Media bias favoring a tax-and-spend philosophy prevents civil discussion of serious education issues in Kansas, as evidenced by a Hays Daily News editorial entitled “School Efficiency.” The editorial promotes a report published by the Kansas Center for Economic Growth as evidence that schools are underfunded and says the report should be “scrutinized closely” by citizens. Kansas Policy Institute has closely scrutinized the report but it’s pretty obvious that the Hays Daily News has not.
Close scrutiny of the report reveals that KCEG bases their conclusions on little more than opinion and false premise. KCEG executive director Annie McKay says schools can’t be expected to perform “…without the resources they need” but their report simply assumes that more money is needed. The truth is that no one knows how much schools need to meet the Supreme Court-mandated Rose standards while also making efficient use of taxpayer money.
KCEG merely says districts had less buying power in 2013 than in 2009, but it doesn’t require close scrutiny to know that, at $12,781 per-pupil, 2013 spending was well ahead of inflation since 2005. Spending in 2009 was driven by court-ordered increases but we now know that the cost study presented to the courts was deliberately skewed to produce inflated numbers. The Supreme Court no longer uses actual cost or Base State Aid to determine adequacy, a fact that KCEG and school districts refuse to accept.
School districts were also spending a lot more than necessary in 2009 (and since). Every Legislative Post Audit study says districts could operate more efficiently, and some districts have told the on-going K-12 Student Achievement and Efficiency Commission that they know they are inefficient. Districts haven’t even been spending all of the money given them by taxpayers, having used $430 million since 2005 to almost double their cash reserves.
Some of KCEG’s findings are based on a survey of school superintendents but the report does not disclose how many, and which, districts were asked to participate, how many actually responded, and the survey document and responses are not made available for review. Several quotes critical of school finance are attributed to superintendents but KCEG unbelievably does not disclose their identities!
Some of their claims are sourced to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former state budget director Duane Goossen, both of which Kansas Policy Institute has proven to be guilty of making spurious claims. Other KCEG claims are merely based on “analysis of data.” KPI asked to see their “data” but predictably, KCEG declines to make it available (as do their allies at CBPP every time we’ve asked).
The Hays Daily News would rightfully crucify Kansas Policy Institute if we tried to perpetrate such a sham but KCEG gets away with it because the Daily News agrees with KCEG’s conclusions. Knowing that media won’t question the work if they agree with the conclusions only encourages such bad behavior.
Enormous funding increases between 2005 and 2009 didn’t improve outcomes on independent assessments. KSDE even admitted earlier this year that achievement gaps for low income students are actually getting worse, even though funding dedicated to help those students increased seven-fold since 2005.
These misleading declarations that schools are underfunded have nothing to do with education; rather, it’s all about money and politics for KCEG and their media enablers.