Category Archives: School Accountability

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:

A new piece for Education Next by June Kronholz profiles Virginia’s four Performance Learning Centers (PLCs) — blended learning environments that use online technology to help get struggling at-risk students to graduate high school (H/T Joanne Jacobs). The story is chocked full of interesting anecdotes and insights. This one caught my attention: Students graduate when they earn the state-mandated 22 credits, but they can’t receive diplomas until spring. Firth, the Virginia PLC director, said he recently learned that some of those graduates-without-diplomas were being counted as absent by the district because, well, they weren’t in school. “We’re so outside the box and education is so inside the box,” [Richmond Technical Center PLC academic coordinator Wes] Hamner sighed.

Judging by some of the grumbling I hear from my parents lately, there’s a big hubbub in Washington, D.C., about people in government borrowing bazillions of dollars and not paying it back — or something like that. Which reminds me… You really ought to watch this 2-minute video put together by my friends at the Independence Institute: Even though it stars yucky girls, it won seventh place in some big national competition. Guess I should be happy for all of them — so sue me, all right? But anyway, this is an education blog, and I did have a reason for bringing up D.C. and politicians. (Only so often, you know, don’t want to make it more than I can take.) Allison Sherry of our own Denver Post has an interesting write-up for Education Next on the education policies and platforms of leading Republican presidential contenders. While you should read through the whole thing, I picked out one section to highlight:

Update, 7/7: Guest-writing over at Eduwonk, the insightful Paul Hill gives valuable perspective to the scandal, noting that Atlanta had taken a very inside-the-box approach to achieve its touted phony scores and suggesting the use of online adaptive tests as a policy solution that curbs cheating while preserving test-based accountability. The big, hard-to-ignore education news of the week comes from Atlanta, Georgia, in the sunny South. The Christian Science Monitor‘s Patrick Jonsson reports: Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what’s likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history. This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests. Let me tell you: If I got caught cheating, I couldn’t even imagine the consequences my parents would bring down on me. No trips to the beach all summer? No dessert for a month? Grounded from playing […]

Over at the Ed News Colorado blog, progressive teacher-activist Sabrina Stevens Shupe lays out a critique against reformer types for “the intellectually lazy use of ‘status quo.’” She says that reformers like me use the term as a blunt object “meant to suggest low achievement,” but that in reality the No Child Left Behind test-based accountability regime is the true “status quo.” Guess it all depends on your perspective. I question how truly pervasive this lazy reformer use of “status quo” is. Without a ton of time on my hands, I took to my own archives here at Ed Is Watching. The last two instances in which I used the phrase “status quo” were to talk specifically about the current states of union bargaining transparency and teacher evaluations. Going back to last October 1, though, this type of remark I made might rile up Shupe: Funny how we forget so quickly about $100 billion of borrowed taxpayer funds shipped around the country to prop up the K-12 status quo.

About eight weeks ago I brought your attention to the fact that Colorado and Michigan taxpayers both are still underwriting teachers union release time. But not so much anymore in one of our neighboring states. This is one to chalk up in the “How did I miss that?” category. Anyway, way back in March, Utah enacted House Bill 183. According to the description from Parents for Choice in Education, a Utah grassroots group backing education reform, the legislation: Prohibits granting paid association leave and requires reimbursement to a school district of the costs for certain employees, including benefits, for the time that the employee is on unpaid association leave.

The first time I heard of the Colorado Growth Model, I thought maybe it would be a scientific system to help determine how tall I would grow up to be in our high-altitude environment. No, we’re talking about our state’s system for measuring student progress toward proficiency in math, reading and writing, sorted by district and school. So I was more than just a bit off. You could sue me, but it wouldn’t get you very far. Anyway, the reason I bring up the topic is a brand-new Education Sector report titled Growth Models and Accountability: A Recipe for Remaking ESEA. The report’s hook and chief case study is Denver’s Bruce Randolph School, and a significant chunk of the report is focused entirely on (you guessed it) the Colorado Growth Model. That’s why my Education Policy Center friends gave it such close attention. Co-author Kevin Carey was kind enough to spend a few minutes on the phone with Ben DeGrow to explain a few things and answer some questions. It’s safe to say the authors of the Education Sector reports are high on the Colorado Growth Model as exemplary for other states to follow. As the report notes, a consortium […]

Transparency. Good government. Conducting public business in the light of day. I happen to think these are more than trite phrases and ideas. If you’ve been following my coverage of the dispute over opening union bargaining sessions in Colorado Springs School District 11, you have an idea of what I mean. Yesterday my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow took on the growing controversy over whether negotiations in Colorado’s largest school district — Jefferson County Public Schools — should be open to public observation. The story is kind of long and convoluted, which is why he took it on in his own blog rather than drag this poor little 5-year-old kid into the fray so quickly. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to highlight a couple items, including his conclusion: Neither parents and other taxpaying citizens, nor the journalists who help bring them information, are welcome at the table to observe how tax dollars are divvied up and many operational policies are established. I just so happen to think that good government conducts its affairs in the light of day. Here’s hoping we can get a positive resolution for greater transparency in Jeffco — and soon.

A year ago this time Colorado teachers unions were taking numerous taxpayer-funded leave days to lobby against Senate Bill 191 at the State Capitol. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has written about the topic many times — first with a 2004 issue paper that found nearly $800,000 in taxpayer subsidies underwriting the practice. The privilege remains embedded in many collective bargaining agreements. The Jefferson County Education Association, for example, gets 275 days each year releasing teachers from the classroom to do union business with the district responsible for paying the substitute costs. Evidence showed an earlier president of the Poudre Education Association engaged in political activities while most of her salary was paid from public funds. The same arrangement remains in place. But of course it’s not a problem isolated to Colorado. A couple weeks ago Michigan Capitol Confidential posted a story on its public information requests concerning teachers union leave subsidies, and the results from the Great Lakes State are interesting:

I’ve been to Glenwood Springs before with my parents. It’s a neat place, with the caves and the rides and, of course, the hot springs. But this has got to be the first time I’ve blogged about it here. The local Post Independent reports that the Roaring Fork School District looks like they are about to forge ahead with something quite innovative: At tonight’s meeting, principals and teachers from Glenwood Springs and Sopris elementary schools, Glenwood Springs Middle School and Glenwood Springs High School, as well as district officials, will all be on hand to explain the concept and answer questions. Called “Moving On,” the new levels approach to student placement is the next step in district’s ongoing effort to adopt a standards-based learning model. The standards approach is intended to ensure that students achieve a certain degree of proficiency in a subject area, primarily reading, writing and math, before they move on to the next level.