University Daily Kansan / Thursday, Mav 3. 1990
9
Keith ThorperKANSAN
Memory lane
Shannan Fisher, Topika sophomore, and Melissa Diehn, Overland Park sophomore, scan the 1990 Jayhawker Yearbook. Yearbooks will be sold through Friday in front of Wesco Hall.
Report shows no headway by Kansas students in '89
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Despite bally-boored efforts at education reform, student achievement is continuing a decline that began three years ago, the government said yesterday in a controversial report.
Education Secretary Lauren Cavazos said the annual state-by-state performance chart, popularly called the wall chart, "makes it clear that, in the long run, we are seriously committed to improving education for all Americans."
The chart has been criticized as promoting flawed data.
Timothy Dyer, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said U.S. teachers too easily too complex to hang on a wall.
'... As a nation, we are still not seriously committed to improving education for all Americans.'
The chart, he said, had as much to offer educational improvement as the Edsel offered the automotive industry.
In Kansas, the high school graduation rate fell and college entrance test scores showed no improvement last year, the Education Department
Cavazos, however, defended the chart.
— Lauro Cavazos Secretary of Education
"It is the only national measurement of educational performance," he said. "It's the best that we have." The department will have to rely on the wall chart."
In its annual report card of public school performance, the department
cited rising teacher salaries as a bright spot in Kansas. But it found declines in several key indicators of student achievement.
The department said Kansas rose in the rankings for average teacher salaries to 27th nationally in 1969 from 32nd the previous year.
The average annual salary in Kansas went to $27,401, up 11 percent from 1988. However, the average still was $29,567, up an average teacher's salary of $29,567.
The graduation rate for high schools in Kansas dropped to 80.2 percent in 1988 from 82.1 percent in 1987. The state graduated 80.7 percent of its students from high school in 1982.
Kansas' ranking for graduation rates dropped to ninth nationally in 1988 from eighth the previous year. However, Kansas remained well above the national average graduation rate of 71.1 percent.
College entrance test scores for Kansas students showed no change in 1989. Still, Kansas moved up in the rankings to tie for ninth out of 28 states in scores in the American College Testing program. Kansas
was ranked 12th in 1988.
The average score last year was 19.1, which is above the national average of 18.6.
There was a slight drop in the percentage of Kansas high school graduates who received qualifying scores on Advanced Placement examinations. The Advance Placement program offers college credit for high school coursework. In 1989, there were 468 students down from 4.3 percent the previous year. Kansas ranked 37th nationally in that category.
The department said Kansas dropped five places to 26th in the national rankings for educational expenditures for each student. The state spent $4,076 a pupil in 1988 compared with $3,933 in 1987.
Overall, state monies accounted for 43.2 percent of educational financing in 1988, the 34th highest in the nation, and local sources provided 51.9 percent, 19th highest. The federal government provided the remainder. Kansas had ranked 38th nationally in educational financing in 1987, providing 42.4 percent of educational system funds.
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