Category Archives: Teachers

Twelve weeks seems like a long time to someone my age, and I know it can be really hard for almost anyone to plan beyond the Christmas holiday and into the New Year. But I wanted to let you know about a great opportunity so you can mark your calendar right away for Wednesday, February 1, 2012, the first-ever Digital Learning Day: a year-long campaign to celebrate bold, creative innovative teachers in classrooms across this nation. These front-line innovators are already embedding digital learning into new instructional practices to ensure that every student leaves the classroom ready for college, career and life success. We ask you to join with us, as with them, as we launch an unprecedented, collaborative effort to expand innovation into every city, town, school and classroom in America! Former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise explains a little bit more in this 3-plus minute video:

Who knew it would be such a busy week? Before I head off to go play in the snow or jump in a pile of leaves or two — you never know with the weather here in Colorado — I thought you’d like to see the new results from the Association of American Educators nationwide survey of its member teachers on some important education issues of the day. I know you’re going to go look at it yourself, but here a few highlights to catch your interest:

Today across Colorado, the last ballots are coming in to help determine who will serve on many of the state’s 178 local boards of education (some have no competitive races, and therefore no election). It may not be the most thorough or reliable way to bring about needed reforms, but opportunities exist for some positive changes to be made at the local level that promote parental choice, professional teaching and productive education spending. That a few dozen school board candidates came out last month to hear from my Education Policy Center friends gives me some small amount of hope. Among the many topics covered at the September school board candidate briefings were examples of Colorado local K-12 innovation. Since 2005 the Education Policy Center has released a series of six papers in the “Innovative School District” series — including homages to Douglas County for its “home-grown teachers” waiver program, and to Delta County for its student-centered VISION program. Well, believe it or not, school district-level innovation is by no means isolated to our own Centennial State. An article by my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow published in the new November issue of School Reform News highlights the initiative of […]

This spring I told you about some yummy tater-tot-like education reform laws passing in Idaho. Seriously. Well, now Jessie Bonner of the Associated Press reports that one of the key reforms is coming to life throughout the Gem State: A database compiled by the state Department of Education shows schools districts have adopted a mixture of criteria, giving teachers points for everything from student attendance to graduation rates and writing assessments. The result: A laboratory of pay-for-performance methods in a state that has long debated whether teacher pay should be tied to things like student test scores. At least 29 school districts statewide have since developed merit pay plans based, at least partly, on parental involvement.

A couple days ago I gave a 5-year-old’s shout-out to well-informed parents and a simplified process for families choosing to enroll their students into a DPS school to which they are not assigned. Any reasonable step we can take to facilitate families to make educational choices that better serve students’ needs is a good thing. Making effective and meaningful changes to the K-12 system are far more likely to happen when parents are engaged and empowered and (at least somewhat) organized. In an interesting and informative Education Next article, the Walton Foundation’s Bruno Manno highlights the successes of three influential parent groups that are “NOT your mother’s PTA”:

Yesterday Denver-based and national researchers released the big evaluation of Denver’s ProComp teacher incentive pay program, often considered the centerpiece of an array of structural reforms in Colorado’s second largest school district. If you want the soundbite summary of the work by the University of Colorado Denver and the Center for Education Data and Research, Ed News Colorado’s report nearly nails it: Student achievement is up and teacher turnover is down since Denver Public Schools implemented its merit pay plan for teachers in 2006, but it’s tough to prove a direct link between the two. In other words, ProComp (not best understood as “merit pay”) almost certainly is having a positive impact on student results in classrooms across Denver, though real world conditions make it very difficult to pin down the effects of one element when many reforms are taking place. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow summarized similar observations made from a 2010 ProComp evaluation in his issue paper Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform. Of course, there’s not a magical direct line between having a system like ProComp in place and better student test results. Evaluators observed some improvements in instructional practices, and as was noted in the Ed […]

Hey, guess what everybody? I heard that some people running for office right now want not only to bring bogey men into little kids’ bedrooms like mine, but also to feed them (with whatever bogey men eat) and…. It’s just a rumor, you say? Well, someone should write a story about it anyway. Call the Denver Post, if you’re the teachers union that is: There’s a major power play happening in the Jefferson County school-board race that could mean big changes in the near future, including a possible move, some say, to add vouchers to the slate of choices in the district. Hats off to the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) — aka the teachers union in Colorado’s largest school district — for getting their rumor printed as a headline and a lead. But I also thought the candidates they were trying to scare people about made a clear response:

A couple days ago we lost a great American entrepreneur: Steve Jobs. A million words have been offered up to commemorate his untimely passing, and the tremendous impact his genius and innovation have had on our society and our daily lives. There’s not much more I can say. I’m too young to remember life before the iPod and iPhone, and certainly before the personal computer. But here’s a perspective you may not have seen yet. Writing at Education Next, Dr. Jay Greene brings our attention to some of the things Jobs had to say about education reform. Here’s just a snippet, from a 1995 interview: …But it pains me because we do know how to provide a great education. We really do. We could make sure that every young child in this country got a great education. We fallfar short of that…. The problem there of course is the unions. The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it’s not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can’t teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It’s terrible. Dr. Greene goes on to remind readers […]

Yesterday I told you that effective education reform might be ready to give Iowa a try. A major piece of the plan proposed by Gov. Terry Branstad and education department leader Jason Glass is to end social promotion for 3rd graders who can’t read. Well, my timing as usual is golden, since key Colorado education leaders yesterday gave serious discussion to moving the very same reform issue forward. Ed News Colorado reports: The anxiety level in the room rose quickly after Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs and chair of the House Education Committee, briefed the group on his idea for a bill that would hold back third-graders who are the furthest behind in literacy. [link added] About five years ago my Education Policy Center friends hosted an event with a couple experts who explained some major reasons behind Colorado’s “reading crisis.” Not all kids will be reading as well at the 3rd grade as I am, unfortunately. Let’s hope the issue of teacher training doesn’t get overlooked in this policy discussion. Not surprisingly, though, the idea to end social promotion already has opposition:

In this musical play my grandma told me about, called The Music Man, there’s a song that strongly suggests people from Iowa are stubborn, and (kinda tongue-in-cheek) tells listeners that “you really ought to give Iowa a try.” Back in January, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow noted how one-time Colorado education innovator Jason Glass had been hired to run Iowa’s state education department. What’s the connection? The Des Moines Register reports today that Gov. Terry Branstad and his education man Glass have proposed “the most sweeping and comprehensive changes to Iowa’s education system in the state’s history.” Reported areas of major change include: