Category Archives: School Choice

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.

As reported in yesterday’s Denver Post, more and more Denver families are becoming smart education shoppers and taking advantage of the choices available to them — even sometimes opting for different schools within the same household: The chaos begins in the Black household on weekday mornings around 6 a.m., when the family’s three children prepare to head off to three different Denver high schools. Keenan, a senior, attends George Washington High School. Griffin the sophomore, goes to nearby Thomas Jefferson. And Addie, a freshman, is enrolled at South. The oldest likes George Washington’s International Baccalaureate program, the sophomore likes the computer center at TJ and Addie is excited about the diversity at South. Interested? Excited? Confused? …

My friends in the Education Policy Center are busy not only thinking about how to make schools work better for families and taxpayers, but also on how to communicate their research and ideas to all different kinds of people here in Colorado … and sometimes beyond. I don’t like to think of myself as part of a communications and outreach strategy — because I just have too much fun blogging (it’s almost as fun as Legos) — but that’s definitely true. That’s why it was interesting to see the Colorado communications firm SE2 weigh in on the local education debate with the brief paper “Reform Isn’t Enough: New School Growth Requires Public Support”. After surveying recent events and talking to different important people in the field, here is part of what the communication experts came up with:

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?

So this blog called Online Schools put up a post last week titled “50 Excellent Education Blogs about Education Reform” (H/T Core Knowledge blog). Almost as if I were looking through the wrapped presents under the tree on Christmas morning for the new super Star Wars Lego set, I scanned the list … only to find that Ed Is Watching is nowhere to be found. My little 5-year-old heart was nearly broken. What do I have to do to get some attention? Have my dad build a tinfoil blimp and call a local TV news station to tell them that I’ve just been launched thousands of feet into the air somewhere over the Front Range? On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good idea. But let me engage in a little shameless self-promotion to explain why I belong on the list. Six months ago I was in the top 20 education policy blogs based on Technorati authority ratings. And read what all the cool people are saying about me on the sidebar to the right. Maybe the Online Schools blog can fix the situation. I did notice a spot where I could fit in — the Early Ed Watch […]

In what probably will be the final stop on the “A Glimpse at New Schools” tour for 2009-10, I quickly wanted to bring your attention to KIPP Denver Collegiate High School, near West Alameda and Pecos. This August the public charter school opened with a group of 9th graders who are set to be its first graduating class in 2013 before moving on to their goal of college. KIPP Denver Collegiate, conveniently located next door to the successful KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy middle school, is sharing space with Rishel Middle School (building pictured behind the famous “Knowledge Is Power” slogan from which the KIPP name derives). I was going to give you more of a detailed lowdown on KIPP Denver Collegiate, but Denver Examiner charter school columnist Donnell Rosenberg already wrote an excellent piece. All the best to KIPP’s first Denver high school as the leaders and teachers work to help students reach college ready to succeed at the next level, and throughout their lives. Other new schools featured:

For the last few years at least, Colorado students have been on an upward trend in their demonstrated math skills. Today the U.S. Department of Education released state-by-state scores for 4th and 8th grade math. NAEP scores are considered the gold standard for comparing academic success among states — especially in the subjects of math and reading. That’s why the test results are often referred to as “the nation’s report card.” In 2005, 39 percent of Colorado 4th graders rated as proficient in math — increasing slightly to 41 percent in 2007 and jumping to 45 percent in the latest results. For 8th graders over the same time span, proficiency rose from 32 percent to 37 and now to 40. A long ways to go, but still moving in right direction. While both scores remain above the national average, Colorado 4th graders also are beating the national trend on growth. (I wonder how close I am to being considered proficient on the 4th grade NAEP math test? Or the 8th grade test, for that matter?) While scores generally are flat nationwide, the Flypaper blog’s Mike Petrilli notes a bright spot in the nation’s capital. Petrilli says D.C.’s positive gains (though […]

Last year I told you about the remarkable education reform success story in Florida. The elements of this success can be traced to a comprehensive set of policy changes made while Jeb Bush was governor, including: School accountability Student accountability Private school choice Scientific-based literacy instruction Alternative teacher certification In a comprehensive article for the Summer 2009 edition of Education Next, Matt Ladner and Dan Lips explain exactly what Florida did to make dramatic gains on 4th grade national test scores. Perhaps more importantly, they take on critiques from those who say the scores are misleading because of social promotion policies or can somehow be attributed to other education initiatives voters approved: universal preschool and class size reduction. Check out the article.

You probably assume a prolific blogging prodigy like myself eventually will head to a prestigious 4-year university — maybe even with Doogie Howser-like potential. But what if when I turn 16 some day my heart is set on a career as a plumber or a chef? You wouldn’t deny me that, would you? Writing for the America’s Future Foundation, Liam Julian of the Hoover Institution says we could take a big bite out of our high school dropout problem by engaging more students in vocational education programs — particularly those that integrate academics directly with students’ career aspirations, providing greater relevance to many teens (H/T Heritage Insider): Imagine a 17-year-old who does not want to attend college (or at least not right away); who finds parsing Macbeth maddeningly immaterial; who yearns to learn a practical skill and put it to use; who feels his personal strengths are being ignored and wasted; who is annoyed by his school’s lackluster teachers, classroom chaos, and general atmosphere of indifference. Too often, such a pupil has no other options. He has no educational choice.