Volume 125 Issue 110
kansan.com
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DOLLARS AND SENSE
STATEHOUSE TO SCHOOLHOUSE
Gov. Brownback visits campus to discuss higher education
REID EGGLESTON
reggleston@kansan.com
Governor Brownback visited the University yesterday as part of his tour around Kansas universities and colleges to rally support for his plan to stabilize state funding for higher education.
The Kansas House and Senate have both proposed across-the-board cuts to state universities, a move Brownback thinks will threaten plans for economic development.
"We want to do higher education better," Brownback said. "We can have a program that can lower taxes and still fund these programs." We've got a tax program to move forward with higher education funding."
higher education funding. For Brownback, this means maintaining the spending that the legislature currently puts toward the University and other state schools, a strategy he refers to as "flat-funding."
Without these initiatives, Brownback and Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little fear that the first thing to go will be teacher salaries. Teacher salaries are considered the life-blood of the University's Bold Aspirations plan, which hopes to propel KU into the ranks of top-tier public international research institutions.
"What we can expect to see with these cuts specifically is a loss of teacher positions," Gray-Little said. "If we are forced to put this cap on salaries, we can expect to remove funding from this area to 70 percent of what it currently is."
Gray-Little encourages students to look beyond the 2-4 percent cut that looms. Considering that money will need to be drawn from other resources, she pegs the total constriction on the University at about 10 percent of what
it currently spends.
She also mentioned that further spending cuts to students would be met with reciprocal tuition increases to keep programs at their current standards. This strategy has been employed in recent years, and she warns that the University will soon reach a critical point where the value of a KU education won't appear worthy of the price tag for Kansas residents
While Kansas representatives and senators insist they are simply trimming higher education's fat, Brownback advises that this mentality is dangerous
The legislature we have is excellent, but there are a lot of new people," he said. "They've begun to ask why doesn't KU fund itself, but it's the relationship between the institution and the state that really creates the progress we see."
Brownback asserts that the popular proposal to expand private contributions to state universities will not prop up Kansas' colleges alone. With a number of smaller schools forced to take an even steeper blow to their pockets, he looks at some of the University's newest initiatives as examples of where strategic school spending works.
"Private funding should not be seen as replacement of state funding," he said. "KU's Bold Aspirations plan looks at state funding as something that will prime the pump, spurring on private funding."
Critics in the House are quick to point out that without sales tax cuts Brownback supported last year, the state's universities would not be in this situation. Still, Brownback is clear in his position that he views Kansas universities and colleges as "a valuable recruitment tool to keep the economy robust."
Edited by Dylan Lysen
Brownback's tour includes a visit to the University of Kansas Medical Center on April 25 where the Kansas legislature has slated a 10 percent cut, purportedly reducing the number of medical school and nursing school applicants accepted.
Incoming student body president Marcus Tetwiler meets Gov. Sam Brownback Tuesday. Brownback visited the University to discuss funding for higher education
EDUCATION
Student-led PAC seeks to reform education, teacher quality
REID EGGLESTON
reggleston@kansan.com
Bursting onto the political scene over the last few months, the student-led group 6 PAC, a political action committee, is hoping to make a Kansas-sized dent in state education policy.
The group, formed by Forrest Richardson, a sophomore from Savannah, Mo., aims to address critical concerns in tenure, teacher training and teacher pay policy. They also support initiatives that would increase the number of vocational schools across the state, reduce class sizes in public schools and establish a national standardized testing system to replace current state standardized tests.
And these are exactly the ways the group encourages students to get involved. The 6 PAC relies on grassroots mobilization to reach students. By encouraging students to sign various petitions and elect candidates that are sympathetic to their cause, they keep their hands off financial entanglementes that have come to burden a number of other PACs.
"We're able to make a difference that will affect us from here on out, and yet it doesn't take a huge amount of involvement to tell a representative what you want." Richardson said. "It's only a 30-minute drive to Topeka and it's even easier to sign a petition."
"KU students are able to provide strength in numbers," Richardson said. "We're at a critical time for students on campus with these looming budget cuts. Sometimes it feels like the student voice is marginalized in Topeka and Washington. It's easy for legislators not to listen to what we have to say. But who knows more about the education system than the students themselves?"
Richardson and 6 PAC hope, in time, to expand the conversation about education reform from the state level to the national level. With 24 6 PAC chapters starting at
kids fall through the cracks. When we don't have these things, kids may never fully recover from not getting the full experience out of their education."
other universities across the United States by next August, their vision is to put a comprehensive education reform bill in front of Congress that includes all their choice initiatives.
"When I was in high school, I saw kids fall behind academically and the teachers weren't really helping." Richardson said. "Of course, I also had some excellent teachers, so the goal here is to promote what makes teachers great and change what lets
For Richardson, the grand plan comes as the culmination of public school ills that have inspired him to bring about change in today's K-12 system.
Despite the anecdotes, some remain unconceived. Rick Ginsberg, school of education dean, likes the idea of students getting involved in the education process, but he feels
"Our market-driven approaches to education are wrong."
RICK GINSBERG School of education dean
that many of the reforms 6 PAC and groups like it propose lack the practicality required for pushing legislation through state and national bodies
"I think we're doing things well in Kansas," Ginsberg said. "A lot of things are impossible without significant increases in funding, and that's an issue we need to face."
Ginsberg also feels the disparity between rich and poor schools that plagues Kansas education is deeply entrenched in socio-economic issues that are sometimes beyond the control of education policy. He points to the golden model established in Finland as an education system Kansas and the United States ought to follow.
"They don't rely on standardized testing at all. What they do is take into account the individual needs
of each student," Ginsberg said. "Our market-driven approaches to education are wrong."
But this is a key point of contention in the education debate. Whereas groups like 6 PAC see the merit in a national standardized test as a means for assessing how well one school is accomplishing its goals, others, like Ginsberg, point out a number of cheating scandals that demonstrate testing is moving in the wrong direction.
Chris Wiles, associate director of the University Honors Program, acknowledges the need for public education reform. But he's also quick to draw attention to the Kansas legislature's free-market approach to education that seems to stick around from election to election.
"Kansas is a very conservative group. The governor cherishes spending on education more than the legislature does, but some of these initiatives will be very difficult to achieve, like tenure reform." Wiles said. "Because of this, we're going to have to look at free-market reforms to get some of these things we want."
The one thing all groups agree on is that there is no silver bullet when it comes to education reform. That's why 6 PAC hopes to extend its multifaceted approach to as many students as possible. Through upcoming book drives, recent Twitter conversations with
One of those flaws, well-known to students and education experts alike, is No Child Left Behind. Thoman and Richardson lead 6 PAC in the fight to reform this program. Their ultimate goal is to boost the representation on Congress' NCLB committee of teachers. Thoman said that the reason these types of legislation fail is because those who are directly infulenced by it are not involved in the decision-making process.
the National Teacher Quality Association of America and talks with candidates in Topeka supportive of their concerns, 6 PAC plans to broaden its voice to bring to light the "inherent flaws in our current education system," according to Shayne Thoman, director of 6 PAC's University operations.
Besides specific policy demanus, the group hopes that their actions inspire students to understand they ultimately hold the fate of their education, something that Ginsberg can identify with.
"We need more empowerment of teachers and students to take charge of their education, and that's not something you can really pump more money into," Ginsberg said.
"That will require a change in the way the recipients view the value of their own education."
Edited by Laken Rapier
- There are 24 chapters at universities and high schools throughout the U.S.
- The University chapter was founded in Fall 2012.
- The nation-wide organization was founded in June 2011.
- The nation-wide 6 PAC mission is to recognize the problems within the U.S. education system.
- The University chapter aims to work on teacher quality within the state.
- To get involved, contact Forrest Richardson, the chapter co-chair, at forrest.richardson@sixpac.org or Zach Altschuler, the other co-chair, atzach.atschuler@sixpac.org.
FAST FACTS ABOUT 6 PAC
CLASSIFIEDS 7
CROSSWORD 5
CRYPTOQUIFS 5
OPINION 4
SPORTS 10
SUDOKU 5
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2013 The University Daily Kansan
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