Lawrence Journal-World, July 14
It’s disconcerting that new State Department of Education data show that not enough Kansas high school students go on to college or career training programs to fill the state’s future employment needs.
Deputy Education Commissioner Brad Neuenswander told the Kansas State Board of Education that by 2020 71 percent of the jobs in Kansas will require some level of postsecondary education or training. Yet, only about 44 percent of students from Kansas high school classes of 2011 through 2015 had achieved a degree or certificate or were enrolled in a postsecondary program two years after graduation. The numbers were compiled by the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that tracks student data. It should be noted that students who enter the military are not counted as being enrolled in postsecondary programs.
For the Lawrence school district, 49 percent of students had completed or were enrolled in postsecondary programs two years after high school graduation, slightly better than the state as a whole but well below the numbers needed.
The State Department of Education recently began tracking the number of students who go on to college or career training programs as part of developing a new process for accrediting school districts. Currently the state does not accredit districts, but officials said the new system is intended to bring about greater accountability.
The new accreditation system is intended to go beyond standardized test scores. In addition to postsecondary education rates, the system also is expected to factor in kindergarten readiness rates, graduation rates and students’ social and emotional well-being.
Developing a new accreditation system that works to align education outcomes with long-term employment needs is a smart move. After all, the availability of skilled labor is the most critical factor in economic development.
It is troubling to know that more than half of Kansas students are not pursuing any education or job training beyond high school two years after graduation. That’s a problem that needs to be addressed quickly. And accountability should not only fall on the state’s public schools but also on the legislators who decide school funding and on the schools charged with providing postsecondary training and education.
Kansas can do better. It must do better.
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Wichita Eagle, July 5
Forgive us if we are a bit suspicious of the request from Kris Kobach and the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity for information on voters from every state in the country.
Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and a Republican candidate for governor, is vice chairman of the advisory commission. He has advised President Donald Trump on immigration, as well.
Last week, Kobach requested information about voters as part of the commission’s work to “increase the integrity of our election system.”
According to a letter Kobach sent to the Alabama secretary of state, he asked for publicly-available voter data including the “first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, canceled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.”
Kobach received the authority to prosecute voter fraud in Kansas in 2015 and has been on a crusade regarding a problem that has, until now, proven to be nothing more than minimal. He has won eight convictions for voter fraud since 2015.
Trump has said that up to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election but has provided no evidence to support his statements.
Kobach’s credibility dipped further last week when he was fined $1,000 by a federal magistrate in a case involving efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union to see a document Kobach took to a meeting with Trump in November that made reference to a possible amendment to the National Voting Registration Act.
U. S. Magistrate Judge James O’Hara described Kobach’s conduct in the matter as deceptive and said he made “patently misleading representations” to the court about the contents of the document. Kobach has said it was a misunderstanding.
As advocates for access to public records, we would never suggest that the commission be denied access information that is, by law, public. We are glad to see that Kansas and other states have said they will not provide information that does not meet that standard, such as the social security numbers of voters.
Kobach and the commission should also be subject to laws that allow states to charge those asking for access to public records for staff time to prepare, review and redact the information.
In the end, however, we have serious doubts about the premise of the request for information and about the motives of those involved.
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Topeka Capital-Journal, July 16
Now that the Legislature has increased state aid to public schools in Kansas, districts must decide how the money will be spent. Gary Menke is the general director of fiscal services for Topeka USD 501, and he expects the district to “increase the at-risk spending.” All you have to do is take a look at the massive racial and economic achievement gaps in Kansas to realize that this is exactly what districts across the state should be doing.
One example is right in front of us. More than three-quarters of USD 501 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which means a substantial proportion of the district is classified as economically disadvantaged. On average, USD 501 students also perform worse on the ACT than their peers in every other Topeka district. In 2016, USD 501 had a composite score of 19.9 - two points lower than the state average. While this is no surprise for a large, low-income district like USD 501, it’s one of many educational disparities that must be addressed in Kansas.
ACT Inc. has a series of “readiness benchmarks” that suggest how likely a student is to succeed at the college level. For example, students who receive an 18 on the English portion of the test have a 50 percent chance of earning a B and a 75 percent chance of earning a C in “first-year college courses in the corresponding subject area.” Although the benchmark scores for reading, math and science (22, 22 and 23, respectively) are higher, students who reach them enjoy the same probability of success.
In 2016, 31 percent of Kansas students reached the benchmarks in all four subjects. But the numbers get far worse when they’re broken down by race and ethnicity. While white students met or surpassed each of the benchmarks 36 percent of the time, they were four and a half times more likely to do so than their black peers (who accomplished the same thing 8 percent of the time). This gulf narrows for other groups, but not by much - to 15 percent for Hispanic test takers and 19 percent for American Indians. These are just a few of the reasons why the Supreme Court was right to emphasize funding for at-risk students in its decision on the Gannon v. State of Kansas lawsuit.
One of the best ways to combat educational inequality is to provide a quality preschool education for as many children as possible.
As we’ve noted in previous editorials, a large body of research (including longitudinal studies conducted by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina and HighScope Educational Research Foundation) demonstrates that the positive effects of preschool can last an entire lifetime. Moreover, a task force comprised of early childhood education experts recently convened in Washington, D.C. to assess “the current state of scientific knowledge on pre-kindergarten effects” and found “uniformly positive evidence” that preschool gets students ready for kindergarten.
This is why increased funding for the Kindergarten Academic Preparation Program - which is administered by the YWCA of Northeast Kansas and United Way of Greater Topeka - is an excellent way to improve outcomes for at-risk students. While the Supreme Court still has to rule on the constitutionality of the funding approved by the Legislature, it’s reassuring that districts like USD 501 will know how to spend the money when they get it.
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Kansas City Star, July 13
Maybe you’re like a lot of Kansans. You figured that after lawmakers recently passed $1.2 billion in tax increases over two years that the state was in solid financial shape.
Then came word that S&P Global Ratings, a major financial ratings agency, isn’t so bullish on Kansas after all - even with that big revenue boost.
The agency isn’t budging on its negative credit outlook for Kansas, saying the state faces an ongoing structural imbalance with its budget that’s “likely to persist.” (To be fair, another ratings agency, Moody’s Investors Service, did upgrade the state’s credit outlook to “stable” from “negative” in wake of the tax hikes, although it, too, cited long-term concerns with the state’s financial outlook).
“While the state has boosted ongoing revenues through income tax increases, appropriations also have increased, leading to the persistence of structural imbalance in the biennium,” S&P said in a report.
All that begins to suggest that the financial hole that Gov. Sam Brownback and his fellow conservatives dug for the state was every bit as gaping as we were told.
It also suggests that it will be years before Kansas has its financial house back in order. Years. It suggests resolving the budget crisis was such an enormous challenge that it couldn’t be accomplished in a single year.
It also suggests that - wait for it - more tax increases could be necessary in the years ahead.
Still, you wonder: How can the future financial outlook remain so murky even with such a sizable tax boost? For one thing, some of that tax increase will be eaten up by the $293 million increase over two years in school spending. That was in response to a March Kansas Supreme Court order that said spending on schools was so low as to be unconstitutional.
It’s not clear yet if that $293 million will be enough to satisfy the court. Plaintiffs in the ongoing school funding case insist that the figure is far short.
Also, the state continues to rely on a pair of piggy banks that too easily can be raided. One is the state highway fund; the other is the state pension system. The ugly truth is that even with the tax increase, the budgets for the next two fiscal years don’t balance without $830 million in highway fund transfers and a further delay of payments into the state pension system.
The state has gone back to those piggy banks over and over again in recent years. At some point, Kansas taxpayers will have to refill them. That’s the “structural imbalance” idea that the budget wizards talk about.
Kansas is back headed in the right direction. But it still has a long, long way to go.
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