Category Archives: Just For Fun

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….

Yesterday I brought your attention to a new report on what effective teacher evaluation systems should look like, and expressed my wish that the implementation of SB 191 ends up reflecting the six principles in schools across Colorado. It wasn’t much later that local education reformer Amy Slothower posted about some of her recent frustrating experience observing Denver Public Schools stuck in a rut on — guess what? — the teacher evaluation system. Here are some key paragraphs: I’ve been working in education reform for 10 years now, and I’ve come to accept that this business is full of frustrations and battles over divergent interests and an achingly slow pace of change. However, the A-Plus Denver committee meeting I attended this morning has me so aggravated that I am moved to do something I’ve never done before: blog about it!…

As a young edublogger, I hear from a lot of people and groups with their new education book. Some look more interesting than others, including this one that crossed my desktop today from the Capital Research Center (CRC): The Neighbor’s Kid tells the story of what twenty-four year-old Philip Brand discovered regarding American education when he drove his car cross-country during the 2008-09 school year visiting two schools in each of forty-nine states. The schools were public and private, religious and secular, urban and rural, typical and unusual. Brand wanted to learn first-hand what students, parents, teachers, and principals think about their elementary and secondary schools and what they expect from education. His principal discovery: When it comes to picking a school parents care most about the kids with whom their own children associate. Not the curriculum, not the teachers, but the other kids. That concern has important consequences for how school districts, states and the federal government set education policy. A second conclusion: Government policymakers cannot set standards of educational “achievement” because true education is intimately tied to the cultural and civic experiences of families and communities.

Since Friday is here, time for some lighter fare… maybe as in having a lighter body weight? You don’t see me writing a lot about physical education — maybe because you typically can’t get P.E. credit for blogging or Legos. But maybe I could get credit for all the times I go crazy running around in my (fenced in) backyard when my mom can’t stand me being in the house anymore. As Marci Kanstoroom reports at Education Next, traditional P.E. courses aren’t doing much at all to curb the problem of childhood obesity. But some schools are experimenting with innovative new ways to offer P.E.:

Talk about taking a walk into another dimension of reality. I’ve heard about those Twilight Zone episodes, but my mom won’t let me watch them yet because she says they give me nightmares. I love you, mom, but if you’re so concerned about me getting nightmares, you shouldn’t have let me watch this production from Silly Retro Theaters (H/T This Week In Education):

Update, 6/16: Teacher Beat blogger Stephen Sawchuk notes that both Colorado’s own Harrison School District and now the Pittsburgh School District have fashioned pay plans that make master’s bumps “a thing of the past.” It’s summertime. The Internet isn’t exactly brimming with exciting new developments in the world of education to write about. So instead I point you to a new blog post from Dr. Eric Hanushek at Education Next about the irrational policy of awarding teachers automatic pay increases for earning masters degrees: What does this bonus do? It induces many teachers to want to have a master’s degree. (Over half of all teachers have an advanced degree now.) Getting a master’s degree is frequently something done concurrently with a full time teaching job, so the last thing these teachers want is a challenging academic program that requires real work. As a result, schools of education are willing to sell master’s degrees that require minimal effort. Master’s degrees become a very profitable product. A profitable product that, as research has shown time and again, does absolutely nothing to benefit the learning of students. And as the Center on Reinventing Public Education showed in 2009, 2 percent of all K-12 […]

How embarrassing! Apparently my friend Democrats for Education Reform turned 3 years old a few days ago (H/T Eduwonk), and I missed it altogether. Think of all the great advice I could offer to someone who just turned 3! Anyway, DFER executive director Joe Williams offered his reflections on the growth and influence of the Democratic Party’s go-to advocacy voice for reforming public schools: Just three years ago, today’s conventional wisdom (that the political tide is beginning to turn in favor of reform) would have been laughable. Trust me, I heard the laughs and saw the eyes roll in state after state when I told people what we were trying to do. Good luck with that, they told us. Yep. DFER has come a long way, baby. It’s a great thing to see strong voices for education reform in both major political parties. But to celebrate now, I’m going to have to send a belated birthday card. What kind of card do you think: Snoopy? Dora? Lightning McQueen? Maybe DFER’s still into Winnie the Pooh….

Back in April, I told you about the Balanced Education for Everyone campaign to empower parents to ensure their child’s school provides a balanced presentation of global warming and environmental issues. Well, it’s more than just an idea here in Colorado. Out in the Grand Junction area, local attorney and former school board candidate Rose Pugliese took note of some unbalanced classroom presentations in her local schools. Instead of just complaining about it, she started circulating petitions and has garnered hundreds of signatures that she plans to present to the school board this evening. Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to Rose discuss her grassroots effort with my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow on an iVoices podcast:

I know it’s only Tuesday, but I can’t help but thinking about movies again. Last week was the Denver event co-hosted by my Independence Institute friends. About 50 guests showed up to watch The Cartel and have a great discussion about education reform afterward. I couldn’t go because it was past my bedtime. And my Education Policy Center so-called friend Ben DeGrow couldn’t save any of the tub of buttery movie popcorn, or even spare a single Kit Kat bar, for me. Anyway, having just watched one top-notch education reform movie, there’s another one to look forward to being released in the fall, called Waiting for Superman. Here’s a snippet of a review: [Director Davis] Guggenheim makes his points by introducing us to all sorts of people who are directly affected by our floundering education system — and for the most part, it’s just not pretty. We meet Washington D.C. Education Chief Michelle Rhee, who has some revolutionary new ideas on how to keep teachers happy and inspired … but the teachers’ union doesn’t like them. We get to know a small handful of great kids, all of whom seem smart and sweet and dedicated … oh, but there simply […]

I bet you didn’t know it’s Teacher Appreciation Week. As we near the end of the year for most Colorado schools, it’s a perfectly fitting time to show your appreciation to your teacher, your child’s teacher or some other important teacher in your life. Why else is it fitting? It’s also THE week in the Colorado House of Representatives for Senate Bill 191, the Great Teachers and Leaders bill. Important policy questions about teacher quality that will have profound impacts on Colorado schools and classrooms will be decided this week. Some teachers come down on one side of SB 191, and some on the other. But as I pointed out on Monday, only one side gets tax funding to argue its case. Another favor you can do to show appreciation to Colorado teachers at least is to point them to the information on the Independent Teachers website, so they can make the best informed decisions about their professional memberships and the uses of their funds for political purposes. Information teachers and other education employees in our state can use all year long. Whatever you do, I hope you don’t end up saying “Screw Teacher Appreciation Week.”