WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, on Tuesday announced he will vote against the budget deal negotiated behind closed doors between congressional leaders and President Obama because of its raid on crop insurance funding.
“I will vote against the budget deal because it will undermine the number one risk management tool for farmers in America – crop insurance.
“Agriculture producers are battling floods while others continue to face ongoing and severe drought. Crop insurance has kept them in business in a tough economy and eliminated the need for a costly emergency federal disaster package. These proposals to make further cuts to the crop insurance program were not included in the House- or Senate-passed budgets, in any appropriations bills, or in the president’s budget request. Once again, our leaders are attempting to govern by backroom deals where the devil is in the details.
“I will continue to oppose any attempts to cut crop insurance funding or to change crop insurance program policies. I will continue to protect this critical risk management tool and successful public-private partnership. I will vote against this deal.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the proposed cuts to crop insurance in the deal would be more than $3 billion over 10 years. The deal also lifts the debt limit through March of 2017.
The deal must be approved by the House and it will then be considered by the Senate with a debate and a vote as early as Thursday.
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.
President Obama’s proposal to cap external assessments at two percent of student class time is seven years late and two percent too much. It does not end the educational disaster of 14 years of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) over-testing. It does not bring back the art and music classes that were lost because they were not tested and therefore did not count. Nor does it address the concerns of growing number of parents who are opting their child out of testing. And it does nothing to re-professionalize teaching.
Every rural Kansan knows that the more time you spend weighing them, the less time you have to feed them. But reducing testing to two percent does not mean that a teacher will have 98 percent of class time for teaching. While the last 14 years of assessments only consumed a week each spring, the months before the test were often filled with pre-tests, practicing for the tests, and every form of coercion imaginable to get students to score higher. With teachers and administrators still under-the-gun to raise test scores, this teaching-to-the-test will continue. Indeed, in most states the current mandated assessments only take up 2.7 percent of class time. But preparation for that test consumes the months beforehand. Reducing the actual testing to two percent of class time does nothing to eliminate the test-prep.
To weigh the effect of NCLB on the teaching profession, consider what it would do to the medical profession if this standardization was imposed on doctors. Previously, physicians treated each patient who came in with unique needs and left with individualized cures. And teachers taught students who came in unique and left unique.
But teachers are restricted to scores on language arts and math. That is like forcing doctors to only use temperature and blood pressure to rate a patient’s health. As a result, patients get no attention to lung and kidney and other problems. And students are shortchanged in art, music, science and social studies.
With temperature and blood pressure the only indicator of health, and heavy penalties on doctors and hospitals that don’t improve those measures, physicians would load their patients up on aspirin and blood pressure medicine. Similarly, teachers have to teach-to-the-past-tests and raise assessment scores. Of course, the overall effect is sicker patients. And despite increased assessment scores, the genuine measurements of student abilities on the NAEP, SAT and ACT go down.
The ACT and SAT have been around far longer than the NCLB testing mania. So why weren’t they just as bad as current assessments? The ACT and old SAT are aptitude tests, not achievement tests. They measured a students aptitude or general ability. Generally, a teacher cannot teach-to-the ACT or SAT tests, so it did not distort their classroom teaching. These tests do not promote memorization and drillwork.
But the government-mandated assessment tests are achievement tests that do respond to memorization and drillwork. State boards of education latch onto standards that profess fanciful creative-thinking goals. But teachers under pressure don’t teach-to-the-standards; they await the release of the first round of tests and they teach-to-that-test.
To treat patients as unique patients, physicians must have the total professional judgement call on what tests to use—period.
And to treat our students as the unique students they are, teachers must regain their professional right to be the sole testers of their students. There should be no external test that requires them to teach-to-that-test. Not two percent, Mr. President. Zero percent.
Ivory tower educationists rail that math and English are universal across the U.S. and therefore the tests must be universal. But teaching is about students as much as about the subject. City kids do not have the same experience base as rural students.
American teachers were unique in the world because we had the professional right and responsibility to teach different students differently. To restore our profession, we must regain that right. Our students come to us unique; they should leave our classrooms unique.
No more standardization means no more external testing.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The Wichita school district has disabled a computer system while the district investigates a recent hacking attempt.
The school district disabled its Synergy computer system to investigate the hacking attempt discovered last week. The system was still down Tuesday afternoon.
The Wichita Eagle reports that the disabled computer system has caused some problems for high school students needing transcripts for college or scholarship applications.
The system authenticates student transcripts, which many high school seniors need to send to colleges by Sunday to meet early application deadlines. District officials heard Tuesday from a couple schools where students were concerned about being able to get those transcripts.
Officials say they’re working with Wichita police and a cyber-security consulting company to determine the extent of the hacking attempt.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A man has been charged in the death of a 17-year-old Wichita boy who was shot in the head at a private birthday party.
The Wichita Eagle reports that 41-year-old Grover James was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
Authorities say Leon McClennon died just before 3 a.m. on May 9 in the basement of Parrot-fa-Nalia Unique Boutique, where about 20 people had gathered for the party. Police say an argument involving two men escalated and one of them pulled out a gun and fired shots, striking McClennon. Authorities say the victim was not involved in the argument.
James is being held in jail on a $500,000 bond. It wasn’t immediately clear if James has an attorney.
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a not-so rosy report card for the nation’s schoolchildren.
Math scores slipped for fourth and eighth graders over the last two years, and reading grades were not much better — flat for fourth graders and lower for eighth graders. That’s according to the 2015 Nation’s Report Card.
The results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam suggest students have a ways to go to demonstrate a solid grasp or mastery in reading and math.
Only about a third of the nation’s eighth-graders were at proficient or above in math and reading. Among fourth graders, the results were slightly better in reading and in math — about two in five scored proficient or above.
The report also found a continuing achievement gap between white and black students.
DE SOTO, Kan. (AP) — A De Soto man has pleaded guilty in the death of a 21-year-old Prairie Village man.
The Kansas City Star reports that 32-year-old Dustin Adam Maynard pleaded guilty Tuesday to first-degree murder in the killing of Jordan MacDonald. Prosecutors say MacDonald was stabbed and strangled. Authorities say the victim’s body was found partially burned in a grassy area near Maynard’s apartment on Oct. 30, 2013.
Authorities say the two men had been at a De Soto bar together the night before and that the victim had given Maynard a ride home.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The father of a man who was shot and killed by Wichita police has filed a federal lawsuit against the city and a police officer.
The Wichita Eagle reports the lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Wichita, contends city police have a policy of using deadly force even in cases with no immediate threat to officers.
Wichita police say an officer shot 23-year-old John Paul Quintero during a confrontation in early January. Officers were responding to a report of a drunken man allegedly threatening to kill people. Police say Quintero was shot when he refused officers orders to show his hands and reached toward his waistband.
Jennifer Magana, an attorney for the city, said Tuesday the city hasn’t yet been served with the lawsuit.
photo by Steve Moody of an accident at the intersection in August of 2013.
Great Bend Post
ST. JOHN -Representatives from the Kansas Department of Transportation plan to be in St. John this week for a town hall meeting to discuss the intersection of U.S. 281 and U.S. 50 in Stafford County.
Despite efforts to make that location safer over the years, the number of accidents at the intersection continues to remain high and has led to the area being called “Hell’s Crossing” by many local residents.
The District KDOT engineer, the area engineer, and the bureau chief of transportation safety and technology will attend, begin a dialogue and solicit input from the community,” said K-DOT Public Affairs Manager Zach Oswald.
“In addition to listening to concerns, we’ll also be sharing the most recent traffic studies,” he said.
A petition with more than 100 signatures along with a letter of concern signed by Stafford County Commissioners and County Sheriff Jeff Parr got the attention of KDOT officials and led to Wednesday’s 7 p.m. meeting at the Goodman Memorial Library.
Oswald says the department is always happy to conduct these public meetings in order to get input.
DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) — A federal lawsuit that’s part of a push by advocacy groups claims Dodge City imprisons people who can’t afford to pay bond fees.
The Hutchinson News reports the lawsuit was filed in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, by Washington-based Equal Justice Under Law on behalf of Lawrence J. Martinez. The lawsuit says Dodge City seeks to jail poor residents who “cannot pay an arbitrary amount of money.”
Similar lawsuits were filed last week in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Missouri. All accuse court systems of ignoring U.S. Supreme Court decisions that say courts must determine whether people have the ability to pay fines before jailing them for nonpayment.
City Attorney Brad Ralph said Monday he hadn’t finished reading the complaint. He didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.
WELLINGTON, Kan. (AP) — A south-central Kansas woman has been convicted of fatally beating and stabbing her 10-year-old son to death in his bedroom.
Lindsey Nicole Blansett of Wellington was found guilty Tuesday in Sumner County of first-degree murder in the December 2014 death of her son, Caleb Blansett.
Wellington police say the boy had gone to bed on Sunday when Lindsey Blansett entered his room with a rock and knife. She is accused of hitting him with a rock before stabbing him several times.
She told police she was concerned about her son’s future and wanted him to “go to heaven tonight.” She underwent mental exams and was deemed competent for trial.
Koskinen before a congressional committee earlier this year.
MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican chairman of a powerful House committee has moved to impeach the head of the Internal Revenue Service, saying he has violated the public trust and obstructed congressional investigations into the treatment of conservative groups.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen failed to comply with a congressional subpoena, allowed documents to be destroyed and misled the public. Chaffetz is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which has been investigating the IRS for more than two years.
Chaffetz called impeachment an appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and said it will send a clear signal that the IRS is under repair.
Eighteen Republicans on the committee joined Chaffetz in co-sponsoring the impeachment resolution. The measure now goes to the House Judiciary Committee.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, on Tuesday announced he will vote against the budget deal negotiated behind closed doors between congressional leaders and President Obama because of its raid on crop insurance funding.
