Category Archives: Innovation and Reform

Over and over again I have said that serious outside-the-box thinking is needed to push American schooling toward excellence that affords families a wide array of challenging and effective options to serve them best. In that light Matt Ladner brings our attention to a bold and visionary education transformer, who just so happens to be one of our neighbors to the west. A column in last Friday’s Salt Lake Tribune indicates that the Utah legislature will be considering a dramatic proposal that could greatly empower families to customize education: Legislation proposed by Rep. John Dougall, R-American Fork, would give each high school student in Utah an individual education savings account, sort of like a debit card, and that student could use that money any way he or she wanted toward earning a diploma….

I’ve got a new, exciting addition to the blogroll to tell you about. Today marks the launch of Choice Media, described in its first official media release as “a non-profit news service devoted to covering all facets of K-12 education quality and reform.” It’s no amateur operation, either. A look at the website will tell you that. Once you realize that the founder is Bob Bowdon, director of the 2010 movie The Cartel, then you sit up and take notice. Choice Media figures to introduce the message of school choice and education reform to some new audiences. Not only will they be featuring short video news pieces that I’ll be tuning in to, and a decent assortment of news aggregation, blog posts and Twitter feeds, a quick tour of the site also reveals some other interesting features:

How about a little “dog bites man” story for education policy geeks? Hey, you can’t drive the point home often enough when you’re making the case for education transformation! A new issue brief for the Manhattan Institute by Marcus Winters (now one of Colorado’s own) highlights the unsurprising but important research he conducted along with Jay Greene and Bruce Dixon: Our study, to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Economics of Education Review, builds on two decades of research from a variety of school systems and confirms a consistent finding: external teacher credentials tell us next to nothing about how well a teacher will perform in the classroom…. As with most previous research, we found no relationship between a teacher’s earning a master’s degree, certification, or years of experience and the teacher’s classroom performance as measured by student test scores….

Last December I suggested to you four education reform books as stocking stuffer ideas. One of the books on the list was an important volume edited by Frederick Hess and Eric Osberg, titled Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best. In September my Education Policy Center friends have been busy briefing school board candidates from numerous Colorado districts about a broad range of reform issues. At the forefront of nearly all local officials’ minds is the fact that once plush and growing revenues for K-12 education have faced some modest cutbacks, forcing many to re-think how schooling can be done more productively. Stretching the School Dollar is an immensely practical resource for aspiring school board directors and the leaders they hire. In that light, it’s exciting to see The Education Gadfly report that the book has been nominated as a finalist for the Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network’s “Most Actionable Research” award. “Most Actionable,” indeed!

Yesterday was Labor Day. Which makes it a coincidence that my Education Policy Center friends decided to publish this report today, titled Nine Key Changes at the Bargaining Table: Of Colorado’s 178 school districts, 41 have a formal bargaining relationship with one or more employee unions. Because Colorado has no defined public-sector labor law, the greatest opportunity to reform restrictive policies and interest group privileges comes at the local school board level. Recent bargaining reforms in other states show the fiscal benefits that may be realized from adopting this approach. The few high-quality academic studies of the question all show that restrictive bargaining policies have a negative impact on student learning.

From the files of “I’m glad s/he’s not my state legislator,” we turn to the state of Michigan — where lawmakers are considering a plan to give families greater choice through mandatory public school open enrollment. A recent Associated Press story highlights some of the outrageous rhetoric from the opposition: State Rep. Timothy Bledsoe, a Democrat from Grosse Pointe, said he’s worried that a mandatory schools of choice program would be the “death blow” to local control of schools. “If your school board cannot control its boundaries and who is allowed to attend your schools, there just isn’t much left that Lansing can’t determine,” Bledsoe said. “The school board is left to hire and fire the superintendent and that’s about it.” A pretty silly argument all in all. Mandatory open enrollment essentially means no school can keep out students based on where they live, as long as there is a seat open and the school doesn’t have to create a special program or accommodation just for that student. Public school choice leader Colorado has mandatory open enrollment — one of the nation’s strongest open enrollment laws, in fact. In 2010-11, about 66,000 students attended a public school outside their district […]

Was it really less than three weeks ago I wondered aloud about the pending school choice rulings here in Colorado and in Indiana? While a Denver District Court judge put a (temporary) halt to the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program, a few days later Hoosier families celebrated a better result. Today Associated Press writer Tom Coyne highlights the Indiana program’s early popularity (H/T Adam Emerson): Under a law signed in May by Gov. Mitch Daniels, more than 3,200 Indiana students are receiving vouchers to attend private schools. That number is expected to climb significantly in the next two years as awareness of the program increases and limits on the number of applicants are lifted…. Until Indiana started its program, most voucher systems were limited to poor students, those in failing schools or those with special needs. But Indiana’s is significantly larger, offering money to students from middle-class homes and solid school districts. [emphasis added]

It’s been a couple weeks since I chimed in on Colorado’s Lobato school funding trial — in particular on the dubious $115,000 taxpayer-underwritten study proclaiming that our state’s K-12 education system is inadequately funded. Well, believe it or not, the District Court hearing is still going on. After the case seemingly has dropped off most of the local media’s radar, Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl continues the fine work of providing daily updates from the courtroom, including the latest: “There’s no consistent relationship between school resources and school achievement,” Hoover Institution scholar Eric Hanushek testified Thursday in the Lobato v. State school funding case. Hanushek, a nationally known researcher on the economics of education, is the key expert witness for the state as it seeks to counter the plaintiffs’ claim that Colorado’s school funding system doesn’t adequately meet the education requirements of the state constitution. Questioned by Senior Assistant Attorney General Carey Markel, Hanushek added, “Money certainly matters; you can’t run a school without money.” But, he added, “How you spend money is more important than how much … In general, you can’t expect any large achievement gains without changing the way you spend.”

Time is of the essence today, so one of my Education Policy Center friends will simply take a quick moment and point you to a very insightful blog passage about the dynamics of education reform. Take it away, Dr. Rick Hess: …it strikes me as ludicrous for the unions to sit quietly by and share the blame for timid, tepid leadership, or when unions passively take the blame for weak teachers when teacher preparation programs produce graduates of dubious merit. In doing so, teachers and unions become complicit. The problem, I think, is a variation on Ted Sizer’s famed “Horace’s Compromise.” Teacher unions, superintendent and principal associations, schools of education, and school boards avoid calling each other out on such things, while focusing their energies on presenting a united front demanding more money and deference from taxpayers and policymakers. By the way, this phenomenon is part of what drives “reformers” to distraction. They can’t understand why so many supes and school boards seem to placidly accept onerous collective bargaining requirements, or why quality-conscious teachers don’t do more to call out feckless leadership.

I’m not sure what it is with big people’s fascination with politics, and how discussions about education seem to cross over into the absurd the closer big elections get. Case in point: the Republican governor of Texas announces he is a candidate for President. Less than a week later, the Democratic U.S. Secretary of Education levels a bizarre and scathing critique at the Lone Star State: “Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,” Duncan said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing tonight and tomorrow. “I feel very, very badly for the children there.” “You have seen massive increases in class size,” Duncan said of the Texas public school system during Perry’s terms as governor since December 2000. “You’ve seen cutbacks in funding. It doesn’t serve the children well. It doesn’t serve the state well. It doesn’t serve the state’s economy well. And ultimately it hurts the country.” Eduwonk and Time Magazine education columnist (and Democrat) Andrew Rotherham was as puzzled as anyone by the Secretary’s broadside, and got a chance to follow up directly: