Category Archives: Innovation and Reform

Yesterday I let you know about Education Policy Center director Pam Benigno’s published response to Colorado’s K-12 controversy of the month concerning online education programs. One of the great aspects of her piece was the focus on effective student-centered policy solutions. She directly suggested changes to how students are counted and funded — whether a student spends all, some or none of their course time online. To keep the conversation moving forward about ways for Colorado to improve, I recommend the Nation’s Digital Learning Report Card, a new and one-of-a-kind web tool to grade states on how well they’re doing putting into place the Ten Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning. The Report Card allows the feature of clicking on individual states for a breakdown of their scores, including comparisons with up to two other states.

Colorado’s education story of the month has been the state of public online schools. An in-depth investigative report by Ed News Colorado (and Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network) coincided with a request for a formal legislative audit by the state senate’s highest-ranking Democratic official. Ed News Colorado’s three-part series: Identified a problem with students transferring out of online programs after the student count day that determines funding; Observed shortcomings among online schools in academic test performance and completion rates; and Found one bad apple of an irresponsible online school operator that since has changed management companies. The discouraging news cannot be completely brushed aside, yet the attention brought to online schools in Colorado demands context and a focus on genuine, equitable policy solutions that benefit students and support the ability of families to choose among excellent educational options. That’s why I have waited to write about the “story of the month” until my Education Policy Center friend Pam Benigno’s op-ed response was published today in the Denver Post:

A couple days ago I shared with you my amusement at a Denver Post headline and story that injected the rumor of “vouchers” into the board race for Colorado’s largest school district: Jefferson County. What about the state’s second-largest district? Well, the big story over at Ed News Colorado right now is “Vouchers a tricky issue in DPS race”: When a newly-formed committee called Latinos for Education Reform placed ads in several community newspapers criticizing the records of both [Denver Public Schools board incumbent Arturo] Jimenez and board member Andrea Merida – who is not up for re-election this year – the Jimenez campaign initially complained of “race-baiting.” But Jimenez followed that with a newsletter to supporters claiming LFER is misrepresenting itself and that its ads “are being pushed by pro-voucher individuals and special-interest groups,” making reference to “radical pro-voucher activists from Douglas County.”

Hey, wait a minute! Doesn’t America have an unemployment problem? Do we need a bunch of kids glutting the job market? I have to ask because Michelle Luce, writing for Education Debate at Online Schools, brought my attention to a Fox News story about a Wyoming school giving jobs to elementary students: “My son Kaleb is a pencil sharpener –” his mother Angie Hiller started. “– Writing tool assistant,” Coffeen’s school counselor Jennifer Black corrected, smiling. Kaleb is one of many students who hold volunteer “leadership jobs” at Coffeen — one of several new initiatives at the elementary school that encourage responsibility, accountability and prepare students for the real world, according to Coffeen [Elementary] Principal Nicole Trahan.[link added]

A couple days ago we lost a great American entrepreneur: Steve Jobs. A million words have been offered up to commemorate his untimely passing, and the tremendous impact his genius and innovation have had on our society and our daily lives. There’s not much more I can say. I’m too young to remember life before the iPod and iPhone, and certainly before the personal computer. But here’s a perspective you may not have seen yet. Writing at Education Next, Dr. Jay Greene brings our attention to some of the things Jobs had to say about education reform. Here’s just a snippet, from a 1995 interview: …But it pains me because we do know how to provide a great education. We really do. We could make sure that every young child in this country got a great education. We fallfar short of that…. The problem there of course is the unions. The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it’s not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can’t teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It’s terrible. Dr. Greene goes on to remind readers […]

In this musical play my grandma told me about, called The Music Man, there’s a song that strongly suggests people from Iowa are stubborn, and (kinda tongue-in-cheek) tells listeners that “you really ought to give Iowa a try.” Back in January, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow noted how one-time Colorado education innovator Jason Glass had been hired to run Iowa’s state education department. What’s the connection? The Des Moines Register reports today that Gov. Terry Branstad and his education man Glass have proposed “the most sweeping and comprehensive changes to Iowa’s education system in the state’s history.” Reported areas of major change include:

Last week I shared with you an update about the Harrison School District’s forward-thinking teacher compensation system. Led by superintendent Mike Miles, the Colorado Springs-area district is one of the few in the state, or even in the nation, to completely discard the old salary schedule and its rigid payment of teachers based on years of experience and graduate course credits. The timing of my update turns out to be really good. This morning I found out that a school district in Michigan, of all places, is pushing forward with a plan to pay its 60 teachers more like attorneys and less like blue-collar factory workers: Suttons Bay Public Schools has achieved a rarity – a teachers union contract that pays teachers for performance and not seniority. While most every other Michigan district has a salary schedule that gives automatic raises to teachers for every year they work, Suttons Bay approved a four-year contract that groups teachers based upon performance, starting in the 2012-2013 school year…. “This is a vast improvement over the factory model compensation system used in nearly every school district throughout the country,” [Mackinac Center for Public Policy education policy director Michael] Van Beek wrote in an […]

A couple days ago my parents received in the mail a little blue booklet. Since most of the things we receive in the mailbox anymore are junk, I was getting ready to decorate it with my crayons when my mom told me to stop. It turns out the “Blue Book” is an election guide from the state of Colorado on a ballot initiative called Proposition 103. I guess word is out about a misleading pro-103 robo-call (wouldn’t it be cool if it really were a robot calling?). After looking at the “Blue Book,” my mom confirmed that Proposition 103 is a tax increase. She wanted to know why the robo-call doesn’t state that important basic fact. Turns out the “Blue Book” provided some important information. Good thing I hadn’t had a chance to start coloring on it yet. If you want to dig a little deeper on the only statewide issue this year on the Colorado ballot, doing some math might give you a different opinion than if you just heard the “for the children” speech. (Or if you’re a newspaper editorial board, and heard proposition sponsor Senator Rollie Heath’s pitch.) That’s why you really need to check out Ari […]

At my Education Policy Center friends’ recent series of Colorado school board candidate briefings, one of the local reforms they highlighted was Harrison School District Two’s groundbreaking pay-for-performance system, known as Effectiveness and Results (E & R). Well, who knew during the briefings that a little sensational news would give certain local bloggers a platform to bash performance pay? Let’s help put the overeager presumption to rest. First, Harrison superintendent Mike Miles points out that the Sierra High School student walkout is not the first of its kind in the district, and that its connection to the performance pay changes is tenuous at best. Second, as Ben DeGrow noted earlier this year in his issue paper Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform, Miles emphasizes the comprehensive approach to performance pay. Effectively overhauling established, inefficient teacher compensation structures is extremely difficult without also taking on other key changes, like Harrison has done:

What’s going on in the world of education reform? Every once in awhile, even a precocious 5-year-old like myself can benefit from stepping back to try to get a better look at the big picture. With a penetrating eye and a nuanced approach, the prolific Rick Hess takes on one of K-12 reformers’ sacred cows–the focus on the achievement gap: …The legacy of achievement gap mania isn’t necessarily undesirable. Focusing on the neediest students is admirable, as far as it goes. With limited time, talent, and resources, we can’t do everything–and it’s not unreasonable that some think our priority in every case should be the most in need. The real problem has been the unwillingness of gap-closers to acknowledge the costs of their agenda or its implications. And yet, the groupthink consensus that the business of education is “closing achievement gaps” has made it tough to talk honestly about the costs–for fear of being branded a racist or thought unconcerned with inequities. It has dreadfully narrowed the potential coalition for reform. It has distorted the way we’ve approached educational choice, accountability, and reform. It has warped and retarded the pace, reach, and power of school improvement efforts. And it has […]