Kansas
Governor Brownback’s School Efficiency Task Force spent their time looking for
educational system inefficiencies. The task force identified no specific operational
inefficiencies dealing with teaching and learning, probably because it was beyond their expertise. Most task force members were accountant types. As expected several recommendations dealt with financial matters, but not the amount of
state funding. That subject was a political no-no for the appointees.
Democrats
contend that reduced state educational funding has made schools less efficient.
Their contention can be tested. In 2007, former Kansas Governor Kathleen
Sebelius and the Kauffman Foundation commissioned Standard and Poor’s School
Evaluation Services to conduct the Kansas School District Efficiency Study
using data from 2004-05 and 2005-06. In the study, each school district was
given a relative efficiency score ranging from about 60% to 100% efficient. The
average Kansas school district was found to be approximately 85% as efficient
as the most cost-effective districts. Twenty-seven of 257 analyzed districts
achieved relative efficiency scores over 99 percent.
Reprising
this study, using the latest available data from 2010-11 and 2011-12 school
years when state resources were reduced, would provide up-to-date relative
efficiency scores to compare district-by-district with the previous study. If
the Democrats claim of reduced efficiency is true, there should be fewer
districts achieving a relative efficiency score of 99 percent and the average
relative efficiency score should be lower.
Rather
than build Web sites to collect examples of school district performance like
the Governor did, it might be more enlightening to redo the 2007 study.
Personally, I think hard facts trump anecdotal fictions.
