Category Archives: Teachers

Last week, the day after the landmark failed recall elections in Wisconsin, I offered some thoughts about what it means and where it’s all headed. We’ve crossed an important threshold that shows the teachers union power is declining and that the industrial labor model of collective bargaining gradually fades from the governing of public education. But I didn’t realize that the changes would cause the status quo to go all sentimental so soon. Yesterday, the Education Intelligence Agency’s Mike Antonucci sent out his weekly Communique detailing a remarkable revelation from the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union. Following up on the news of significant NEA membership declines and the need to cut staff and budget at their Washington, D.C., office, Antonucci posted from an NEA memo being circulated among union activists: Unlike in the past, our shrinking membership is not the sole product of a down economy from which we could expect to eventually recover. The forces impacting us are so strong that they have indelibly changed our industry, the educational system, and society at large. Things will never go back to the way they were…. [emphasis added] Mind you, it wasn’t my parents who picked up […]

Yesterday I shared some thoughts about the current and coming changes to public education labor relations and the teaching profession. And since Gov. Scott Walker did indeed pull out a convincing win last night in Wisconsin, interest in the topic remains strong. State Budget Solutions has put together a great brief highlighting why current government collective bargaining models need to be reformed, something that mirrors what my Education Policy Center friends produced last year as a guide for local changes in Colorado. All this raises the need for a few more important points to be addressed:

So I hear there’s this little election going on in Wisconsin today. As is so often the case, the political happenings are closely connected to the issues of our public school system. One of the nation’s leading education reform voices, RiShawn Biddle, has written a two-part series (here and here) highlighting the dilemma centrist Democrats face regarding aggressive collective bargaining reforms like those advanced in Wisconsin by Governor Scott Walker. Biddle shines a big spotlight on the national implications of today’s likely Walker victory for the future politics of education reform. You really need to read both pieces in their entirety. But in this passage he really drives the point home:

What if I told you the Colorado school district with the second-highest average teacher salaries just dramatically increased compensation for new hires and is still figuring out how to pay for it? A few days ago the Boulder Daily Camera reported that the Boulder Valley School District agreed to boost starting teacher salaries to one of the state’s highest, increased by 17 percent from $34,192 to $40,000 (H/T Complete Colorado). As the article explains, that figure is for teachers who hold a bachelors degree. Such an across-the-board pay increase certainly represents a nice gesture from the district. For teachers with extra credentials, it gets even higher: For Boulder Valley, the major changes are the $40,000 starting salary and incentives to earn advanced degrees. A master’s degree, for example, would bump a starting teacher’s salary up to about $51,000. That’s an even bigger jump from the current starting MA salary of $36,927. The question for BVSD officials is what will they get for their money?

School is out… Hooray!!! But in Douglas County, Colorado’s third-largest school district and a true hotspot of education reform, the summer months still give us plenty to which we can look forward. First, this month of June represents the final 30 days before the collective bargaining contract with the Douglas County Federation of Teachers (DCFT) expires. What happens after that, no one knows. It’s going to look much different, though, that’s for sure. Groundbreaking open negotiations kicked off there more than seven weeks ago. I applauded the bold proposals set forth by the Douglas County school board, some of which also caught the favorable attention of Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll. Previously, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow had raised the question of how serious DCFT was about embracing open union negotiations. Transparency has seemed to suit everyone just fine, even as a few hundred teachers showed up at the last session to send a statement. It’s good to listen to the voice of teachers. Especially the best teachers. And an organization doesn’t necessarily have to be recognized by a government body as exclusive bargaining agent to ensure that happens. Are the teachers in Colorado’s 137 non-bargaining districts (as […]

Has it been a whole year since the last big ACE Scholarships luncheon? Funny. I was still 5 then, too. Last time around it was my edu-reform crush Michelle Rhee, only a few months out of her famous tenure as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, explaining her change of heart about vouchers and praising Douglas County’s choice scholarship program. The 2012 edition of the ACE Scholarships luncheon featured Foundation for Excellence in Education board chair Jeb Bush sounding the call for more choice as a catalyst to his winning education reform formula. His successful track record as Florida governor from 1999 to 2006 is tied to his focused and comprehensive approach to education reform. But as Governor Bush famously has said time and time again in various forms, “Reform is never finished because success is never final.” Therefore, the theme of his Denver speech yesterday was focused on the future, as reported by Ed News Colorado:

It’s not every day when my parents turn on the radio and get to hear education policy top the national news headlines. But yesterday Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a big speech to explain why improving education was “the civil rights issue of our era, and it’s the greatest challenge of our time.” Hardly a coincidence, I’m sure, but the Romney campaign also just released “A Chance for Every Child.” The document outlines his education policy plans, including:

A team of local education reform groups has partnered to release the new report True North: Goals for Denver Public Schools. It’s a quick, worthwhile read for anyone interested in improving the outcomes of American urban education. Denver Public Schools is often cited as a reform model for districts in other cities across the land, but this new report says even DPS isn’t aiming high enough. True North places a healthy focus on academic achievement as measured by “exit-level proficiency,” or how much students know when they complete elementary, middle and ultimately high school. As Ed News Colorado commentator Alexander Ooms notes, this focus corrects a misplaced obsession on academic growth scores as an end unto themselves. While DPS is above the 50th percentile in growth, not enough students are catching up to where they need be. In some cases, they’re actually falling further behind. DPS justly has been lauded for the development of its School Performance Framework (SPF) that incorporates a range of meaningful factors to determine how well schools are doing. But the new report makes a great argument that the current bar is set too low. Expecting more DPS schools to earn 50 percent of the available […]

On Monday night, Denver CBS4 investigator Rick Sallinger broke a story about Adams 12 dismissing two teachers for allegedly bilking thousands of dollars in PTO funds that were supposed to go for student trips. I never like to see such a story as the one featured in the 3-minute video. Interviewed by Sallinger, school board president Mark Clark made a great point: We hold our kids accountable. We have them expelled or suspended for their behavior. I think the same rules apply for everybody. The husband-and-wife educator duo look to be in hot water. According to the CBS4 report, the decision to pursue firing Johnny and Pamela Trujillo followed an internal district audit. I’m not able to comment on the specifics of the case to presume anyone’s guilt, but if further investigation confirms the truth of the serious charges, it also reflects on an important policy: teacher tenure (aka “due process”).

“Before we can do anything to fix Colorado schools, we just need to give them more money. …Right?” Well, Colorado taxpayers can’t afford to dish out more any time soon. Especially since the per-pupil spending increases of the past decade didn’t significantly impact student learning, and Colorado brings in more than $10,000 in tax revenues per student. So begins a great new 2-minute video put together by my Independence Institute friends. It blends excerpts from a March 19 Colorado State Board of Education panel event here in Denver, “Making the Connections: School Finance Design and Student Achievement.” Two panelists in particular, national school finance experts, make a strong case that Colorado needs to think outside the box in designing a new system to fund learning success: