Category Archives: Denver

Yesterday morning, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow took to the airwaves for a quick interview on Colorado’s Morning News (850 KOA). He talked about the awful federal “stimulus” bill, the need for online financial transparency, and gave a shout-out to parent-friendly school choice reforms. I was too busy getting out of bed and getting ready for school to hear it for myself, so I was glad to get a copy we all can go back and listen to: Right on! Now is the time for commonsense reforms that empower parents and taxpayers, not federal boondoggles that subsidize more of the same.

Education policy is often as much art as it is science. But Colorado’s education policy still can benefit from the informed perspectives of non-Colorado experts. Denver’s own Piton Foundation convened a panel of six national education experts who observe what Colorado has done in many reform areas, and asked for their honest assessments. The result is a brand new report Colorado’s 2008 Education Reforms: Will They Achieve the Colorado Promise? (PDF). In today’s Denver Post, education writer Jeremy Meyer sums up the findings: Six national education experts took a look at Colorado’s education landscape and found the state is on track in some areas but has a long way to go in others.

Nancy Mitchell of the Rocky Mountain News has reported that Denver Public Schools (DPS) plans to cut the budget by 2 percent. To its credit, DPS already has made some moves toward financial transparency, but not to the degree that Senate Bill 57 (PDF) would have DPS and every other Colorado school district and charter school do. At least the original version of SB 57. I told you last week how many citizens came to testify in favor of school districts adopting the relatively simple and cost-effective approach of posting expenditures online in a user-friendly, searchable format. But a majority of legislators on the Senate Education Committee hijacked the bill and made it merely a suggestion – a worthless way of pretending to support transparency. Tomorrow morning (Tuesday, February 3) SB 57 will be debated before the entire state senate, and we’ll get to see whether our legislators support real transparency or the phony-baloney kind. Over at YourHub, Lakewood citizen and transparency supporter Natalie Menten says the debate provides an opportunity to send a strong message to state lawmakers:

Earlier this month I let you know about the teachers union’s efforts to organize two New York City KIPP charter schools, and shared with you the insights of a couple people who know a lot more than I do about this stuff. But then I read something this nice teacher lady Kathy Kullback (who is a friend of the Independence Institute) wrote over at Backbone America about her own professional horror story with poor school administration. She concludes with this insight often overlooked among education reformers: Poor school leadership practices are why teachers’ unions flourish and why there is tremendous growth in the charter school movement. I applied for positions to charter schools close to my home and where I had previous relationships because they have their own hiring practices and do not participate in the non-renewal ban. Not only was I treated very well, but they also gave me recognition for a job well done. How often do any of us receive that! [emphasis added] Figuring out how to seriously improve school leadership across the public education system is a very difficult policy knot to untangle. But in the meantime, high teacher-friendly praise for charter schools!

Over at the Flypaper blog, Mike Petrilli asks the question “Could the recession be good for the charter school movement?” and gets some insightful answers from experts like Todd Ziebarth, Robin Lake, and Bryan Hassel. I’m too young to pretend I know the answer to a big question like that. Please go read what they have to say for yourself. But here in Colorado, I know that charter school leaders see the situation as a challenge. Economic slowdown has cut state revenues, and lawmakers have to look at where to cut the budget. One of the decisions on the table is whether to cut funding to the charter school capital construction fund from $10 million down to $5 million. This money goes to buy or lease property, as well as to do building construction, renovation, and major maintenance. The proposed cut might not be a huge deal if charter schools were funded equitably in the first place. You can listen to Colorado League of Charter Schools executive director Jim Griffin explain the handicaps public charter schools face in facilities funding, and what sort of effects the proposed reduction might have: I can’t answer big questions like the ones Mr. Petrilli […]

Updated with more specific information about open enrollment Some things we learn about the world of education seem so obvious, yet when we hear about them they really seem to trigger a “light bulb” moment. Here is one in a press release from the University of Arkansas’s School Choice Demonstration Project: Parents report that having a choice of where to send their children to school boosts their satisfaction with and involvement in schools, a study of the publicly funded school voucher program in Washington, D.C., has found. You can hear some of the D.C. parents speak for themselves at the Voices of School Choice website. If there’s one thing we know with great confidence about school choice, it’s that parents who participate find great satisfaction with the opportunity. Parents overwhelmingly respond well to the consumer empowerment that comes with school choice, in part by getting more actively involved in their child’s education. The four-year focus group work of Patrick Wolf and his Arkansas team just have made that clearer than ever. And should we be surprised? Do you like being a savvy consumer when it comes to purchasing cars, clothes, electronics, or Legos (I had to throw that last one […]

In recent years we have seen reports from Colorado’s major newspapers – like this one from 2008 in the Rocky Mountain News – reacting to the release of Education Week‘s Quality Counts survey. The survey uses an assortment of measures in school finance, student achievement, accountability and more to come up with state-by-state scores and letter grades for comparison. Last year, Colorado overall ranked 38th with a low C. This year, Colorado overall ranks 37th with a low C. Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen any news stories yet. But trust me, I’m not complaining about this fact. Why do I say that? Check out legal scholar and philosopher Stuart Buck’s quick work of deconstructing Quality Counts. First, the humorous: In fact, the report reminds me of the old joke (I can’t remember who to credit for this) of a beggar sitting on the streets of New York, with a sign reading, “Wars, 2; Legs Lost, 1; Wives Who Left Me, 2; Children, 3; Lost Jobs, 2. TOTAL: 10.” Well, obviously, the number “10″ doesn’t represent ten of anything.

In just a few minutes the excitement begins anew: the Colorado state legislature reconvenes. With the economy in the doldrums and tax revenues down, it’s going to be an interesting four months under Denver’s golden dome. But what about the kids? What about K-12 education? Ed News Colorado gives us a preview of the speeches and schedules that kick off the new session. Ed News also takes a look at some of the bigger education issues that figure to be debated. Standardizing a system of concurrent enrollment, creating unique teacher identifiers, adding flexibility to the School Accountability Report, cutting back on CSAP tests, expanding charter school access to bond money – all these figure to be important debates. Given time, I’ll jump into all of them. For now, though, I wanted to hone in on this one: There’s talk that several lawmakers are interested in legislation to encourage greater parental involvement in schools, including possibly a bill that would require businesses to give employees time off for school activities. (Similar legislation has gone nowhere in past years.) I can’t understand why this idea hasn’t passed before. Who could possibly be against more parental involvement? While they’re at it, I hope […]

The Obama girls have their first day at their new Washington, DC, private school today. And I’m back from vacation, too. I’d be lying to say I’d rather be doing this than playing with Legos or Matchbox cars, but there figures to be a lot of important education policy to discuss in 2009. Today we start back by wondering what the fallout will be from the big appointment of Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennet to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. From the standpoint of the Senate and federal education reform policy, there’s no doubt this selection represents a net improvement. The optimism of Democrats for Education Reform is justified. Where Bennet stands on many other important issues of the day, however, is not known. (For a wild and interesting piece of trivia, the last sitting U.S. Senator to have served as a school superintendent was none other than the well-aged and controversial late Strom Thurmond.)

It’s a few days before Christmas, and school is out. Students and teachers are supposed to be home, getting ready for the best holiday of the year. But what about when students and teachers are home when they’re not supposed to be? No, I’m not talking about those fun snow days. I’m talking about teacher strikes. The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today about one state where the problem of teacher strikes is rampant: Teachers unions routinely claim that the interests of students are their top priority. So we would be interested to hear how the Pennsylvania affiliate of the National Education Association explains the proliferation of teacher walkouts in the middle of the school year. According to a recent study by the Allegheny Institute, Pennsylvania is once again the worst state in the country for teacher strikes. No less than 42% of all teacher walkouts nationwide occur in the Keystone State, leaving kids sidelined and parents scrambling to juggle work and family, potentially on as little as 48 hours notice required by state law. The strikes take place despite the state’s ranking in the top 20% nationwide for teacher salaries in 2006-2007 — the most recent data available […]