Category Archives: Independence Institute

Some really smart people think online schools are the wave of the future that will completely innovate and transform the way we do and think about public education. I don’t know if they’re right or not, but the growth of online public schools in Colorado certainly makes their case a little stronger. Take for example Kaplan Academy of Colorado, new for 2008-09. Kaplan is an individualized, tuition-free, accredited program authorized by the Garfield School District in Rifle, Colorado: Imagine learning in a flexible, results-oriented environment that allows you to learn at your own pace—one that is free of the distractions of the traditional classroom. Learning from home, students can take a number of different courses, including “Language Arts, Foreign Languages, Health, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and Electives such as Art History, Computer Applications, Journalism, Web Design, and more.” Go to the Kaplan website to sign up for more information. According to my friends at the Education Policy Center, you can also now see a brand new page on the School Choice for Kids website that shows all the home-based public online education programs in Colorado – hosted in places from Denver to Branson to Julesburg (and now) to Rifle. But […]

If you didn’t make it to our fabulous event Friday evening, you not only missed a chance to meet me, you also missed our exciting speaker Joe Williams from Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Maybe you also missed the chance to listen live online. Well, you’re still in luck. The main page of the Independence Institute website includes the complete video of Williams’ presentation. Audience members asked many important questions and offered some conservative and libertarian challenges to the speaker’s message that Democrats could step up, take on the teachers unions and bureaucrats, and help to bring about real education reform. Mr. Williams also announced the formation of the first state DFER chapter: Colorado Democrats for Education Reform, headed by State Senator Ron Tupa. Senator Tupa was kind enough to come to unfamiliar turf as a guest and engage in some lively conversations. If you only have time for a quick read, Joe Williams sat down for a five-question interview with Nancy Mitchell from the Rocky Mountain News. My friends at the Independence Institute said they really appreciated being able to have so much access to Mr. Williams’ time while he was here in Colorado (he also recorded an episode […]

Over at Education News Colorado, Mr. Alan Gottlieb gives a firsthand account of a polite clash over education reform between Colorado’s two most recent Democrat governors: [Former Governor Roy] Romer laid out the well-known, depressing facts: we are falling behind other nations in education, and we’re going to pay dearly for it soon, if we aren’t already (we are). “We’re a third world nation in terms of our performance in math,” Romer said. What got under [current Governor Bill] Ritter’s skin, apparently, was Romer’s repeated insistence that “we” — meaning Colorado and the U.S. are not doing enough to address this predicament. “We’re asleep, we’re kidding ourselves,” Romer said. Ritter bounded up to the podium like an unleashed dog, and said he wished to “offer a rebuttal, in part, as presumptuous as that may seem.” Colorado is focused on the challenges, despite Romer’s criticism, Ritter said, “in a way perhaps we haven’t been before.” With that subtle dig at the former governor, Ritter laid out his education agenda, stressing the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4K) legislation that passed this year. He said new standards and assessments are coming, and they will be benchmarked, as Romer suggests, to standards in […]

An interesting story from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette looks at an elementary school that has divided boys and girls into separate classrooms (H/T Joanne Jacobs): In a typical classroom, the boys are asked to sit calmly in desks, complete story problems and answer questions after raising their hands. But speed, enthusiasm and competition get the pupils in Long’s all-boys class motivated to learn and to participate, she said. Teachers at Monitor Elementary School in Springdale created classrooms segregated by sex as an experiment to allow teachers to adapt their strategies to each, Principal Maribel Childress said. The idea of sex-segregated classrooms has been catching on more and more in different parts of the country, though it’s still a fairly rare enough practice that it makes articles like this one of general interest. Like so many other things in education, separating boys and girls into different classrooms isn’t the be-all and end-all answer to our problems. (But it’s not a bad idea. Who needs yucky girls around, anyway?) One critic quoted in the story – New America Foundation senior research fellow Sara Mead – makes a great point: The variation among students within each sex is greater than the average differences between […]

Kim Ursetta, the president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) tells this little story yesterday: One of my twins (6 yrs. old; first grade) was really sad when he came home from school today. It seems that another boy in his class told him he was “stupid.” I asked why the boy would say something like that, and my son was so upset. He told me that the boy “was just mad ’cause I won’t vote for McCain… I’m only voting for Obama!” I’m not going to tell you who my mom and dad plan to vote for President. It’s not important for me to do so. But I know I’d be in trouble from them if I called anyone “stupid” – especially just because they might support someone different than my parents do. It simply isn’t nice. I’ve told you about the Presidential campaign before. On the issue of education, there are reasons to be hopeful about both candidates (as well as reasons to be skeptical). But I had to scratch my head and wonder why the Denver teachers union president has her kids so excited about Barack Obama, especially after the NEA convention she attended booed Obama […]

Earlier, I told you to save the date for a great event my friends at the Education Policy Center are putting on. Well, if you’re looking for anything to do this Friday, here are the details: Last month, a group of national and Colorado Democratic leaders met in Denver to vocally challenge the teachers union and the status quo in education. Organizer of the event and Democrats for Education Reform executive director Joe Williams will discuss the education reform movement within the Democratic Party, and his book Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education. Friday, September 19, 2008 5:30 pm Reception 6:15 pm Program Members, Educators, and School Board Members Free • All Others $5 Independence Institute Offices 13952 Denver West Parkway (Building 53), Suite 400 Golden, CO 80401 Call Nancy at 303.279.6536 or click email link below to RSVP. Can’t come? Listen live at https://Live.iVoices.org. Tune in at 6:15 pm MST. RSVP for this Event The name for the event is “Democrats are Standing up to the Teachers Unions: Can this be True?” Kids like me aren’t going to get all the public and private school choices we need, unless we convince political leaders in both major […]

A lot of my Education Policy Center friends have been on the road this week at something called the State Policy Network conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay, so I don’t exactly get what it’s all about, they told me about a visit they had yesterday to a couple of excellent schools in the area. I’m only going to talk about the one today, because it seems this Millennium Worldwide Academy in south Phoenix has a pretty special approach to educating kids in my age group. No, it’s not in Colorado, but maybe there are some school leaders or entrepreneurs looking to start a school who could learn a thing or two from Ms. Kelmer and her success with helping low-income kids from preschool to 4th grade. My Education Policy Center friends said they were amazed to watch the knowledge put on display. They heard about the “Are You Smarter than a Kindergartener?” challenge. Not too many adults could name all 43 U.S. Presidents in order like the small group of 5-year-old children at Millennium Worldwide Academy did yesterday. The older kids knew the planets in our solar system and their distances from the Sun, as well as had a solid […]

I deserve to go to school in a safe, well-constructed facility. But my parents and I also deserve a clearer accounting of how the money is to be spent. Colorado school districts are putting a record $2.5 billion in construction bond proposals on this November’s ballot. Do the people going to the polls have the information they need? One of my friends here at the Education Policy Center has good reason to think that isn’t the case: “My hypothesis is the larger turnout means (districts) are reaching into a voter base that is generally less informed about local issues and more inclined to give money to schools because it sounds like it is the right thing to do,” said Ben DeGrow, education-policy analyst for the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank based in Golden. Denver Public Schools is asking for $454 million, Douglas County $395 million, and Jefferson County $350 million, not to mention the proposals of 12 other school districts. And not to mention proposed mill-levy increases that add to the total. DeGrow, however, said he thinks Colorado residents might be growing weary of tax increases. “Taxpayers keep getting taken for more and more,” DeGrow said. “That adds up […]

Yesterday I told you about the Democrats’ national education platform. So what about the other side? I had to go to bed while it was still going on, but my mom and dad said that Republican presidential candidate John McCain gave an important speech last night. He talked about education: Education — education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained, but what is the value of access to a failing school? We need… We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice. Let’s remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work. When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parent — when it fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have the choice, and their children will have that opportunity. Sen. Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucrats. […]

A recent USA Today article talks about how the Democratic Party’s national platform is taking small steps away from the teachers union-defended status quo: The ink is barely dry on the official document, which outlines the party’s guiding principles, but it shows that in this fall’s general election, Democrats will stake out a few positions that unions have long opposed. Among them: paying teachers more if they raise test scores, teach in “underserved areas” or take on new responsibilities such as mentoring new teachers. Hooray for small favors. But there’s one comment in the article I especially wanted to bring to your attention: “If ever there’s going to be a time for change, this is it,” says Joe Williams, who heads Democrats for Education Reform, a centrist group with ties to the Obama campaign. He says the new platform has a greater emphasis on educational equity for poor and urban students. “We feel like this is a conversation that Democrats should be in on.” Democrats for Education Reform was the group that sponsored the recent event here in Denver where Democrat leaders called the teachers union on the carpet. That was neat, but there is more to come. Even more […]