

[Danger]

What the rest of the world, including me, thinks about the US education system, especially in Republican strongholds, should be obvious based upon the message that I received when I clicked it: "The uploader has not made this video available in your country."

 

[dlgoff]

What the rest of the world, including me, thinks about the US education system, especially in Republican strongholds, should be obvious based upon the message that I received when I clicked it: "The uploader has not made this video available in your country."

Really? Dang.

 

[Bystander]

what other members think of public educations in the US. Particularly here in Kansas after seeing this video; if you care to comment.

Having had the opportunity to compare performances of public schools in a dozen states ranging from high to low on the funding scale over the last 5-10 years, I've observed no evidence of a correlation between funding and academic performance of students; performance is horrible at the high end, and at the low end, and through the middle.

"Teaching to the test?" That's what school's all about, that's what it's always been all about, and that's what it should always be all about; admittedly the question, "Will this be on the test?" and the answer, "Everything we've covered so far is fair game," have been watered down over the past 75 years. No longer is a general skill like multiplication, or sentence diagramming taught to students to prepare them to multiply any two numbers that might appear on a test, or identify any part of speech that might show up in a sentence --- it's pretty much very effective "hacking" of standardized tests for the specific two numbers to be multiplied and teaching that single, specific product (17 x 23 = 391), or a specific tense of a verb ("Johnny will" is future), and may the fates watch over the kids who get taught from last year's practice tests (18 x 23 = ___), or ("Johnny did" is ______). You'll see whole school districts tripping over that sort of industrial espionage error.

The abandonment of instruction in general math and language skills (which is most effective as far as cost/benefit analyses) in favor of problem specific crib sheets (yielding dismal results) is something I cannot explain. It seems to be the current model for curriculum design and actual classroom instruction, but from where and to what purposes, I do not know.

 

[dlgoff]

Looks like others are concerned about Kansas Education.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/recall-sam-brownback?source=c.em.cp&r_by=12406297

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here in Wisconsin Scott Walker just passed a budget that cut state university budgets by 300 million!

 

[dlgoff]

I would click the "Un-Like" button if there was one.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Here in Wisconsin Scott Walker just passed a budget that cut state university budgets by 300 million!

Out of a budget of $6B. It's 5%. This is not making a value judgement on the cuts - just saying that one needs the denominator as well as the numerator to understand things.

The fact that a tuition freeze comes with this makes Walker's plan transparent. Nationwide, college costs have been rising meteorically and a huge part of this growth has been in administration. Walker seems to think this will force the UW system to get by with fewer administrators. I very much doubt this will be the outcome - can you imagine a meeting of university administrators where they conclude "the problem with skyrocketing tuition is...us! We should fire some of ourselves."

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I very much doubt this will be the outcome - can you imagine a meeting of university administrators where they conclude "the problem with skyrocketing tuition is...us! We should fire some of ourselves."

Right, it will politicized. UW will make some unpopular cuts and Walker will get the stiff blame. Not that he cares since his ambitions are bigger than Governor at the moment.

 

[dlgoff]

Put it simply and factually: On Thursday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback lied to kids and educators throughout the state when he announced $44.5 million in cutbacks for higher education and K-12 schools.

Edit:
This student has stepped up to the plate.

http://www.kshb.com/news/state/kansas/kck-student-sends-message-to-gov-brownback-over-piano-comment-dont-blame-my-school

 

[jack476]

I'd like to know what other members think of public educations in the US. Particularly here in Kansas after seeing this video; if you care to comment.

I have two words for you. Intelligent and design. The fact that the number of states where creationism is part of the standard biology curriculum is a number that is not 0 should tell you all that you need to know about the US public education system.

 

[dlgoff]

... should tell you all that you need to know about the US public education system.

How will Brownback's fund cutting promote his beliefs in Teach the Controversy approach then?

 

[SteamKing]

Out of a budget of $6B. It's 5%. This is not making a value judgement on the cuts - just saying that one needs the denominator as well as the numerator to understand things.

The fact that a tuition freeze comes with this makes Walker's plan transparent. Nationwide, college costs have been rising meteorically and a huge part of this growth has been in administration. Walker seems to think this will force the UW system to get by with fewer administrators. I very much doubt this will be the outcome - can you imagine a meeting of university administrators where they conclude "the problem with skyrocketing tuition is...us! We should fire some of ourselves."

This is one of the major problems in post-secondary education in the US today: How to slow the increase in the cost of a college education, to keep it, if not affordable to many, at least below the point where graduates are turned into wage slaves in order to pay off massive student loans.

Student loan debt which has accumulated over recent years has been growing by leaps and bounds, fueled in part by various state and federal aid programs:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomlindsay/2014/12/13/forgive-us-our-student-loan-debts/

It is estimated that the total amount of student loan debt in the US is about $1.1 trillion, which figure is larger than all of the credit card debt held by Americans. College tuition costs have risen 440% over the last 25 years, more than health care costs, more than inflation over the same period. Clearly, something has got to give, because such figures are unsustainable, IMO.

As has been pointed out, if you are a recent college graduate who is carrying tens, if not hundreds, of thousands in student debt, you are unlikely to be able to afford your own home or start a business or even a family with such large outstanding debt. The consequences follow you for years after you have attended your last class. And the kicker is, most such debt is not dischargeable in a personal bankruptcy. You're stuck with it until it is paid off or otherwise forgiven.

One stark example of what can happen if these problems are not addressed is the situation at law schools in the US:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102277025#.

The market for new attorneys has dried up since the latest recession began. Many law schools are enrolling fewer applicants than they did five years ago, but the number of accredited law schools in the US grew from 169 schools in 1982 to 204 in 2014. This means that some of the smaller law schools, those not associated with a major college or university, face the stark choices of laying off faculty and staff or closing outright.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox...e_get_ready_for_schools_to_start_closing.html

Apparently, dental schools have faced similar challenges in the not-too-distant past. Dental school enrollment reached its high water mark in 1979, but had dropped by a third over the next few years. As a result, about 10% of the dental schools operating in 1979 were out of business by 1989.

Academics famously believe they operate above the fray of those outside their institutions, but the laws of economics permeate all of society, and only the foolish believe they are immune to them.

 

[jack476]

How will Brownback's fund cutting promote his beliefs in Teach the Controversy approach then?

Well, worst case scenario, it weakens university science departments and therefore reduces the productivity of science on the whole. This hurts credibility and gives more creationists the ability to say that "orthodox materialistic academia" are just one "paradigm" that needs to be phased out.

 

[dlgoff]

What can one do?

 

[dlgoff]

Nationwide, college costs have been rising meteorically ...

That's for sure; seeing that my freshman tuition at the university was $139/semester hr.

 

[dlgoff]

My head is spinning trying to figure if this HOUSE BILL No. 2292 "is it good or bad?"

The bill would bar any school district from adopting standards that would "cede any measure of control over any aspect of Kansas public education to any entity" outside the state, effectively banning the Common Core standards, which were developed by the National Governors Association and education associations and have been adopted by 44 states. The standards set benchmarks designed to raise reading and math skills, but do not provide a curriculum or spell out how students are taught.

http://www.wral.com/kansas-house-panel-considers-blocking-common-core-standards/14465374/

"Our K-12 system has been taken over by federal bureaucrats, and more importantly by large corporations who now have a monopoly on a multi-billion dollar market," said former State Board of Education member Walt Chappell, a Wichita Republican who was the only board member at that time to vote against adopting the Common Core standards.

He (Interim state education commissioner Brad Neuenswander) and others said Kansas officials had substantial input into development of the standards. Neuenswander also said the department and state board are now in the process of updating the English and math standards, which they do about every seven years, and the agency website has a page where the public can comment on the standards by offering suggestions about how they can be improved.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/feb/23/kansas-house-panel-considers-blocking-common-core-/

 

[Bystander]

good or bad?"

"Common core?" You read Dilbert? You recall the ISO 9000 strips? 'Nuff said?
On the same subject, KSTC Emporia used to test the state at the HS level --- still do that?

 

[dlgoff]

You read Dilbert? You recall the ISO 9000 strips? 'Nuff said?

I have now.

I’ll train our department to lie to the auditor. You can document our inane procedures.

http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-10-01

 

[Bystander]

I take it KSTC Emporia is no longer testing? Too elitist to be politically correct?

 

[Silicon Waffle]

I take it KSTC Emporia is no longer testing? Too elitist to be politically correct?

Exactly!

 

[dlgoff]

In this July 8, 2015 photo, a billboard on Interstate 70 near Lawrence, Kan. advertises for teaching jobs in the Independence, Mo. school district. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

image compliments of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...5b913ebe4b0074ba5a729d5?kvcommref=mostpopular

Thanks to Sam Brownback we're loosing teachers and can't find qualified ones to replace them.
Why my blood pressure gets so high.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/kansas-school-funding/

 

[edward]

It was Aug 10, and school was about to start with a statewide shortage of 1,000 teachers. The excerpt below was in the local paper that morning.

"About two-thirds of Arizona students failed to meet performance standards in math and English language arts on the new AzMERIT test, unofficial results show."

 

[dlgoff]

It was Aug 10, and school was about to start with a statewide shortage of 1,000 teachers. The excerpt below was in the local paper that morning.

"About two-thirds of Arizona students failed to meet performance standards in math and English language arts on the new AzMERIT test, unofficial results show."

At least now I don't feel like I'm the only one that cares about this stuff.