A school employee was caught on the school video system stealing a student’s bag containing an iPad.
The employee asked for a Wyoming Education Association (WEA) advocate during her subsequent meetings with school administrators.
After multiple interviews and meetings, the school district terminated the employee. WEA-retained lawyers then spent three years in court demanding that the terminated school employee be reinstated to her position with back pay.
WEA-paid lawyers argued, in substance, that the school employee could not reasonably have known that she might get fired for stealing a kid’s iPad.
The Wyoming Supreme Court disagreed and upheld the school board in terminating the employee. Goetz v. Sweetwater County School Dist. No. 1, (decided Aug. 3, 2017). The Supreme Court remarked that the employee “could not have been expecting an award for her job performance.”
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Wyoming Taxpayer Dollars
Wyoming taxpayer dollars paid directly for the school’s lawyers and also paid, through WEA union dues deducted from school payroll checks, for the school employee’s lawyers.
A month later, a WEA press release stated, “Wyoming voters prefer the Legislature maintain quality standards for education rather than weaken them due to the budget situation.” A WEA survey presented the choice as raising taxes or allowing education to suffer. The WEA concluded that three fourths of Wyomingites want their taxes raised.
Let’s assume that most voters would favor raising taxes if the extra money would go toward maintaining quality education. The WEA survey is reminiscent of the ancient Spartans’ response to Philip II of Macedon, who threatened the Spartans:
“You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.” The laconic Spartans replied: “if.”
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Money Spent for Wyoming K-12 Education
The extra billions of Wyoming taxpayer dollars spent between 2003 and 2013 on Wyoming K-12 education barely moved the needle on student achievement. In 1992, for example, 4th grade reading scores averaged 223 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The NAEP tests, a uniform, nationwide, long term measure of student achievement, runs on a scale from 1 to 500. In 2013, the Wyoming 4th grade NAEP reading score was 226. An improvement of three points on a 500 point scale over 20 years is improvement, but not what you’d expect if the extra spending had caused it.
Wyoming is not alone. The correlation between K-12 spending and student achievement is weak nationwide. Above a certain minimum threshold, there appears to be little educational benefit to spending more money.
For example, Wyoming spending per pupil went down 4% in real terms between 2010 to 2014, but the next year’s NAEP scores (2015) went up slightly, creating a short term negative correlation between spending and student achievement.
A 2012 graph plotting per pupil spending and student achievement in schools nationwide looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.
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What To Do Next
This contrasts with highway funding, for example. If the gas tax increases by 10 cents per gallon, motorists can at least see where the money goes because there are additional miles of roads paved.
Motorists may not like the extra tax, but they get something for it. If sales tax increases for K-12 education as the WEA advocates, by contrast, students are unlikely to benefit.
During this century’s boom years Wyoming schools were funded like the New York Yankees. In the future, they will be funded like the Oakland A’s. Wyoming needs to learn to play Moneyball with K-12 education.
© 2017 Clark Stith
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