Welcome to Set the Schools Free!
Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS) is one of 14 school districts within the municipal boundaries of Kansas City, Missouri. It’s the only district in our city in which charter public schools operate – one of several legacies of the district’s long and expensive history with school desegregation.
It’s also the school district in which I live, and where my children go to public school. For all of these reasons, the primary focus of Set the Schools Free is K-12 public education within KCPS boundaries.
What does public education within KCPS boundaries look like?
It’s a system of public school choice. As of the 2021 school year, 50% of K-12 students attend KCPS, our traditional public school system, and 50% attend charter public schools, which are public schools that operate independently of our traditional district. For the past four years there have been more kindergarten students enrolled in charters than in KCPS schools.
And when you add up charter enrollment with enrollment from KCPS signature (magnet) schools, over 60% of all K-12 students attend application-based (non-neighborhood) schools. That’s a lot. And it has real implications for education equity, access, and accountability in our district going forward.
These slides, current as of the the 2017-18 school year, capture the changing K-12 enrollment landscape within Kansas City Public Schools boundaries in Kansas City, Missouri.
And this Area Profile, Kansas City School District (1980 to 2012/16), prepared by the City Planning and Development Department of Kansas City using US Census and America Community Survey data, is a good general reference document.
I try to use data in compelling ways in all of my writing. If you’re looking for numbers on a specific topic please take a look at my index of writings (under “Recent Posts”). Or, feel free to contact me directly and I’ll try to help.
And finally, yes! Please draw on my data and analysis to support and inform your own work; I believe that a healthy public education ecosystem depends on all of us having access to the same information. I ask, though, that you please attribute any graphs, etc., that you use to Set the Schools Free. Thanks!
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Unless otherwise specified, all data analysis on Set the Schools Free is conducted by me using publicly available data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Where data is missing from existing data sets, or is not readily available, I’ve requested additional data from DESE to fill in the holes.
Because of the fragmented nature of our school district (KCPS + 20 charter organizations) putting some of this information together to develop a full picture is a bit like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes a piece gets lost in the shuffle.
I am, of course, responsible for any errors in data analysis. If you think my numbers are wrong, or would like to better understand how I got them, you can reach me via my contact page or at settheschoolsfree[at]gmail[dot]com.