Category Archives: Education Politics

This week the Detroit News reported on one of the measured reactions Michiganders have to proposals to address that state’s budget crisis: Local public school districts have too little funding to provide a quality education, according to 60 percent of voters surveyed in an exclusive Detroit News/WXYZ (Channel 7) poll released Tuesday. Only 23 percent of respondents said the taxes and fees paid for public education are “too high”; 60 percent said they are about right, and 12 percent said “too low.” What’s missing from the story?

Last night marked a key moment of transition for the Denver Public Schools, as the old, reform-friendly Board made its last votes and the new, not-so-reform-friendly Board was sworn in to take its place. More remarkable and bizarre, however, was how dramatically events unfolded, as reported by Ed News Colorado: As board member Michelle Moss walked up to take her seat for what was to be her last meeting in eight years representing southwest Denver, her newly elected replacement Andrea Merida told her that she would be sitting on the dais instead. Merida, rather than waiting to take the oath of office with two other new members after the meeting, had instead been sworn in hours earlier so she could cast a vote on the controversial reforms.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means I’ll take a little break from blogging. One of the things I’m thankful for are teachers — especially good teachers who work hard, know their stuff, and care about the success and well-being of kids like me. This time of year I also am thankful that teachers in Colorado are free to choose which membership organization best represents them, and that if they join a union they at least have the opportunity to ask for their money back — if they do so by December 15. What am I talking about? Take 2 minutes and watch this teacher explain it:

In many Colorado school districts, taxpayers are subsidizing union presidents and/or other officers to take release time from the classroom for union business. Back in 2003-04 the practice cost Colorado taxpayers at least $775,000 (PDF). Since nothing is known to have changed to crack down on the process, the figure must be considerably more these days. What exactly are union officials doing with their taxpayer-subsidized time, and how can we find out? Bargaining negotiations? Grievance procedures? District committees? Political activities?

Katie Redding at the Colorado Independent reported yesterday on the official recommendations for Colorado’s application to receive Race to the Top federal reform dollars. One of my Education Policy Center friends got a chance to chime in: Ben DeGrow, education policy analyst for the free-market Independence Institute, found much to like about the application, particularly the suggestions to provide financial incentives to teachers and to attach higher funding to high-risk students (which he noted would give parents more choice about which schools could best serve their students.) There’s only so much reasonable space in an article like that one, so Ben asked me to revise and extend his remarks a bit. The “higher funding to high-risk students” is really a call for a widespread move to a transparent Weighted Student Funding formula that empowers parents and school-level leaders at the expense of central administration bureaucrats. Ben further cited Cole Arts and Science Academy as Colorado’s premier example of “Turning Around Low-Performing Schools.”

Over at Education Next (one of my favorite stops these days), professors Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky say there may be a way to make a positive move beyond the traditional debate over teacher pensions: The critics of DB [defined benefit plans] are correct that current plans are seriously underfunded in part because benefits are not tied to contributions. This makes plans vulnerable to gaming and juicing up of benefits formulae when stock market returns are good, which, of course, leaves the taxpayers and employers holding the bag when stock market returns turn south.

Earlier this week there were some elections. A bunch of big people in Colorado voted, though not nearly as many as voted last year for President. One of the issues many of them had to decide was who would serve on the local school board. That part sure interests my friends in the Education Policy Center. Click the play button below to listen to a new iVoices podcast as Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow discuss the fallout from the school board elections in Colorado’s three largest school districts: Jefferson County, Denver, and Douglas County. Based on candidates’ support of school choice and other key education reforms, the results for the three districts were very different: It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the near future — especially in Denver and Douglas County.

Can we have an honest discussion about school funding? Not that my friends in the Education Policy Center haven’t been trying. All sorts of numbers are used in various ways to make the case that Colorado (or pick your state) has drastically underfunded schools, and more than once they’ve worked to set the record straight. Certain interest groups and their useful supporters nonetheless want us to aim for the middle of some specific ranking. If that’s their goal, someone almost always can find some category in which Colorado (or pick your state) lags the national average, or even the middle of the pack. And when have you ever heard the same advocates in high-spending states acknowledge that they have enough funding, that no increases are needed? Well, how about a little context? Along comes Vanderbilt University professor James Guthrie with a new piece in Education Next that effectively breaks through the scare tactics and lays the foundation for a serious, honest discussion.

Chalk up another gold star for public charter schools as an education reform success. What am I talking about? The second half of a one-two research combination punch, released in late October but just reported by the smart people writing opinion for the Wall Street Journal: Mr. [Marcus] Winters focuses on New York City public school students in grades 3 through 8. “For every one percent of a public school’s students who leave for a charter,” concludes Mr. Winters, “reading proficiency among those who remain increases by about 0.02 standard deviations, a small but not insignificant number, in view of the widely held suspicion that the impact on local public schools . . . would be negative.” It tuns out that traditional public schools respond to competition in a way that benefits their students. Writing on Jay Greene’s blog, the venerable Greg Forster additionally notes: …Marcus also finds that the lowest-performing students in NYC’s regular public schools benefit from charter competition; in fact, while the benefits for the overall population are statistically certain only in reading, they’re certain in both reading and math for low performers.

If there’s a musical instrument I could play, it would probably be the drums. (Some of you may think it’s the horn I like to toot, and my mom & dad have already said “No” to any loud percussion instruments, but anyway….) Why? Because I like to keep banging on the drum of how very, very important teacher quality is to improving schools and student learning outcomes. Reforms like performance pay, streamlining tenure, and alternative certification are not merely nice ideas, but vital changes that need to be made to our school systems. On that note (pun intended), all of you — especially the teacher quality skeptics — really ought to check out this new issue brief by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF)’s Brooke Dollens Terry, “Shortchanging Our Kids: How Poor Teacher Quality & Failed Government Policies Harm Students” (PDF). Many of the things Brooke writes about Texas could apply to Colorado as well. While I’m beating on the drum, one of the groups doing great real-world work in adding quality teachers to the instructional ranks is ABCTE. ABCTE has just created a great new resource directed at teachers and leaders of charter schools — designed to help connect […]