Category Archives: Independence Institute

Tomorrow is decision day for a lot of big people in Colorado, voting to decide on several local school tax issues. Those who think more money is needed to bolster an inefficient K-12 system marshal incomplete funding figures, but thankfully my Education Policy Center friend was there to provide 9News viewers with a full picture of Colorado K-12 tax revenues. Supporters of tax hikes tout selective rankings that make Colorado look as poor as possible compared to other states in education funding. We know Colorado isn’t 49th? But where are we really: 29th or 40th? But what if most states’ systems are inefficient? After all, while Colorado could be doing better, our student outcomes remain above the national average.

My parents are convinced — well, maybe just one of them — that I’m going to be some kind of musical virtuoso. They signed me up for piano lessons. I’m not even ready to start working on “Mary Had a Little Lamb” yet, but don’t tell my mom a prodigy isn’t in the making. The reason I bring this up is because of the catchy title of a provocative Education Next posting by Dr. John Chubb: “Do Piano Teachers Need to Know How to Play the Piano?” I’d like to ask that of my piano teacher, but I’m pretty sure she’d just shake her head and laugh. But Chubb is making a point about the deep-seated systemic flaws in our nation’s K-12 teacher policies:

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you probably are well aware of the numerous flaws in the way our K-12 education system pays teachers. Most of the flaws emanate from the single salary schedule, which the vast majority of school districts use. Pay is differentiated almost exclusively by seniority and academic credentials, factors that have very little or no impact on meeting student learning needs. Why can’t we differentiate pay based on instructional specialty, how hard it is to find someone qualified to teach in a particular area? A new report by James Shuls of the Show-Me Institute sheds some interesting light on the need for that commonsense approach. Missouri has far more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) jobs available than non-STEM jobs, so shouldn’t there be a premium for people who are qualified in those areas?

Halloween is this week, which means it’s almost time for little old me to don the green paint and flex my growing muscles as the Incredible Hulk. (I can hear some of those murmurs out there: “Yeah, incredible is right!”) All right, so maybe just because I put on the costume and go door to door, no one is going to ask me to pick up a car — except for possibly one of those “smart” cars — and hurl it at the bad guys. You may have figured out I’m not really that strong. But how strong is the teachers union in Colorado? It’s a topic you hear about plenty from my Education Policy Center friends. Well, today the Fordham Institute released the most thorough study of its kind: “How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-by-State Comparison.” If Mike Antonucci says it’s a “much-needed reference work,” then you know it’s worth your attention. The authors looked at everything from what percentage of teachers are members to laws about tenure and collective bargaining. Adding up all the categories, Colorado ranked 35th overall. That means our state is just inside the bottom third, which represents the weaker state unions. However, […]

Our friends at Education Next pose an interesting chicken-or-egg question about digital learning and the case for major education reforms: Will the transformative technology unleash itself, or does major work need to be done overhauling K-12 policies and institutions first? To hash out the details, Education Next has unleashed a couple of the leading lights in education reform to give a point-counterpoint online debate. In the end, though, any disparities between the arguments advanced by the Fordham Institute’s Checker Finn and the Innosight Institute’s Michael Horn appear to me more differences of degree than differences of kind. Finn says we need to overhaul the school finance system — allowing us to fund students, rather than bureaucratic programs and institutions — and traditional “local control” governance “when students assemble their education from multiple providers based in many locations, some likely on the other side of the planet.”

When you’re a Colorado reporter looking for a somewhat different point of view on major local school tax increases, where do you go? Karen Auge shows that she read my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s concise new paper “Colorado K-12 Tax Hikes Challenged” in her story’s third paragraph as she covered the issue in yesterday’s Denver Post: The Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank generally opposed to tax hikes and government growth, said per-pupil spending in districts asking for tax hikes has gone up, even as real income has decreased. [link added]

I’ve shared with you before my concerns about the work of Colorado’s School Finance Partnership — too weighted down by established interests, too vague and unambitious thus far, etc. The Partnership put out a report in August, but now is transitioning to a series of technical discussions on how to make effective changes to school funding formulas and the like. State senator Michael Johnston, a key leader in the partnership, has stated his goal of striving to achieve both “bold” reforms to the School Finance Act and a “bold” request for additional tax revenue from voters (making such a tough request from cash-strapped voters in one sense would have to be bold). Just exactly how “bold” the respective proposals end up could make all the difference. You likely will hear more from me on that at a later point. But for now it’s interesting to note that Colorado isn’t alone in discussing this sort of “grand bargain.” Once more, our state may end up at the center of a national movement — at least according to an account from the Fordham Institute’s’ Michael Petrilli.

Yesterday I shared some thoughts about how a growing Brighton district with some crowded schools might find some creative solutions to its problem. While securing safe, functional and adequate facilities is a high priority for some school districts, others can bask gratefully in their new quarters and hopefully focus even more on the mission of educating students. Which brings us to another part of Adams County. Not every school district will be able to do what Mapleton has created with its colorful, new state-of-the-art Skyview Campus. On September 27, some of my Education Policy Center friends received a tour of the creatively-designed campus from superintendent Charlotte Ciancio and human resources officer Damon Brown. (from L to R): Brown, Raaki Garcia-Ulam, Ben DeGrow, Pam Benigno, Ciancio

A Denver Post Your Hub story from last week by Joey Kirchmer chronicles some growing pains in Brighton School District: Brighton High School and Prairie View High School are at or over capacity this school year, which has forced administrators to turn to outdoor modular classrooms, roaming teachers and possibly start looking at a split-schedule system.

Last week my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow came out with a short, fun, and kid-friendly paper called “Colorado K-12 Tax Hikes Challenged.” The paper looked at five large school districts asking voters for more tax funds on this fall’s ballot: Jefferson County, Denver, Cherry Creek, Aurora, and St. Vrain Valley. DeGrow acknowledged that these school budgets have faced more pressure than they are used to — mostly because per-pupil revenue growth has slowed down, but not actually dropped. Yet the household budgets of citizens in these communities have been hit even harder during the recent economic downturn. The paper concludes by offering “a different approach” that focuses on more productive spending. Looking at one of the five districts, Denver Public Schools, a new report by EAG News makes some specific suggestions for spending reductions to inefficient salary structures and union perks. The total estimated annual savings would be $37.5 million, including the following proposals: