John Richard Schrock is a professor of science at Emporia State University in Kansas, where he prepares science teachers. His blogs are archived at http://www.educationfrontlines.net. As he explains below, Kansas has a reactionary legislature that considers it “innovative” to place unqualified teachers in the state’s classrooms.
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2015—The Year in K-12 Education
Dr. Randy Watson became Kansas Commissioner of Education, overseeing the Kansas State Department of Education that spends 51 percent of state tax revenues in our schools across the state. Commissioner Watson had been Superintendent of USD #418, the McPherson Public School district, one of the first districts to negotiate alternative assessments under U.S.D.E. Secretary Duncan’s “Race to the Top” program that was enforcing No Child Left Behind testing.
After a statewide tour, Commissioner Watson advocated for the importance of soft skills in addition to tested subjects. Exactly how these will be measured or promoted is yet to be seen. However, the outcomes for the “Kansans Can” vision and the hyperbole of “Kansas leads the world in the success of each student” reminds many teachers of the unrealistic platitudes of NCLB (100 percent proficient by 2014) and the just-passed bipartisan “Every Student Succeeds Act.”
Meanwhile, teachers had to look hard to find any positive state or federal legislative actions that halted the decline in K-12 education support in Kansas or across the nation. The Kansas Legislature moved to block-grant funding, bragging that this increased school funding. In truth, the alleged increase incorporated restoring KPERS funding. Some Kansas schools had to end their school year early. And Kansas courts found the new plan unconstitutional.
The 2014 Kansas Legislative action removing teacher due-process (tenure) continued to have an impact on Kansas student teacher production, especially in the sciences. For the first time, some rural Kansas school districts faced shortages in applicants for elementary and vo-ag teachers. The science and special education teacher shortage is now so severe that many superintendents have given up finding qualified candidates. In a few cases where local USD contracts permit it, Kansas science teachers are being hired at higher than pay scale—in effect, the first cases of differentiated teacher pay in the state.
While Kansas was the second state to eliminate tenure, pushed by ultra-conservatives, California eliminated teacher tenure a few months later due to efforts from liberals who are pushing the same effort in New York. Yet again, teachers have no political party on their side.
Six schools joined the Coalition of Innovative School Districts, an arrangement allowed by recent Kansas legislation that would allow up to 20 percent of Kansas USDs (up to 56 USDs) to hire individuals who lack the professional qualifications for teaching to be fully-paid teachers. The reward for the CISD is a pot of money set aside for being innovative. The Kansas City Kansas Superintendent explained how she wanted the money to buy college dual credits for her remaining poor high school students while Blue Valley wanted to continue a variety of innovations they already do. The other four districts reflect the plight of rural Kansas schools who want legitimacy for hiring local untrained folks without using the alternate routes to teaching credentials already available. Their real motivation lies in the fact that these would be locally-“licensed” teachers who could not teach elsewhere, essentially in servitude to the local district. Despite total opposition in public forums, the State Board of Education approved the CISD system. It would take but one small amendment in the Legislature to un-cap the CISD and make Kansas the first state to totally de-professionalize teaching.
The growing atmosphere of disrespect toward the teaching profession contributed to an increased migration of Kansas teachers to nearby states. Missouri took advantage of teacher dissatisfaction by erecting billboard advertising for teachers along the state boarder. The Kansas governor pointed out that both Oklahoma and Missouri have lower pay scales, an action again highlighting how many politicians fail to understand the teaching profession.
The number of schools abandoning print textbooks and adopting one-to-one computing in the form of personal digital devices accelerated across Kansas. There was often minimal-to-no teacher involvement in these top-down decisions. While parents no longer had a textbook rental fee, there was a far higher cost to the schools for these devices that rarely last more than three years. Teachers have extra work to develop digital materials to replace the textbooks and load them onto computers for those students who do not have broadband access at home. Student learning time is cut. And in many cases, the online materials provide students with unreviewed and erroneous content.
The ink is barely dry on the Every Student Succeeds Act just passed in Washington, DC. The NCLB testing regimes remain embedded in the laws of 43 states although many federal penalties were removed. But new ESSA actions promote alternate route programs. And those new rookie teachers are to be hired at masters-level pay—a whole new federal overreach into state education.
Finally, high school graduation rates for both Kansas and the nation are significantly higher than a decade ago. Unfortunately, the more genuine measures of academic attainment provided by NAEP scores and college graduation rates are down. While islands of quality teaching remain, overall it is becoming harder for a bad student to fail. And fewer of our graduating students are prepared to succeed in college-level work.
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2015—The Year in Higher Education
Similar to Kansas K-12 education, leadership also changed at the Kansas Board of Regents. Longtime and well-respected KBOR president and CEO Andy Tompkins retired. Dr. Brian Flanders became the new KBOR President and brings his long academic experience to this important job.
Born in Edson, Kansas, Dr. Flanders graduated from Colby Community College and Kansas State University, with degrees in animal science and in curriculum and instruction. Flanders taught at Butler Community College and Manhattan Area Technical College before working at the KBOR, rising to Vice President for Workforce Development and leading the Kansas Postsecondary Technical Education Authority. Flanders’ in-the-trenches experience will be critical in facing the challenges posed by a Kansas Legislature that has shown little appreciation for the intellectual value of public education and a nationwide shift toward viewing education as a private good. And never have the pressures from fraudulent national diploma mills and the techno-educational complex been greater.
Appointed by the Governor, the Kansas Board of Regents has likewise seen a rapid turnover, with most KBOR members having just a few years experience.
The KBOR transfer and articulation committee continues its efforts to coerce Kansas university faculty to standardize regents university, community college, and tech school coursework. Each year, Kansas moves closer to a lowest-common-denominator Kansas curriculum in the discount store model.
Concerns over racial diversity and equal treatment in St. Louis streets and at the University of Missouri–Columbia sent ripples nationwide. Kansas colleges and universities initiated campus discussions on diversity. And students challenged their own student government leaders at the University of Kansas.
While viewers of televised news are becoming accustomed to the warning that “some of the following scenes may be disturbing,” similar “trigger warnings” are being suggested or required in classes at some universities across the nation. This trend has not yet extended into Kansas.
This fall’s enrollment should have seen a decrease of nearly half the freshmen entering regents universities and a massive overloading of community colleges, due to a change in Qualified Admissions made four years ago. Many Kansas secondary students failed to take a fourth math class in high school, especially those aiming at careers in non-science areas. It was apparently unthinkable that the KBOR would reconsider their QA requirement. So the Provosts at Kansas universities negotiated a system where students could still enter university short this one math class and arrange to take it in college—greatly compromising the meaning of Qualified “Admissions.”
This essentially made that fourth math a “remedial” course. Back in 2012, the Kansas Legislature had prohibited regents universities from offering remedial courses, so the universities farmed their remedial courses out to community colleges. However, it only took a few years to bring them back on campus and skirt the intent of the law by partitioning state and student tuition money, and funding the on-campus remedial courses from just tuition money.
Tuition and fees continue to rise as schools receive less state support per pupil. Therefore, more money is spent in marketing and branding to recruit students. Retaining students is becoming more important than academic rigor, and some professors are under pressure to explain how they are going to lower their high rates of D/W/F students.
As vacancies occur, more schools are hiring “contingent faculty,” temporary adjuncts who provide the school “financial flexibility” but are not on site to provide students with help, advising, etc.
At the national level, a growing number of online for-profit operations collapsed as students found their online credentials going to the bottom-of-the-pile during job hunts. The U.S.D.E. closed down some fake schools and jailed some diploma mill executives who ran fraudulent operations.
In what at first appeared to be the one bright positive educational action of 2015, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) that accredits Kansas public higher education institutions announced a requirement that all courses taught for college credit had to be taught by instructors who had a masters degree and at least 18 graduate credit hours of coursework in the subject being taught. This caught many high schools off guard because many were offering dual college credits for what were really regular high school courses taught by secondary teachers with only a bachelor’s degree. Some community colleges began advertising for instructors with the higher credentials. But it was then announced that the enforcement date was not until Fall of 2017. So dual credit college courses can continue to be taught by unqualified teachers for another year-and-a-half while some Kansas superintendents openly admit that they now have time to work with their local higher education partner to “circumvent” the HLC requirement after 2017.
2015 may go down in national and state education history as the year when “gaming the system” reached new heights.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The number of schools abandoning print textbooks and adopting one-to-one computing in the form of personal digital devices accelerated across Kansas. There was often minimal-to-no teacher involvement in these top-down decisions. While parents no longer had a textbook rental fee, there was a far higher cost to the schools for these devices that rarely last more than three years. Teachers have extra work to develop digital materials to replace the textbooks and load them onto computers for those students who do not have broadband access at home. Student learning time is cut. And in many cases, the online materials provide students with unreviewed and erroneous content.”
Ugh. I have ZERO confidence, ZERO, that ed reformers in the federal or state government are going to do this WELL. I get that they’re hell-bent to do it. I just don’t believe it will offer value for the money.
It looks more and more like another lemming-like gimmick for increased test scores on the cheap. I literally pray local districts keep their heads and don’t do anything dumb because politicians/lobbyists are screeching about “21st century learning!” that will just be canned garbage that replaces human instruction. Just don’t sink a ton of money into it and don’t reallocate from funding programs that offer proven value to parents and students. Use your head and tune out the hype and don’t sign any “pledges” to the Obama Administration 🙂
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Yes, Chiara, it’s totally NUTS and IS ABOUT $$$$$. OPT OUT. And yes, I agree: “…tune out the hype and don’t sign any ‘pledges’ to the Obama Administration.” He gave public school teachers the EAGLE.
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Sorry, off-topic, but is there room for one more response to Tillerson? https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/my-daughter-is-not-a-widget/
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I can see why you couldn’t resist. This is a powerful testimonial. It works here because Kansas seems hellbent on creating an education model that looks nothing like what is needed to produce a truly educated public. What a shame.
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What happened in Kansas is now fully authorized in ESSA. Congress swallowed whole the package of goods sold by the marketers of “human capital management” as a panacea for what ails schools, especially “high needs” schools.
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BAD & SAD, ain’t it.
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Jeez, that was quite a depressing read.
The de-professionlization of teachers is a one of the pillars of so-called “reform” or more accurately, “corporate reform.” As privatization of schools at all levels increases, so does the de-professionalization of teaching … for “other people’s kids,” that is, those of the middle and working classes.
NCTQ and other corporate creations are trying to drag down teaching …
… from a respected profession on a par with doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. … i.e. one with a life-long or decades-long career with rigorous and demanding requirements, university study, and on-going professional development, and commensurate pay and benefits, job protections, professional respect, etc. …
and degrade it to …
… a low-level short term (2-to-5 years max then out) service job like fast food, retail, office temping, etc. … with minimal training or educational requirements, and miserable job conditions, with fire-at-will status, and resulting short careers of low quality, with miserable pay and benefits, and little if any professional respect.
After all, replacing the traditional teachers (the former above) with the new pseudo-teachers (the latter) is the only way that the privatizers can profit from privatizing our schools.
The only thing standing in the way of these corporate entities reaping trillions of dollars of profits are the teachers unions and their unionized teacher members. Therefore, any teacher belonging to a union, and anyone in leadership of a unions must be demonized and scapegoated in the media with an incessant and insidious multi-million dollar propaganda campaign the likes of which our country, or that the world has never seen outside of Nazi Germany. To quote one teacher, “(Unionized) Teachers are the new Jews.”
Hence, you have bogus lawsuits like Vergara and Friedrichs — with students and teachers as a facade — but are funded by the very same corporate and Wall Street entities out to profit from moving education from the public sector to the private sector.
That’s why you have the expansion of privately-managed “charter schools” with uncredentialed minimally trained teachers, schools that are essentially private schools with public money, as they are not accountable to the public, they are not transparent to the public, and they refuse to educate all the public, eschewing those kid who are most expensive and burdensome to educate — Special Ed., English Language Learners, homeless kids, foster care kids, kids with behavior problems, etc. The only thing “public” about them is the money.
That’s also why you have handsomely-paid, telegenic stooges like Campbell Brown fronting organizations like “The 74”, that promote the lie that public schools can only be saved by privatizing them (via conversion to and/or replacement by privately-run charter schools) and by raising class size, gutting arts & other parts of a rich curriculum, and by simultaneously destroying the teaching profession, and backing Vergara and Friedrichs, and celebrating such things as the total annihilation of public schools and professional teachers in the city of New Orleans. (Again, all this is for the “other people’s kids”, that of the 99%, while that of the 1% still have professional teachers with decades of experience and training, and whose expensive private schools have full and rich curriculums, and low class sizes, and on and on.)
Can they name one country on earth that has ever improved its schools by advocating what they are advocating? Two tried — Chile and, to a lesser extent, Sweden — and the results have been disastrous. The highest achieving country, Finland, DOES EVERYTHING THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY ADVOCATE.
The one aspect of No Child Left Behind that actually made any sense was the requirement that all teachers be “fully qualified” with a Bachelors, a Masters, and a teaching credential, and a rigorous apprenticeship period as a student teacher before one is allowed to “fly solo” as a teacher.
Well, that’s all gone. Our recently-departed Secretary of Education — who never taught a day in his life — changed all that when he got Congress to re-classify Teach for America pseudo-teachers with only five weeks of dubious training as “highly-qualified,” or the equivalent of someone who spent years acquiring a Bachelor’s in Ed., a Master’s in Ed., and who went through several months of an apprenticeship as a teacher’s aide.
NCLB’s “highly qualified” designation has lately been replaced with the specious substitute “highly-effective”, which is a euphemism for ability to do massive test-prep, and artificially raise test scores… even though little is actually retained by the student. (Again, this is for other people’s kids, not the children of the 1%.) How many unqualified Teacher for America teachers are teaching former Secretary Duncan’s kids at the Chicago Lab school? None. (FULL DISCLOSURE: my niece attends there and my nephew used to.)
That’s also why any attempt by teachers to increase the professionalism of teaching at their privately-run charter schools by forming a — horror of horrors — teachers’ union has been met with some of the most vicious union-busting, the kind not seen since the 1800’s. A group of Alliance for College-Ready charter school teachers in Los Angeles, educators primarily in their early-to-mid-20’s, and from historically disempowered socio-economic and ethnic groups have had to face the most ruthless union-suppression and propaganda imaginable, as the Alliance management has hired the same organization that Walmart uses whenever any budding unionization germinates at one of their stores. It’s truly David vs. Goliath. People on the Board of Alliance actually control “Education Matters”, a new addition to the Los Angeles Times that gives coverage to education. That’s a story for another day.
That’s all for now.
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I grew up in Kansas and received a good education. I am very hesitant to consider ever moving back because I have a 1st and 3rd grader that must factor into any decision I make. Besides that I can do without the extended periods of cold and snow.
The decisions at the state level are hurting two universities that have high quality teacher education programs. Fort Hays State University(my alma mater) and Emporia State University both have programs that rank very high nationally for the quality of teachers they produce. The downside is that the number students completing the program has decrease over the year. It is sad.
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