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Education in Kansas is governed at the primary and secondary school level by the Kansas State Board of Education. The state's public colleges and universities are supervised by the Kansas Board of Regents.
The Kansas Board of Regents governs or supervises thirty-seven public institutions. It also authorizes numerous private and out-of-state institutions to operate in the state. In Fall 2009, the state's six public universities reported a combined enrollment of 93,307 students, [1] of which more than a quarter were non-resident students and more than a seventh were off-campus enrollments.
Among the state-funded universities, the University of Kansas (KU) is the largest in terms of enrollment, with 26,826 at its Lawrence campus,[ when? ] KU Edwards Campus in Overland Park, and Public Management Center (formerly the Capitol Complex) in Topeka. The total university enrollment, which includes KU Medical Center, was 30,004.[ when? ][ citation needed ] About 31% were non-resident students.
Kansas State University (KSU) has the second largest enrollment, with 23,581 students at its Manhattan and Salina campuses and Veterinary Medical Center.[ when? ] About 19% were non-resident students. Wichita State University (WSU) ranks third largest with 14,823 students; about 14% were non-resident students. WSU has lost nearly 3,000 students since the school dropped football following the 1986 season. Fort Hays State University (FHSU), Pittsburg State University (PSU), and Emporia State University (ESU) are smaller public universities with total enrollments of 11,308, 7277, and 6314, respectively. FHSU has the fastest growing enrollment in Kansas with most of it coming from non-resident and off-campus enrollment. The composition of FHSU's enrollment includes 35% non-resident students and 44% off-campus enrollments. PSU also has almost a quarter of enrollment from non-residents.
For more on the universities and colleges in Kansas, see the complete list.
The first colleges in Kansas were chartered by acts of the Kansas Territorial legislature, signed by Territorial Governor James W. Denver, on February 9–12, 1858. [2] [3] [4] Among the ten institutes of higher learning chartered at that time, three survive in some form. Among those chartered on February 9 were Highland University (precursor to Highland Community College) and Blue Mont Central College (precursor to Kansas State University). [2] Baker University, chartered on February 12, 1858, has been operating continuously since that time and is now recognized as the oldest continuously operating college in Kansas. [2]
All of the colleges founded in 1858 were private institutions. The first public institute of higher learning in the state was Kansas State University (originally named Kansas State Agricultural College), which was established by the state legislature on February 16, 1863. [5]
The state's universities were among the first public universities in the country to be coeducational. Kansas State became the second coeducational public institution of higher education when it opened in 1863; enrollment for the first session was 52 students: 26 men and 26 women. The University of Kansas was also among the earliest to offer mixed-sex education, in 1869. [6] Both KU and Kansas State were also open to students of all races from their inception.
The number of students in rural communities dropped significantly across the 20th century. As farming technology progressed from animal power to small tractors towards large tractors over time, it allowed a farmer to support significantly more farm land. In turn, this led to fewer farm families, which led to fewer rural students. In combination with a loss of young men during foreign wars and rural flight, all of these caused an incremental population shrinkage of rural communities over time. In 1945 (after World War II), the School Reorganization Act in Kansas caused the consolidation of thousands of rural school districts in Kansas (mostly one room rural school houses). [7] In 1963, the School Unification Act in Kansas caused the further consolidatation of thousands of tiny school districts into hundreds of larger Unified School Districts. [8]
The landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , in which the United States Supreme Court ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional, was brought as a legal challenge to a Kansas law permitting racial segregation in primary and secondary schools in Kansas towns with a population over 15,000.
In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children. [9]
The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The Topeka Board of Education operated separate elementary schools under an 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students in 12 communities with populations over 15,000. The plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP. Notable among the Topeka NAACP leaders were the chairman McKinley Burnett; Charles Scott, one of three serving as legal counsel for the chapter; and Lucinda Todd.
The named plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown, was a parent, a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, an assistant pastor at his local church, and an African American. [10] He was convinced to join the lawsuit by Scott, a childhood friend. Brown's daughter Linda, a third grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile (1.6 km) away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house. [11] [12]
In 1999, the Kansas Board of Education ruled that instruction at the primary and secondary levels about evolution, the age of the Earth, and the origin of the universe was permitted, but not mandatory, and that those topics would not appear on state standardized tests. However, two years later, following a change in its elected membership, the Board reversed this decision on February 14, 2001, ruling that instruction of all those topics was mandatory and that they would appear on standardized tests.
Following another change in membership, on August 9, 2005, the Board of Education approved a draft of science curriculum standards that mandated equal time for evolution and intelligent design.
On November 8, 2005, the Board of Education voted 6–4 to allow science students in public schools to hear materials critical of evolution in biology classes, allowing teaching of Intelligent design to be taught in classes. The board, in order to accommodate the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology class, went so far as to redefine the meaning of science to 'no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.'
In response, USD 383 (Manhattan-Ogden) decided to reject the November 2005 standards in a unanimous decision in February 2006, and continues to use the March 9, 2005 standards.
On August 1, 2006, the creationist majority on the Board of Education was voted out of office and evolution candidates were given the majority once again. [13]
On February 13, 2007, the Board voted 6 to 4 to reject the amended science standards enacted in 2005. The definition of science was once again limited to "the search for natural explanations for what is observed in the universe." [14]
Statewide elections for the Kansas Board of Education are held every four years. According to Christopher Lee, small town Kansas high schools used football as a way to entertain and unite their rural communities. The schools were too small for 11-man teams so they adopted the six-man team system developed by Stephen E. Epler. Football stimulated a collective spirit between school and community, with the games becoming a social outlet and a favorite topic of weeklong conversations and boosterism. There was an economic bonus as well when hundreds of fans drove into small depression-hit towns. Six-man football peaked in the mid-1950s. However the decline on younger rural populations and school consolidation led schools to move to eight-man football by the 1960s. [15]
Kansas State University is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public institution of higher learning in the state of Kansas. It had a record high enrollment of 24,766 students for the Fall 2014 semester.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The decision partially overruled the Court's 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which had held that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that had come to be known as "separate but equal". The Court's unanimous decision in Brown, and its related cases, paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement, and a model for many future impact litigation cases.
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, the Edwards Campus in Overland Park. There are also educational and research sites in Garden City, Hays, Leavenworth, Parsons, and Topeka, an agricultural education center in rural north Douglas County, and branches of the medical school in Salina and Wichita. The university is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
Emporia State University is a public university in Emporia, Kansas, United States. Established in March 1863 as the Kansas State Normal School, Emporia State is the third-oldest public university in the state of Kansas. Emporia State is one of six public universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents.
Washburn University (WU), formally Washburn University of Topeka, is a public university in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional programs in law and business. Washburn has 550 faculty members, who teach more than 6,100 undergraduate students and nearly 800 graduate students. The university's assets include a $158 million endowment. As of 2008, Washburn also took over overseeing the technical school in the area, Washburn Tech.
Sul Ross State University (SRSU) is a public university in Alpine, Texas. The main campus is the primary institution of higher education serving the nineteen-county Big Bend region of far West Texas. Branch campuses, branded as Rio Grande College, are located in Del Rio, Uvalde, Eagle Pass, and Castroville.
Pittsburg State University is a public university in Pittsburg, Kansas, United States. It enrolls approximately 7,400 students and is a member of the Kansas Board of Regents.
The University of Tennessee System is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of two public university systems, the other being the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR). It consists of four primary campuses in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Pulaski and Martin; a health sciences campus in Memphis; a research institute in Tullahoma; and various extensions throughout the state.
Fort Hays State University (FHSU) is a public university in Hays, Kansas. It is the largest university in western Kansas, and the fourth-largest of the six state universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents, with a total enrollment of approximately 15,100 students.
Topeka USD 501, also known as Topeka Public Schools, is a public unified school district headquartered in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It is one of four school districts that serve the city of Topeka. Serving 13,430 students in the 2019-2020 school year, the district comprises 5 high schools, 6 middle schools, 15 elementary schools, and 7 other schools focused on serving other Pre-K-12 students. It has the highest enrollment of all school districts in Shawnee County. Topeka Public Schools is widely known for its role in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation case.
Kansas State Department Board of Education (KSDE) is Kansas's Board of Education, headquartered in Topeka. The board of education that controls the department is a constitutional body established in Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution. The ten members of the Board of Education are each elected to four-year terms. The Board helps determine educational policy for the state's primary and secondary schools.
Washington State University Spokane, branded as WSU Health Sciences Spokane, is a campus of Washington State University located in Spokane, Washington. It was established in 1989 and, as of 2010, is designated as the university's health science campus. The urban campus is housed on the 48-acre (19 ha) multi-institutional WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus, formerly known as the Riverpoint Campus, in Spokane's University District just east of Downtown Spokane.
Seaman High School is a public secondary school in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It serves students from grades 9 to 12. It is operated by Seaman USD 345 school district, which covers 84 square miles of northern Topeka and rural Shawnee County, Kansas. The high school is one of the few in the world where the students operate a chartered bank.
The University of Kansas Edwards Campus, also known as the KU Edwards Campus, is a satellite campus of the University of Kansas. The campus is located in Overland Park in the Kansas City metropolitan area; its four buildings are located on a 34.8 acres (14.1 ha) site at 127th Street and Quivira Road.
The Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science (KAMS) is a two-year, residential, early-entrance-to-college program for U.S. high school juniors and seniors who are academically talented in the areas of mathematics and science. Located on the Fort Hays State University campus in Hays, Kansas, students concurrently complete their last two years of high school, while earning over 60 college credits.
The University of Kansas School of Medicine is a public medical school located on the University of Kansas Medical Center campuses in Kansas City, Kansas, and also Salina, Kansas, and Wichita, Kansas. The Kansas City campus is co-located with the independent University of Kansas Health System, and they are commonly known collectively as KU Med.
The history of the University of Kansas can be traced back to 1855, when efforts were begun to establish a "University of the Territory of Kansas." Nine years later in 1864, together with the help of Amos Adams Lawrence, former Kansas Governor Charles L. Robinson, and several other prominent figures, the Kansas Legislature chartered the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. The university was initially funded by a $15,000 endowment on a 40-acre (160,000 m2) allotment of land from Charles Robinson and his wife Sara. The university commenced preparatory-level classes in 1866 and college-level classes in 1869.
Mirta Maria Martin is an American former educator who was the president of Fairmont State University from 2018 to 2022 and the president of Fort Hays State University from 2014 to 2016. Prior to Fort Hays State, Martin served as the Dean of Virginia State University's Reginald F. Lewis School of Business, a position she held from August 1, 2009 until June 30, 2014.
John Andrew Tompkins is an American educator in Kansas. Prior to his previous post at Wichita State University, he served as interim president at Fort Hays State, as well as the president of the Kansas Board of Regents from 2010 to 2015. Tompkins was a professor and dean at Pittsburg State University two different times, and served as a superintendent of three different Kansas school districts. Tompkins is also the former Commissioner of the Kansas State Department of Education, serving from June 1, 1996 to June 30, 2005.
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