What's the scoop on the state board of ed?

[proud2BlibKansan]

I understand there is now a conservative majority once again on the board. So will KS for the second time in just a few years be the laughing stock of the nation over this creationism nonsense?

What can we do to start fighting this lunacy now - before the state board meets to discuss this?

:puke:

[chemteacher]

1. Primaries have been decided...

I know in my in-laws district, the Repub primary chose a retired sci teacher who wants to add intelligent design to the state standards. I think she is unopposed by any Dem.
I believe the state board will swing back to being pretty fundie based on the primary results.

[SheilaT]

2. I believe the board will go

back to being a 5-5 split. It's quite sad, the way the Kansas Board of Education keeps on attracting such idiots.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. The very sad thing is

KC has become a leader in the biomedical research field. The Stowers Institute is one of the most financially sound medical research facilities in the country. But how many scientists are going to move to KC when their kids will go to schools where evolution is downplayed or not even taught? And it's not just in KS. The MO state board of ed is being lobbied to change science standards also. This just makes me ill. I am a teacher and it is so disheartening to see our schools go backwards like this.

:puke:

[SheilaT]

4. If they're correctly informed

of how good the schools on the Kansas side really are, or if they learn about the two excellent secular private schools here (Pembroke Hill and Barstow) they will come here happily.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I hope you are elected

and can be a voice of reason in Topeka if these conservative fools start to mess with the state science standards again.

[SheilaT]

6. I could try,

but sadly, the state legislature seems to have no input into those things. It's completely up to the State Board of Education, and the one here in Kansas is unusual in that it has an even number of members (10) which is why it so often gets deadlocked over things.

I was in Topeka a couple of weeks ago to watch part of the hearings in front of the joint committee on suitability standards, and to me it was quite horrifying to look at the faces of the Republicans who clearly think the problem is not lack of funding but that school districts don't spend the money properly.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. That is their new tactic

Like in KCMO (where I teach), the district was criticized statewide for squandering money awarded as part of the deseg case. Yes, there was some mismanagement of funds - (that's a whole other topic :) - but the bottom line is the taxpayers haven't approved a levy increase for KCMO schools since 1969. What kind of quality education can a school district provide without proper funding? The other aspect of this that really infuriated me is the underlying idea that inner city kids didn't deserve the deseg money. How offensive is that??

Another interesting tidbit about current education funding is that the feds are now awarding grants to schools. The feds come up with some idea (usually with little or no scientific support behind it) that they claim will improve our schools and they make schools jump through hoops on grant applications to get the funding. Grants can be so specific that they actually limit what we can do. For example, we got a grant several years ago to provide breakfast to our kids. But the grant only paid for the food, not for the workers to prepare and serve the food. The grant was awarded in the fall, long after budgets had been written, so there was no funding in the district's budget to pay the cafeteria workers to work the breakfast shift. So we had food, but couldn't serve it.

The feds are now awarding grants for a reading program that is making schools trash their current programs. In my district, we spent 5 years building a very successful program that was research based and had just begun to show some very positive gains in reading scores. But now about half of our schools were given these grants and had to throw out the other program to implement this new one, which doesn't have much research to support its effectiveness.

Federal funding for education is full of these kinds of holes. NCLB requires us to offer after school tutoring to kids who perform at the lowest levels on state tests. But there is no money provided for transporting the kids home after the tutoring. So unless their parents provide transportation, they don't get the tutoring. At my school, over half the kids eligible for the tutoring didn't get it because their parents had no transportation.

I realize you are running for a state office, but the states need to pressure the feds to give the bulk of federal education $$ directly to the states to distribute as they see fit. The federal restrictions limit us so badly the money isn't even worth getting. Much of it goes unspent or is wasted. Also, way too much stays in Wash, D.C. for administration costs in the US Dept of Ed.