Category Archives: Education Politics

Blah, blah, blah, the whiny voice said to me. All you ever talk about is Amendment 66! Well, come on. Look. It’s been two days since the last time I wrote about it, but there are even new developments since then. Since it’s Friday afternoon, count yourself fortunate that I’m just going to dish it out in bullet-point fashion:

‘Tis the season for the DVR in our house. Political ads are back in Colorado, including ones making wildly exaggerated promises about Amendment 66. You know, the billion-dollar statewide tax increase allegedly “for the kids.” Thankfully, some local TV journalists have been willing to look under the hood of the Rube Goldberg proposal and call out the misleading rhetoric. Well, I’m too young for my own TV spot, but little old Eddie wants to give it a try with this pro-66 flier being handed out in Greeley. Let me respond to some of the points in turn: 1. For Greeley-Evans taxpayers — $3 return on $1. They’re referring to how much new revenue local schools will get for each new tax dollar area residents will pay. It’s certainly a better deal than a .62 return in Gunnison, a .59 return in Boulder County, a .56 return in Jefferson County, a .50 return in Douglas County, or a .20 return in Steamboat Springs. But it also means, taxpayers all across the rest of Weld County will be turning over more of their hard-earned funds to low-performing District 6. 2.Good schools are fundamental for our economic future Who can disagree with that? […]

Following the Independence Institute’s own analysis of the economic harms the Amendment 66 billion-dollar tax hike would inflict, the Common Sense Policy Roundtable has released a long-term forecast that shows “without substantial improvement in student performance, Amendment 66 is drag on the Colorado economy.” The second in the pair of studies sought to estimate how much better student performance would have to be in order to make the tax increase proposal a neutral proposition. University of Colorado business school researcher Brian Lewandowski framed the question to the Denver Post in somewhat dramatic terms: “Even when you’re the best in the nation, graduation rate alone doesn’t get to break even,” he said. “We need a lot of improvement in educational performance for it to have profound positive impact on Colorado’s economy. But it’s not unachievable.”

We are now well into the silly season of school board campaigning, but the union leaders displaced from Douglas County sure are taking matters seriously. More than a year ago, the American Federation of Teachers lost its monopoly bargaining power when the collective bargaining agreement expired. But as the Colorado Observer reports, their union rivals at the Colorado Education Association sure have their eyes on the prize. An email from the CEA’s vice president tried to drum up support at a recent rally protesting against the pro-reform school board.

I have some ideas of what to blog about. In fact, you can probably count on more fresh and insightful commentary tomorrow. But with the initial shock of the partial government shutdown, this young and sometimes naive edublogger is trying to keep composure and not panic. But I think the situation might even be worse for policy wonks like my friends in the Education Policy Center. Try heading over to the federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics to download the latest spending and enrollment data, or to run research queries on state NAEP scores, and this is what you encounter:

All my education reform friends out there, you and I very likely have been getting too comfortable. Or perhaps just too naive, or maybe too lacking in ambition. Leave it to the American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess to splash a bucket of water in our faces. But trust me, we needed the dirt knocked out of our eyes and ears. Last week, Hess penned for National Affairs his latest thoughtful piece chocked full of insights that many education policy advocates and insiders know, but few are willing to say. Given numerous observations like the following, I recommend reading “The Missing Half of School Reform”:

For reasons I don’t even have time to get into, big people often call the weeks leading up to an election the “silly season.” Most think of that in terms of presidential or Congressional races. Not so much when school board elections come around, and here in Colorado that’s in the fall of odd-numbered years. Lest you think school board elections aren’t a big deal, I have to remind you that local Colorado boards have a great deal of constitutional prerogatives and power. They just have to be ready and willing to use it. Besides, just ask a current University of Colorado Regent, a former state treasurer, and a former lieutenant governor who are all vying for positions this year. Two of them are running in three of the state’s largest districts, where the “silly season” has reached full bloom. The former lieutenant governor is Barbara O’Brien, competing for an at-large seat on the Denver Public Schools (DPS) board. As the Denver Post reports, she just happens to be the target of an interesting attack from her opponent. Michael Kiley has heavily criticized O’Brien for her support of a short-lived statewide school voucher plan 10 years ago:

Colorado’s education-related scoop of the month goes to the Gazette‘s Megan Schrader for uncovering some crucial intrigue and doublespeak behind the Amendment 66 statewide tax hike campaign. Teachers union leaders want to have their cake and eat it, too: Five days before the deadline for legal challenges to be filed against one of Colorado’s key education reform bills, the state Education Board unanimously granted a five-month extension giving teachers and unions more time to file suit. The decision – discussed behind closed doors in a special meeting on Aug. 26 – has stirred speculation about whether the move was politically motivated to avoid a contentious lawsuit just as voters are asked to approve a $1 billion tax increase for education in November.

A couple weeks ago I offered up a post titled “Learning about Douglas County K-12 Innovation: Read. Watch. Share. Repeat.” Included in that post were links to a great op-ed and the first in an Americans for Prosperity Foundation video series titled “It’s Working.” Well, confession is good for the juvenile soul. So let me tell you that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed — a little lazy, really. Instead of giving you a lot of meat to chew on, I decided to embed the two latest “It’s Working” videos, with “Louie” and “Margo”:

A Friday quickie, with the Harvard Business Review‘s intriguing mention of a new study that merits a closer look: A 1-standard-deviation rise in teachers’ union dues per teacher is associated with a 4% fall in student proficiency rates, according to a study of 721 U.S. school districts in 42 states…. The study, by the University of Chicago’s Johnathan Lott and the University of Florida’s Lawrence Kenny, raises an interesting point. The authors suggest that the explanation is union lobbying power to block key reforms that may help student achievement. Whatever the reason, the finding raises the question of why so many school districts in our state — even those without bargaining teachers unions — continue to collect the dues and ship them off to the Colorado Education Association. Many boards could end the practice by adopting a policy like this one. It’s one of nine key reforms local school board leaders can consider. Five years ago, following Dr. Terry Moe’s “Collective Bargaining and the Performance of Public Schools”, the National Council on Teacher Quality put out the call for more research on teacher union impacts. One of the few to come in recent years looked at the effects of collective […]