Laptops, Tablets, MacBook Air, Trios — the list of expensive electronic devices that K-12 schools are buying to achieve so-called “1-to-1” broadband media access is endless. And the cost to school districts for buying these short-lived devices is even more astounding. At least you would assume that all of the research shows that this technology provides a better way to learn. You would be wrong.

In this June issue of Psychological Science, researchers Mueller (Princeton) and Oppenheimer (UCLA) published their multiple experiments with college students who either took notes on a laptop or wrote their class notes by hand. The results were clear. Students with laptops typed out what the professor said, much like a court recorder, without really thinking about what was being said. Meanwhile, students who took handwritten notes listened to the instructor and then rewrote in their own words what they understood.

Many teachers see this in class every day. I taught one recent class in a large lecture hall. A first-semester freshman came in ahead of class each day to take a seat alongside the wall where there was an electrical outlet. He unpacked his new laptop and plugged it in. He also had a cell phone that not only recorded my lecture and class discussions, but had an “app” that converted the recorded words to text. On top of that, he typed out what I said on his laptop.

My freshman classes have a quiz at the end of class every day. Half of making it through school is showing up and some need to develop that habit. That daily quiz gives both of us a day-by-day indication of how well they understand the textbook, the teacher and the student discussions. My new student, armed by all of the technology that his family could buy him, started the semester with the illusion that his technology would give him an advantage. Instead, it pulled him down. He was so busy typing and managing his equipment that it kept him from paying attention in class and taking notes based on what he understood. In spite of all of his high-tech toys—indeed, because of them—he dropped out of his classes halfway through the semester.

This is the time of year when college students meet advisors to enroll in spring classes. Not only do many good students prefer to avoid online courses and “PowerPoint Profs,” they also try to avoid instructors who deliver all assignments online through various “Learning Management Systems.” Many have stories about professors who place all assignments online. The student has to access the materials, do the work, and then upload the finished assignment back to the teacher. Sometimes it works smoothly. But often it does not.

Students are reluctant to complain that they spend more time trying to download and upload lessons than they spend actually completing the assignments. In some cases, a three-credit hour course should actually award two of the credits for tech-management and one credit for the content, since that is the actual proportion of time spent on that “classwork.” And what “tech” they learn will be obsolete in a few years.

At the K-12 level, school administrators get together and brag how they have eliminated textbook fees and gone paperless. Instead of paying $80 a year for textbook rental, the family is expected to have broadband internet at home and an updated computer—total costs that exceed a thousand dollars a year!

In higher education, administrators likewise tout their “techiness.” They consider any tech problems to be a failure of Luddite teachers. But again, actual research shows that the “millennials” are not any more tech-savvy than K-12 teachers and college professors across all ages. Instructional technology support at universities now exceeds the cost of the largest department and contributes to the fast-growing cost of a college education.
But when it comes to improving education, skill with a video-app on a cell phone or typing on tablets simply does not translate into improvement in classroom learning. Indeed, the Mueller-Oppenheimer research indicates that technology can be a handicap.

During the early days of our country, settlers hunted out of necessity. While farming and trading provided them with a great deal of food, it wasn’t enough for sustenance. In order to survive, they hunted, fished and trapped wildlife where they lived and worked.

Today, hunting in America offers two major benefits to society: wildlife management and an economic boost.

Protecting wildlife makes sense from an environmental standpoint in today’s society. This allows for future hunting seasons. Wildlife management also ensures overcrowding will be less likely.

Today, most wildlife populations continue to thrive under conservation programs put into place in the early 1900s. For example, the white-tailed deer population was a meager half a million 100 years ago. With careful conservation efforts, plentiful crops, well planned hunting seasons and reasonable limits for hunters, the population has grown to approximately 32,000,000.

Almost every other wildlife species has flourished as well. Most of these animals number in the millions today. This wasn’t the case before the efforts of hunters and wildlife enthusiasts became commonplace.

Just as impressive are the numbers on the economic impact of hunting. With approximately 6 percent of the U.S. population hunting today, business is booming.

For countless small businesses in rural communities in Kansas and across this nation, hunter spending plays a major role in economic success.

Local shops, outfitters, hotels, convenience stores, restaurants and landowners all benefit. In 2011, nearly 13.7 million hunters spent $38.3 billion, according to a 2011 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey.

In addition to the 680,000 jobs supported by hunters, hunting generated $11.8 billion in tax revenues for federal, state and local coffers. Wildlife agency positions are also supported by sportsmen through the purchase of hunting licenses and funds collected as excise taxes through the long-running Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration

These sportsmen contribute on average $8 million per day, much of which goes toward conservation efforts. Billions of dollars have been used to protect the habitats of fish and wildlife throughout the country.

Through conservation efforts, money generated and jobs created, hunting remains a positive engine in this country’s economic industry. What many fail to understand about this sacred tradition is that it isn’t just about the act itself.

Hunting provides the opportunity to experience nature. Some sportsmen will tell you the best part about hunting isn’t shooting; it is the peacefulness and serenity of being outdoors.

Some may even feel a connection with their ancestry while hunting. It’s also an opportunity to pass such traditions to their children and friends.

For generations, families have shared these experiences and it has strengthened their relationships. It is a visceral feeling that can strengthen family bonds. Hunting remains a way of sharing in nature’s beauty and the dynamic between human and animal have few comparisons in society today.

Hunting prevails as a part of our American identity. Millions of people take pride in hunting. Their experiences are much bigger than themselves and create this community called hunting.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

The Community Improvement District (CID) program was passed by state legislation in 2009. The CID program is designed as a tool to help finance public and private development. This includes public infrastructure, such as public streets, curb and gutter, public utilities, etc., as well as private buildings: renovations, new construction, additions, etc. Communities all over Kansas (Salina, Hutchinson, Emporia, Garden City, Topeka, Lawrence, K.C. Metro, Wichita, etc.) are using this program to develop new retail space or to renovate old, outdated space. The program was designed and intended for this express purpose.

The financing takes the form of an additional sales tax, or special assessment on property tax. The sales tax only applies within the proposed district, and can be a maximum of 2% for a maximum of 22 years. In the case of the Hays Mall, the owner is using bank financing to fund the renovations. The owner is responsible for the debt if the CID does not generate enough revenue. The owner will be responsible for cost that are not eligible for CID reimbursement, and there will be costs that are not eligible. These will be paid thru the loan and repaid by the owner. The revenue can only be used to reimburse for renovation related expenses. It can’t be used to pay off a mortgage, fund other projects, or kept.

In practical terms, this means that a $100 purchase today costs you $108.04 after taxes (except in the locations that already have an additional tax). If the CID passes, the $100 item you purchase will cost $109.04 after tax, an increase of one dollar. The tax is only applied to the Mall property, nowhere else. Shoppers who do not want to pay the additional tax can choose not to shop at the Mall.

That one dollar increase will help pay for some, but not all, of the planned renovations to the Mall property. Remaining expenses will be paid out of pocket. The renovations will improve the appeal of the Mall to new national retailers that are looking for space in Hays. And yes, Hays can attract new retail chains. Hobby Lobby is a prime example. Many people were commenting over a year ago about rumors that Hobby Lobby was not coming to Hays because we were too small, rents too high, land too high, etc. Yet Hobby Lobby opened its doors this summer and has been doing very well.

The fact is, Hays has one of the highest retail pull factors in the state at 1.85. This is the ability to attract shoppers into a community from outside the city limits, nearly double our population. Hays also has an extended trade area of over 76,000 residents. These are customers from smaller communities that come to Hays as their option for shopping. We are educating national retailers to this in every conversation. What is needed to recruit new retailers is an attractive, available space ready for a new client with a quick turn-around.

The Mall management is talking to a number of potential retailers right now, several of them referrals from the Ellis County Coalition. The Coalition has shared the results of the Community Retail Survey with Mall staff, and they have reached out to several of the top 10 responses. A number of comments have been made in various media sources that the Mall should release these names to the community. The answer has and will be no, and the reason is simple…Confidentiality. Retailers do not want their competitors to know where they are looking to locate. They run the risk that a competitor may try to beat them to the market. This is why there is a Lowes in Salina, even though Home Depot looked at that market first. Should a property owner break that confidentiality, the retailer will likely drop the community from consideration, possibly permanently. If non-disclosure agreements have been signed, the penalties for breaching confidentiality could run in the thousands of dollars.

It is important to note that this is NOT a City of Hays project or tax. The City of Hays does not direct how the tax revenue is spent, and the City is not responsible for the repayment of the debt. The CID is AT THE OWNER’S REQUEST to be placed on his own property only. The City does have the authority to ensure that the applicant has an eligible project, approve the resolution, and also make sure that reimbursements go to eligible brick and mortar expenses.

The City has additional requirements that must be met to be eligible to apply for the program: the development must have at least 50,000 square feet of space, generate $10 million/year in retail sales, and employ at least 25 people. The Mall meets all of these requirements, with over 200,000 square feet, between $18 million and $25 million in annual retail sales, and well over 25 people employed in the Mall.

It is also important to note that the Mall has been an outdated facility for decades. Previous owners deferred maintenance/upgrades/improvements for many years. The current owner purchased the Mall in 2007 and inherited many of the issues that are being addressed with this renovation.

If you have any questions regarding how a CID works, retail opportunities, or general questions, feel free to contact the Ellis County Coalition at (785) 628-3102 or send an email to [email protected].

Some of those folks whose names are down a ways on the ballot — say at the Kansas House of Representatives slot — are starting to wonder just what the intense, often mean-spirited and sometimes ridiculous campaigns at the top will do to or for them.

This year has the appearance of becoming one of the most active ticket-splitting elections Kansans have seen in a while. It’s likely that the diminishing number of straight-ticket voters is going to be wildly outnumbered by voters who will pick a candidate or two from the “other” party.

But…there is that family tradition, and there are still diehard Republicans and Democrats who heard at the dinner table for years that wandering across their family’s party line will be a factor come Judgment Day.

The top-of-the-ballot contests are a little unsettling for those who have watched politics for years.

They are the races for the biggest jobs in Kansas politics—say the U.S. Senate seat and the governorship—the contests that in many years wouldn’t be much of a decision for most voters but have turned out to be a little grimy.

Between lap dances and parsing just what is school finance and what isn’t, the governor’s race is almost an accountant’s choice… The definition and redefinition of what comprises state aid to education is one of those classic “which side of the fence you stand on” battles that most Kansans haven’t yet parsed out.

The tax cuts? Irresponsible if you didn’t get one, responsible if you believe that the measure will bring more jobs to Kansas.

But…it’s the tone of the commercials, that makes it difficult to learn what the new Fords will look like this year, that is unsettling in what has traditionally been more straightforward “vote for me” not “vote against him” campaigning.

At the Senate race level, it’s more about whom each candidate’s friends are and whether shifting the political control of the U.S. Senate is going to produce any results that will matter to us folk who live in Kansas.

That control of the Senate issue: Three-term Republican Pat Roberts, R-Kan., wants Republicans to run the Senate, and he’s a solid vote for GOP leadership. Independent Greg Orman of Olathe says he’ll see who has the numbers and caucus with the majority party, whichever it is.

Practically, if the U.S. Senate is split so that Orman’s decision chooses which party runs the chamber, you’d think that he would be in a pretty good position to—is extort too strong a word?—bargain for what he thinks Kansans would like. Roberts, with his decades of Washington experience, probably would pick up an important committee chairmanship which Orman has little chance as a freshman to get.

But the tone of the ads and the debates appear to have little to do with Kansas. Nobody arguing for new roads, that aqueduct to get water from east to west Kansas, or something that would make much difference in our daily lives.

So it gets down to who knows whom, who attended or missed committee hearings and such.

And, those ballot-top campaigns have some Kansas House candidates wondering whether voters, after those exhaustive choices, will just return to the party of their parents for the rest of the ballot, vote out incumbents whose names they recognize, or figure they ought to pay some homage to the party they grew up with.

It’s probably worth remembering while that top of the ballot scrap is interesting, and there’s more money there for commercials and such, it’s your state representative who is going to be voting on that off-ramp that you want, or the distance that a school district will send a bus to get your kids or grandkids to and school each day, and whether roofers are adequately vetted before they get the ladders out of their trucks.

Down-ballot isn’t the Super Bowl, but it’s closer to where and how you live.

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.

Imagine yourself part of the typical American family. Your household would have, the Federal Reserve reported in September, a net worth of $81,200.

That’s not a whole lot of money. But half of America’s households would actually have less wealth than you do.

Now imagine that your net worth suddenly quadrupled, to about $325,000. That sum would place you within the ranks of America’s most affluent 20 percent of income earners. You would be “typical” no more. On the other hand, you still wouldn’t be rich, or even close to possessing a grand fortune.

So suppose your wealth quadrupled again. That would bump your net worth — your total assets minus the sum of your debts — all the way up to $1.3 million.

Congratulations. You now hold 16 times more wealth than the typical American. You probably have paid off your mortgage. You have a healthy balance in your 401(k). You have investment income. You have it made.

But not really. You still have to worry financially about everything from losing your job to helping your kids pay their college tuition.

So imagine that your net worth quadruples once again — to $5.2 million.

You now sit comfortably within the ranks of America’s richest 1 percent. You can afford, well, just about anything you want. A getaway in the mountains, another getaway on the shore. Two BMWs in the driveway. Impressive philanthropic gestures. Direct access to your U.S. senators.

Enough already? Actually, no. With a fortune of just $5.2 million, you still have to put up with the inconveniences of mere mortal existence. Yes, you can fly first class. But you still have to share a plane with the unwashed masses back in coach — and they take forever getting their carry-ons up in those overhead bins.

You need relief. So multiply that $5.2 million fortune 1,000 times over — to $5.2 billion. Now you can buy your own private jet.

Even better, you get your name printed in the annual Forbes magazine list of America’s 400 richest people. But even at $5.2 billion, your fortune would rate as just fair-to-middling in super-rich circles. America’s wealthiest 400 now hold a combined net worth of $2.3 trillion. That places the average Forbes 400 fortune at $5.7 billion, an all-time high.

The richest of the 400 hold far more than that average. Take Larry Ellison, who just stepped down as the CEO of Oracle business software and holds the No. 3 spot. His net worth: $50 billion.

What does Ellison do with all those billions? He collects residences, for starters, with 15 or so homes scattered all around the world. Ellison likes yachts, too. He currently has two extremely big ones, each over half as long as a football field.

Ellison also likes to play basketball, even on his yachts. If a ball bounces over the railing, no problem. Ellison has a powerboat following his yacht, the Wall Street Journal noted this past spring, “to retrieve balls that go overboard.”

Hiring that ball-retriever qualifies Ellison as a “job creator,” right? Maybe not. Ellison has regularly destroyed jobs on his way to grand fortune. He has mastered the merge-and-purge two-step: First you snatch your rival’s customers, then you fire its workers.

In 2005, for instance, Ellison shelled out $10.6 billion to buy out PeopleSoft, an 11,000-employee competitor. He then proceeded to put the ax to 5,000 jobs.

Job massacres like this have been hollowing out America’s middle class ever since the Forbes 400 first appeared back in the 1980s. Since 1989, Federal Reserve figures show, the median net worth of families in America’s statistical middle class — the middle 20 percent of income earners — has actually dropped from $75,300 to $61,700, after taking inflation into account.

Forbes doesn’t bother asking how our absurdly rich went about making their fortunes. But we should. Our top 400, after all, haven’t just made monstrously large fortunes. They’ve made a monstrously large mess.

OtherWords.orf columnist Sam Pizzigati, an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits the inequality weekly Too Much. His latest book is “The Rich Don’t Always Win.”

Several years ago, I was lucky enough to meet one of my heroes. She didn’t wear a white cowboy hat or leap tall buildings, but she saved me nonetheless.

Her name is Ellyn Satter and her book Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense taught me the how’s and why’s of feeding my first child.

Even though I was a well-educated, older mom with college training in foods and nutrition, I was inexperienced with babies and more than five hours away from my family support system. The process of transitioning my son from bottle to solid food was a confusing, daunting task. But Ellyn Satter became a reassuring teacher and friend as I turned to her book each night for guidance.

I heard Satter speak at a nutrition conference on the “division of responsibility” in feeding young children:

The adult is responsible for what is presented to eat and when and where it is provided. The child is responsible for how much and even whether or not to eat.

Her message was that parents and child care providers are responsible to choose and prepare a variety of nutritious foods, provide a regular schedule of meals and snacks, make eating times pleasant and expect age-appropriate behaviors from their children. The children are responsible for everything else!

We all want our children to be good eaters so that they will be well-nourished and grow up to be healthy young people. But children have their own ways of behaving with food.  Understanding that children behave differently from adults is the first key to success with helping kids learn to eat well.

• Children challenge themselves to eat.  Children are naturally skeptical about new food and cautious about eating it. “New” to children can mean a food they haven’t seen before, a familiar food prepared in a different way, or someone they don’t know doing the cooking.

Children learn to like new foods by having them served repeatedly, by seeing their friends eat them, by tasting them many times and by having someone they trust eat the same food with them.

• Children need to feel in control of their eating. Kids eat better when they can pick and choose from foods that are available and decide whether and how much they are going to eat. They need the freedom to turn down food they don’t want, or the reassurance that they can taste a food and decide not to finish it. When given a “way out” with food, children can will often be more daring and cooperative than if they feel they “must” eat.

• Children are erratic about their eating. Children have built into them the ability to eat a variety of food. They may eat a lot one day and a little the next, accept a food enthusiastically one day and turn it down the next. Their internal sense of hunger, appetite and fullness is stronger than adults’ and they know how much to eat to grow properly. They’re more likely than adults to stop when they are full rather than when the food is gone.

• Children waste food. Food consumption surveys show that plate waste goes up when there are children in the family. Adults tend to clean their plates and eat the expensive foods (like meat.) Children do not–and they often don’t finish their milk. A certain amount of waste is inevitable.

• Children won’t eat food that is unappealing to them. Adults eat food because they like it. But they also eat food that doesn’t taste the greatest because the food is good for them or because they paid for it or to keep from getting hungry later. Children don’t. They eat because food tastes good. And they eat what appeals to them right at the moment.

• Children need limits. Kids don’t benefit from being allowed to say “YUK!” at meal time. They do benefit from learning to be respectful of other people’s feelings. They benefit from learning to turn down food politely (a simple “no thank you” will do), to be matter-of-fact about choosing not to eat something, and to be subtle about getting something back out of their mouths when they don’t want to swallow it.

If children are rude about food, look for ways grownups are putting pressure on their eating–the kids may be fighting back.

• Adult interference can backfire. Parents and child care providers can only provide a variety of attractive, wholesome food in pleasant surroundings and encourage positive approaches to eating. After that, it is up to the child to eat.

Taken on a day-to-day basis, it can sometimes look like children are picky eaters who aren’t accepting foods well. But over the long term, children will eat and they will learn to like a variety of food. Putting pressure on children to eat more or waste less won’t work. Children eat less well — not better — when they are forced, bribed or cajoled to eat.

Linda K. Beech is Ellis County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences.

At both national and state levels, politicians on both sides of the aisle are treating teachers as assembly line workers. Kansas was the second state to lose due process (“tenure”). These first two efforts were driven by mean-spirited conservatives whose behind-the-scenes motivation was clearly “fire ‘em.”

A month later, California was the third state where teachers lost tenure. But this time, it was by court ruling, and the pressure came from the left as liberals argued that students in poor schools suffered because it was impossible to fire incompetent teachers. This same attack on due process is now being made in New York—and again from the political left.

Before 1965, education was not a political issue. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare merely kept national statistics. Then as a part of his “War on Poverty,” President Lyndon Johnson established the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to provide funding, mostly in block grants, for equal access to education. However, the E.S.E.A. did not force states to follow a national education policy. Indeed, it includes wording that forbids the establishment of a national curriculum.

That changed in 2001 when the E.S.E.A. was re-authorized as the No Child Left Behind Act. While it was named and developed by President George W. Bush, it had bipartisan support including Senator Ted Kennedy as co-sponsor. Because there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution providing the federal government with jurisdiction in schooling, and public schooling is mostly funded by states, the only way the federal government can extort state compliance with federal education initiatives is by making receipt of federal E.S.E.A. money dependent on meeting federal educational policy, requirements that now drive teaching-to-the-test and standardizing curricula. Unfortunately, both political parties are so addicted to this federal money that neither is willing to stand up for teacher professionalism.

After eight terrible years of No Child Left Behind tyranny, teachers welcomed the election of President Obama in hopes that N.C.L.B would finally bite the dust. Instead, our President put Education Secretary Duncan in the role of Coach-in-Chief and we ended up with “N.C.L.B. on steroids”—to quote Chester Finn, President Bush’s architect of accountability.

Ironically, today’s political right forgets that President Bush was the main promoter of the federal education mandate. They oppose the “core curriculum” as a national forced curriculum and equate “Obama Core” with “Obamacare.”

The political left responds with a knee jerk reaction to conservative proposals against standardized education and shutting down the U.S. Department of Education with little more reasoning than: if they are ‘agin it, we are for it. Look at the liberal position statements on education at national or state levels and you will discover empty words but no support for teacher professionalism. I envision the late Mister Rogers saying “Children, can you say ‘platitude’?”

It takes a competent administrator to fire an incompetent teacher. But just where is that administrator going to find a supply of competent teachers to fill that vacancy? Just how I am supposed to recruit new young teachers when they had best rent all of their life and will be treated with disrespect?

When are we going to get a candidate who will end the external standardized testing and let teachers teach different student populations differently? Rural Kansas is not urban Chicago nor California.

Where is the candidate who will consider looking at giving back the federal money that allows Washington, D.C., to dictate educational policy in our schools? Yes, there will be a cost to educational freedom.

Students come to us as unique individuals and should graduate as unique individuals. Where is the candidate who will let teachers promote creativity and imagination rather than memorization and standardization?

The anti-teacher actions of the current governor and legislature are clear. Kansas teachers clearly have many candidates to vote against. But where are the candidates teachers can vote for?

“Happy Handmade Home” by Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman

Step inside the world of Elsie and Emma, the sisters behind the décor blog A Beautiful Mess.  With tiny budgets and a crafty, can-do attitude, they overhauled each room in their first homes with DIY projects using family photos, vibrant fabrics, flea-market finds, and affordable furniture. Now, you can learn how to paint, craft, and decorate your way to a happy, bright space with distinct personality.

First of all, the photography in this book is great. For the most part, the layout is good as well (although the “9 ways…” pages have photos right in the gutter so you can’t see them — major points lost there).

The DIY projects are disappointing. There are a few gems (I like the woven pillow cover and scrap wood letters), but many are repetitive (add glitter! draw with sharpies!). There isn’t much fresh here, either; some of these projects are the same ones I first discovered on Pinterest years ago. I found much more inspiration just in admiring the photos of the authors’ homes, where they mix and match furniture in various colors against white walls.

If you haven’t created a Pinterest account yet, and you aren’t afraid of color, you may find some good ideas here. Many of the projects will appeal to the teen set, so there may be some fun mother-daughter DIY afternoons to be had using the ideas in this book. But if you already count yourself a crafter, you may be better off just reading the authors’ blog online.

And if you want to get your craft on, join us for Crafternoon! Our next project is stamped tile coasters; join us at 2:00pm on Saturday, October 25 at the library. For more information, call the library at (785) 625-9014.

Marleah Augustine is Adult Department Librarian at the Hays Public Library.

We aren’t going to win any friends among our peers within the media, but we think it’s important to come clean.

Gov. Sam Brownback and the Kansas Legislature aren’t to blame because their massive tax cut policy has failed to live up to expectations. It’s our fault, and by “our” I mean the media, because we haven’t given Brownback’s tax policies enough time to work.

“I think they so desperately want what’s happening in this state to fail that they’re shopping for a factual setting to back that up because it’s working,” Brownback said of his critics in a recent interview on CBN.

During his comments with CBN founder and televangelist Pat Robertson, the Kansas governor continued by claiming that “the left” wants his economic agenda to “fail so bad that they can’t wait for it to and they just want to get me electorally before we get on through this and prove that this is working.”

Guilty as charged. Nothing makes us feel better than to have kids kicked off nutrition programs just so we can score political points.

We’re surprised that former KU football coach Charlie Weis hasn’t been making the rounds on network news claiming that the media – not him – is to blame for his 6-22 record.

“If the media hadn’t been so focused on my losing record, I’d have had a lot more success recruiting five-star recruits,” we can imagine him saying.

Brownback undoubtedly has supporters who believe in what he’s saying and that his real live experiment would be working wonders if the media would conveniently go away. Dramatic tax cuts and trickle-down economics will work if the media would just ignore the fact it never has.

It’s been more than 30 years since Reaganomics introduced the idea of trickle-down tax cuts. Congressional Republicans and Republican-controlled state legislatures have been keeping the idea alive in one form or another for more than three decades with the promise that it will work.

We’re still waiting.

If the media would simply disappear, as Governor Sam wishes, here’s what you wouldn’t know:

• In the latest fiscal year, tax cuts were responsible for state revenue nosediving $688 million from the previous year. It was only because of cash reserves that the state was able to spend $329 million more than it received.

• In the upcoming year, it’s projected that the state will spend more than $650 million than it will get in revenue. Only it can’t do that because we no longer have the reserves and state law requires that the state can’t spend money which it doesn’t have.

• According to the Kansas Legislative Research Department, the state could be facing a deficit of more than $1.2 billion in 2018.

• Public education in Kansas is already suffering with a steady decline in basic state aid that has cost individual school districts millions of dollars over the last four years. The result has been staff cuts and larger class sizes while bringing about what some are calling “forced consolidation.”

But that’s not all.

According to data compiled by school superintendents within the Southwest Plains Regional Service Center (of which the Scott County district is a member) property taxes have increased an average of 7.9% to offset the loss of state aid. This is in addition to increased student fees.

The 36 school districts within the service center have had to offset lost state aid with property tax increases amounting to $100 million between 2009-13.

Blame that on the liberal media. And while you’re at it, blame the media for the millions of dollars in state money that has been cut from Head Start, early child education and child nutrition programs in Kansas.

And yet Brownback says the problem isn’t the policy, it’s our lack of patience.

If that were the case, then job and business growth numbers in Kansas would offer a rosy picture of prosperity on the horizon. That doesn’t appear to be the case.

Kansas’ gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.9 percent in 2013. Now, we may not understand all the numbers that go into the GDP, but here’s what you should know. That’s half the rate of Colorado’s growth and trails Oklahoma’s 4.2 percent.

Kansas also trailed the growth rate in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa.

Those states didn’t implement a massive tax cut program. Or maybe those states are doing better, suggests Brownback, because their economies aren’t being undermined by the liberal media.

There’s also the little matter of the “liberal” investment firms Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s each downgrading the state’s bond rating because they put politics ahead of patience. That’s how financial firms operate.

As a member of the media, we apologize to Governor Sam for our “we can’t wait for you to fail” philosophy.

When young children are pushed out of nutrition programs, when the poor are denied health care because the state won’t pay for Medicaid expansion, when Kansas teachers can’t get pay raises, when students are put into crowded classrooms and when the state’s infrastructure needs are put on hold because of state budget cuts, there’s only one thing you can say.

Be patient.

And ignore us naysayers in the media. We’re the reason this grand experiment is failing.

Rod Haxton can be reached at [email protected].

So how scared should we be about the worldwide Ebola virus crisis?

For nearly all of us, the answer to that question will come through what we see, hear and read in the news media and in the U.S. that places a unique burden on those free to print, broadcast or post stories as they wish about efforts to control the spread of the virus.

But how much can we rely on our news media?

From grim images and statistics about deaths in West Africa, to reports about flaws in attempts to isolate or track those exposed, news media accounts can inform or inflame, promote protection or pump up panic, and discount or display the inevitable crackpot theories on how and why the epidemic came to be.

Our news media is charged by its constitutional protections to serve as a “watchdog on government.” The challenge is when to bark, bite, growl or just keep watching.

Mike Cavender, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association, said “largely, what I have seen has been very responsible” reporting. While some have criticized as unnecessarily frightening the news reports that a Dallas hospital apparently botched some protocols on handling the first Ebola-stricken patient, who later died, “… not to have reported what happened at the hospital would have been irresponsible,” Cavender said.

The shift in the epidemic from global to “local” in the U.S. helps the news media focus more on real issues — health provider readiness and personal safety issues — according to Chris Peck, president of the American Society of News Editors, and editor of the Riverton (Wyo.) Ranger. “But there’s no question that reporting on a potential national disaster of any kind requires an extra degree of diligence” on the part of the news media, he said.

Journalists, Peck said, need to take a “fact-based look” at the nature of the health threat, and consider the “tenor and the tone” of reports to present a “calm, measured look at how we will respond in this country.”

The news media also should be less concerned “about the politics and politicization” that has crept into public discussion, he said. “This has more to do with reporting the response on the health front.”

Online news media may well face the biggest challenge, since their reporting is intertwined with comments, postings and reports from a vast audience — which can include hoaxers, profiteers and rumormongers.

Still, social media and online news “hasn’t created anything new. It’s just made it easier to see the conversations already there,” said Joshua Hatch, a journalist who chairs the legal committee of the Online News Association. Hatch cited persistent and pre-Internet-era claims that the 1969 NASA moon landing “is a fake … those have been around since it happened.”

Even efforts to refute misinformation can backfire, Hatch said, citing a study that shows “by repeating the error and trying to knock it down, you give it credibility … and people believe it more.”

Hatch does see a “learning curve” among established Internet operations such as Google, Facebook and Twitter on how to blunt or block hoaxes or deliberate attempts to spread fear and terror — such as the now near-immediate takedowns of ISIS’s postings of its beheadings of journalists and aid workers. But, Hatch noted, “the online community is so dynamic, there will be many (new companies) that will have to go through” such incidents a first time before developing their own internal sets of controls.

In a media-saturated world of 24/7 news, with the voracious talk-show appetite for chatter, we’re already seeing questions about what has been presented.

On Oct. 13, Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith was critical of much of what he’s seen: “You would think 4 million people in America have Ebola, wouldn’t you?” he said.

Some interviews and news accounts have been slammed by critics as shallow or simply spreading misinformation. A CNN interview with an author of a 30-year old best-seller about a fictional Ebola outbreak raised concern that the virus might mutate to an easily-spread type — a theory discounted by virtually every scientist studying the disease.

A widely seen video of a doctor walking in a protective suit through Atlanta’s airport wearing a sign reading “CDC is lying” led to interviews in newspapers and a TV station — taking a publicity stunt to new levels.

Not all the news about the “new” news media is grim. Tom Risen, technology writer for the now-digital magazine U.S. News and World Report, wrote recently that “ … mobile networks and the Internet are helping doctors reach and treat people who may have come in contact with the lethal disease.” Risen reported that “the continent’s growing mobile access already has played a key role in the fight to contain Ebola, as Nigeria seems to have tracked all known infections of the disease in its nation.”

The American Psychological Association is telling health officials not to spare the public needed information and specific details. An Oct. 8 post on its website said “ … people want easy-to-comprehend information and access to more information if they want it. The news media will play a critical role if a health emergency occurs. Information flow to the public about very bad news should not be controlled in the name of trying to avoid an outbreak of mass panic.”

The APA post ends with this advice, which could be added right after the actual 45 words of the First Amendment: “The public should be armed with information.”

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. [email protected]