Education

Kiah Danielle Duggins, an International Baccalaureate senior at Wichita High School East, is the winner of Wichita State University's 2013-2014 Clay Barton Scholarship in Business. Duggins will receive $11,000 a year for four years to attend WSU.

The $44,000 Barton Scholarship is the biggest business scholarship in the state.

Duggins plans to major in international business and Spanish, and minor in political science at WSU.

A task force created by Gov. Sam Brownback to review the Kansas system for funding public schools held its final meeting Monday in Topeka.

The group was formed by Brownback to look at how funds are spent by school districts and identify areas for improving fiscal efficiency.

Brownback has said school districts should focus more of their resources on classroom instruction and find ways to reduce spending on functions that don't affect teaching. Some ideas that have been discussed are sharing administrative resources and purchasing power.

The Kansas Association of School Boards says it wants teacher evaluations to be separate from union negotiations.

The association voted at its convention last week to lobby lawmakers to remove evaluations from items that must be negotiated with teachers.

Kansas school districts currently are changing the evaluation process for educators and administrators.

By the 2014-2015 school year, districts must meet several federal requirements, including evaluating teachers based in part on students' progress.

Kansas teachers and administrators are working with the state Department of Education to develop an evaluation system to measure their performance.

The evaluation system, called the Kansas Education Evaluation Protocol or "KEEP" is a pilot program being used in about two dozen districts statewide. It is part of the state's efforts to comply with the requirements of a federal waiver it received under the No Child Left Behind Act.

The Kansas Board of Education could develop a set of recommendations for teaching cursive writing in Kansas schools. The board discussed the issue Wednesday at a meeting in Topeka.

Cursive writing is not required to be taught in Kansas, but some members have heard from their constituents about the issue. 

Education officials surveyed Kansas school districts and 90 percent of the ones that responded said they do teach cursive.

Janet Waugh is a board member from Kansas City, Kan.