Category Archives: School Board

Last week I asked what Denver Public Schools was up to with a plan to change the enrollment policies for some of its charter schools, making them into “boundary schools.” What’s up with that? When you’re 5 years old like I am, you can tend to be insecure about questioning authority so often. Thus I was pleased to see some of the quotes Denver Post education writer Jeremy Meyer posted on his Colorado Classroom blog this week:

Earlier this week there were some elections. A bunch of big people in Colorado voted, though not nearly as many as voted last year for President. One of the issues many of them had to decide was who would serve on the local school board. That part sure interests my friends in the Education Policy Center. Click the play button below to listen to a new iVoices podcast as Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow discuss the fallout from the school board elections in Colorado’s three largest school districts: Jefferson County, Denver, and Douglas County. Based on candidates’ support of school choice and other key education reforms, the results for the three districts were very different: It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the near future — especially in Denver and Douglas County.

Chalk up another gold star for public charter schools as an education reform success. What am I talking about? The second half of a one-two research combination punch, released in late October but just reported by the smart people writing opinion for the Wall Street Journal: Mr. [Marcus] Winters focuses on New York City public school students in grades 3 through 8. “For every one percent of a public school’s students who leave for a charter,” concludes Mr. Winters, “reading proficiency among those who remain increases by about 0.02 standard deviations, a small but not insignificant number, in view of the widely held suspicion that the impact on local public schools . . . would be negative.” It tuns out that traditional public schools respond to competition in a way that benefits their students. Writing on Jay Greene’s blog, the venerable Greg Forster additionally notes: …Marcus also finds that the lowest-performing students in NYC’s regular public schools benefit from charter competition; in fact, while the benefits for the overall population are statistically certain only in reading, they’re certain in both reading and math for low performers.

Yesterday I reported to you about the latest in teacher contract negotiations in Greeley. Would the public benefit by having greater access to school district collective bargaining negotiations? One of the best and brightest, Mike Antonucci, today says yes — citing a series of cases of re-appropriated funds, school calendar changes, grievance abuses, and restrictive work rules. My Education Policy Center friends currently are investigating negotiation policies of school districts across Colorado, but there is no evidence thus far of any districts taking a proactive transparent stance on union negotiations. More often districts have policies expressly prohibiting any sort of openness.

As conservative Mike Rosen notes in his column today for the Denver Post, a big school board race is underway in the Douglas County School District. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow researched and wrote a neat report (PDF) last year on the district’s innovative local licensure program. For those not in the know, Douglas County is Colorado’s third-largest school district and is located immediately south of Denver, a mix of suburban and rural communities with one of the lowest poverty rates in the state. Education reform in high-poverty urban areas typically receives the most attention, and rightly so. But does that mean a district like Douglas County has reached a plateau, and doesn’t need reform?

Learn an education policy reform idea from Ohio? Not possible, you say? Come on, it’s not as unlikely as all that. Well, my friends in the Education Policy Center ran across a new practice in the Buckeye State that could help Colorado revolutionize the way we deliver education. In the somewhat obscure Middletown Journal, Ohio state representative Bill Coley writes about the new program created by his sponsored legislation:

Do you live along Colorado’s Front Range? Are you running for the board of education in your local community this fall? Then my friends in the Education Policy Center are glad to invite you to a school board candidates issue briefing on Thursday, October 15, at 7:00 PM. Hosted at the Independence Institute offices, the event is free. An electronic copy of educational materials will be handed out, and light refreshments will be served. If you’re planning to come or have questions related to the event, please contact Ben DeGrow.

After the Colorado Independent brought attention to Denver’s Math and Science Leadership Academy (MSLA) on Friday, I decided it was turn to shine the light on a brick-and-mortar school that is unique for one reason: no principal. No principal, you say? That has to be good, right? When I throw spit wads at the kid next to me, whose office are they going to send me to? Right? Okay, okay, I can stop being goofy for a few minutes. MSLA is not a charter school but an innovation school. The school’s founders had to ask for waivers from state law that would allow it to operate with two “lead teachers” instead of a principal. Teachers evaluate each other through a peer review system. Located in southwest Denver, it’s a K-5 elementary school with a “primary focus” on “science, technology, and mathematics.” MSLA opened its doors this year to students in kindergarten through second grade. Parents who are interested can go to the school’s website for more information on admissions.

It’s important for Colorado citizens to get involved in local school board elections. A lot of important policies and other decisions are set at the local level, so it’s good to make an informed choice and cast a vote! If you live in Douglas County, you’ll want to know about two forums taking place where you can get to meet the school board candidates, ask them questions, and learn about where they stand on important issues like school choice, school accountability, performance pay, school financial transparency, and more. The first one, sponsored by the Douglas County Federation [local teachers union], is tonight from 7-8:30 PM at Chaparral High School. If you miss that opportunity, I received an email from A Parent’s Voice founder Donnell Rosenberg alerting me to another forum coming up in September:

The negotiations surrounding the teachers union contract have broken down. Now the situation appears to be getting quite tense in the Boulder Valley School District. Last week I expressed my hopes that the teachers choose to act like professionals, rather than rehash last spring’s “sick out” or even worse. This Daily Camera report (complete with video) from Tuesday’s Boulder Valley School Board meeting indicates the growing possibility that my hopes may not be met: Union officials said they don’t know what value fact-finding would provide, and they’d rather go through the budget to find the money needed to move toward professional pay. Regardless of how negotiations move forward, King has said schools won’t be interrupted. The teachers’ union has said taking some sort of “job action,” such as a strike, is a possibility but they hope to avoid it. [emphases added] Four items to consider: