Category Archives: Teachers

Over at Education Next (one of my favorite stops these days), professors Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky say there may be a way to make a positive move beyond the traditional debate over teacher pensions: The critics of DB [defined benefit plans] are correct that current plans are seriously underfunded in part because benefits are not tied to contributions. This makes plans vulnerable to gaming and juicing up of benefits formulae when stock market returns are good, which, of course, leaves the taxpayers and employers holding the bag when stock market returns turn south.

Colorado isn’t the only state angling for Race to the Top federal education reform grant funds. Some people say our state is on the inside track to get a share of the money. Meanwhile, the results from last week’s Denver school board election has some urban reformers worried that the grant application could be in jeopardy. It may help buoy the hopes of reformers to look at other states who seem to have similar, or even worse, struggles. I’m talking about Wisconsin. As legislators in the Badger State closed out their session last week, they approved a bill being touted as a way to make the state eligible for Race to the Top money. (For more background on the debate, check out the latest edition of School Reform News for a piece written by contributing editor — and my Education Policy Center friend — Ben DeGrow.)

If there’s a musical instrument I could play, it would probably be the drums. (Some of you may think it’s the horn I like to toot, and my mom & dad have already said “No” to any loud percussion instruments, but anyway….) Why? Because I like to keep banging on the drum of how very, very important teacher quality is to improving schools and student learning outcomes. Reforms like performance pay, streamlining tenure, and alternative certification are not merely nice ideas, but vital changes that need to be made to our school systems. On that note (pun intended), all of you — especially the teacher quality skeptics — really ought to check out this new issue brief by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF)’s Brooke Dollens Terry, “Shortchanging Our Kids: How Poor Teacher Quality & Failed Government Policies Harm Students” (PDF). Many of the things Brooke writes about Texas could apply to Colorado as well. While I’m beating on the drum, one of the groups doing great real-world work in adding quality teachers to the instructional ranks is ABCTE. ABCTE has just created a great new resource directed at teachers and leaders of charter schools — designed to help connect […]

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.

The Greeley Tribune reported yesterday that the local school board approved its final offer to district teachers, less than three weeks after the union rejected the offer. I don’t like writing about situations like this one, because let me tell you there’s no winner to celebrate. The district made the least painful choice of funding salary increases for masters degrees and educational advancement — an approach with no ties to improving student achievement. Meanwhile, nothing is done to offer rewards to the best teachers, schools, or principals; removing the most ineffective teachers; or cutting non-core functions or personnel. Not that anyone can blame officials in a bureaucratic system for avoiding pain and the opportunity of belt-tightening times to make meaningful reforms. It’s just same old, same old … sigh.

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:

For those who may not have paid close attention to the world of public education, the teaching career model has evolved before our eyes. While there are still those who take the traditional approach of entering the profession right out of education school and then spend 30 years in the classroom, their numbers are growing vastly smaller all the time. In that light, the New York Times has an interesting feature today on middle-aged adults switching careers to become a teacher. My first thought was: Switching careers? When I grow up and get to be a super-blogging astronaut, why would I ever change that? But apparently many people find that bringing their academic expertise, along with their life and career experience, into the classroom to be a fulfilling experience. High-quality teachers are especially needed in high-poverty neighborhoods and in subject areas with shortages (e.g., math, science, special education). Several groups are providing routes to certification (or licensure) that appeal to these career-changers. The New York Times story highlights well-known operators like the New Teacher Project and lesser-known players like the Virginia-based Career Switchers program. None, however, is closer to the hearts of my Education Policy Center friends than a fast-growing […]

If we’re going to improve learning opportunities, especially for the poorest and neediest kids in our state, one of the most important things we can do is have strong and effective leadership at the school level. Principals need to be trained not only to be great instructional leaders but also to be more like entrepreneurial managers than compliant bureaucrats. Enter the partnership between Get Smart Schools and the University of Denver: Beginning in Spring, 2010, the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business will incorporate its cutting edge MBA core curriculum with a specially-designed concentration in education, developed in cooperation with the Morgridge College of Education and GetSmartSchools, a non-profit organization designed to dramatically increase the number of high quality schools serving low-income students in Colorado’s Front Range. All elective courses will be specially designed to train future leaders of autonomous schools. Unlike traditional Principal preparation, this will give participants both the business and instructional expertise to manage and lead schools closing the academic achievement gap. Just as we need more high-quality alternative routes into the teaching profession, so we need more high-quality alternative routs into school leadership. Kudos to Get Smart Schools and the University of Denver. Maybe this […]

The Boulder Valley teachers union may be the only one in Colorado on the precipice of a strike. (And why? Perhaps some nostalgic university town vision of what a labor movement should look like?) But Boulder looks like it’s getting closer to having a little company. As Nancy Mitchell highlights in her latest story for Ed News Colorado, the clash between another teachers union and school district over limited funds has deepened: Greeley teachers this week overwhelmingly rejected the latest contract offer from the district, pushing to three the number of large school districts statewide with educators still working for last year’s pay.