Category Archives: Just For Fun

My Grandpa occasionally likes to watch boxing on TV, something he once told me was a “stress reliever.” My dad says when he was younger, he used to have a punching bag in the basement that he would use for working out, maybe for some of the same purposes. I’m still only 5 years old, but beginning to think that maybe it’s time for this little edublogger to don the gray sweatsuit and do some jump-roping or running through the park. Why? Because John Ford, the president of the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA), said “the fight’s going to start in January”:

Yesterday, we embarked on a fun little tour of your favorite policy explorer’s best 2014 blog posts. Knowing that you’re still trying to work through all the holiday tryptophan, however, I limited myself to covering just the first half of the year. (Fun make-you-sound-smart-at-your-next-holiday-party factoid: The turkey-tryptophan thing is actually a myth.) As promised, we’ll wrap up the rest of 2014’s highlights today. Without further ado, I present Little Eddie’s favorite blog posts from July through December 2014:

It’s hard to believe, but another long year of being age 5 is nearly past. January doesn’t seem that long ago, but here we are again, on the brink of new calendars and check-dating confusion. The year 2015 is just around the corner. But for now, it’s time for a little reflection on some of the big Colorado education stories I’ve mused on in 2014. What better way to wander quickly down Recent Memory Lane than to hit the highlights? I’ve picked a favorite blog post of mine on Colorado education happenings from each month, to relive a year that took us through everything from the throes of a Common Core backlash and a dramatically contrived backlash against the Jeffco school board to the initial defeat of a union-pro tenure lawsuit and the long-awaited arrival of Dougco’s Choice Scholarship Program before the Colorado Supreme Court. Because we’re in the middle of the holiday malaise and most of you already have short attention spans to begin with, I’ve decided to break it up into two parts. Tomorrow I’ll bring you home with the second half of 2014, but today join me as we meander from January through June:

I’m starting to get pretty excited for the holidays. School’s out, the tree is decorated, the lights are up (dad only fell off the ladder once this year), and a healthy pile of presents has accumulated in the living room. Meanwhile, the holiday policy doldrums have officially arrived, which that means that yours truly will soon be riding off into the snowy sunset for a few days of family, fun, and rest. I hate to send you away empty handed, though, so I’d like to humbly present Little Eddie’s First Annual Loosely Connected Holiday Mashup.

My English classroom has a fish in it. No, not a real fish. A fish sticker. A shiny fish sticker with glittery scales, blue eyes, and an intriguingly amused expression on his (her?) face. Sometimes it feels like the fish sticker is staring at me. Have you ever tried reading or writing with a shiny fish sticker staring at you? It’s tough. And I often find myself staring back. As it turns out, I may not be the only little guy distracted by certain classroom decorations. According to an article on NBC News this week, some teachers are beginning to take steps to reduce those distractions by stripping some of their classroom decorations. The crusade (okay, that’s a bit of an overstatement) against decorations is partially based on a recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon that found highly decorated classrooms can affect the learning of young students.

Thanks to Choice Media for making my Friday life easier. It’s been a crazy week with the Jeffco union using kids as pawns. More on that later, but for now, here’s a 5-minute video from the American Enterprise Institute to catch your attention:

Very soon, I’ll be heading to the store with mom and dad to pick up this year’s school supplies. Pencils, pens, highlighters, a new backpack—we’re going to need a pretty big cart (especially if I want to ride in it). But as back-to-school week approaches for most of Colorado, it’s important to remember that there are some families for whom supply shopping is stressful, not fun. In 2013, roughly 42 percent of Colorado’s public K-12 students qualified for free- or reduced-lunch programs. And while Colorado has made great progress in serving low-income students on a policy level, it’s also important to acknowledge street-level efforts to provide disadvantaged K-12 students in Colorado with the supplies they need for a successful school year. And so, my friends, today I will eschew the usual policy discussion in order to highlight a feel-good story in the Coloradoan about organizations working to provide school supplies for low-income kids in the Poudre School District in northern Colorado.

Usually I’m reluctant to cross into the intersection of education policy and national politics. But when I do, I lean heavily on the trusted big people in my life to walk me across the busy lanes of scary-looking traffic. The aftermath of the NEA Assembly in Denver is one of those times when I’m reaching out and reaching up for a hand. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow took on the matter with a Greeley Tribune op-ed last week. He set up the 2009 NEA Assembly as a point of comparison, with candidly expressed union priorities put on center stage. Retiring NEA counsel Bob Chanin laid down the line that better results for students “must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, or collective bargaining.” As Ben wrote in his column, that line in the sand expresses why union leaders are so concerned about a couple of court cases that threaten their status and bottom line.

Update, 5/1: Looks like no knees had to be broken after all…. Did you see that post I did a little over a week ago: “HB 1292 Transparency Headed for Happy Ending? Good Solution Still Needed”? Given last night’s events, I thought about just publishing that all over again today and hoping nobody would notice. When some adults try to teach me about the importance of recycling, I don’t think that is what they had in mind. As usual, Chalkbeat Colorado does an unparalleled job of bringing readers the latest Student Success Act scoop from the Capitol: The bill left the House with a central website in it. That provision has been amended in various ways as HB 14-1292 traveled through three Senate committees, which basically contradicted each other. Bill sponsors thought they’d finessed a compromise on Tuesday night, but they hadn’t. Discussion on the bill was repeatedly interrupted for huddles on the side of the Senate chamber. At one point sponsor Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, and other senators went outside the chamber for a vigorous exchange with a big scrum of district lobbyists (sometimes known as the “K-12 mafia.”) Shortly after that, Heath announced consideration of the bill had […]

Last Friday I told you about some Maryland teachers standing up to the union machine and seeking the chance to represent themselves. According to the Education Intelligence Agency’s Mike Antonucci, the story about the Wicomico County Education Association (WCEA)’s attempted breakaway from the state and national union just grows more and more interesting: Upset by the actions of WCEA’s board, Gary Hammer, a union site representative at Bennett Middle School, began circulating petitions to recall all the WCEA officers and members of the board, and to suspend them from office until the recall took place. Hammer and his supporters claim to have gathered 700 signatures, which would constitute a majority of the bargaining unit. Last Tuesday, Hammer and others “entered the WCEA offices, changed the locks and codes, removed or altered office equipment and purported to illegally fire the Association’s only employee.”…