Accountability is a hallmark of good government at any level.

Part of being accountable is having metrics that people can use to measure progress.

A simple example of non-government metrics is the annual United Way thermometer chart. It shows the public how much a community’s residents have donated toward meeting the organization’ fundraising goals.

The metric is clear and communicated to the public.

Tying metrics – objective measurements – to a goal is a good way to gauge whether a plan is working or whether adjustments are needed.

In Kansas, some of the metrics used to measure the state’s economic health show troubling indications. In even worse shape are the metrics used to measure its fiscal health – in other words, the government’s finances.

Good leaders would study the situation and recommend adjustments to improve the state’s condition.

Our leaders just throw away the metrics.

Admittedly, the temptation among politicians to hide information that doesn’t serve their interests is great.

That’s why it wasn’t a surprise when Gov. Sam Brownback and his staff decided they would no longer develop a quarterly report on the state’s economy.

The reports were a means of tracking the success of the governor’s economic policy.

The reports allowed the governor and the public to determine whether the tax cuts and other policies pushed through by Brownback and his supporters in the Legislature were working.

The short answer was, No.

Rather than admit that their own reports showed that their plans were failing, the governor and his staff stopped issuing them.

Brownback is using the same sort of thinking in the budget planning process.

The governor is scheduled to make recommendations for next year’s budget in January. The plans are not expected to bring much cheer to anyone except those who want to dismantle and defund state government.

Universities, Medicaid and Kansas’ highway department are among the agencies and entities that already have had to reduce services and make other cuts because the state’s revenues aren’t sufficient to cover the expenses the Legislature approved.

And word is out that those cuts weren’t sufficient; services and programs will need to be slashed further just to get through the current fiscal year.

On top of that, more cuts are expected in the budget for the next fiscal year, which will start July 1.

With budget shortfalls growing bigger by the month, the cuts that will be needed on top of the cuts already made will be drastic.

But Kansas residents have no right to know what those cuts might be or how they might be affected, according to Brownback. His administration has denied open-records requests for budget-planning documents, including budget requests and recommendations from state agencies.

The governor’s move would be more insulting if it weren’t quite so futile.

It’s not like the governor can keep secret the dire budget situation his policies have created. From roads to schools to doctors to state hospitals to prisons to parks to retirement plans, the effects have been felt by every one of us.

And the budget problems will get worse because the state has borrowed so much money in unsuccessful attempts to fill its budget gaps.

Using debt to meet ongoing expenses is always risky. It sometimes makes sense during a serious recession, because once the economy revives, the state’s revenues will increase sufficiently to pay off the loans and interest.

But to add substantially to state debt to pay for day-to-day government when the economy is growing – as Kansas has done repeatedly in the past few years – is reckless and irresponsible. If the state isn’t generating enough revenue to pay its bills in relatively good times, then the debt is making a bad budget situation even worse.

That’s the hole Kansas is in.

To put the budget in order, the state needs to substantially increase its revenues, as well as keep spending under control.

Given past experience and comments from the governor’s office, that isn’t the course Brownback likely will take. His attempts to keep the public in the dark would appear to forewarn of more of the same failed strategies.

This time, with fewer metrics and more spin.

To thousands of journalism students who attended K-State, he was and would always be Mr. Brown.

Even when, years after graduation, he would urge his former students to call him Bill, it was hard to transition from the honorific title.

We were not a generation known for honoring our elders, but we admired and respected Bill Brown.

When he died at age 91 on Sept. 10, he left a legacy unmatched in journalism education.

He also played a small but honorable role in the case made famous by Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

Brown was editor of The Garden City Telegram at the time of the 1959 murders of Herb, Bonnie, Kenyon and Nancy Clutter in nearby Holcomb.

He went to church with the family and considered them friends. He detested the notoriety and glitz that came with Capote when the author arrived in southwest Kansas. And he detested the movie even more because, in his view, it exploited a tragedy for financial gain and fame.

But for those of us who knew Brown through our years at K-State, the memories are not about brushes with fame or notorious crimes.

They are about a man who taught us more about journalism than anyone who had earned a doctorate or had made it onto the tenure track.

After leaving the Telegram and the Harris group of newspapers, Brown became the director of student publications at Kansas State in 1970.

He would hold that position about 11 years, and in addition to his steady and enlightened guidance as director, he taught reporting classes and served as an adviser – officially or unofficially – for every student who set foot in the Collegian newsroom, and hundreds more who never worked for the student newspaper or the yearbook.

What exactly did he teach us?

His lessons included the simple stuff: Get names right. Get the facts right. Consider the Associated Press stylebook your journalistic bible. Make your deadlines.

And under Brown’s guidance, we also tackled more complex issues: How to deal with sources who have an agenda. What paths to take to get the facts when officials are stonewalling. How to check conflicting information from sources.

He was a student’s toughest editor.

And he was students’ ardent champion.

He defended the Collegian against attacks from administrators.

He allowed us the freedom to succeed, to fail and to try again.

He armed us with the knowledge we needed to fight our own battles long after we left K-State.

But he did still more.

He was the unofficial jobs office for aspiring journalists and photo-journalists.

Editors across the state and the Midwest called Brown to find a good reporter or photographer for their staffs.

And through his recommendations that linked good candidates with newspapers looking for help, K-State built a network of reporters, editors and photographers that continued to provide Kansas newspapers – and their readers – with solid and fair journalism for decades.

Despite his impact on journalism in Kansas, his death was initially overlooked by many of us.

But perhaps that is fitting.

Brown was old school.

For him, journalism was not about branding yourself as a media star. It was not about gaining fame through a byline, or achieving status as a celebrity talking head.

Journalism was a craft, one that required professionalism, ethics and a desire to put the truth and fairness above self-interest.

The news is what mattered, not the story-teller.

Brown lived, breathed and taught that to thousands of journalists, and the state of Kansas is better because so many of us had the benefit of his tutelage.

How do you measure patriotism?

Is it more patriotic to demand religious tests for immigrants, or to call all supporters of Donald Trump racist?

Is it more American to condone threats against police officers, or to cagily suggest violence against Hillary Clinton?

Declarations of what is patriotic and what is un-American have taken on a feverish tenor.

It’s as if political candidates and their surrogates just wait for words or incidents on which to pounce and pontificate.

So when Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers failed to stand at attention during the national anthem at an NFL game a few weeks ago, the shouting began.

And when Kaepernick’s protest spread to other NFL players, the shouting grew louder and meaner.

When a few Miami players joined the protest – intended to draw attention to the number of black men and teenagers shot by police across the country – a police union official threatened retaliation.

Jeffrey Bell, president of the International Union of Police Associations, Local 6020, told the Miami Herald that NFL players give up their right to free speech during games and game-associated activities.

It’s not clear who made Bell the arbiter of when free speech is allowed, but the union official said police should stop escorting players to games until NFL players start behaving in a manner acceptable to police.

Why NFL players need police escorts to games is puzzling. And the union’s ire raises questions about where the officers’ outrage has been for incidents involving NFL players accused of domestic violence.

It’s likely the police union’s demands have less to do with protecting the public than with protecting themselves from criticism.

That’s often the case with free speech disputes.

Decades ago when I was a reporter in Lawrence, University of Kansas officials confiscated anti-abortion banners at an appearance by then presidential candidate John Anderson. The reason?

With straight faces, KU administrators said university policy prohibited political signs at non-political events.

Months later at graduation ceremonies at Memorial Stadium, KU authorities confiscated banners protesting investments in South Africa (because of that country’s racist government and policies at the time).

The university was not supporting liberal causes or conservative causes. In both cases, free speech rights lost out to the administration’s desire to appear calm, decorous and devoid of controversy.

Ideally, college campuses are a place where ideas and ideals are challenged – academically, scientifically and socially. Controversy is part of the package.

But increasingly, students, administrators and faculty are shutting down controversy. They don’t think they should have to tolerate people who differ from them ideologically or challenge their views of the world.

Here are a few examples from the past couple of years:

• At the University of Missouri, a faculty member claimed she was trying to create a safe zone for protesting students when she threatened student journalists who were covering the protest.
• Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withdrew as the commencement speaker at Rutgers because of complaints from liberals about her role in the Iraq war.
• Newman University in Wichita disinvited Kansas Supreme Court Justice Carol Beier as a speaker after anti-abortion activists complained.

Such intolerance poses a threat to the mission of universities.

In response to the growing threat, the University of Chicago adopted a free speech policy, and other universities are following its lead.

The policies recognize the vital role of free speech – for those with whom we disagree as well as for those who echo are own beliefs.

The policy notes the responsibility of the campus community to allow dissenting and differing voices. Of course people are free to protest and voice disapproval, but attempts to disrupt or interfere with those with whom they disagree are an infringement on the rights of others.

That means heckling a speaker or threatening those with whom you disagree crosses the line. You are no longer expressing your free speech rights, but suppressing the rights of others.

That’s a principle lost on more and more Americans who insist on respect for their rights even as they deny the rights of those with whom they disagree.

Americans like their science the same way they like their politics: They accept and support science that aligns with what they already believe.  And they dismiss as corrupt or politically skewed any science that doesn’t.

The approach is used by both conservatives and liberals, showing that neither side is immune from faulty logic.

Many conservatives, for example, refuse to place much credence in the sturdy and reliable research that shows humans are playing a role in the changing climate.

They point out that climates have been changing as long as the planet has existed – through ice ages, volcanic activity, and countless other phenomena such as El Nino.

On the left, many liberals decry the development and use of genetically modified foods, even as GMOs have helped feed a growing and hungry world population.

Many on the left claim GMOs are dangerous and unproven, and will have monstrous effects on human health and the planet.

Like their counterparts on the right, they continue to make their claims even though science proves them wrong.

Earlier this year, more than 100 Nobel Prize laureates called upon one of the best known liberal groups to change its opposition to GMOs.

The laureates asked Greenpeace to stop trying to halt the spread of genetically altered crops – and Golden Rice in particular – that could help alleviate hunger in many parts of the world.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Randy Schekman, a cell biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, noted that many of the groups that tout science in their calls for action on climate change dismiss hard evidence about the benefits and safety of GMOs.

“I find it surprising that groups that are very supportive of science when it comes to global climate change, or even, for the most part, in the appreciation of the value of vaccination in preventing human disease, yet can be so dismissive of the general views of scientists when it comes to something as important as the world’s agricultural future,” the Nobel laureate said.

Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor and current president at Purdue University, argues that GMOs are an important part of the effort to provide nutritious food to a growing world population.

“The attack on GMO technology is the most blatant anti-science of the age, but it is far worse than that,” Daniels told an agricultural conference crowd in February. “Lives are at stake, and while scientists, regulators and business people are naturally reluctant to fight back, it’s morally irresponsible not to.”

Just as the science proves wrong those who refuse to believe that humans have joined the host of other factors that affect the planet’s climate, science has proved wrong those who are afraid of genetically modified crops.

Decades of research and experience show that corn, soybeans and other crops that have been genetically modified are essentially no different from plants that have been modified through selective breeding for particular traits or tendencies.

Such breeding has been going on for thousands of years, not only with crops but in such things as pets, garden flowers, trees and even fish.

The difference between selectively breeding for a particular trait and modifying genes in a laboratory for a particular trait is mostly in the process.

“Thousands of studies and trillions of meals consumed prove the safety of biotechnologies,” Daniels told those at the agriculture conference. “We would never withhold medications with a safety record like that, and it’s just as wrong and just as anti-scientific to do so for food.”

Over the past century, agricultural science has made impressive progress – largely because of the work of researchers at land-grant universities such as Purdue and Kansas State.

Advances in selective breeding, GMOs and other bio-technology have helped farmers grow more food for the world. Science has helped many developing nations become self-sufficient when it comes to food production, as well as improving food-storage and food-handling processes.

GMOs are far from a panacea. But neither are they a Pandora’s Box.

Genetically modified crops are one of science’s many tools. They have been shown to be safe, to help improve yields and to enhance nations’ ability to feed their people.

 

It’s been 20 years since Congress passed major welfare reform, and the verdict on how well the law has worked is mixed.

Working with Democratic President Bill Clinton, moderate Republicans and Democrats in Congress crafted a plan to overhaul a system of payments and support for the poor.

The goal was to change the nature of welfare. Rather than being a handout to the poorest Americans, it would become a path to work and self-sufficiency.

The reforms put time limits on aid, placed requirements on recipients regarding education and work, and provided better support for such necessities as daycare programs and health care for children.

Initially, the reforms appeared to work. The number of people on welfare declined. But it’s hard to know how much of the drop was the product of a healthy, growing economy, and how much resulted from the law.

Today, if you look only at the numbers, you might decide that welfare reform was a flop.

In Kansas in 1995, the poverty rate was 11 percent. It dropped to 9.5 percent by 2000.

It started to slowly rise during the early part of the 2000’s, and then the recession hit, and the poverty rate rose to 14 percent by 2012.

And it has stayed stubbornly high. According to the U.S. Census, Kansas’ poverty rate was 13.6 percent in 2015.

Some might blame Gov. Sam Brownback for the relatively high rate of poverty among Kansans, but many other states are struggling with similar situations. Poverty rates went up during the recession that began to hit the Midwest hard in 2008, and they have refused to decline much since.

True, Kansas ranks near the bottom in job creation and overall economic growth over the past five years. So it’s clear that Brownback’s policies and programs haven’t created the kind of prosperity he claims.

That’s why it’s important that anti-poverty programs work effectively.

“Effective” must be measured by how many people the state helps become self-supporting and productive residents.

Currently in Kansas, officials want to gauge effectiveness by how much money state government can save by making welfare harder to get. They like to tout the smaller numbers of recipients who now qualify for aid.

But those are false measures of success unless the overall poverty rate is also declining.

In a piece for the New York Times, Ohio Gov. John Kasich argues that the welfare reforms he supported as a member of Congress in 1996 still hold promise.

What is needed, according to Kasich, a Republican, is more flexibility for states. To help those who are the hardest to reach and assist, he said Ohio needs the OK from Washington to bend a lot of the rules, such as those regarding time limits on education and job training.

Conversely, most liberals argue that Washington offers too much flexibility, allowing states to keep tightening the rules and squeezing people out.

They also note that the block grants that are used to provide federal funding to the states have not increased for 20 years.

Ideally, if welfare reforms are effective, less federal money should be needed to assist the poor.

But we all know that we live in a world that is a galaxy or two away from ideal.

Kasich is correct that states need to be able to tailor programs that best fit the needs of the poor in their communities. But liberals are correct in noting that many conservative state governments are focused on cutting costs – not helping the poor become self-sufficient.

What’s needed is another round of reforms that take into account what has worked, and what hasn’t.

Reforms should recognize the need for flexibility in states, as well as the need for support systems, including education, day care and health care.

No set of reforms will eradicate poverty. But we should expect our government to keep working at partial answers.

Effective reforms that move more people out of poverty – instead of just off welfare rolls – will in the long run reduce the costs of programs for the poor while also improving the lives of those most in need.

 

The recent employment news from Topeka was not promising.

The July figures showed a loss of jobs in the state and a smaller workforce compared to July 2015.

Republicans and Democrats are busy spinning the data to support their policies and political views.

Here’s my spin on the July figures and some others that help paint the picture of the state of labor in Kansas.

An estimated 1,429,857

That’s the number of Kansans who were working in the state in July, according to the latest employment data.

That’s about 36,000 more than in July 2010 – or an average increase of roughly 6,000 jobs a year.

Compared to July 2015, it’s a decrease of more than 5,000 jobs.

About 1,490,217

That’s the size of the Kansas labor force. The number includes all those who have jobs and those who are looking for work.

As a measure of economic health, it’s as important as the employment figures.

And it shows the state’s labor force is shrinking. Before the recession started eating away Kansas jobs in 2009, the labor force was growing by a respectable 1.7 percent a year.

In July 2009, Kansas’ labor force still totaled 1,525,282. It dropped to 1,480,926 in July 2012 before it started to grow again – although the growth has been below national averages.

For example, the size of our workforce grew by roughly 1,000 workers between July 2014 and July 2015. This past year, the labor pool dropped significantly – by about 7,000 workers.

Bottom line: The state’s labor force was smaller in July 2016 than in July 2010.

67.1 percent

Kansas has always been a hard-working state, as evidenced by the percentage of people who are working or want jobs.

But the state is showing slippage here too, a result of the shrinking labor pool and lack of jobs.

In 2010, the state’s labor participation rate was 71 percent. The rate is now 67.1 percent, compared to 67.8 percent in July 2015.

That’s still above the national rate of 62.8 percent. And nationally the participation rate also is dropping as many baby boomers retire early.

But while the national rate has dropped 1.8 percentage points since 2010, Kansas’ rate has dropped 3.9 percentage points.

45 percent

That’s the share of people who earn master’s degrees who are employed in Kansas in their first year after graduation. According to data from the state Board of Regents, only about 33 percent of those earning doctoral degrees are employed in Kansas in the first year after earning their degrees.

$18.62 an hour

That’s the average annual manufacturing wage in Kansas, as of July. It dropped by about $1 an hour from July 2015.

Nationally, manufacturing wages were $20.46 an hour on average. That’s an increase of 2.7 percent over the same time period.

As for hours worked by those in manufacturing, the state and national numbers are similar. Employees at Kansas plants worked on average 41.1 hours a week, up 0.7 percent from a year ago.

About $55,000

Average pay for teachers in K-12 public schools in Kansas during the 2014-15 school year was just under $55,000, according to figures from the Kansas Department of Education. Starting salaries averaged about $28,000.

The salary figures include some fringes and benefits, and they are hard to compare to national numbers because different sources use different methodology – such as whether you count part-time teachers, coaching salaries, etc.

But by most reports, Kansas teachers’ compensation is lower than the national average. And since 2010, salaries in Kansas have increased on average less than 1 percent a year.

No. 30

That’s the ranking Kansas received for the quality of its workforce from Chief Executive magazine.

In its annual overall ranking of “Best & Worst States for Business,” the magazine spotted Kansas at 26.

Utah was rated as having the best workforce by the business-centric magazine, which said California and New York had the worst workforces.

What the numbers tell us is that Kansas has work to do.

While we should be somewhat concerned about national rankings among business executives, much more worrisome is the slow erosion of our workforce, especially if it means that we’re losing skilled and educated workers from the state.