“Good evening. My name is Jackie Kennedy and I am a Lansing resident and parent of two Lansing alumni.” This is how my two minute public comments to the board began on October 14, 2024. It’s how most of my public comments to the board begin. At this particular meeting, I was asking the Lansing Board of Education (BOE) to consider removing Amy Cawvey as the BOE representative on the District Leadership Team (DLT). I actually asked that they consider having no BOE representative on the DLT because they hadn’t set any intention or expectation of that board member. I went on to remind the board that the superintendent is their only employee, so inserting themselves onto the DLT could easily be seen as overreach on the part of the BOE. Amy was an especially problematic choice because she works so closely with the Kansas Policy Institute (KPI) and the Sentinel. Don’t take my word for it, scroll through all of the social media accounts of those three. You’ll see them praise each other a lot more than they praise USD469. I stand by every word I said at that board meeting.
Let’s be honest, KPI and the Sentinel don’t care what I had to say in the public comment section of a local school board meeting. What they wanted was a soundbite to freshen up their same tired, deceptive analyses of public education in Lansing. On Tuesday, I received an unsolicited Facebook Messenger request from a person I do not know. I don’t respond to such requests because I don’t know if they are scams. I told my husband that if it was legit, this person, David Hicks, already had a negative article written about Lansing and was phishing for an introductory paragraph to make their worn-out “data” seem new.
So I wasn’t too surprised to see the Sentinel article on Friday titled, “Lansing Resident Won’t Substantiate Criticism of School Board Member Amy Cawvey.” I was surprised to see that they had reached out to me twice. I did see the Messenger request, but that was only one request. I decided to check my email and found a similar message sent to my inbox, on Wednesday. Finding my Facebook profile isn’t difficult, but I do wonder how he got my personal email. I don’t attach my email to any of my social media accounts, but I have used it to email a certain BOE member that I accused of working closely with KPI. Might she have shared my personal email without my permission?
Kansas Policy Institute and the Sentinel are deceptive. Let’s start by looking at this article. “Lansing Resident Refuses to Substantiate Criticism of School Board Member Amy Cawvey.” Where in the message that David Hicks sent to me does he mention Amy Cawvey? He doesn’t ask me to substantiate anything I said about Amy. There is also no denial by Hicks that he works closely with Amy. Instead he asks for “specific examples” of what I believe they got wrong so they can respond. This entire article is a “bait and switch.” They lead readers of the headline to believe there could be an interesting story of two women in direct opposition to each other, but merely deliver more of the same about our test scores.
The most frequent mischaracterizations we see from KPI is our state assessment scores. The Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) divides the scores on our state assessment into four Levels.
Level 1 means a student shows a limited ability to understand and use the skills and knowledge needed for postsecondary readiness.
Level 2 means a student shows a basic ability to understand and use the skills and knowledge needed for postsecondary readiness.
Level 3 means a student shows an effective ability to understand and use the skills and knowledge needed for postsecondary readiness.
Level 4 means a student shows an excellent ability to understand and use the skills and knowledge needed for postsecondary readiness.
State assessment information is available to the public, at no charge, on the KSDE website. KPI takes that information, drops it into their own website, KansasOpenGov.org and makes a point of offering it to consumers for free, but they twist it. Their information is "based on" KSDE data. The scores are separated into their own three levels that use terms like “proficient,” “grade-level,” and “remedial training.” None of those terms are used on the original data. Always refer to the primary source when looking at data.
There is more that is problematic with KPI, including their funding by dark money, their connection to Koch, and their advocacy for vouchers, ESAs, and other diversions of public money to private schools, but this addresses the questionable tactics of that most recent Sentinel article. I stand by every word I said at that board meeting.
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