Category Archives: Uncategorized

Update: It looks like I have been out-sillied by Jay Greene, who has posted the original unedited draft of “too cool” Kevin Carey’s comments. I’m not very serious. Of course, you probably already knew that. Golly, I’m a little kid who writes about the world of education policy and occasionally cites Kermit the Frog and Cap’n Crunch. But I don’t think you quite get how un-serious I am. At least according to Kevin Carey from The Quick and The Ed blog:

In today’s Washington Post, education columnist Jay Mathews raises the question: If you had $100 billion to fix our schools, what would you do? Faithful readers know I was skeptical of the federal government’s “magical money tree” a few months ago. My sentiment hasn’t changed. Some ideas for spending 100 billion (that’s a 1 followed by 11 zeroes) new smackeroos in the education bureaucracy inevitably will be better than others, and some may end up yielding some positive results. In his column, Mathews grades five proposals for spending the money, realistically noting of those who submitted the proposals: Their goal is to get the biggest change by January 2012. I think they are dreaming. The federal stimulus is designed to save jobs, not raise student achievement. But some (not all) of the ideas are so good some states might (repeat, might) be tempted to try them. To rate the five proposals yourself, as well as five others Mathews invented, check out his blog post.

It seems the local teachers union in Hartford, Connecticut, resents outside experts from the National Council on Teacher Quality looking at the effect their collective bargaining contract has on school performance and student learning. One issue in particular made me chuckle. From the Hartford Courant: [Hartford Federation of Teachers president Andrea] Johnson also disliked the recommendation that Hartford teachers be given fewer sick days. According to the report, many large districts and most business-sector jobs have an average of 10 sick days a year, while a Hartford teacher gets 20. On average, Hartford teachers use 11 of the 20 sick days each year, according to the report. If all the allotted sick and personal time (an additional five days) was taken, teachers would miss 14 percent of the school year, the report says. Johnson said that working with children every day requires more sick time because teachers are more susceptible to catching illnesses from the students and also passing along an illness to a room full of children. *Cough, cough.*

A couple days ago I brought your attention to the closure of a struggling Denver charter school, but made the point: For every Amandla that (as far as I can tell) deserves to be shut down, there is a Cesar Chavez, West Denver Prep, Ridgeview Classical, and many other Colorado charter schools that are doing great work providing families successful alternatives to the traditional public education model. That’s great, you might say, but how can I figure out what makes a charter school good or not? Well, have no fear. My friend and Education Policy Center senior fellow Krista Kafer has co-authored a report for the Colorado Department of Education called A Typology of Colorado Charter Schools 2009 (PDF). The more dedicated among you may want to dive right into the report, but I suggest you whet your appetite for this important topic first by listening to a brand-new iVoices podcast that Krista recorded with Center director Pam Benigno: Near the end of the podcast, you also will hear Krista talk about her newly updated issue paper A Chronology of School Choice in the U.S. (PDF). If you haven’t read it already, please check it out!

It isn’t easy for me to say this, and many of my fellow kids may vote me out as a Benedict Arnold, but Colorado teacher Kathy Kullback has a good point: Maybe there’s something to the year-round school idea. What? No more summer vacation, you argue? Ms. Kullback writes: As a special educator, I tried to sign up special education students with generalized learning disabilities reading below grade level for summer school, but soon learned that the only special education students who take an extended year are cognitively disabled. I was advised that I not extend my students’ school year because the esteem issues associated with students of average cognitive ability attending summer school with students with cognitive disabilities is too severe. Then why not offer different classes for the learning disabled student? If year round classes are good for cognitively disabled students, it seems to me that year round classes would give regular education students that needed boost of continuity, and aid in their achieving academic success. It just makes sense. Year-round school usually means more overall days in the classroom. But just because you give up the long summer vacation doesn’t mean you’re in school every week of […]

The Denver Post‘s Jeremy Meyer reports that Denver Public Schools is closing the troubled Amandla Charter Academy — a contract school re-applying to become a charter school. Given the known facts (a checkered past, ongoing financial problems, poor academic results, and lack of a “coherent education program”), it looks like a tough but very good decision by the school board. Public charter schools are an important option in the school choice menu, the institution should be strengthened, and their leaders and managers should be empowered for success. But we have to recognize one of the inherent strengths of charters is that they can be closed down effectively if they fail. That being said, Edspresso is correct to emphasize that decision makers must be “serious about understanding and reviewing original data before making conclusions” about charter school closures. For every Amandla that (as far as I can tell) deserves to be shut down, there is a Cesar Chavez, West Denver Prep, Ridgeview Classical, and many other Colorado charter schools that are doing great work providing families successful alternatives to the traditional public education model.

Virginia Walden Ford, the parental crusader for school choice and opportunity — who recently appeared on an iVoices podcast — is featured along with real parents and students in this tremendous Reason Foundation video about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. It’s worth the 5 minutes to watch: Just a heads-up that I don’t plan to stop writing about this issue as long as Congress and the President continue to undermine this successful opportunity for inner-city kids.

Detroit Public Schools is far from the model of educational success. In fact, it’s one of the worst-performing school systems in the country. For example, look no further than the abysmally low graduation rates. One of the problems that could be addressed would be the tremendous difficulty to remove ineffective classroom teachers. It is so difficult and costly to do that on the occasions when Detroit (and the problem isn’t isolated there by any stretch of the imagination) actually tries to remove poor performers, they have to resort to offering settlements worth many months of pay and promises not to reveal the reason for their terminated employment. That’s for teachers who show extensive evidence of not being cut out for the job — or in some cases, even worse. As the Education Action Group has uncovered (PDF), though, there is one sure way to ensure the removal of a Detroit Public Schools instructor. From a local union official’s own mouth, fire him or her for not paying union dues or fees:

I love rollercoasters, but not when my emotions are riding on them. This morning is the bottom of the hill, and the ride has been fast. I just found out that the House Education Committee has killed (though not “double-super-killed” this time) a chance to expand educational opportunity for Colorado’s autistic students. Colorado Senate News has the sad details: Senate Bill 130, authored by Senate GOP Whip Nancy Spence, was a groundbreaking proposal to create the state’s first charter school specifically serving children with autism. Spence, of Centennial, the GOP’s ranking member on the Senate Education Committee, won support for her bill on both sides of the aisle, including from Senate President Peter Groff. Groff, a Denver Democrat, has often made headlines with his advocacy of wide-ranging school reforms and is leaving his post at the end of the 2009 legislative session to help guide education policy in the Obama administration. Yet, Spence says, it ironically was some of Groff’s fellow Democrats in the House who killed the bill this afternoon in the House Education Committe. Spence said she had been told earlier that if she didn’t agree to water her bill down, it likely couldn’t pass the House. “This […]

I have a busy day planned today. I was going to tell you all about the latest news from the Nation’s Report Card, specifically about what has changed (and what hasn’t) in student achievement since even before my parents were in school. Wow, that’s a long time ago! But instead of telling you myself, I decided that you should just read what my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has to say on the Schools for Tomorrow blog: “NAEP scores encourage, narrowly”. Have a great day!