Category Archives: Education Politics

The Greeley Tribune reported yesterday that the local school board approved its final offer to district teachers, less than three weeks after the union rejected the offer. I don’t like writing about situations like this one, because let me tell you there’s no winner to celebrate. The district made the least painful choice of funding salary increases for masters degrees and educational advancement — an approach with no ties to improving student achievement. Meanwhile, nothing is done to offer rewards to the best teachers, schools, or principals; removing the most ineffective teachers; or cutting non-core functions or personnel. Not that anyone can blame officials in a bureaucratic system for avoiding pain and the opportunity of belt-tightening times to make meaningful reforms. It’s just same old, same old … sigh.

As conservative Mike Rosen notes in his column today for the Denver Post, a big school board race is underway in the Douglas County School District. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow researched and wrote a neat report (PDF) last year on the district’s innovative local licensure program. For those not in the know, Douglas County is Colorado’s third-largest school district and is located immediately south of Denver, a mix of suburban and rural communities with one of the lowest poverty rates in the state. Education reform in high-poverty urban areas typically receives the most attention, and rightly so. But does that mean a district like Douglas County has reached a plateau, and doesn’t need reform?

Learn an education policy reform idea from Ohio? Not possible, you say? Come on, it’s not as unlikely as all that. Well, my friends in the Education Policy Center ran across a new practice in the Buckeye State that could help Colorado revolutionize the way we deliver education. In the somewhat obscure Middletown Journal, Ohio state representative Bill Coley writes about the new program created by his sponsored legislation:

So this blog called Online Schools put up a post last week titled “50 Excellent Education Blogs about Education Reform” (H/T Core Knowledge blog). Almost as if I were looking through the wrapped presents under the tree on Christmas morning for the new super Star Wars Lego set, I scanned the list … only to find that Ed Is Watching is nowhere to be found. My little 5-year-old heart was nearly broken. What do I have to do to get some attention? Have my dad build a tinfoil blimp and call a local TV news station to tell them that I’ve just been launched thousands of feet into the air somewhere over the Front Range? On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea. But let me engage in a little shameless self-promotion to explain why I belong on the list. Six months ago I was in the top 20 education policy blogs based on Technorati authority ratings. And read what all the cool people are saying about me on the sidebar to the right. Maybe the Online Schools blog can fix the situation. I did notice a spot where I could fit in — the Early Ed Watch […]

Last year I told you about the remarkable education reform success story in Florida. The elements of this success can be traced to a comprehensive set of policy changes made while Jeb Bush was governor, including: School accountability Student accountability Private school choice Scientific-based literacy instruction Alternative teacher certification In a comprehensive article for the Summer 2009 edition of Education Next, Matt Ladner and Dan Lips explain exactly what Florida did to make dramatic gains on 4th grade national test scores. Perhaps more importantly, they take on critiques from those who say the scores are misleading because of social promotion policies or can somehow be attributed to other education initiatives voters approved: universal preschool and class size reduction. Check out the article.

Some day I might grow up to be cynical about education politics, but for now I see a big glimmer of hope. What do I mean? Look at yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: Low-income families in the District of Columbia got some encouraging words yesterday from an unlikely source. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin signaled that he may be open to reauthorizing the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a school voucher program that allows 1,700 disadvantaged kids to opt out of lousy D.C. public schools and attend a private school. “I have to work with my colleagues if this is going to be reauthorized, which it might be,” said Mr. Durbin at an appropriations hearing Tuesday morning. He also said that he had visited one of the participating private schools and understood that “many students are getting a good education from the program.” This could be the sign of a big turnaround for the influential Democratic senator, whom I have rightly critiqued in the past. At the Flypaper blog, Andy Smarick says Durbin’s statement “was a major step in the right direction”, and wonders if the D.C. 6’s dramatic sit-in a few weeks ago had an impact.

If you aren’t a regular reader of Mike Antonucci’s Education Intelligence Agency (EIA), you don’t know what you’re missing. Mr. Antonucci is one of the best national experts on teachers unions, has a very keen perspective on the significance of issues in unions and education politics, and breaks many stories with his vast network of (mostly anonymous) sources. That’s why when he took a break from his online reporting and commentary for nine or 10 days a little earlier this month, I was suffering from a mild case of withdrawal. But EIA’s Intercepts blog is back, with two new pieces I commend to your reading enjoyment and enlightenment: “NEA & ACORN: The Details” (adding more depth to an issue my Education Policy Center friends covered recently on our Independent Teachers site) How the two national teachers unions now face the equivalent of a political “electric chair” in their education policy discussions with a Democratic presidential administration … big stuff EIA is back with a bang. Happy Monday!

Back in the spring, I pointed you to some important discussion about the Boulder teacher “sickout”. A month ago I mentioned how the collective bargaining contract with the school district, and teachers voted to reject the latest offer. Well, earlier this week, the Boulder Valley Education Association filed official notice with the state that the union intends to strike. Sure, as my friend Ben DeGrow pointed out, that doesn’t necessarily mean a strike will happen soon or even happen at all. But another large Colorado local union went down a similar path 15 years ago during the state’s last teachers strike. So will the parties involved learn the lessons of the 1994 Denver walkout (PDF), or perhaps even take the opportunity to promote reforms in the way teachers are paid?

Update: We’ve received word that at least one of the Denver Public Schools — Southmoor Elementary — has reversed its previous stance NOT to show Obama’s speech, and will go ahead and show it live. No word yet on whether parents will be able to opt out. On a more arrogant note, Broward County Florida schools are not letting kids opt out at all. So I write a little bit about President Obama speaking to school children, and I get more attention than possibly could be healthy for a five-year-old to get! But I did want to take the opportunity to share with you a rundown of what my friends in the Education Policy Center have been receiving from some Colorado Front Range parents and teachers, including what individual schools have opted to do. First, the opinions of some teachers, gathered over the past couple days:

Yesterday I wrote about President Obama’s plan to address schoolchildren across America next Tuesday. I got so much response, I thought a quick follow-up was in order. Some of the concerns undoubtedly are overblown, though the hubris embodied in the original lesson plans presented to the public was genuinely disturbing. Even if the substance of the message is essentially good (e.g., stay in school, personal responsibility, etc.), some parents may feel that is usurping their role. But the Obama speech in that sense is no isolated incident. One has to ask the parents who feel this way why they continue to send their child to the public school system. Anyway, the White House since has backtracked from the political gaffe and revised the lesson plans, but much of the damage already has been done. But still plenty of good can come from this whole scenario, if parents pay heed to the principal lesson explained by Adam Schaeffer at the Cato Institute: But this problem didn’t begin with Obama and won’t end with him. Politics in the schools is what we get when the government runs our schools. Don’t want your kids indoctrinated by government bureaucrats, special interests, or the President? […]