Category Archives: Principals

Colorado Springs Gazette editor Wayne Laugesen posted a great piece last night urging citizens to give District 49 leadership a chance with its bold plan that favors students over bureaucrats: The school board has decided the large district will go forward without a superintendent — an experiment educators are sure to watch throughout the United States. If Colorado Department of Education officials approve the district’s anticipated application to become an “innovation” district, a chief executive officer will oversee the education program with less authority than a superintendent. Other day-to-day responsibilities, traditionally managed by a superintendent, will shift to principals, teachers and others directly in contact with students. It’s a decentralization plan, designed to focus resources more directly on students and those who work with them. It’s the Marine Corps approach, in which all personnel work the trenches. You can read his piece and then vote on the question: “Do you support D-49 in eliminating top administrative positions, including the Superintendent?” I hope you join me in choosing the first option: “Yes, it’s a good idea.”

So what does my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s brand new op-ed in the Colorado Springs Gazette have to do with President Obama’s State of the Union address last night? Piqued your curiosity at all? Maybe just a tad? A couple weeks ago I told you about what’s going on in Falcon School District 49 near Colorado Springs, and the beginnings of their creative attempt to restructure the school district. Well, the Falcon board voted to move forward with the innovation plan — a decision Ben lauds and highlights in his Gazette op-ed. You can find out more about Falcon’s innovation plan by listening to an iVoices podcast with school board member Chris Wright, or by visiting a new page created on the district’s website. A main tenet of the plan is moving greater autonomy from the central administrative office to the schools in the different innovation zones. To get there, the district plans to request Innovation status from the State Board of Education — a step empowered by the creation of Colorado’s 2008 Innovation Schools Act. But what was the genesis of the groundbreaking piece of legislation? A high-need school with a bold principal (Kristin Waters, now helping […]

Nobody in the education world is talking about anything else, so why not just make it official and call this “Race to the Top week”? The fallout continues. In an exclusive interview on Tuesday, State Board of Education member Marcia Neal told my Education Policy Center friends that we might see an effort to slow down or roll back Senate Bill 191: Colorado’s landmark teacher tenure and evaluation reform. I’m not sure if she was thinking it would happen this week, but open up the opinion section of today’s Denver Post, and you’ll see a guest column written by Cherry Creek educator Brian Kurz titled “Go back and fix SB 191.” My modest suggestion would be for the author to go back and check some of his facts and assumptions. First: [Bill sponsor] Michael Johnston authored SB 191 and pushed its passage as a way to better position Colorado for Race to the Top money. Johnston knew first-hand the obvious flaws with both the language of [sic] bill and the ambiguity of how to achieve its goals. Despite the lack of specifics, the bill was Colorado’s chance at a $175 million lottery. While Johnston certainly expressed hopes of winning Race […]

I learned some good news today: While Colorado K-12 public schools expect to receive $160 million in Edujobs money to save more jobs than were lost and to preserve the status quo, some good news arrived: Colorado also will receive a 3-year, $40.8 million federal grant to help innovative charter schools with start-up expenses. Denise at Colorado Charters has posted the official CDE press release. While certainly some of the new schools I’ve highlighted will be eligible for funding, there’s another new school featured today in the Fort Collins Coloradoan:

Ed News Colorado reported last Friday that a new Denver Public Schools policy has started to reap some small dividends: Fewer Denver teachers unable to find jobs on their own were placed into the city’s highest-poverty and lowest-achieving schools for 2010-11, according to district figures. That’s a reversal of what’s occurred for at least three years, when the poorest schools were more likely to be assigned teachers who either did not apply to be there or were not chosen for hiring by the principal. Because of collective bargaining agreements and standard bureaucratic practices in most larger urban school districts (81 out of the nation’s 100 largest district, Education Week reports), the reality for some time has been that the unwanted teachers get shuffled around and force-placed in the poorest schools with the neediest students. A much bigger problem for Denver than the surrounding suburban districts, this “dance of the lemons” is not exactly a formula for closing the academic achievement gap. The new Denver Public Schools policy makes it more difficult for forced placement of teachers into high-poverty schools and prohibits forced placement into low-performing schools. In addition to easing the effects on high-need schools, it looks like the policy […]

I sure hope no schools in Colorado are doing this sort of thing. It’s a story told by a New Jersey mom, via the Washington Examiner‘s Mark Hemingway (H/T The Union Label): I am looking for your opinions and insights based upon a very distressing situation my youngest daughter brought to my attention last week involving a school fundraiser.

On Friday my Education Policy Center friends took in the presentation and tour of new Standards-Based Education (SBE) system in the local Adams School District 50 (Westminster). It’s the largest school district in the nation to have taken such a bold departure from the traditional system of age-based grade levels and familiar letter grades. Under the leadership of Superintendent Roberta Selleck, District 50 decided to move outside the box in addressing the challenges of a long-term decline in student enrollment coupled with growing rates of student poverty and limited English proficiency. The district is just completing its first full year using the SBE system, and there’s definitely something exciting and innovative going on. The system is about so much more than can be squeezed into a blog post, but here’s 16summary thoughts about SBE:

As far as education reform issues go, this year’s Colorado legislative session has been kind of humdrum. Until now. Yes, this week is THE week. Senate Bill 191 — the proposal I’ve told you about that will overhaul our state’s evaluation and tenure system for the better — will be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday and Thursday. If you’re not too familiar with SB 191, or you want a better sense of what exactly it will do and which groups are lining up to support or oppose the bill, then click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to lead sponsor Senator Michael Johnston, D-Denver, discuss it with Ben DeGrow on a new iVoices podcast: Stay tuned. My Education Policy Center friends and I have just begun to cover this issue. (And if there happens to be another “THE week” after this one, don’t blame me for my youthful exuberance and excitement.

The Colorado state legislature has been in session for three months now (only one more to go!), and finally we get to the excitement of debating a truly significant education reform bill. With Democratic state senator Michael Johnston at the forefront, the newly introduced Senate Bill 191 (PDF) would overhaul our state’s teacher evaluation and tenure system for the better. Here’s a strong flavor of what the legislation proposes to do: Key provisions of the bill include annual teacher and principal evaluations, with teacher evaluations to be based 50 percent on student growth and principal evaluations based two-thirds on student growth and the demonstrated effectiveness of a principal’s teachers. The bill also would require that tenure be earned after three consecutive years of effectiveness as determined by evaluations. Tenured teachers could be returned to probation if they don’t have good evaluations for two years. The bill also would require the mutual consent for placement of teachers in specific schools and establishes procedures for handling teachers who aren’t placed. It also specifies that evaluations can be considered when layoffs are made.

In recent weeks I’ve told you about the recent successes Colorado has seen in the area of school financial transparency — namely, the detailed online financial databases created by two of the state’s three largest districts (Jeffco and Douglas County). Yesterday the Denver Post‘s Jeremy Meyer and Burt Hubbard reported some of what can be learned by having an easier peek behind the financial curtain: Spending on items other than salaries and bonuses by the Jefferson County and Douglas County school districts totaled $106 million and $91 million, respectively, from July 2009 to mid-February this year. And while the bulk of that money is spent on necessary supplies for maintenance of schools, and for direct classroom expenses (such as books, office supplies and other items), millions are spent annually on restaurants, travel and training.