DENVER (AP) — The draining of a massive aquifer that underlies portions of eight states is drying up steams, causing fish to disappear and threatening the livelihood of farmers who rely on it for their crops.

The Denver Post reports that it analyzed federal data and found the Ogallala aquifer shrank twice as fast over the past six years compared with the previous 60.

Also known as the High Plains Aquifer, the Ogallala underlies 175,000 square miles including portions of Colorado, Wyoming Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said in a June report that the aquifer lost 10.7 million acre-feet of storage between 2013 and 2015.

Water levels in the Ogallala have been dropping for decades as irrigators pump water faster than rainfall can recharge it.

MEADE COUNTY—  A child died in an accident just after 1a.m. Sunday in Meade County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Chevy Suburban was westbound on Meade county road V one mile west of Kansas 23.

The driver lost control around a curve. The vehicle went into the south ditch and rolled.

Occupants of the vehicle Felipe James Tomas, 2; Isabel Solis-Gomex, 23 and Vicente Tomas-Tino, 34, all of Friona, TX, were transported to the hospital in Meade.

The  2-year-old died.  The toddler was in a car seat and not buckled up, according to the KHP.

The other 2 occupants were also not wearing seat belts.  The KHP did not have information on who drove the Suburban.

 

GARDEN CITY –  A former Finney County man pleaded guilty to felony theft and deceptive commercial practice, according to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

David Rosales, 41, now of Leawood, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Finney County District Court to one felony count of theft and two counts of misdemeanor deceptive commercial practice.

The case stemmed from an investigation by the Garden City Police Department and the attorney general’s office, which discovered that Rosales contracted to do plumbing and construction work under the auspices of being licensed but in fact he was not. He then accepted payment from three consumers and did little or no work. The crimes occurred between August and October 2012.

District Judge Franklin Pierce took the plea and scheduled sentencing for December 13 at 2 p.m. in Finney County District Court.

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN

Kansas’ approach to implementing a federal law on equity in education would fail to promote achievement for thousands of students the law was meant to protect, civil rights advocates say.

But state education officials counter that there are good reasons for their strategy designed to ensure that Kansas schools are evaluated fairly.

At issue is Kansas’ blueprint for complying with federal requirements meant to close academic achievement gaps among students in traditionally disadvantaged and underserved demographic groups.

Those include racial and ethnic minorities and students from low-income families, who have disabilities or are learning English as a second language.

National advocacy groups — ranging from the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union to the National Down Syndrome Congress and League of United Latin American Citizens — have urged states to set a high bar for implementing the federal requirements.

“There’s still a high percentage of kids not getting diplomas that we know can perform better,” said Ricki Sabia, a senior policy adviser for the National Down Syndrome Congress. “Sometimes the only way to see what works, what doesn’t work is to have accountability.”

Kansas is one of eight states taking a more limited approach to the federal law than the rest of the country by making fewer schools fully accountable to it.

The National Down Syndrome Congress believes this will have “a devastating impact” for monitoring how well schools serve children with disabilities.

Kansas education officials disagree.

Education Commissioner Randy Watson said the state’s K-12 accreditation system and support systems for schools extend far beyond its efforts to meet federal requirements — with goals for boosting the academic success of every child.

“We try to take a much broader approach,” Watson said, “and say, ‘How do we serve every kid in Kansas?”

The Achievement Gap

 

Nationally and in Kansas, academic achievement gaps persist, leaving millions of children without the high school diplomas and postsecondary education that open doors to self-reliance and economic stability in adulthood.

White students are more likely to be proficient in math and reading — as measured by standardized tests — and graduate from high school than their black, Hispanic and Native American peers. The gaps are evident, too, for students who don’t speak English at home, have disabilities or come from low-income families.

“These are the categories around which educational opportunity has historically been denied,” said Liz King, director of education policy for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington, D.C. “We need to know whether or not schools are removing barriers.”

King’s organization is one of more than 20 advocacy groups that sent letters to Watson and other state education chiefs urging them to apply the federal law rigorously and maximize accountability.

“The value for children in this,” King said, “is action to improve their quality of education.”

What groups like the Leadership Conference are unhappy about is Kansas’ decision regarding a key statistical threshold central to implementing the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA.

The act requires states to monitor progress of underserved student groups and identify schools struggling to close achievement gaps. States must target resources and interventions to help those schools, and they receive federal dollars to do so.

Each state was allowed to hammer out the logistics on its own. Kansas submitted its proposal to the U.S. Department of Education in September, with a goal of eliminating achievement gaps statewide by 2030. It is awaiting federal approval.

The statistical threshold in question is known to education wonks as the “N-size.” It’s the number of students in any given demographic category that a school must serve before being held accountable for the achievement of that group.

Kansas set the bar at 30. A Kansas public school with at least 30 black students will fall under the ESSA accountability system for that category. A school with 29 or fewer won’t. The same goes for each of the other student groups.

At that threshold, nearly 30 percent of black students will be excluded from the accountability monitoring. Ninety percent of Native Americans and nearly a fifth of Hispanic students and English language learners will be in the same boat.

But in sheer numbers, no group is affected more than students with disabilities. Nearly half of them will be excluded — more than 13,500 children and teens.

The statistical debate

This won’t be new for Kansas, because the state used the same threshold under ESSA’s predecessor, the 2001 No Child Left Behind law.

But under ESSA — a law that many educators view as less punitive than No Child Left Behind — states were asked to revisit their thresholds, and some lowered them so they could monitor the progress of more students.

That means Kansas is now at the high end of the spectrum — one of eight states opting for a threshold of 30. Most set the bar at 10 or 20 students. The Leadership Conference recommends 10.

Brad Neuenswander, Kansas deputy education commissioner, said the state’s goal is statistical validity. Thresholds that are too small run the risk of producing average graduation rates and math and reading test scores that don’t really reflect efforts.

“There’s more accuracy in the larger numbers,” Neuenswander said. “If you’re going to make a claim about whether or not a district is providing the services, we want it to be statistically accurate.

“When you get down really low, it’s very likely you’re going to identify a building based off a very easily identifiable family. Or a family moves in, and all of a sudden something happens because of that group. Not really anything the district did.”

Civil rights groups agree the threshold needs to be high enough to provide quality data and respect student privacy, but they argue 30 is excessive.

There’s no consensus among academics on where the sweet spot is — the number that would hold schools as fully accountable as possible without homing in on groups of students that are too small to measure soundly.

“There’s clearly no magic number for what the right N-size threshold should be,” said Dan Goldhaber, vice president of the American Institutes for Research and an expert in education data. “It’s a trade-off.”

A lower threshold helps ensure schools where children are struggling don’t get overlooked, he said, but a higher threshold increases confidence that the data from each school truly reflects meaningful differences in student outcomes among schools.

Jerry Meier, a retired principal who steered a large Topeka middle school through the rise of standardized testing and federal accountability, sees advantages and disadvantages on both sides.

“I don’t believe there is an easy answer,” he said. “I think it’s hard on the state.”

He’s skeptical of states that picked numbers as small as 10, which he says could be particularly problematic for measuring the academic progress of children receiving special education services because disabilities vary greatly.

But he also finds it somewhat troubling that nearly half of students with disabilities are excluded under the Kansas ESSA plan.

“I truly understand the parents who say, ‘We need to make (the threshold) a smaller one, because I want my child to be counted in the accountability. That way I know the school is held under the gun, so to speak,’” he said.

Public input

Jawanda Mast is one of those parent advocates.

Her daughter, Olathe South High School senior Rachel Mast, is graduating in May and plans to attend college next year.

Rachel, who has Down syndrome, is manager of the school’s volleyball team and takes a full slate of core academic classes alongside her peers without disabilities — opportunities that her mother believes have helped prepare her for life after high school.

Mast said federal laws have, for decades, pushed schools to better serve children who face developmental, learning or behavioral challenges. ESSA, the latest iteration of federal education legislation that arose out of the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, is no exception.

“Probably you’re going to have to have some oversight to get people to do the right thing,” she said. “I hate to say that, but I think that’s just the reality. And I think if you’re getting federal funding, I think you should be accountable to the federal government for what you’re doing.”

A Kansas News Service article earlier this fall included Mast’s concern that Kansas made little effort to communicate with the public about its ESSA plan and seek broad feedback before finalizing it.

In part, Mast wanted a public discussion of Kansas’ 30-student threshold, and access to information about how many more children would be included if Kansas chose a smaller number.

Federal law required states to engage parents, teachers and other groups in choosing that number. But Kansas, unlike some states, didn’t release information to the public about the threshold and the number of students it would exclude from the monitoring system.

Nor did education officials share the figures with the advisory council of about 40 educators and advocates that they convened for the purpose of providing input on Kansas’ ESSA plan.

The Kansas News Service obtained a draft document showing the exclusion figuresthrough an open records request.

That disturbs the policy experts at the National Down Syndrome Congress and Leadership Conference.

“Kansas should have made broadly available the percent of children that would not be counted under their proposed system,” King said.

View Ohio’s public disclosure of threshold breakdowns.

Sabia questions Kansas’ assurances made to the federal government that it collaborated with stakeholders like parents on setting a threshold.

“I don’t know how that’s possible without giving them data on the exclusion rates,” she said.

Neuenswander says Kansas’ engagement with stakeholders on accountability thresholds took place over several years, prior to ESSA.

“We had already had all those discussions over the last five — four to six — years,” he said. “We had those conversations with … our special education advisory council and across the field.”

And since then, he said, the education and advocacy groups that his department communicates with regularly through various advisory councils haven’t pushed for any changes.

“I’ve yet to have one person say, ‘I’d like to have a conversation about N-size,’” he said.

Representatives for two key school administration groups in Kansas said they have not heard interest from their members in rethinking the state’s threshold from what it was under No Child Left Behind.

“Kansas administrators are very comfortable with that N-size,” said G.A. Buie, executive director of United School Administrators of Kansas, an umbrella group that includes associations of principals, special education administrators and other school leaders.

“It’s not really been something we’ve looked at or hear about,” said Mark Tallman, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards.

Both said school leaders are busy monitoring student outcomes independently, regardless of the federal system.

“We’re looking at individual students,” Buie said. “We’re concerned with each individual student.”

And Watson and Neuenswander said there is plenty of incentive to make sure teachers and principals do their best for those students, even if their schools fall short of Kansas’ ESSA threshold.

The state monitors and accredits schools through its own school quality checks, independent of the federal government.

It also publishes academic outcomes and demographic breakdowns for many schools that don’t fully factor into Kansas’ federal accountability plan, as well as statewide aggregated data on outcomes by demographic group, so the public can still view that data.

“We have multiple accountability systems through the state system that goes way beyond any federal requirement,” Neuenswander said.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.

BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man is charged with second-degree murder in the death of a Kansas man outside a restaurant.

Jackson County prosecutors charged 24-year-old John Dewayne Jeffries of Raytown on Thursday in the death of Clinton Peckman, of Paola, Kansas, who had gone to the area to work.

Investigators say Peckman was shot while he was inside a work van parked near the Bethlehem Cafe in Blue Springs.

Jeffries also is charged with first-degree robbery and two counts of armed criminal action. He allegedly tried to carjack a vehicle from another couple before he was found and arrested.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The leader of the Kansas Senate says the state Supreme Court timed a recent decision on school finance to help Democrats elect a governor.

Republican Susan Wagle on Friday denounced the court’s October ruling that found the state’s school funding formula is unconstitutional. The justices ordered the Legislature to show how it plans to respond by April 30.

Wagle says the justices want to elect a Democratic governor in order to have more Democrats appointed to the court.

Wagle also says Kansas is headed toward a constitutional crisis over education funding. She suggested considering an amendment to the Kansas Constitution to remove a requirement that the Legislature provide “suitable” provision for school funding.

A court spokeswoman said justices don’t comment on pending cases.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Jail records show that Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Roy Miller has been arrested in Florida on a domestic battery charge.

The records show Miller was jailed shortly before 5 a.m. Saturday by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. There are no details immediately available about the alleged battery or who was involved. The records do show that it involved a minor injury.

Court records show Miller has an initial appearance before a judge later Saturday. The records do not show whether he has a lawyer.

Miller, 30, played for the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2013 to 2017, when he signed with the Chiefs. The 6-foot-1, 320-pound lineman was originally drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2009 out of the University of Texas.

KANSAS CITY (AP) – Kansas City police say two people were killed and another was injured in a wrong-way collision on an interstate in Kansas City.

Police say the accident happened early Saturday when a car was driving south in the northbound lanes of interstate 49. The car collided head-on with a Jeep.

The driver and a passenger in the Jeep died. The driver of the car is hospitalized in critical condition.

The two people in the Jeep were a 31-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, both from Kansas City.

An investigation into the accident is continuing.

RENO COUNTY — A Kansas teen charged with sexual exploitation of a child was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Thursday, but entered a plea to a misdemeanor charge instead.

Jeremiah Nelson, 18, South Hutchinson, was charged with possession of a picture on his iPad that depicted naked children between the age 12 and 16. According testimony, the crime occurred on July 24 when someone notified the South Hutchinson Police Department.

The charge is a level five felony with a maximum sentence of over 11 years in prison if convicted. 

Reno County District Attorney Keith Schroeder said the defense asked for an agreement for Nelson to enter a plea for attempted sexual exploitation of a child.

A detective reminded Schroeder of a new Kansas law that went into effect on July 1, 2016. It allows an 18-year-old to enter a plea to a Class B misdemeanor for the charge. If he were 19, Nelson would not be eligible. 

Nelson entered a plea to a charge of unlawful possession of sexual depictions of a child 12 to 16 years of age. He was sentenced to six months but then granted one year of probation by Magistrate Judge Cheryl Allen.

Had the picture been of a 12-year-old and Nelson was 19 he could be looking at a Jessica’s Law sentence of 25 years to life, according to Schroeder.

“Because he was 18 and the child was older than 12, it allows for the misdemeanor charge. The law involves sexting activities of teens. Nelson received a real break because of the 2016 law passed by the Legislature, said Schroeder.

BY JIM MCLEAN

Progressives deride supporters of President Donald Trump as willfully ignorant reactionaries, even racists.

Fans of the president respond in kind, dismissing liberals as snowflakes and worse.

The escalating war of words is a clear and president danger to American democracy, said Carolyn Lukensmeyer, executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, in a presentation sponsored by the Topeka-based Sunflower Foundation’s Advocacy in Health speaker series.

“Civility is an essential ingredient in a free democracy,” Lukensmeyer said Wednesday to an audience at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “Our system is dependent on the capacity to absorb, assimilate and productively deal with difference.”

Incivility leads to certain groups of people being treated as “others to the point we don’t respect them as human beings,” she said.

Lukensmeyer, who holds a doctorate in organizational behavior, is a former White House consultant and chief of staff to former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste, a Democrat who served from 1983 to 1991.

The current level of hostility in the nation’s political discourse rivals that of the Civil War era, Lukensmeyer said, warning that it will take decades to rebuild the social norms being destroyed in the wake of Trump’s election.

“Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that incivility is now a crisis, and about the same number believe it’s lowering our stature around the world,” Lukensmeyer said.

The ocean of special interest money in American politics and the gerrymandering of congressional districts have created structural barriers to solving the incivility crisis at the national level, Lukensmeyer said. But, she said, individuals and communities can and must start tackling the problem on their own.

“The one thing we all can control is how we behave in our own lives,” Lukensmeyer said, noting that in addition to providing civility training to state lawmakers across the country, the institute she heads has developed toolkits to help individuals and groups engage more productively.

One of the “conversation kits” available on the institute’s website is designed to help families navigate potentially fraught discussions at the Thanksgiving table. Called “Setting the Table for Civility,” the kit aims to promote respect over the upcoming holiday season by helping people with disparate views talk and, more importantly, listen to one another.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.