Category Archives: Education Politics

The Center for Education Reform (CER) today released its annual analysis of the state’s charter school laws, giving the nation a mediocre 2.1 Grade Point Average. CER’s gold standard measure looks at the practical effects of statutes and policies that govern the creation of high-quality, autonomous and accountable public charter schools to meet the demands of students and parents. For example, does a charter school applicant have access to multiple authorizers? Is the state free from caps (both hard and soft) on the number of charter schools that can operate? Are charter schools funded equitably compared to other public schools? In the 2012 report, Colorado maintained its solid B grade, but slipped from 6th to 9th in CER’s national rankings: “After a flurry of education reform activity around ‘Race to the Top’, it seems that Colorado has gone quiet,” said CER President Jeanne Allen. “Even a good charter school law can become stronger.”

When I wrote a month ago about how the old momentum for open Colorado school district-union negotiations had returned, what came out at last night’s Douglas County school board meeting was something I didn’t expect to happen — at least not so soon. Ed News Colorado’s Nancy Mitchell offers up the somewhat surprising scoop: In an unusual move, the president of the Douglas County teachers’ union on Tuesday asked school board members to open contract talks to the public. “By letting the sunlight shine on our negotiations, parents, taxpayers and employees will benefit by seeing the open dialogue around our district’s priorities,” said Brenda Smith, president of the Douglas County Federation of teachers. “I hope you consider this.” At the previous board meeting, a group of citizens with Parent Led Reform — following the release of their petition to open union negotiations — made the same plea initially. So pressure has been building for awhile, pressure for collective bargaining transparency in Colorado’s third-largest school district. But last night’s development leaves this curious kid with two nagging questions. First, why would the DCF come out in favor of open negotiations and why now? Mike Antonucci, a guru on many issues related […]

Hard to believe it was five months ago I asked the question: Is major education reform about ready to give Iowa a try? At the heart of the story is a local connection. Jason Glass, appointed the state’s education chief a little more than a year ago by incoming Governor Terry Branstad, has some notable Colorado roots. Branstad and Glass forwarded a fairly bold plan for the Hawkeye State. Ideas included significant changes to teacher preparation, pay and retention; focusing on literacy through cutting back on social promotion; school accountability enhancements; and more flexibility and student opportunity through charters, online programs and other public education options. Of course, the state’s top executive certainly can’t — nor should he be able to — update laws by fiat. Still, Gov. Branstad’s plan has faced a particularly difficult time since being launched in the Iowa legislature in February. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow provides some of the detail in a new story for School Reform News:

Today is the birthday of the late, great Dr. Seuss (aka Ted Geisel). Millions of school children across Colorado and the rest of the United States will hear one or more of his stories as part of the Read Across America campaign. The nation’s largest teachers union is one of the event’s key sponsors. Hey, the NEA needs to show off its softer side, too — especially when mired in a losing PR battle. So in the spirit of the day, I decided to reach out to some NEA officials and invite them to become regular readers on my blog. Here is an unofficial transcript of the dialogue*:

Last spring I told you about a growing movement to oppose the Common Core standards and accompanying assessments, as well as the momentum toward a national curriculum. Well, a recent spate of evidence suggests that the Common Core cause has fallen on hard times, to say the least: Two recent Pioneer Institute reports not only call into question the legality of the Common Core push but also estimate the transition costs at a daunting $16 billion South Carolina leaders have pushed back hard against the nationalization of education, prompting a loud response from Education Secretary Arne Duncan The only expert Education Next could find to defend the Common Core math standards in an online debate turned out not to be much of a Common Core supporter after all Once a backer of the U.S. Department of Education’s efforts, nationally-respected Washington Post education columnist and author Jay Mathews came out a couple days ago with his evidence-backed case for why Common Core standards will fail Since before I pointed out the anti-national curriculum petition nine months ago, many key Colorado education leaders (including my Education Policy Center friends) have added their names. The momentum (and the case) against the Common Core […]

One of the strengths I’ve touted about the charter school model is the greater flexibility to close down poor performers. In fact, it’s pretty rare for a charter to enter the “turnaround” process instead of being shuttered. But that’s what happened in 2010 with Denver’s Northeast Academy, having suffered through a healthy share of turmoil. The school district authorizer, Denver Public Schools, then signed a three-year contract with Northeast, but since has decided it wants to force a “phased closure” of the school by removing kindergarten and sixth grades. My Education Policy Center friends took a tour of Northeast Academy (385 students K-8, 87.5% Free and Reduced Lunch) last week and saw some clear signs of progress. New leadership is in place. The Core Knowledge program has been reinstated. The instructional workforce is being reshaped, and many dedicated teachers are getting high-quality, hands-on professional development. Serious discipline problems have declined. Some internal skill assessments show significant student growth since the start of the school year. Is it enough? Only time will tell.

There’s a little controversy trickling out of Washington, D.C., that you may not have heard about. A proposed regulation from the Internal Revenue Service would effectively deem charter school teachers to be private employees and not eligible for government pension benefits. Yesterday the Colorado State Board of Education made the bold and unanimous move of expressing opposition to the proposal, as outlined in a press release: “This regulation would negatively impact nearly all charter school teachers in the country,” Board Chairman Bob Schaffer said. “In essence this regulation would strip charter schools of their status as government groups when it comes to retirement system participation. “If that were to happen, teachers at those charter schools who now participate in the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association would be forced to find jobs elsewhere or forfeit their accrued pension wealth.”

My Education Policy Center friends asked me to stop playing around in the snow long enough to give a quick update and comment on something I mentioned last week. As Ed News Colorado reports, Rep. Don Beezley’s “Parent Trigger II” successfully passed its first obstacle with a favorable 7-6 party line vote in the House Education Committee yesterday. In other words, the proposal that represents a small, positive step for parental empowerment stepped out from beneath the groundhog’s shadow. And not a moment too soon, for such a commonsense piece of legislation. Yes, it’s sad to see only Republican representatives showing a modest support for the education consumer. Is it just Colorado where Democrats seem so universally wed to protecting K-12 institutions of power (the Colorado Association of School Boards and Colorado Education Association both testified against HB 1149) at the expense of a little extra parent voice in the school turnaround process?

Has it really been almost three months since I told you about a new Choice Media video on the Douglas County Choice Scholarship program injunction? Well, award-winning director Bob Bowdon has triumphed again with this hard-hitting, six-minute video about the New York City NAACP’s lawsuit trying to remove a charter school that successfully serves inner-city minority students:

Education policy gurus, brandish your dustbins. Last week Mike Antonucci brought attention to a report from Georgia that the state is looking to abandon the once vaunted “65% Solution,” the idea (popular circa 2005-06) that schools should be required to spend 65 percent of funds “in the classroom.” Antonucci writes: This made for useful sound bites, but was always problematic because the definition of classroom spending was amorphous. Principals and curriculum specialists weren’t classroom spending, but teachers’ dental benefits were. There was bound to be a lot of cheating to reach the magic number. Unions hated it. And even though unions hated it, I didn’t like it either. In 2006, I wrote that I remained “doubtful that meeting such a threshold has any effect on the quality of instruction or on student performance.”