Category Archives: Education Politics

‘Tis the season my friends. No, no, not for head-spinning shifts in store decorations (is anyone else freaked out by the jumbled Hallowthanksgivemas décor in some places?) or falling leaves or the first justifiable excuse to wear a frumpy sweater to work. ‘Tis the season for U.S. Department of Labor LM-2 filings for national unions. I know what you’re thinking. Why, Eddie, would I want to dig through an enormous federal form outlining the inner workings of a union? Well, because you never know what you might find in there! About this time last year, the Independence Institute uncovered the fact that despite Jeffco recall proponent’s vehement denials of union involvement (since completely abandoned in favor of overt bragging), the National Education Association dumped $150,000 into recall front group Jeffco United. Where’d that revelation come from? You guessed it, NEA’s 2015 LM-2. You see, LM-2s are like early Christmas presents—you never know what you might find. I’m not the only one who relishes ripping off the wrapping paper every year. The folks over at Union Watch also spend a lot of time unpacking the forms when they’re filed. I can only imagine their glee when they dug into the American […]

Yesterday, I posted my wish list for last night’s presidential debate. It was admittedly unrealistic to expect the candidates to address my specific concerns, but I don’t think it was unfair to expect the candidates to talk about how we’re going to improve the situation for the 50 million children in the American K-12 public education system. Even so, I worried aloud yesterday that the candidates might completely ignore what I think is the most important domestic policy conversation in the United States. Sadly, those concerns turned out to be well founded. If you missed last night’s debate, you can watch the whole thing here. If you’re more the reading type, you can check out the transcript here. Or, if you value your time and sanity, I can sum up the entire event with the following GIF: via GIPHY There were many things about last night that I found disheartening. Chief among these was the near-total refusal to speak about K-12 education or acknowledge the power of education to help solve many of the problems the candidates were asked to address last night.

Tonight’s a big night, my friends. To fully enjoy the spectacle, you’ll need a comfortable couch, plenty of popcorn, and the abilities to suspend disbelief and suppress maniacal laughter. You may also want to have what my dad calls “adult beverages” on hand in case the opportunity for a “drinking game” presents itself. I’m too young to know what either of those things mean, naturally. No, I’m not talking about another absurd Douglas County school board meeting where the three members of the district’s Toxic Trio attempt to blow up any remaining notion of responsible governance—though that could be pretty entertaining. I’m talking about the presidential debate this evening between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The event is predicted to draw as many as 100 million viewers. That’s a pretty ridiculous number. So ridiculous, in fact, that I do believe I have a meme for that. If you are wondering whether my use of Dr. Evil’s likeness hints at my feelings for either candidate, I assure you that it does not. I am far too young to vote on anything other than where to go for dinner with my family. But tightening polls indicate that we could potentially wind up […]

I know I’m a little snarky from time to time, but I generally feel like I’m a pretty even-keeled kid. It takes a fair amount to get me mad. But if there’s one thing that is absolutely, positively guaranteed to send me off the rails, it’s when grown-ups entrusted with the levers of power choose to operate those levers to benefit themselves and harm students, parents, and taxpayers. That is exactly what I saw happen last night when I tuned in for my favorite biweekly Tuesday entertainment: the Douglas County School District Board of Education meeting. As some of you may know, Doug Benevento, a member of the four-person conservative majority on the board, resigned his seat on August 17. He submitted a brief but official “letter” of resignation to Dougco BOE President Meghann Silverthorn, who subsequently informed the other board members of the news. In case all of that wasn’t clear or public enough, Benevento also ran an op-ed explaining his decision in the Denver Post, the largest newspaper in the state. In addition to that, major news outlets across Colorado covered the resignation, including: 7News 9News Chalkbeat Colorado CBS Denver The Denver Post That’s only a partial list, […]

It’s been another pretty slow week in Colorado education news, but that’s okay with me. Friday is upon us once again, and I’ve got a lot to think about and accomplish before I even begin to think about fun, sun, and trips to the pool this weekend. The biggest thing on my to-do list is to help my policy friend Ross Izard prepare for the first meeting of the Every Student Succeeds Act Hub Committee on Monday afternoon. Ross was appointed to the committee last month, and he has been reading and gathering feedback since the letter came through. He’s reviewed ESSA before, but he has buckled down during the last couple weeks and reviewed the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed regulations and a whole bunch of other stuff ranging from commentaries to summaries to charts. A lot of trees have died at the hands of the Independence Institute’s printer over the course of the last week. Fortunately, their deaths were not in vain; Ross definitely has some ideas about how to move forward, though I can’t share those quite yet.

I’ve talked a fair amount over the last couple of years about the “weaponized waivers” employed by the Obama administration under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the previous iteration of which was called No Child Left Behind. The newest iteration of the act, now called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed back in December of last year. As of yesterday, ESSA officially ushered NCLB waivers down the path of the dinosaurs. That’s great news for those of us who think that the federal government has little business dictating education policy to states.

I broke out my (heavily used) soap box a couple weeks ago to talk about the importance of having a seat at the education policy grown-ups table. We talked about Hillary Clinton’s promise to guarantee the National Education Association some level of policy influence, as well as some of the questionable stuff that has come out of working groups here in Colorado that are woefully devoid of any semblance of balanced perspectives. I finished the post by calling for Colorado’s new working committee on the Every Student Succeeds Act to be more inclusive of reform-minded voices, and worried aloud that the deck had already been stacked in favor of the omnipresent education establishment. It looks like I spoke too soon.

Having a “seat at the table” is especially important to me as a five-year-old. Don’t get me wrong; I love my Mickey Mouse table and chairs, and there are definitely benefits to sitting at the kids table—food fights, extra dessert, and the social acceptability of using spaghetti noodles as walrus tusks, to name a few. But there are good reasons to want to sit at the grown-up table, too. And as I get older (very, very slowly), I’m starting to wonder about the selection process used to determine which “adults” get to sit at the education policy grown-ups table.

I apologize for my absence over the last week, friends. I was in Nashville eating delicious barbeque and attending the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ annual conference. This year is a special year to hang out with charter leaders, advocates, and policy wonks, as it marks the 25th anniversary of the American charter school movement. Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991. Since then, the movement has grown to include nearly 7,000 schools serving roughly three million students across 42 states and the District of Columbia. Yeehaw! I learned three things at the conference. First, that Nashville’s hot, sticky weather offers a compelling argument that we should regard air conditioning as the single most important invention in human history. Second, that southern food puts all other regional foods to shame. And finally, that the American charter school movement is absolutely stuffed with inspirational people from a thousand different walks of life and of a thousand different philosophical persuasions who wake up every day thinking about how they can fight for children’s futures. Seriously, these folks are amazing. But as much fun as I had wandering around Nashville and chatting with real-life educational superheroes, I couldn’t fully unplug […]

Let’s begin today’s post with a little bit of vocabulary. Merriam-Webster defines the word “independent” as: a (1) :  not subject to control by others :  self-governing (2) :  not affiliated with a larger controlling unit <an independent bookstore> b (1) :  not requiring or relying on something else :  not contingent <an independent conclusion> (2) :  not looking to others for one’s opinions or for guidance in conduct (3) :  not bound by or committed to a political party c (1) :  not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood) <independent of her parents> (2) :  being enough to free one from the necessity of working for a living <a person of independent means> Some of our friends in Douglas County, however, have chosen to use a more novel definition of the term when discussing the recent results of an independent investigation into bullying allegations against Dougco school board members Meghann Silverthorn and Judith Reynolds: That anyone who finds against their accusations cannot be independent. We’re going to spend some time dissecting that claim today.