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Between 1985 and 1997 Kansas City was ordered by a judge to vastly increase spending. There was no educational improvement. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-29

by wmil 16y ago

Between 1985 and 1997 Kansas City was ordered by a judge to vastly increase spending. There was no educational improvement. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html

yardie 16y ago
With that money, the district built 15 new schools and renovated 54 others. Included were nearly five dozen magnet schools, which concentrated on such things as computer science, foreign languages, environmental science, and classical Greek athletics. Those schools featured such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room; a robotics lab; professional quality recording, television, and animation studios; theaters; a planetarium; an arboretum, a zoo, and a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary; a two-floor library, art gallery, and film studio; a mock court with a judge's chamber and jury deliberation room; and a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability. Looks like they were spending money just to spend it. What did they demand from the students? parents? teachers? Were disruptive students (what I consider the biggest problem) isolated and punished for bad behavior? Were the parents required to review the child's work, meet the teachers, provide a proper meal? Were the teachers asked to give feedback, meet goals, try new techniques? The main thing the report wants to speak about is the Imperial federal judge (typical for a CATO report) while the real problem lied in the way the district was run. Shitty management doesn't get better with more money. Money just makes it worse.
- yardie 16y ago
  EDIT: I finally reached the end of that report and it asked the same questions I did. There was nothing demanded from the teachers, parents, or students. The district was top heavy and little of the money actually went to learning, instead it was funneled to more infrastructure, more computers, more administrators.

by wmil 16y ago

yardie 16y ago

With that money, the district built 15 new schools and renovated 54 others. Included were nearly five dozen magnet schools, which concentrated on such things as computer science, foreign languages, environmental science, and classical Greek athletics. Those schools featured such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room; a robotics lab; professional quality recording, television, and animation studios; theaters; a planetarium; an arboretum, a zoo, and a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary; a two-floor library, art gallery, and film studio; a mock court with a judge's chamber and jury deliberation room; and a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability. Looks like they were spending money just to spend it. What did they demand from the students? parents? teachers? Were disruptive students (what I consider the biggest problem) isolated and punished for bad behavior? Were the parents required to review the child's work, meet the teachers, provide a proper meal? Were the teachers asked to give feedback, meet goals, try new techniques? The main thing the report wants to speak about is the Imperial federal judge (typical for a CATO report) while the real problem lied in the way the district was run. Shitty management doesn't get better with more money. Money just makes it worse.

yardie 16y ago
EDIT: I finally reached the end of that report and it asked the same questions I did. There was nothing demanded from the teachers, parents, or students. The district was top heavy and little of the money actually went to learning, instead it was funneled to more infrastructure, more computers, more administrators.