Category Archives: Innovation and Reform

My mom and dad work with me a lot to help me be less selfish. The phrase “Me first” is kind of frowned upon in our household. Ok, I get that. But what about “We first”? If I’m thinking about all us kids out there who are students, that’s not being too self-centered… right? It was about two months ago you all had to help me fight back the tears after the news that Michelle Rhee was forced out of her job as D.C. schools chancellor. But it’s always darkest before the dawn, they say. For last week the news came out that my edu-crush is now leading a national education reform advocacy group known as… you guessed it: Students First. Isn’t this great news? Well, if you don’t want to drown in my enthusiasm, you ought to read the thoughtful, well-informed perspective of the Center for Education Reform’s Jeanne Allen, who offers some valid cautions to Rhee with her “Welcome Aboard” message.

Interesting results from a survey by the Foundation for Educational Choice came out recently, gauging opinions and understanding of education issues of voters in six different states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, New Jersey and New York. Taking a look at the full results (PDF) is fascinating. A few items about school choice jump out. Respondents in all states strongly support charter schools and private school tax credit programs and also favor vouchers. But interestingly, there was a lot of skepticism about virtual schools. Maybe if voters in these states were more familiar with online education as we are in Colorado, their opinions would change.

So you just got elected (or re-elected) to the Colorado state legislature. But it’s not as much fun as you thought, because they say there’s this big budget deficit that has to be made up. And that means some spending cuts, which won’t make you the most popular person with a lot of the interest groups that depend on funding from tax dollars. That includes K-12 education, which makes up the biggest part of the state’s general fund budget (about 45 percent). Some cuts will have to be made. But does that mean bad times for schools and students? Not necessarily, not if state leaders are willing to make some tough decisions. What sort of decisions? Well, I’m glad you asked. The Independence Institute has created a really thick report known as the Citizens’ Budget to show how legislators can find lots of ways to save money without harming important services. This big project helps to show in detail what my mom and dad have taught me so well: it’s not about how much you spend as much as how smart you are about spending it. (That’s saved me from breaking the piggy bank on a couple occasions.)

It’s always fun to discover a great new education blog on a Friday. I’m talking about the blog “redefinED: the new definition of public education” by Florida reformers John Kirtley and Doug Tuthill (H/T Eduwonk). A series of their recent entries report and provide analysis from Jeb Bush’s very recent Excellence in Action conference in Washington, D.C. — including the hot topic of digital learning. More to come on that front later. Overall, the blog offers some interesting insights from a couple of experienced and thoughtful leaders in the movement to expand school choice and make our schools better. I agree that a large part of the battle of ideas surrounding education reform falls in the lap of how public education is understood to be defined, and look forward to reading Kirtley and Tuthill’s blog regularly.

Thanks to Mike Antonucci’s Intercepts blog, I learned that today is “National Blogging for Real Education Reform Day.” The American Association of School Administrators and ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) are hosting this “grassroots effort to bring together Pk-12 and higher education educators.” I like to help educate people and am definitely grassroots, but I probably don’t fit the bill of whom they’re looking for to blog on the topic. Nevertheless, here’s a post for real education reform on November 22, 2010, and it has to do with educators. Specifically the way they are paid. I’m talking about all the money we pay teachers and other educators just because they have a master’s degree. As noted in a Saturday Associated Press story (H/T This Week in Education), we spend about $8.6 billion nationally each year on these “master’s bumps” — which have no connection to improved student learning. In Colorado, thanks to the research of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, we know the amount is nearly $140 million annually (that figure is from year-old data). My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow pointed this out in July 2009 testimony he gave before the state’s Fiscal […]

This is not the week for your average, run-of-the-mill, humdrum school board meeting. Not in Colorado, not in the Denver metro area. I already highlighted the heavy attendance at Douglas County’s Tuesday public testimony on their School Choice Task Force proposals and all the attention generated from it. Then there was last night in the Denver Public Schools, as a divided Board of Education was set to weigh a controversial turnaround reform proposal affecting the Far Northeast (FNE) part of the city. According to Jeremy Meyer in the Denver Post, the Board stayed up well past my bedtime to approve the proposal on a 4-3 vote. The newly-approved proposal includes a lot of features — which are well broken down in Nancy Mitchell’s Ed News Colorado story. One piece is an expansion of the successful Denver School of Science and Technology program using shared space in the Cole Arts and Science Academy innovation school. My Education Policy Center friends alerted you to this possible development back in March on an iVoices podcast with Cole principal Julie Murgel. In its story, Ed News Colorado also published a 4-minute highlight video from the Denver school board meeting, a more balanced presentation than […]

So last night the Douglas County Board of Education hosted an hour of public comment on proposals made by the community’s School Choice Task Force. Of course, the testimony overwhelmingly was about the “Option Certificates,” or voucher, proposal. The Denver Post‘s Jeremy Meyer reports that public comments “were evenly split for and against the plan.” Ed News Colorado’s Nancy Mitchell says the comments were about 60/40 against the private school choice proposal, though their embedded five-minute video dedicates 80 percent of airtime to opponents. In addition to the Ed News video, you should watch the local 9News report, including a great comment from Douglas County resident and task force member Charcie Russell: “It’s not about private versus public, it’s really about more choice, and I see that great for kids, great for parents, and great for the district,” Russell said. It’s not surprising to see passion on both sides. The opposition, though, should consider the merits of their arguments. Drawing from resources at the Foundation for Educational Choice and the Institute for Justice, my Education Policy Center friends have compiled the following document to address concerns about effects on public school performance, fiscal impact and constitutionality:

It’s Friday. Time to lighten up with a 90-second summary of the new education reform movie Waiting for Superman produced by Taiwanese animators, a video you simply have to see to believe (H/T Jay Greene): Michelle Rhee as a martial arts heroine with a “Reform” bandanna and a broom? My little heart is going pitter-patter….

In all the excitement over what’s going on in Douglas County, I nearly overlooked something else in the Denver Post that deserves our attention. An article last week about the state’s new education accountability system included this little gem: State officials have called the new School Performance Framework a national model. “It is intended to build a communal understanding of the performance of schools and to build a planning process on how to improve schools,” said Colorado Associate Commissioner Richard Wenning. The School Performance Framework’s big reveal isn’t supposed to be for another month, when state officials are planning an event that will include the governor, unveil a new online tool for parents and provide every school a detailed scorecard. A new information tool for parents? If it makes SchoolView.org more helpful and parent-friendly, then three cheers and a big hurrah! Perhaps it will turn out to be something else to complement the incredibly valuable information we provide on our School Choice for Kids website.

Update, 11/9: Blogger Ben Boychuk at Somewhat Reasonable gives a plug to Douglas County and to little ol’ Eddie. He echoes our remarks and raises a great point: “Indeed, what if the public schools in Douglas County, Colorado served the interests of taxpayers and parents, and not those of the unions and ranking members of the establishment with a vested interest in preserving the status quo?” I love it when the Denver Post brings big attention to issues I’ve covered here weeks before. It tells me little Eddie is ahead of the curve. It was true of this summer’s Common Core standards debate, and today it’s true of the Douglas County school board looking to expand the boundaries of parental choice. I wrote on October 18 about the DCSD School Choice Task Force: The Task Force has looked at a range of changes for possible recommendation and adoption — everything from improving open enrollment policies to enhancing services available to home schoolers to ensuring equitable treatment of charter schools to considering a local private school choice program. I wrote that after the Board itself publicly reasserted in a public memo: We believe that informed parents, not Board members, are best […]