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I guess this is about the only thing Kansas side people (specifically Johnson County people) have to slam KCMO in response to all the negative press that Kansas has been getting. And trust me, people are taking notice about just how bad things have gotten in KS and how backwards the state has become.
Over the past several years, the state has done nothing but poach off KCMO and Missouri for jobs, freeload off KCMO for entertainment and culture, cut funding for basic social services to nothing while letting much of the state outside of Johnson county die a slow death. Rural KS and almost everything that's not JoCo, Lawrence or maybe Manhattan in Kansas are dying or just very stagnant at best.
Johnson County is so propped up with incentives and city/county/state tax money that I'm not sure anybody knows if there is a real self sustaining economy over there. For such an "affluent" county, I have never in my life seen so much subsidized development. You would think JoCo was as desperate as Gary Indiana or something because they can not get anybody to build anything there without incentives and even then they can get very few outside companies to move there, so they have to bribe companies already near the border with extreme incentives.
Somehow KCMO, which everybody in JoCo thinks so lowly of, is able to bring is the vast majority of new jobs to the metro, is rebuilding a massive portion of its urban core (unlike KCK which is just subsidizing more sprawl.) and now has by far the fastest growing suburban area of the metro. The small area of Shoal Creek is by far the most popular suburban area in all of metro KC and just as that area is starting to build out, the Twin Creeks area north of Tiffany Springs will add 75,000 new residents in the next 15-20 years making that area of KCMO the fastest growing suburb in metro KC for the next decade or two.
It's been proven over and over again that the Kansas economy is stagnant at best. The MO side has been adding more jobs, bringing in more jobs new the the metro, building more new homes and building more commercial development. The state of Missouri (and therefore public school funding etc) is not in near the negative shape that Kansas is in now with the whole Brownback nonsense.
So, anyway. I have read several times where people mention how bad the schools are in MO or how MO educated people can't read or what not. Even if you are talking about KCMO proper (most posts do not say that, they say MO), it's ridiculously false information.
I get the KC Business Journal and its annual book of lists, so I quickly downloaded it and put the numbers in perspective.
A few key notes:
There is almost no difference overall between the entire MO side and KS side of Metro KC. Generally the KS side has an ACT score of 1 point higher, so close that it could be margin of error or even how the curriculum of the two states compare. Most MO side districts are more socially and economically diverse. You would expect Blue Valley to have high ACT scores for example, but Independence with their very challenging and diverse student base is only about two points below ultra affluent nearly all white collar Blue Valley. I'm much more impressed with Independence than I am with Blue Valley.
Much, if not most, of KCMO proper has excellent schools. Sure they are in the Northland, but considering the Northland is now 1/3 of KCMO's population and probably over half its school aged children, it's not fair to say that KCMO has bad schools. Much of the Northland is only minutes from downtown KCMO. Plus this does not include private or charter schools. KCMO has the largest and best performing private schools in the metro and many charter schools are donig quite well and would bring up KCMO's urban numbers if they were included. KCMO's urban school problems are not unique to KCMO. Every large urban city deals with the challenges of urban schools. Kansas does not even have an urban area to compare to KCMO. KCK is a middle class suburb compared to urban KCMO.
While the ACT scores of the more affluent fastest growing areas are about the same in MO and KS, their are quite a few more students in good districts on the MO side. So there are MORE kids going to good schools in MO than the KS side. Simply because there are more people on the MO side.
It's just ironic to hear KS people talk about how bad the MO schools are when the MO side schools are just as good, right now they are better funded and there are more good schools and more students going to good schools on the KS side.
Find something else to rip on KCMO about. Or better yet. Fess up to what's really happening in Kansas for once.
The economy there is terrible. What relatively little growth the state has is nearly all subsidized and nearly all in Johnson County, an area that should be able to grow without subsidies. The political side of the state is making a total and complete fool out of the state. The state has always been known as a very conservative place, but now it's just known as a backwards state that continues to go further backwards.
Here is the school info if anybody is interested. Again, no real difference. I'm sure people will still mention how bad KCMO and Missouri schools are though. I mean, when that's all you got, that's all you got.
STUDENTS ACT
MO side schools 147087 21
KS side schools 123566 22
MO side growing affluent suburbs 114009 22
KS side Johnson County 93890 23
KCMO and older suburbs 33078 18
KCK, Turner, Leav 29676 19
I may move this to the KC forum, but there are a lot of JoCo boosters that post here that rarely post in the actual KC metro forum and very few people here from the MO side to defend the nonsense that they post.
As a Kansas resident who doesn't live in Joco and has worked in Lawrence and Manhattan, both of those cities are growing. I try to stay out of the KC arguments because I don't see much difference from 1 side to the other side or the policies they enact.
The entire area from KC to Salina is doing well, I don't understand why people keep saying we are economically depressed. The corridor from Salina to Wichita is doing well too. Hays and the surrounding area seems to be doing good.
Far Western Kansas is doing very bad and many rural areas dependent on agriculture are doing poorly. Many of the mid sized towns are struggling, sadly their relevance is fading. The need for these farming towns just isn't there anymore.
Joco has taken jobs from KCMO, thats true, but the majority of people moving there are not from Missouri or Kansas. Multiple people have posted that in the other thread and it gets ignored.
I don't see a lot of defense for Brownback on here and I think most people realize his policies aren't working.
There's only a couple people who referenced KCMO, and I think a PM would have worked. Most of us are more then happy to not discuss KCMO or Missouri, it really has little effect on my life.
As a Kansas resident who doesn't live in Joco and has worked in Lawrence and Manhattan, both of those cities are growing. I try to stay out of the KC arguments because I don't see much difference from 1 side to the other side or the policies they enact.
The entire area from KC to Salina is doing well, I don't understand why people keep saying we are economically depressed. The corridor from Salina to Wichita is doing well too. Hays and the surrounding area seems to be doing good.
Far Western Kansas is doing very bad and many rural areas dependent on agriculture are doing poorly. Many of the mid sized towns are struggling, sadly their relevance is fading. The need for these farming towns just isn't there anymore.
Joco has taken jobs from KCMO, thats true, but the majority of people moving there are not from Missouri or Kansas. Multiple people have posted that in the other thread and it gets ignored.
I don't see a lot of defense for Brownback on here and I think most people realize his policies aren't working.
There's only a couple people who referenced KCMO, and I think a PM would have worked. Most of us are more then happy to not discuss KCMO or Missouri, it really has little effect on my life.
I wouldn't say that Western Kansas is doing poorly all together! It's Southeast that is the weak performer. Colby and Goodland are still seeing investments along I-70, Hays is doing just fine, Great Bend needs to work on the meth problem (something rural America needs to fix as a whole), but they're doing well, Small towns like Holcomb, Scott City, and Cimarron are stable because of their proximity to Garden City, and Dodge City. Speaking of those two Dodge City and Garden City are doing really well with the Arena in Dodge picking up better quality shows and Garden City has better shopping options than Hutchinson now. Tribune has been replacing farming with pigs which has boosted school enrollment, Ulysses has always stayed pretty consistent, and Liberal... Well, I'm sure something positive can be said about Liberal if one digs . It's the other side of Kansas (Pittsburg, Parsons, Ft. Scott, Coffeyville, Independence) that is leading the state in a march to death.
When I said that GC has better shopping options than Hutch I wish I was kidding.
Hutchinson: Kohl's (quite a bit smaller than the Salina one, though), Lowe's, Bath & Body Works, Kmart, ALDI, Office Max
Garden City: TJMaxx, Ross, Ulta, Dick's, Sears, Stage, Menard's, Sam's Club, Christopher and Banks, Tradehome Shoes, Staples, Vanity, Dollar Tree
I guess this is about the only thing Kansas side people (specifically Johnson County people) have to slam KCMO in response to all the negative press that Kansas has been getting. And trust me, people are taking notice about just how bad things have gotten in KS and how backwards the state has become.
Over the past several years, the state has done nothing but poach off KCMO and Missouri for jobs, freeload off KCMO for entertainment and culture, cut funding for basic social services to nothing while letting much of the state outside of Johnson county die a slow death. Rural KS and almost everything that's not JoCo, Lawrence or maybe Manhattan in Kansas are dying or just very stagnant at best.
Johnson County is so propped up with incentives and city/county/state tax money that I'm not sure anybody knows if there is a real self sustaining economy over there. For such an "affluent" county, I have never in my life seen so much subsidized development. You would think JoCo was as desperate as Gary Indiana or something because they can not get anybody to build anything there without incentives and even then they can get very few outside companies to move there, so they have to bribe companies already near the border with extreme incentives.
Somehow KCMO, which everybody in JoCo thinks so lowly of, is able to bring is the vast majority of new jobs to the metro, is rebuilding a massive portion of its urban core (unlike KCK which is just subsidizing more sprawl.) and now has by far the fastest growing suburban area of the metro. The small area of Shoal Creek is by far the most popular suburban area in all of metro KC and just as that area is starting to build out, the Twin Creeks area north of Tiffany Springs will add 75,000 new residents in the next 15-20 years making that area of KCMO the fastest growing suburb in metro KC for the next decade or two.
It's been proven over and over again that the Kansas economy is stagnant at best. The MO side has been adding more jobs, bringing in more jobs new the the metro, building more new homes and building more commercial development. The state of Missouri (and therefore public school funding etc) is not in near the negative shape that Kansas is in now with the whole Brownback nonsense.
So, anyway. I have read several times where people mention how bad the schools are in MO or how MO educated people can't read or what not. Even if you are talking about KCMO proper (most posts do not say that, they say MO), it's ridiculously false information.
I get the KC Business Journal and its annual book of lists, so I quickly downloaded it and put the numbers in perspective.
A few key notes:
There is almost no difference overall between the entire MO side and KS side of Metro KC. Generally the KS side has an ACT score of 1 point higher, so close that it could be margin of error or even how the curriculum of the two states compare. Most MO side districts are more socially and economically diverse. You would expect Blue Valley to have high ACT scores for example, but Independence with their very challenging and diverse student base is only about two points below ultra affluent nearly all white collar Blue Valley. I'm much more impressed with Independence than I am with Blue Valley.
Much, if not most, of KCMO proper has excellent schools. Sure they are in the Northland, but considering the Northland is now 1/3 of KCMO's population and probably over half its school aged children, it's not fair to say that KCMO has bad schools. Much of the Northland is only minutes from downtown KCMO. Plus this does not include private or charter schools. KCMO has the largest and best performing private schools in the metro and many charter schools are donig quite well and would bring up KCMO's urban numbers if they were included. KCMO's urban school problems are not unique to KCMO. Every large urban city deals with the challenges of urban schools. Kansas does not even have an urban area to compare to KCMO. KCK is a middle class suburb compared to urban KCMO.
While the ACT scores of the more affluent fastest growing areas are about the same in MO and KS, their are quite a few more students in good districts on the MO side. So there are MORE kids going to good schools in MO than the KS side. Simply because there are more people on the MO side.
It's just ironic to hear KS people talk about how bad the MO schools are when the MO side schools are just as good, right now they are better funded and there are more good schools and more students going to good schools on the KS side.
Find something else to rip on KCMO about. Or better yet. Fess up to what's really happening in Kansas for once.
The economy there is terrible. What relatively little growth the state has is nearly all subsidized and nearly all in Johnson County, an area that should be able to grow without subsidies. The political side of the state is making a total and complete fool out of the state. The state has always been known as a very conservative place, but now it's just known as a backwards state that continues to go further backwards.
Here is the school info if anybody is interested. Again, no real difference. I'm sure people will still mention how bad KCMO and Missouri schools are though. I mean, when that's all you got, that's all you got.
STUDENTS ACT
MO side schools 147087 21
KS side schools 123566 22
MO side growing affluent suburbs 114009 22
KS side Johnson County 93890 23
KCMO and older suburbs 33078 18
KCK, Turner, Leav 29676 19
I may move this to the KC forum, but there are a lot of JoCo boosters that post here that rarely post in the actual KC metro forum and very few people here from the MO side to defend the nonsense that they post.
Thank you! (Proud graduate from Center schools in KC,Mo with a great education. Now have six figure job in STEM field.)
I feel that discussing school quality in the general area is a good thing.
Many people looking at moving to the area might make the horrific mistake of deciding to live in Missouri and then realizing that private schools are expensive and public schools are complete jokes and then have to move to the Kansas side of the metro to escape.
I've decided that since I can't get people to make fair statements about Kansas that it creates a false impression for people looking for information.
But hey, let's hear what the Obama administration has to say....
I wouldn't say that Western Kansas is doing poorly all together! It's Southeast that is the weak performer. Colby and Goodland are still seeing investments along I-70, Hays is doing just fine, Great Bend needs to work on the meth problem (something rural America needs to fix as a whole), but they're doing well, Small towns like Holcomb, Scott City, and Cimarron are stable because of their proximity to Garden City, and Dodge City. Speaking of those two Dodge City and Garden City are doing really well with the Arena in Dodge picking up better quality shows and Garden City has better shopping options than Hutchinson now. Tribune has been replacing farming with pigs which has boosted school enrollment, Ulysses has always stayed pretty consistent, and Liberal... Well, I'm sure something positive can be said about Liberal if one digs . It's the other side of Kansas (Pittsburg, Parsons, Ft. Scott, Coffeyville, Independence) that is leading the state in a march to death.
When I said that GC has better shopping options than Hutch I wish I was kidding.
Hutchinson: Kohl's (quite a bit smaller than the Salina one, though), Lowe's, Bath & Body Works, Kmart, ALDI, Office Max
Garden City: TJMaxx, Ross, Ulta, Dick's, Sears, Stage, Menard's, Sam's Club, Christopher and Banks, Tradehome Shoes, Staples, Vanity, Dollar Tree
Another post I agree with you on. I more meant the border counties and rural counties where they are losing population and have all sorts of water issues.
SE Kansas is not good. I didn't even bother mentioning it because I figured everyone knows its the worst part of the state, maybe the whole region. My dad said even when he was younger, back in the 70's, the area had lots of drugs and crime problems. My dad fell into a lot of problems, he went to college in NW Arkansas, luckily he cleaned up and never fell too far in the first place. But he did lose a best friend and a girlfriend to drugs.
I think Hutchinson is similar to Topeka in a few ways. It's close enough to a major metro that it's shopping is not going to be that great. In less then an hour I can be in most of KC, and I live just west of Topeka. From Hutch, one can be in most of Wichita in about an hour. So it's easy to spend a Saturday or Friday night in the "big city" and a lot of people do that. Even when I lived in McPherson I would occasionally, maybe once a month go to Wichita. I could either go to Hutch in 30 minutes, or Wichita in an hour.
Last edited by Mattks; 12-08-2015 at 12:11 PM..
Reason: typo
I feel that discussing school quality in the general area is a good thing.
Many people looking at moving to the area might make the horrific mistake of deciding to live in Missouri and then realizing that private schools are expensive and public schools are complete jokes and then have to move to the Kansas side of the metro to escape.
I've decided that since I can't get people to make fair statements about Kansas that it creates a false impression for people looking for information.
But hey, let's hear what the Obama administration has to say....
Yikes, I read this: "We know about 60 percent of students in Kansas City public schools are dropping out of high school, and that is a huge concern," Duncan said.
I feel that discussing school quality in the general area is a good thing.
Many people looking at moving to the area might make the horrific mistake of deciding to live in Missouri and then realizing that private schools are expensive and public schools are complete jokes and then have to move to the Kansas side of the metro to escape.
I've decided that since I can't get people to make fair statements about Kansas that it creates a false impression for people looking for information.
But hey, let's hear what the Obama administration has to say....
Wow, you really are having a very difficult time comprehending. Your post is exactly why I even posted anything in this forum. Try reading at least some of the OP of this thread and TRY to comprehend it.
You can start by understanding that there are MORE children enrolled in excellent public schools on the MO side than the KS side.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo
At least find something recent and while you are at it, do some research on something in Kansas besides Johnson County.
KCK schools scored lower than KCMO schools last year.
KCMO ACT scores 16.7
KCK ACT scores 16.1
Yet nobody from Kansas ever mentions that they have school problems outside of Blue Valley yet are first to mention that KCMO has the worst schools in the region. The KCK school district is actually larger than the KCMO school district and it's a larger portion of the KS side than the KCMOSD is of the MO side.
I have been doing some research and it's quite interesting stuff that I will post later. Nobody has ever said anything about KCMO school district public schools being good. Nobody. They are terrible public schools or least terribly run (some schools are pretty good for urban schools).
But here is my point that I was making in the Kansas forum. Missouri has plenty of great public schools across the MO side and within the city limits of KCMO.
There are 171,725 enrolled in public schools on the MO side alone (plus thousands more in private schools) ONLY 14K of nearly 200k students on the MO side are in the KCMOSD! The vast majority (more than those enrolled in Johnson County's schools) are enrolled in very high quality school districts that rival anything in JoCo and the best and largest private schools are located in KCMO as well.
So my point again is not that any side is better. It's that you and others need to find some other way to slam the MO side because saying that MO side schools are poor or un-credited is not only misleading, it's often flat out false in the way its worded in most posts by Kansans.
Comparing only suburban Johnson County to only central urban KCMO is getting comical and I'm sure most people can see right through your posts. I mean Lee's Summit has better schools than central KCK. That must = MO schools are better than KS schools right? LOL.
Some updated numbers and ACT scores. They show there are actually MORE options on the MO side than the KS side for good public schools. ACT scores of similar demographics are similar. Who would have thought????
STUDENTS ACT
MO side schools 171,725 21
KS side schools 130,949 22
MO side urban (KCMO/Charter) 24,435 16.6
KS side urban (KCK) 21,599 16.1
MO side inner suburban 35,538 18.9
KS side west wyco/Leav 18,528 21.5
MO side outer suburbs 111,752 22
KS side Johnson County 93,890 23
Last edited by kcmo; 12-08-2015 at 12:56 PM..
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. It's the other side of Kansas (Pittsburg, Parsons, Ft. Scott, Coffeyville, Independence) that is leading the state in a march to death.
