Category Archives: Teachers

About four weeks ago I raised the question about Falcon School District 49’s school buses at the State Capitol stunt: Are they serious about tough decisions ahead? Well, in a story reported this week by the Colorado Springs Gazette‘s Kristina Iodice, the answer appears to be Yes: A staffing plan that eliminates 143 jobs, including teaching positions, in Falcon School District 49 was approved Wednesday by the school board. Board members also voted to reinstate the Transportation Department as fee-for-service operation with no budget other than the money necessary to bus special education students. That vote caused the crowd at Falcon High School to erupt in applause. After that cheerful moment, Chief Education Officer Becky Carter delivered her staffing plan, which was approved but not released Wednesday. It eliminated 108 positions in schools; 16 in learning and pupil services; 10 in special education; six in facility maintenance, and three 3 in other/administration. Of course, Falcon 49 is the 15,000-student school district in the Pikes Peak region that’s pursuing innovation district status. The school board set the budget parameters for each of the four zones of innovation and left specific decisions on staffing positions (except for proposed cuts at the shrinking […]

There’s more to creating good policy than just passing a good law. This is especially true when it comes to big changes, like Colorado Senate Bill 191’s push to update how teachers are evaluated and retained. It wasn’t that long ago I expressed my concerns about the implementation. A couple weeks ago the co-chairs of the State Council on Educator Effectiveness presented their recommendations to the Colorado State Board of Education. One of the presenters expressed a hopeful confidence that the 50 percent of teacher and principal evaluations based on observed performance would match up with the 50 percent based on student growth. The good news, as reported by Education Next, is that new research by Thomas Kane and colleagues shows creating such an effective evaluation system can be done — because in a sense, the Cincinnati Public Schools’ Teacher Evaluation System (TES) already has done it:

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.

Just to be clear up front, I’m not necessarily implying any sort of superiority from the Hoosier State. Not at all. It’s far more about having a little Friday fun with puns. After all, it’s fun to revel in the news from the Foundation for Educational Choice: The Indiana Senate today passed legislation that would create the nation’s broadest school voucher program, allowing low- and middle-income families to use taxpayer funds to send their children to the private school of their choice. House Bill 1003, which was approved by the Senate in a 28-22 vote, would create a new scholarship program enabling families to send their children to the private school of their choice. Scholarship amounts are determined on a sliding scale based on income, with families receiving up to 90 percent of state support. Having the full support of Governor Mitch Daniels and now having passed both houses, the voucher program is sure to become law in Indiana. But HB 1003 has to return to the House first to iron out details. The Foundation explains that the Senate added a “$1,000 tax deduction for private and homeschool expenses” available to all families regardless of income. If that piece survives […]

A few days ago I told you about the recent Denver visit from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)’s Sandi Jacobs, but I never really got to the interesting part: the main part of her presentation. She came to talk about the big project NCTQ and U.S. News and World Report have launched to evaluate the nation’s schools of education. Now, naturally, I don’t write much about schools of education. At my age it’s really quite a bit trying to follow teachers and schools, without keeping frequent tabs on who’s teaching the teachers that teach in our schools. Still, it’s an important issue — a HUGE issue, really. Just as a major example, why is there such a large-scale problem with equipping elementary instructors in teaching literacy and math? It’s truly exciting to see NCTQ take on this large task. Unsurprisingly, there has been some pushback. NCTQ explains that many education schools “do not intend to cooperate” with a national review process that — to its credit — is being conducted very transparently. Education Week Teacher Beat blogger Stephen Sawchuk has been covering the story of four states (Georgia, Kentucky, New York and Wisconsin) that have refused to “participate […]

When (or should I say if) I get older, maybe I’ll acquire a healthy dose of that battle-worn cynicism about highly-lauded education reform initiatives like Colorado’s Senate Bill 191 — also known as the “Great Teachers and Leaders” law. Sometimes I think I’m too young to adjust my expectations appropriately. But if someone as smart and experienced as Sandi Jacobs from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) is upbeat but realistic about it, why shouldn’t little Eddie? Sandi Jacobs… You may be scratching your head, saying, “Where have I heard that name before?” My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has interviewed her for podcasts a few times before, most recently back in February for a discussion on “Upgrading Colorado Teacher Policies,” based on the latest edition of NCTQ’s State Teacher Policy Yearbook. Having spoken here in Denver Friday at a Donnell-Kay Foundation Hot Lunch event, Sandi also guest-blogged over at Education News Colorado:

The must-read, full-length education story of the week is a piece by Dana Goldstein at the American Prospect, titled “The Test Generation.” Before you think this little guy has gone completely loony tunes, you have to know a couple things: The article is all about Colorado, and mainly about the implementation of Senate Bill 191, but it opens with and focuses plenty of attention on the remarkable pioneering work of Harrison School District Two; and While I don’t agree with all the article’s points and conclusions, it’s a mostly fair assessment that provides some interesting insights into Colorado’s efforts to forge ahead on enhancing educator effectiveness. Showing the story’s release was timed well, earlier this week the co-chairs of the State Council on Educator Effectiveness presented their thick set of recommendations (PDF) to the State Board of Education for consideration. More thoughts on that to come in the near future. More interesting is Goldstein’s close look at Harrison superintendent Mike Miles, whose focused leadership in the development of a groundbreaking new teacher evaluation and pay system have unsurprisingly garnered criticism from the teachers union. Yet so far the results speak for themselves:

Remember about six weeks ago when I told you that the Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA) was blackballing the District 11 Board of Education’s decision to open collective bargaining negotiations to public observation? CSEA president Kevin Marshall told the Colorado Springs Gazette that the decision was made to “protect the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement between teachers and safeguard the future of children by keeping the negotiations private.” The Gazette reported last night that a new chapter has begun in the struggle over whether to keep negotiations open or closed. It appears that the union reluctantly has agreed to jeopardize “the future of children” — well, maybe just a little bit, since only one of many sessions has been opened: The open session will be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at the Jefferson Education Center, 1801 N. Howard Ave., off Leleray Street. People may stay for the entire 12 hours, or they may come and go as they wish said District 11 board President Tom Strand.

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:

Last fall a story about a report on teacher pay reform made the front page of the Denver Post: “Offering teachers bonuses for student growth didn’t raise scores, study finds.” Yes, the front page. Back then I shared a fresh reaction with insights from national experts like Rick Hess concerning what the study actually did or did not say about the Nashville incentive pay experiment. Well, a conversation of that report in the context of teacher pay reform research shows up in a newly released issue paper from my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow, titled Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform: K-12 Educator Pay Innovation in Colorado. The focus of the new paper is on Colorado’s significant number of local school districts and charter schools improving their teacher pay systems by moving rewards and incentives away from seniority toward measured performance. The star of the group? If I had to pick one, it definitely would be Harrison School District 2 for its Effectiveness and Results (E and R) program — currently in its first full year of operation. Harrison’s program definitely is not an MPINO (as coined by Stuart Buck and Jay Greene). It will be very interesting to see the […]