With only 18% of Kansas graduates college-ready (ACT) and about 150,000 students reading below grade level, one might think the Kansas Department of Education is laser-focused on improving student outcomes. But you would be wrong. Commissioner Randy Watson and his lieutenants are doing their best to protect state and local bureaucracies at students’ expense.
At the February board meeting, Dr. Jay Scott, Director of Career, Standards and Assessment Services, identified the 14 laws that school districts must comply with or work toward compliance to be accredited, saying those 14 are the “most connected to school improvement.” Shockingly, the list does not include two laws expressly designed to improve student outcomes: the law establishing how At-Risk funding is to be used and the building needs assessment law.
K.S.A. 72-5153 specifies that the $500 million of at-risk funding must be spent on “above and beyond” services for students who are academically at risk of failing. Two state audits in 2019 and 2023 determined that school districts are not spending the at-risk funds as required by law. The State School Board and KSDE—to say nothing of Gov. Laura Kelly and the majority of legislators – still allow districts to ignore that law and deny services.
K.S.A. 72-1163 says local school boards “shall conduct” annual assessments in every school to identify the barriers preventing students from reading and doing math proficiently and the budgetary changes to overcome them. Research shows that many school superintendents refuse to allow board members to participate in those meetings, let alone conduct them. Again, the State School Board and KSDE do nothing.
Requiring improvement in student outcomes is another aspect of the school accreditation system that is missing, even though state law requires the State Board of Education to have an accreditation system “based on improvement in performance that equals or exceeds the educational goal set forth in KSA 72-3218 (Rose capacities).”
This isn’t ‘just’ about not following the law; it’s about KSDE consciously depriving students of services needed to improve outcomes rather than inconveniencing the bureaucracy.
Some legislators also fight efforts to improve outcomes
KSDE is not alone in knowing that many students are deprived of the education they need to succeed. Many legislators in both parties are part of the same club.
Economist Thomas Sowell says, “No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems—of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.”
Most Democrats and a significant number of Republicans in the Kansas House and Senate want nothing to do with legislation that would require districts to follow laws because they fear that would get in the way of getting re-elected. The Democrat party excoriating the late Rep. Marvin Robinson for voting his conscience reminds Democrats that party officials will take them out if they don’t follow the demands of their public sector union and school administrator constituency, and Republicans know that superintendents, union officials, and other organizations will come after them.
Some even admit it, telling us they know what’s going on, but they can’t vote for a legislative fix, or they might get voted out of office. Another tactic is lobbying House and Senate leaders not to bring the legislation up for a floor vote that passed a committee so they don’t have a recorded vote.
Senate Bill 48 stipulates that the State School Board must strip accreditation from districts that don’t comply with the at-risk and building needs assessment laws. Senate Bill 49 requires that teachers and board members have input to the building needs assessment meetings and that board members receive a breakdown showing the number of students in Levels 1-4 of the state assessment. These bills have both been “blessed” and remain alive for consideration this session.
Senate Bill 47 narrowly passed by a 21-19 vote, with every Democrat and ten Republicans opposed to requiring school member district emails to be published, allowing board members to visit schools whenever they are open, and allowing a board member to add a single discussion item to the agenda. These commonsense changes are needed because, at the recommendation of the state school board association, many districts have policies prohibiting them.
The excuses for opposing SB 47 are embarrassingly shallow. School employee email addresses are published, and they roam through schools, but doing the same with an elected official will allegedly create enormous issues with building safety and cybersecurity. The real issue is that the bureaucrats don’t want school board members to easily communicate with parents, see firsthand what’s going on in schools, and put important community issues on a board agenda.
Student outcomes won’t change until adult behaviors change
No amount of money will change the state’s education crisis.
Per-student funding jumped more than $5,000 since 2015 and exceeded $18,000 last year. Meanwhile, college readiness on the ACT plummeted from 32% to 18%.
Doing the same things over and over again at higher costs isn’t the answer to getting better outcomes. The adults in charge of the public education system will have to change their behavior, which won’t happen organically.
State school board members must re-orient KSDE to make academic improvement the #1 priority, and parents must tell legislators to do the same or get out of the way.
It’s just common sense…and the right thing to do.
