Category Archives: Innovation and Reform

All my education reform friends out there, you and I very likely have been getting too comfortable. Or perhaps just too naive, or maybe too lacking in ambition. Leave it to the American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess to splash a bucket of water in our faces. But trust me, we needed the dirt knocked out of our eyes and ears. Last week, Hess penned for National Affairs his latest thoughtful piece chocked full of insights that many education policy advocates and insiders know, but few are willing to say. Given numerous observations like the following, I recommend reading “The Missing Half of School Reform”:

For reasons I don’t even have time to get into, big people often call the weeks leading up to an election the “silly season.” Most think of that in terms of presidential or Congressional races. Not so much when school board elections come around, and here in Colorado that’s in the fall of odd-numbered years. Lest you think school board elections aren’t a big deal, I have to remind you that local Colorado boards have a great deal of constitutional prerogatives and power. They just have to be ready and willing to use it. Besides, just ask a current University of Colorado Regent, a former state treasurer, and a former lieutenant governor who are all vying for positions this year. Two of them are running in three of the state’s largest districts, where the “silly season” has reached full bloom. The former lieutenant governor is Barbara O’Brien, competing for an at-large seat on the Denver Public Schools (DPS) board. As the Denver Post reports, she just happens to be the target of an interesting attack from her opponent. Michael Kiley has heavily criticized O’Brien for her support of a short-lived statewide school voucher plan 10 years ago:

Colorado’s education-related scoop of the month goes to the Gazette‘s Megan Schrader for uncovering some crucial intrigue and doublespeak behind the Amendment 66 statewide tax hike campaign. Teachers union leaders want to have their cake and eat it, too: Five days before the deadline for legal challenges to be filed against one of Colorado’s key education reform bills, the state Education Board unanimously granted a five-month extension giving teachers and unions more time to file suit. The decision – discussed behind closed doors in a special meeting on Aug. 26 – has stirred speculation about whether the move was politically motivated to avoid a contentious lawsuit just as voters are asked to approve a $1 billion tax increase for education in November.

This week one of my favorite researchers and thought leaders in the world of K-12 education, Dr. Jay Greene, produced an insightful blog essay titled “Fix Schools by Not Fixing Schools.” His argument isn’t as odd as the title makes it sound: I understand that urging reformers to focus on fixing traditional schools by not fixing traditional schools sounds like abandoning the millions of children who remain in those schools, but that is simply not the case. The best hope for improving the situation of those children in traditional public schools is by expanding access to alternatives and enriching out-of-school experiences. If we succeed in expanding access to quality alternatives, more and more of those children will benefit by being able to take advantage of those alternatives. In addition, traditional public schools may be more willing and able to adopt reforms that are appropriate for their circumstances as they learn about what alternative providers are doing and feel some pressure to take steps to attract and retain their students. Greene offers several reasons why he believes imposing reforms on traditional public schools is not a productive approach. I certainly get what he is saying. And some of his points I […]

A couple weeks ago I offered up a post titled “Learning about Douglas County K-12 Innovation: Read. Watch. Share. Repeat.” Included in that post were links to a great op-ed and the first in an Americans for Prosperity Foundation video series titled “It’s Working.” Well, confession is good for the juvenile soul. So let me tell you that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed — a little lazy, really. Instead of giving you a lot of meat to chew on, I decided to embed the two latest “It’s Working” videos, with “Louie” and “Margo”:

I’m a little late to the game on this one. But Friday is the time for funnies. The crazed August 29 manifesto on Slate declaring that parents who send their kids to private schools are bad people received a lot of attention for the ignorant delivery of shock value it effected. I couldn’t begin to sort through the myriad responses. But this one was too good to pass up. (H/T Greg Forster) Writing at National Review Online, Kevin Williamson took Allison Benedikt’s Slate piece at face value and offered a superior solution:

I don’t want to alarm any of my Education Policy Center friends, but I do have some reservations about getting behind the notion of “Parent Power.” Specifically when it comes to matters of enforcing vegetable-eating policies, cutting into my video game time, and limiting where I can and can’t ride my new bike. On the other hand, it’s a good thing when it comes to getting informed about educational options, selecting a school, and taking an active role in kids’ academic success. The Center for Education Reform is back again with the latest rendition of its Parent Power Index, and there haven’t been too many changes.

A Friday quickie, with the Harvard Business Review‘s intriguing mention of a new study that merits a closer look: A 1-standard-deviation rise in teachers’ union dues per teacher is associated with a 4% fall in student proficiency rates, according to a study of 721 U.S. school districts in 42 states…. The study, by the University of Chicago’s Johnathan Lott and the University of Florida’s Lawrence Kenny, raises an interesting point. The authors suggest that the explanation is union lobbying power to block key reforms that may help student achievement. Whatever the reason, the finding raises the question of why so many school districts in our state — even those without bargaining teachers unions — continue to collect the dues and ship them off to the Colorado Education Association. Many boards could end the practice by adopting a policy like this one. It’s one of nine key reforms local school board leaders can consider. Five years ago, following Dr. Terry Moe’s “Collective Bargaining and the Performance of Public Schools”, the National Council on Teacher Quality put out the call for more research on teacher union impacts. One of the few to come in recent years looked at the effects of collective […]

One thing I like to keep my eye on, peering to the southwest, is the progress of Arizona’s unique and intriguing Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. Last time we checked, the ESA was one of two Arizona school choice programs set for expansion (unfortunately, the Corporate Tax Credit program expansion was vetoed). The initial pool of students eligible for ESAs was relatively small (only those diagnosed with special learning needs), and the number of families who actually signed up for one of the Accounts was even smaller. A study commissioned by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, and released this week, gives some insights into how the first families used them.

Seeing as how it’s been at least a couple days since I’ve mentioned Douglas County, it seemed like the perfect time to make sure you all also saw my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s new op-ed in the Colorado Observer: There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things,” Machiavelli wrote in his 500-year-old classic The Prince. The Florentine political philosopher keenly recognized the challenges of undertaking any kind of major reform project. A conservative area like Douglas County is no exception, where the grievances of displaced interest groups have helped to forge a focused and empowered political opposition. In 2011, two years after reformers swept a majority of seats, Dougco’s school board became the nation’s first to adopt a local private school choice program. The action triggered a costly (but privately funded) lawsuit and the beginnings of a resistance.