How are schools funded? (Kansas City, Liberty: public school, law, assessment)

[gonefishingw2boys]

Hi,

We will be relocating to Kansas City this summer. Can you tell me how the schools are funded there? In OH we have to pass a levy to financially support the schools.

Also as a side note, when looking at school scores between Platte County, Liberty, and Johnson County there is a big difference. I think that each state can decide how/what to test. Are JoCo schools really that much better? Or is the difference somewhat how they test in each state? It is so hard to compare from out of state!

Thanks for any info!

[aragx6]

It's true, you can't compare two schools in different states because the tests they use are so different. I know this is the case when comparing Missouri to Illinois, and I can certainly imagine a similar situation when comparing to Kansas.

The MAP (Missouri Assessment Program) that they use on the MO side is fairly new (like 10 years) and very hard. It's also not the traditional "fill in the bubble" so the grading is certainly more subjective. Grades on it were really bad the first few years of the program, and have been getting better ever since.

I know nothing about the Kansas tests, maybe someone else can offer their expertise on that.

[burnt]

Johnson County does have excellent schools, but a true comparison with the Missouri counties would be hard to do without standardization.

This is why I feel we need nationally standardized outcome-based testing. The No Child Left Behind Act caused some problems, but if the law could somehow be amended to still allow for teaching of the untested subjects (art, physics, music, PE, etc.), and if there were a nationally-standardized test, it'd be a lot easier to compare schools in different states. As it is, some people here in Maryland seem to look down their noses at me, a Kansas high school graduate, because my education couldn't possibly have been as good as theirs. We needn't bother noticing that kids coming out of even the best Maryland public high schools can't spell, explain what an indirect object is, or describe photosythesis, which are all things I learned in seventh grade at my public school in Derby, KS.