Adam Holden is going back to work for Fort Hays State University after his resignation as assistant superintendent in the Lawrence school district takes effect July 1, although he plans to continue living in the Lawrence area.

Holden said this week he will become chair of the Department of Teacher Education at FHSU's College of Education and Technology. While he will have to be on the western Kansas campus from time to time, he said he and his family intend to continue living in Lawrence for the time being.

"The department has both on-campus and virtual students and offers courses in both," Holden said.

Holden had been an assistant professor at FHSU before he was hired in April 2012 as assistant superintendent for teaching and learning in the Lawrence school district. At that time, he succeeded Kim Bodensteiner, who had been the district’s chief academic officer since 2007.

Holden announced in May that he would resign his job in Lawrence effective June 30, citing personal and family considerations.

The announcement came shortly after the district decided to reorganize the central office administration, which involved splitting that job into two positions: an assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, which will be filled by Angelique Kobler; and a newly created position of assistant superintendent for technology and educational programs, which will be filled by Jerri Kemble.

The Common Core standards in reading and math in Kansas do not require states to collect massive amounts of personal data on every student. Nor is the Kansas State Department of Education taking part in any new national or international data mining system.

At least that's the assurance from Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker, who says she is puzzled about where those reports are coming from.

"There is no further data gathering because of Common Core," DeBacker said during a break in Tuesday's State Board of Education meeting, when scores of people lined up to advocate for and against approval of the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

That's not to say Kansas doesn't collect data on students. It does and it's been doing so for many years, largely at the insistence of state and federal lawmakers who want the data to hold schools accountable for improving student performance and closing achievement gaps.

"We gather about 86 data points that any parent would expect if their student is enrolled in public school," DeBacker said, "from their name, their ethnicity, their race, their grade level and then, of course, their achievement as they move through our system."

And the only financial information the state gathers is whether the student receives free or reduced-price meals, DeBacker said, because that's the only indicator they have about a student's socio-economic status.

"That's the only time when income is asked because they have to qualify for that," she said.

But that's a hard message to sell to those who've been showing up at state board meetings the last two months, criticizing Common Core as a giant federal intrusion, not only into state education policy, but also into the private lives of every American.

The extent of their fear was evident in the comments of Barbara Penn of Lenexa, who identified herself as "a public school educator for about 24 years" in Kansas.

"I don't need to know (my students') political affiliation," she said. "I don't need to know their religious affiliation. I don't need to know their blood type. These things don't help me be a better educator."

"I'm concerned with the data mining that's going on," she continued. "I'm concerned about privacy. I never thought that growing up in this country that the issues we're having with the IRS now would come about. They have information. OK, what's happening to the information being collected on our children, our grandchildren, our nieces, our nephews? Why does this need to follow them?"

Penn wasn't the only one to conflate the alleged data-gathering under Common Core, which isn't actually happening, with other recent controversies involving federal agencies.

The original J-W story about the state board meeting, quoted freshman Republican Rep. Allan Rothlisberg of Geary County as saying, "We've seen in the news lately, obviously with the IRS, spying on us. Why on earth would we expect the Department of Education — which is not constitutionally authorized, as previously said — to look out for our children?"

Theories about a data-mining operation being a requirement under Common Core are rampant in the blogosphere. A simple Google search using the terms "Common Core" and "data collection" pulls up a treasure trove of such sites.

One website dedicated specifically to opposing Common Core has multiple articles linking the data collection system to the IRS and NSA scandals.

Another called the Daily Herald website contains an essay by one Oak Norton who traces the data-mining conspiracy back to a 2004 agreement between Bill Gates and the United Nations.

"Bill Gates knew that education was a huge multibillion dollar industry and if he could be at the crest of that wave, he would make billions,"Norton writes, evidently missing the fact that, at the time, Gates was already the wealthiest man on the planet Earth.

Like many exaggerated theories, though, there is a kernel of truth behind this one.

What is happening, according to education experts, is a project by a non-profit corporation called inBloom, Inc., backed by a $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to build a database which, theoretically at least, would be more accessible and user friendly than current state-based or school-based systems, allowing teachers greater access to information so they can better tailor instruction to the individual needs of each student.

That project has indeed raised privacy concerns among education professionals, notably the American Federation of Teachers. That's probably why hardly any states or individual districts so far have signed up to take part in it.

For an interesting discussion of those issues, check out this recent blog post from Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.

But Kansas is not taking part in that project, DeBacker said.

There was plenty of vitriol and hyperbole going around the statehouse in the final few days of the session as conservatives made a last-minute attempt to block any public funds from being used to implement the Common Core standards in reading and math, and to prevent the State Board of Education from adopting the Next Generation Science Standards.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, Republican from Shawnee, called Common Core a "dramatic centralization of authority over the nation's traditionally decentralized K-12 schools." And Rep. Allan Rothlisberg, a Geary County Republican, compared them to a Marxist-like effort at central government command and control of education.

That kind of rhetoric, in turn, prompted Rep. Julie Menghini, a Pittsburg Democrat, to label the anti-Common Core legislators paranoid.

“I’ve got an inside tip: invest in tinfoil,” Menghini was quoted as saying in the Topeka Capital-Journal, referring to the common "tinfoil hat" shorthand for paranoia and conspiracy theory. Thereafter, outside observers could follow much of the Kansas legislative debate on Twitter under the hashtag, #tinfoil, an area of conversation usually reserved for sports maniacs who think the referees or umpires are conspiring against their team.

It's probably safe to say, however, that as with most public policy debates, neither side of the Common Core debate has a monopoly on reason and enlightenment; nor is the other side completely deluded.

There are, in fact, intelligent arguments being made on both sides. So for those interested in doing a little more reading on the subject, here is a short list of better (and more easily digestible) discussions.

First, some pro-Common Core articles:

Can Academic Standards Boost Literacy and Close the Achievement Gap? A Brookings Institution paper by Ron Haskins, Richard Murnane, Isabel V. Sawhill and Catherine Snow. This offers a fairly objective description of how the Common Core standards came into being, and why.

BRT Letter to Republican National Committee Supporting Common Core State Standards, a letter by John Engler, former Republican governor of Michigan and now president of the Business Roundtable, arguing that the standards, "are critical to building and maintaining an American workforce that can compete in the global economy."

Myth v. Fact: Taking on the Tallest Tales about Common Core State Standards, a blog post from the Foundation for Excellence in Education, taking on some of the more extreme criticisms of Common Core.

And from some skeptics ...

Dispatches from a Nervous Common Core Observer: by Michael McShane of the American Enterprise Institute. This is an ongoing 10-part blog series in which McShane, a research fellow at the institute, lays out some well-reasoned concerns about the loss of local control and homogenization of education, as well as the challenges Common Core poses to textbook publishers and the school administrators who select and buy them.

The State of State Standards—and the Common Core—in 2010. This is a review by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute that attempts to answer the question: Are the Common Core standards better than the old standards? Answer: Yes or no, depending on where you live. It includes links to lots of other articles both for and against the Common Core standards.

Morning Bell: Join the Fight Against Common Core, a blog post by Lindsey Burke, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. This article actually makes more use of platitudes and bumper-sticker slogans than evidence or argumentation. But it does put the debate into context as a competition for the "school choice" movement (think vouchers, charter schools, etc.) vs. greater investment in traditional public schools.

The Kansas House on Saturday narrowly defeated a bill that almost certainly would have resulted in a costly – and potentially embarrassing, for the Legislature – lawsuit over who controls the content and standards for public education.

House Bill 2391 was forced onto the House and Senate floors in the final days of the session. Its purpose was to put the brakes on public schools implementing the Common Core standards in reading and math, and to completely block the State Board of Education from adopting the proposed Next Generation Science Standards.

It also would have set up a legislative oversight committee to review those standards and make recommendations to next year's legislature about whether any of those standards should be allowed to continue.

In some people's eyes, that would have created a broad and sweeping new power of the legislature to block or usurp the constitutional authority of other branches of government – in this case, the elected Kansas Sate Board of Education.

In the gallery above the Senate chamber, where the bill passed, 24-12, and in the hallways outside, three State Board of Education members told me they had already begun talking among themselves about challenging the bill in court if it became law. The exact nature of such a legal challenge was yet to be determined, but board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat, said: “Our next meeting (June 11) should be interesting.”

And in the gallery above the House chamber, where the bill narrowly failed, 55-58, Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker acknowledged some sort of legal action would be necessary.

It takes 63 “yes” votes to pass a bill in the House. Twelve members were absent, but had they been present it's entirely possible the bill would have been approved. When asked about the bill, in between the Senate and House votes, Gov. Sam Brownback would not indicate whether he would sign it, saying only, “Let's wait and see what happens in the House.”

DeBacker said she believed the real issue behind the bill was not Common Core, but rather the new science standards, which the State Board is expected to vote on June 11. She also wondered aloud whether the board shouldn't ignore the law, if it passed, and adopt the science standards anyway, in effect daring the legislature to try to stop them.

Had the law passed, and had the state board stood up to the challenge, it would have set up a dramatic face-off between the legislature and state board over who has constitutional authority to set educational standards. But it's a contest that has already been litigated in Kansas – several times, in fact – and most legal authorities agree it is virtually certain which side would have won.

Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution gives the legislature authority of “establishing and maintaining public schools,” but it gives the state board authority to supervise how they are operated.

Article 2 gives the legislature what is commonly called “the power of the purse” - the authority to appropriate money. But it does not give the legislature authority to use that power for unconstitutional purposes, such as de-funding another branch of government or blocking that branch from exercising its own constitutional duties.

That issue was litigated in 1973 when the Kansas Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision interpreting Article 6 of the Constitution. The case, State ex rel. vs. Board of Education, commonly known as the Peabody, established that the Constitution gives the state board “self-executing” powers, meaning the board doesn't need any further legislative authority to exercise the power granted to it by the Constitution:

"The state board of education authority to exercise general supervision of the public schools, educational institutions and educational interests of the state . . . is self-executing in effect," the Court ruled. "Where a constitutional provision is self-executing the legislature may enact legislation to facilitate or assist in its operation, but whatever legislation is adopted must be in harmony with and not in derogation of the provisions of the constitution."

The opinion itself does not seem to have been published on the internet, but it is explained in a 1983 attorney general's opinion. It also is referenced in other Supreme Court cases, including USD 443 vs. State Board of Education (1998). And it's discussed in the 2001 "History of Kansas Education," by Sherrill Martinez and Lue Ann Snider of the Kansas State Department of Education

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Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill Thursday that establishes "Celebrate Freedom Week" during the week of Sept. 17 and requires schools to teach students about the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence in grades K-8 each year during that week.

The Sept. 17 date marks the anniversary of the day in 1787 when the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia adopted the U.S. Constitution. It officially went into effect March 4, 1789, after it was ratified by 11 states.

House Bill 2261 is similar to laws already enacted in Oklahoma, Texas and some other states, including the requirement that, "The religious references in the writings of the founding fathers shall not be censored when presented as part of such instruction."

The bill also requires the State Board of Education to adopt rules and regulations spelling out the curriculum to be taught during that week.

The Celebrate Freedom Week language was added onto a bill that expands the ability of school districts to transfer unencumbered cash balances among various funds. It also amends current law related to school districts' bullying policies to include staff members.

Apparently there has been some amount of grumbling among parents and others about the fact that the Lawrence school district is holding high schol graduation ceremonies in the middle of the week this year.

For some people, that may cause problems, especially for parents who typically work evening shifts, and those who want to invite all the aunts and uncles and grandparents to travel from out of town so they can take part in a family celebration.

Double that for families that have students in both Lawrence and Free State high schools,

But the decision to hold this year's ceremonies on Tuesday and Wednesday - as opposed to back-to-back ceremonies on either a Saturday or Sunday - was actually made more than a year ago. And school district officials say it came in response to a multitude of other problems that arose from all the other alternatives.

It seems to be another case that shows how negotiating school district calendars is sometimes only slightly less complicated than negotiating peace in the Middle East.

In years past, the schools used to have back-to-back ceremonies at Memorial Stadium. But that changed a few years ago when the high schools got their own football stadiums. Since then, they've held separate graduations on their own "home turf," so to speak. That pretty much requires holding them on separate days.

The Lawrence school board actually made the decision about this year's dates more than a year ago, at its April 9, 2012, meeting, after hearing a report from Free State principal Ed West and Lawrence High principal Matt Brungardt.

The decision was reported in the Journal-World the following day.

"The high schools have been challenged in the past to schedule a date for graduation that avoids conflicts with Kansas University," the principals said in a memo to the board. "The school administrators also feel strongly that graduation should closely follow the last day of classes for seniors."

So the two schools formed a committee to explore all the options and make a recommendation to the school board. Basically, it boiled down to this:

The last day for seniors was Thursday, May 16. KU's graduation was set for the following Sunday, May 19, with Monday the 20th reserved as a back-up date.

That left Tuesday and Wednesday, the 21st and 22nd, as the next available days.

It's still not certain, however, whether the district will follow the same pattern in future years.

"The committee operated under the presumption that the dates were being recommended for next year (2013) only and no precedence (sic) for future years was being set," the memo said. "If the events go well next year and weekday graduations continue, both principals feel a consistent and permanent plan would be best."

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Opponents of the Common Core standards in reading and math haven't given up on their last-minute push to get something through the Kansas Legislature this year.

According to a story earlier today by Scott Rothschild, the Tea Party-affiliated group FreedomWorks sent out a call to its members, urging them to pressure the Legislature into cutting off funds to implement the Common Core.

This comes on the heels of a big anti-Common Core turnout at the Kansas State Board of Education last week where people urged the board to do an about-face on those standards, which are known locally as the Kansas College and Career Ready Standards.

And that came on the heels of a Statehouse rally the week before, just as lawmakers were returning for the wrap-up session.

According to Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker, similar campaigns are being waged in at least 16 other states as well:

In Alabama, at least four anti-Common Core bills have been introduced in the Legislature. At least one bill has been introduced in Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

Meanwhile, anti-Common Core rallies and forums have been staged in Colorado, Florida and Tennessee.

And in Arizona, Idaho, New Hampshire, New York and Ohio, education officials are reporting other kinds of active anti-Common Core rumblings.

Based on comments made at the state board meeting last week, much of the opposition is based not on the content of the standards, but on a shared perception that the standards represent a form of federal intrusion into state matters.

But when I asked DeBacker about it last week, she said the latest criticism was all a bit frustrating.

On the one hand, she noted, the State Department of Education is constantly targeted for criticism by Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, which uses data based on the old, pre-Common Core standards to show that Kansas has low academic standards compared with other states, never mentioning that the standards have been changed since then to address those very concerns.

And then, when Kansas collaborates with other states to come up with higher educational standards designed to prepare students for college and the workforce in a global marketplace, DeBacker said, they get criticized by other groups who say such collaboration represents "federal intrusion" into state matters.

Last week, Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis posed a riddle to the State Board of Education.

A couple of years ago, he said, Fort Hays State University graduated two new physics teachers. He asked the board to guess which school district hired them.

The answer: None. They went to work for Sprint Corp.

Dennis said that was an indicator of how low average teacher salaries are in Kansas, compared to what people can earn in other professions.

According to the website TeacherPortal.com, which used data from the National Education Association, the average teacher salary in Kansas in 2011 was $46,598, ranking 41st in the country, just ahead of Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida.

The average starting salary was $32,964, ranking 33rd in the country.

It's often suggested that's because Kansas is a low-wage state generally, and that relatively low wages here are offset by a similarly low cost of living.

So another way of measuring teacher pay which takes that into account is what many people call the "teacher penalty" - the amount of salary a person gives up by going into teaching, as opposed to other comparable professions which generally require a bachelor's degree or better: accounting, architecture, the clergy, journalism, registered nursing and insurance underwriting, to name a few.

Editorial Projects in Education, the non-profit group that publishes Education Week, measures that differential every few years, most recently in 2012. Its conclusion was that a Kansas teacher earns only 88.8 cents on the dollar compared to comparable professions, ranking the Sunflower State 16th from the bottom.

You can download the entire 2013 Quality Counts report from the group's website.

The worst salary market for teachers by far is the District of Columbia, where college-educated adults obviously earn a lot more money working for, or lobbying, the federal government. There, teachers earn just 65.3 cents on the dollar.

Wyoming ranked highest in the latest survey, with teachers there earning 31.4 percent more than comparable professions. Rhode Island, Michigan, Vermont and Ohio rounded out the top five.

There are only 13 states where teachers have achieved "parity," meaning they earn at least as much as their counterparts in other professions.

According to Dennis, that explains why it's so easy to recruit Kansas teachers away from the teaching profession, especially if they're certified in the STEM fields - science, technology, engineering and math.

"It's not uncommon for math, science, chemistry and physics teachers to be recruited by the private sector," Dennis said. "They have good communication skills, they work well and collaborate well with others. They may not know everything about a phone system, but the companies can train them on that."

The conservative think tank Kansas Policy Institute has been running ads the past couple of weeks asserting that the state has low academic standards in reading and math, an assertion that state officials have repeatedly dismissed.

The ads, which have been running in the Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita media markets, refer back to the KPI website, where viewers can see longer videos spelling out the group's case that Kansas has low standards.

KPI spokesman James Franko said the group's policy aim "is to give parents and student more freedom to achieve their individual educational goals - i.e. school choice in all of its forms - and make sure Kansas is spending its K-12 resources effectively and efficiently."

The phrase "school choice" generally refers to programs that offer students and parents a publicly funded alternative to the regular public schools in their area, either through vouchers to offset the cost of a private or parochial school, or "charter schools," which are usually public schools operated by outside groups or private companies that can be exempted from many rules and regulations that apply to public schools.

So far this year, Kansas lawmakers have turned back one such bill: Senate Bill 22, which would have established a scholarship program for certain lower-income students to attend private schools. That bill failed to advance to final action in the House, but was then sent back to the House Education Committee, where it remains available to be advanced again.

Franko said the ads began running about two weeks ago and are scheduled to continue through "the next couple of days." That would take them right up to the start of the Kansas Legislature's wrap-up session.

In a nutshell, KPI asserts that Kansas schools are not preparing students for college or careers because it has low academic standards. For evidence, the group points to actions by the Kansas State Board of Education in 2002 and 2006 when, KPI says, the state "lowered" academic standards.

State officials counter that they did not "lower" their standards - that the level of performance needed to score in the "meets standards" category did not change - but the method of classifying scores was simply re-calibrated in 2002 to align with the new No Child Left Behind law. The standards were revised in 2006, and new assessments were written to go along with them.

But what the ads do not mention that the standards were revised again in 2010 when Kansas adopted the new Common Core state standards in reading and math, which are specifically designed for "college and career readiness."

"We did not lower our standards – not in '02 and not in '06," said Kathy Toelkes, spokeswoman for the Kansas State Department of Education.

Although she had not personally seen the ads, she said, "we're focused on where we're going. We adopted new standards in 2010 that raised the bar for students in terms of ensuring students will be college- and career-ready upon graduating from high school."

The ads point to a series of studies by the National Center for Education Statistics that attempt to compare state assessments from all 50 states with a uniform benchmark, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, exams.

State officials argue there are major differences between the NAEP test and the state assessments, the most important of which is that NAEP is not aligned to any specific set of educational standards. Further, it's a test that is only administered to a random sample of students in each state, and therefore any comparison of scores between the tests requires a great deal of estimation.

Nevertheless, the reports do indicate that a student who scores at the "meets standards" level on a Kansas reading or math test, at either the 4th or 8th grade level, would only score at or below the "basic" level on the NAEP exam.

That, however, is also true for many states. In fact, according to the most recent (2009) study, no state has a proficiency standard equal to or greater than the NAEP standard in either 4th or 8th grade reading. Massachusetts is the only state in the union where proficiency standards in math exceed the NAEP standards.

Teachers and staff in the Lawrence school district will not be allowed to carry firearms on school property, even if they have a concealed permit.

That was the word from school board president Vanessa Sanburn who said the district would not change its weapons policy, despite passage of a new state law that would allow teachers and other employees with permits to carry firearms.

On April 16, Gov. Sam Brownback signed HB 2052 which, among other things, requires municipal governments to allow people with permits to carry concealed weapons into public buildings, unless those buildings have metal detectors or other security measures to prevent anyone from bringing weapons inside.

The law is mandatory for city, county and state buildings (except the Statehouse itself). Public schools are not required to allow concealed carry, but school districts may allow licensed employees to carry concealed handguns if they choose to do so.

After four years, the law will also apply to university buildings.

Sanburn said during Monday's board meeting that she had received several phone calls and emails from people asking whether teachers in Lawrence would be allowed to carry concealed weapons.

She said the board had no intention of changing its current policy, which prohibits anyone other than a law enforcement officer to possess a weapon, "in or on any school property, school grounds, or any district building or structure used for student instruction or attendance or extracurricular activities of pupils, or at any regularly scheduled school sponsored activity or event."

That prohibition includes concealed weapons, even if the person has a legal permit.

More Education News

The Common Core standards in reading and math in Kansas do not require states to collect massive amounts of personal data on every student. Nor is the Kansas State Department of Education taking part in any new national or international data mining system.

At least that's the assurance from Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker, who says she is puzzled about where those reports are coming from.

"There is no further data gathering because of Common Core," DeBacker said during a break in Tuesday's State Board of Education meeting, when scores of people lined up to advocate for and against approval of the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

That's not to say Kansas doesn't collect data on students. It does and it's been doing so for many years, largely at the insistence of state and federal lawmakers who want the data to hold schools accountable for improving student performance and closing achievement gaps.

"We gather about 86 data points that any parent would expect if their student is enrolled in public school," DeBacker said, "from their name, their ethnicity, their race, their grade level and then, of course, their achievement as they move through our system."

And the only financial information the state gathers is whether the student receives free or reduced-price meals, DeBacker said, because that's the only indicator they have about a student's socio-economic status.

"That's the only time when income is asked because they have to qualify for that," she said.

But that's a hard message to sell to those who've been showing up at state board meetings the last two months, criticizing Common Core as a giant federal intrusion, not only into state education policy, but also into the private lives of every American.

The extent of their fear was evident in the comments of Barbara Penn of Lenexa, who identified herself as "a public school educator for about 24 years" in Kansas.

"I don't need to know (my students') political affiliation," she said. "I don't need to know their religious affiliation. I don't need to know their blood type. These things don't help me be a better educator."

"I'm concerned with the data mining that's going on," she continued. "I'm concerned about privacy. I never thought that growing up in this country that the issues we're having with the IRS now would come about. They have information. OK, what's happening to the information being collected on our children, our grandchildren, our nieces, our nephews? Why does this need to follow them?"

Penn wasn't the only one to conflate the alleged data-gathering under Common Core, which isn't actually happening, with other recent controversies involving federal agencies.

The original J-W story about the state board meeting, quoted freshman Republican Rep. Allan Rothlisberg of Geary County as saying, "We've seen in the news lately, obviously with the IRS, spying on us. Why on earth would we expect the Department of Education — which is not constitutionally authorized, as previously said — to look out for our children?"

Theories about a data-mining operation being a requirement under Common Core are rampant in the blogosphere. A simple Google search using the terms "Common Core" and "data collection" pulls up a treasure trove of such sites.

One website dedicated specifically to opposing Common Core has multiple articles linking the data collection system to the IRS and NSA scandals.

Another called the Daily Herald website contains an essay by one Oak Norton who traces the data-mining conspiracy back to a 2004 agreement between Bill Gates and the United Nations.

"Bill Gates knew that education was a huge multibillion dollar industry and if he could be at the crest of that wave, he would make billions,"Norton writes, evidently missing the fact that, at the time, Gates was already the wealthiest man on the planet Earth.

Like many exaggerated theories, though, there is a kernel of truth behind this one.

What is happening, according to education experts, is a project by a non-profit corporation called inBloom, Inc., backed by a $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to build a database which, theoretically at least, would be more accessible and user friendly than current state-based or school-based systems, allowing teachers greater access to information so they can better tailor instruction to the individual needs of each student.

That project has indeed raised privacy concerns among education professionals, notably the American Federation of Teachers. That's probably why hardly any states or individual districts so far have signed up to take part in it.

For an interesting discussion of those issues, check out this recent blog post from Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.

But Kansas is not taking part in that project, DeBacker said.

Adam Holden is going back to work for Fort Hays State University after his resignation as assistant superintendent in the Lawrence school district takes effect July 1, although he plans to continue living in the Lawrence area.

Holden said this week he will become chair of the Department of Teacher Education at FHSU's College of Education and Technology. While he will have to be on the western Kansas campus from time to time, he said he and his family intend to continue living in Lawrence for the time being.

"The department has both on-campus and virtual students and offers courses in both," Holden said.

Holden had been an assistant professor at FHSU before he was hired in April 2012 as assistant superintendent for teaching and learning in the Lawrence school district. At that time, he succeeded Kim Bodensteiner, who had been the district’s chief academic officer since 2007.

Holden announced in May that he would resign his job in Lawrence effective June 30, citing personal and family considerations.

The announcement came shortly after the district decided to reorganize the central office administration, which involved splitting that job into two positions: an assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, which will be filled by Angelique Kobler; and a newly created position of assistant superintendent for technology and educational programs, which will be filled by Jerri Kemble.

Last week, Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis posed a riddle to the State Board of Education.

A couple of years ago, he said, Fort Hays State University graduated two new physics teachers. He asked the board to guess which school district hired them.

The answer: None. They went to work for Sprint Corp.

Dennis said that was an indicator of how low average teacher salaries are in Kansas, compared to what people can earn in other professions.

According to the website TeacherPortal.com, which used data from the National Education Association, the average teacher salary in Kansas in 2011 was $46,598, ranking 41st in the country, just ahead of Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida.

The average starting salary was $32,964, ranking 33rd in the country.

It's often suggested that's because Kansas is a low-wage state generally, and that relatively low wages here are offset by a similarly low cost of living.

So another way of measuring teacher pay which takes that into account is what many people call the "teacher penalty" - the amount of salary a person gives up by going into teaching, as opposed to other comparable professions which generally require a bachelor's degree or better: accounting, architecture, the clergy, journalism, registered nursing and insurance underwriting, to name a few.

Editorial Projects in Education, the non-profit group that publishes Education Week, measures that differential every few years, most recently in 2012. Its conclusion was that a Kansas teacher earns only 88.8 cents on the dollar compared to comparable professions, ranking the Sunflower State 16th from the bottom.

You can download the entire 2013 Quality Counts report from the group's website.

The worst salary market for teachers by far is the District of Columbia, where college-educated adults obviously earn a lot more money working for, or lobbying, the federal government. There, teachers earn just 65.3 cents on the dollar.

Wyoming ranked highest in the latest survey, with teachers there earning 31.4 percent more than comparable professions. Rhode Island, Michigan, Vermont and Ohio rounded out the top five.

There are only 13 states where teachers have achieved "parity," meaning they earn at least as much as their counterparts in other professions.

According to Dennis, that explains why it's so easy to recruit Kansas teachers away from the teaching profession, especially if they're certified in the STEM fields - science, technology, engineering and math.

"It's not uncommon for math, science, chemistry and physics teachers to be recruited by the private sector," Dennis said. "They have good communication skills, they work well and collaborate well with others. They may not know everything about a phone system, but the companies can train them on that."

Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill Thursday that establishes "Celebrate Freedom Week" during the week of Sept. 17 and requires schools to teach students about the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence in grades K-8 each year during that week.

The Sept. 17 date marks the anniversary of the day in 1787 when the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia adopted the U.S. Constitution. It officially went into effect March 4, 1789, after it was ratified by 11 states.

House Bill 2261 is similar to laws already enacted in Oklahoma, Texas and some other states, including the requirement that, "The religious references in the writings of the founding fathers shall not be censored when presented as part of such instruction."

The bill also requires the State Board of Education to adopt rules and regulations spelling out the curriculum to be taught during that week.

The Celebrate Freedom Week language was added onto a bill that expands the ability of school districts to transfer unencumbered cash balances among various funds. It also amends current law related to school districts' bullying policies to include staff members.

Opponents of the Common Core standards in reading and math haven't given up on their last-minute push to get something through the Kansas Legislature this year.

According to a story earlier today by Scott Rothschild, the Tea Party-affiliated group FreedomWorks sent out a call to its members, urging them to pressure the Legislature into cutting off funds to implement the Common Core.

This comes on the heels of a big anti-Common Core turnout at the Kansas State Board of Education last week where people urged the board to do an about-face on those standards, which are known locally as the Kansas College and Career Ready Standards.

And that came on the heels of a Statehouse rally the week before, just as lawmakers were returning for the wrap-up session.

According to Kansas Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker, similar campaigns are being waged in at least 16 other states as well:

In Alabama, at least four anti-Common Core bills have been introduced in the Legislature. At least one bill has been introduced in Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

Meanwhile, anti-Common Core rallies and forums have been staged in Colorado, Florida and Tennessee.

And in Arizona, Idaho, New Hampshire, New York and Ohio, education officials are reporting other kinds of active anti-Common Core rumblings.

Based on comments made at the state board meeting last week, much of the opposition is based not on the content of the standards, but on a shared perception that the standards represent a form of federal intrusion into state matters.

But when I asked DeBacker about it last week, she said the latest criticism was all a bit frustrating.

On the one hand, she noted, the State Department of Education is constantly targeted for criticism by Kansas Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, which uses data based on the old, pre-Common Core standards to show that Kansas has low academic standards compared with other states, never mentioning that the standards have been changed since then to address those very concerns.

And then, when Kansas collaborates with other states to come up with higher educational standards designed to prepare students for college and the workforce in a global marketplace, DeBacker said, they get criticized by other groups who say such collaboration represents "federal intrusion" into state matters.

The Kansas House on Saturday narrowly defeated a bill that almost certainly would have resulted in a costly – and potentially embarrassing, for the Legislature – lawsuit over who controls the content and standards for public education.

House Bill 2391 was forced onto the House and Senate floors in the final days of the session. Its purpose was to put the brakes on public schools implementing the Common Core standards in reading and math, and to completely block the State Board of Education from adopting the proposed Next Generation Science Standards.

It also would have set up a legislative oversight committee to review those standards and make recommendations to next year's legislature about whether any of those standards should be allowed to continue.

In some people's eyes, that would have created a broad and sweeping new power of the legislature to block or usurp the constitutional authority of other branches of government – in this case, the elected Kansas Sate Board of Education.

In the gallery above the Senate chamber, where the bill passed, 24-12, and in the hallways outside, three State Board of Education members told me they had already begun talking among themselves about challenging the bill in court if it became law. The exact nature of such a legal challenge was yet to be determined, but board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat, said: “Our next meeting (June 11) should be interesting.”

And in the gallery above the House chamber, where the bill narrowly failed, 55-58, Education Commissioner Diane DeBacker acknowledged some sort of legal action would be necessary.

It takes 63 “yes” votes to pass a bill in the House. Twelve members were absent, but had they been present it's entirely possible the bill would have been approved. When asked about the bill, in between the Senate and House votes, Gov. Sam Brownback would not indicate whether he would sign it, saying only, “Let's wait and see what happens in the House.”

DeBacker said she believed the real issue behind the bill was not Common Core, but rather the new science standards, which the State Board is expected to vote on June 11. She also wondered aloud whether the board shouldn't ignore the law, if it passed, and adopt the science standards anyway, in effect daring the legislature to try to stop them.

Had the law passed, and had the state board stood up to the challenge, it would have set up a dramatic face-off between the legislature and state board over who has constitutional authority to set educational standards. But it's a contest that has already been litigated in Kansas – several times, in fact – and most legal authorities agree it is virtually certain which side would have won.

Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution gives the legislature authority of “establishing and maintaining public schools,” but it gives the state board authority to supervise how they are operated.

Article 2 gives the legislature what is commonly called “the power of the purse” - the authority to appropriate money. But it does not give the legislature authority to use that power for unconstitutional purposes, such as de-funding another branch of government or blocking that branch from exercising its own constitutional duties.

That issue was litigated in 1973 when the Kansas Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision interpreting Article 6 of the Constitution. The case, State ex rel. vs. Board of Education, commonly known as the Peabody, established that the Constitution gives the state board “self-executing” powers, meaning the board doesn't need any further legislative authority to exercise the power granted to it by the Constitution:

"The state board of education authority to exercise general supervision of the public schools, educational institutions and educational interests of the state . . . is self-executing in effect," the Court ruled. "Where a constitutional provision is self-executing the legislature may enact legislation to facilitate or assist in its operation, but whatever legislation is adopted must be in harmony with and not in derogation of the provisions of the constitution."

The opinion itself does not seem to have been published on the internet, but it is explained in a 1983 attorney general's opinion. It also is referenced in other Supreme Court cases, including USD 443 vs. State Board of Education (1998). And it's discussed in the 2001 "History of Kansas Education," by Sherrill Martinez and Lue Ann Snider of the Kansas State Department of Education

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Apparently there has been some amount of grumbling among parents and others about the fact that the Lawrence school district is holding high schol graduation ceremonies in the middle of the week this year.

For some people, that may cause problems, especially for parents who typically work evening shifts, and those who want to invite all the aunts and uncles and grandparents to travel from out of town so they can take part in a family celebration.

Double that for families that have students in both Lawrence and Free State high schools,

But the decision to hold this year's ceremonies on Tuesday and Wednesday - as opposed to back-to-back ceremonies on either a Saturday or Sunday - was actually made more than a year ago. And school district officials say it came in response to a multitude of other problems that arose from all the other alternatives.

It seems to be another case that shows how negotiating school district calendars is sometimes only slightly less complicated than negotiating peace in the Middle East.

In years past, the schools used to have back-to-back ceremonies at Memorial Stadium. But that changed a few years ago when the high schools got their own football stadiums. Since then, they've held separate graduations on their own "home turf," so to speak. That pretty much requires holding them on separate days.

The Lawrence school board actually made the decision about this year's dates more than a year ago, at its April 9, 2012, meeting, after hearing a report from Free State principal Ed West and Lawrence High principal Matt Brungardt.

The decision was reported in the Journal-World the following day.

"The high schools have been challenged in the past to schedule a date for graduation that avoids conflicts with Kansas University," the principals said in a memo to the board. "The school administrators also feel strongly that graduation should closely follow the last day of classes for seniors."

So the two schools formed a committee to explore all the options and make a recommendation to the school board. Basically, it boiled down to this:

The last day for seniors was Thursday, May 16. KU's graduation was set for the following Sunday, May 19, with Monday the 20th reserved as a back-up date.

That left Tuesday and Wednesday, the 21st and 22nd, as the next available days.

It's still not certain, however, whether the district will follow the same pattern in future years.

"The committee operated under the presumption that the dates were being recommended for next year (2013) only and no precedence (sic) for future years was being set," the memo said. "If the events go well next year and weekday graduations continue, both principals feel a consistent and permanent plan would be best."

More Education News

There was plenty of vitriol and hyperbole going around the statehouse in the final few days of the session as conservatives made a last-minute attempt to block any public funds from being used to implement the Common Core standards in reading and math, and to prevent the State Board of Education from adopting the Next Generation Science Standards.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, Republican from Shawnee, called Common Core a "dramatic centralization of authority over the nation's traditionally decentralized K-12 schools." And Rep. Allan Rothlisberg, a Geary County Republican, compared them to a Marxist-like effort at central government command and control of education.

That kind of rhetoric, in turn, prompted Rep. Julie Menghini, a Pittsburg Democrat, to label the anti-Common Core legislators paranoid.

“I’ve got an inside tip: invest in tinfoil,” Menghini was quoted as saying in the Topeka Capital-Journal, referring to the common "tinfoil hat" shorthand for paranoia and conspiracy theory. Thereafter, outside observers could follow much of the Kansas legislative debate on Twitter under the hashtag, #tinfoil, an area of conversation usually reserved for sports maniacs who think the referees or umpires are conspiring against their team.

It's probably safe to say, however, that as with most public policy debates, neither side of the Common Core debate has a monopoly on reason and enlightenment; nor is the other side completely deluded.

There are, in fact, intelligent arguments being made on both sides. So for those interested in doing a little more reading on the subject, here is a short list of better (and more easily digestible) discussions.

First, some pro-Common Core articles:

Can Academic Standards Boost Literacy and Close the Achievement Gap? A Brookings Institution paper by Ron Haskins, Richard Murnane, Isabel V. Sawhill and Catherine Snow. This offers a fairly objective description of how the Common Core standards came into being, and why.

BRT Letter to Republican National Committee Supporting Common Core State Standards, a letter by John Engler, former Republican governor of Michigan and now president of the Business Roundtable, arguing that the standards, "are critical to building and maintaining an American workforce that can compete in the global economy."

Myth v. Fact: Taking on the Tallest Tales about Common Core State Standards, a blog post from the Foundation for Excellence in Education, taking on some of the more extreme criticisms of Common Core.

And from some skeptics ...

Dispatches from a Nervous Common Core Observer: by Michael McShane of the American Enterprise Institute. This is an ongoing 10-part blog series in which McShane, a research fellow at the institute, lays out some well-reasoned concerns about the loss of local control and homogenization of education, as well as the challenges Common Core poses to textbook publishers and the school administrators who select and buy them.

The State of State Standards—and the Common Core—in 2010. This is a review by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute that attempts to answer the question: Are the Common Core standards better than the old standards? Answer: Yes or no, depending on where you live. It includes links to lots of other articles both for and against the Common Core standards.

Morning Bell: Join the Fight Against Common Core, a blog post by Lindsey Burke, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. This article actually makes more use of platitudes and bumper-sticker slogans than evidence or argumentation. But it does put the debate into context as a competition for the "school choice" movement (think vouchers, charter schools, etc.) vs. greater investment in traditional public schools.