Category Archives: Uncategorized

A week ago I told you what a big school choice week it was going to be at the Colorado State Capitol. And it was. Ed News Colorado has a short video recap of Thursday’s charter school rally. It was left to one of my friends at the Education Policy Center – namely Marya DeGrow – to cover Friday’s Homeschool Day at the Capitol. Several legislators showed up to show their support and appreciation. Marya handed out hundreds of flyers about her new, exciting paper Colorado’s Homeschool Law Turns Twenty (PDF). And she let me be an honorary homeschooler for a day! Maybe you don’t have time to sit down and read the whole paper, or maybe you need to be persuaded why the paper is so important.

I’m kind of leery about even writing this here, afraid it might give some Colorado lawmakers a bad idea. But consider it a note of caution. Apparently, the Florida legislature is trying to put the clamps down on the state’s successful online public school program. So writes Bill Tucker at The Quick & The Ed about SB 1676 and its impact on the Florida Virtual School: The bill would eliminate enrollment in any elective courses and funding for any courses beyond a standard six periods. Students would no longer have an option to take electives, including some AP courses, beyond those offered at their traditional schools (especially painful for small or rural schools), nor would they have the opportunity to take extra courses to catch up on graduation requirements or accelerate. The legislation was approved in committee and now goes to the full State Senate. As tempting as it might be, it’s a bad idea for Florida officials to use tough economic times as an excuse to limit educational options. As this AP news story highlights, it has a negative effect on real students: Kathryn Groves, a high school student from Keystone Heights, told the panel she took a virtual […]

Mostly dead wasn’t good enough for some Colorado lawmakers when it comes to school spending transparency I’m young, and still learning about many different things. Like I’ve learned a lot about the word “transparency” this year – especially as it relates to taxpayer-funded schools making it easy for citizens to see how they spend their money. But I guess I’m still pretty naive, too. It’s hard to believe the lengths the chairman of Colorado’s House Education Committee was willing to go to make sure that Senate Bill 57 was not only mostly dead but double-super-killed, all-the-way dead. You have to read what the investigators at Face The State found out to believe it: Also known as Senate Bill 57, the bill was postponed indefinitely after four hours of committee debate that lasted late into the evening. Speaker Terrance Carroll and House Minority Leader Mike May arrived to work the next morning ready to revive it. But they were too late. When legislation is postponed indefinitely it is technically not dead until the committee report is officially filed with the House clerk. This process usually takes about a day, or at least 24 hours. If the bill is intercepted before it […]

This morning brings an important committee hearing at the State Capitol, as the Democrats in charge try to speed through some serious changes to the School Finance Act: Legislators and lobbyists Tuesday were hurriedly conferring about and drafting possible amendments to Senate Bill 09-256, the 2008-09 school finance bill that was introduced Monday. The bill currently is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, considered on the Senate floor Thursday and is set for final passage on Friday. That leaves little time for crafting language for a complex bill that takes several new directions with the overall goal of funneling more money to at-risk students and polishing up Colorado’s chances to win competitive federal stimulus grants for education innovation. [Link to bill PDF added] Very little time has been given to analysis of this proposal thus far, so I can’t comment much yet. It does look like some innovative proposals may be included, but then as the Denver Post‘s Jessica Fender reports, something bad could be in store for certain school districts that want to honor taxpayer protections — if House Democrats get their way:

Recently, a group of public school teachers in rural Kansas were tired of being represented by the nation’s largest teachers union and decided to do something about it. From Education Week: Teachers in Riley County have voted to decertify from the Kansas National Education Association and the National Education Association. The approximately 58 teachers in the district voted earlier this month to have Riley County Educators serve as their negotiating agent. Riley County High School industrial arts teacher and track coach Garry Sigle, who also serves as spokesman for the Riley County Educators, was kind enough to record an iVoices podcast explaining why he and the other teachers chose this course of action and what the process is like: The Association of American Educators (AAE), which has provided assistance to the teachers in Riley, explains that these teachers in the Kansas district are not the first local to decertify from NEA in recent years. It has happened in several other states, though not yet in Colorado. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow tells me he is working to get more information on the decertification option to put up on the Independent Teachers website. I’ll keep you updated.

This week brings a couple of big days for supporters of school choice. First of all, bet you didn’t know that it’s 2009 Colorado Charter Schools Week, celebrating the 15th anniversary of charter schools in Colorado. The big day to commemorate the occasion is this Thursday, April 2 – as charter school families and supporters rally at 11:30 am at the State Capitol. Public charter schools represent an important educational option that has established itself in our state. If you want to keep track of charter school issues here, you absolutely have to bookmark two sites: the Colorado Charters blog and the new A Parent’s Voice. The very next day – Friday, April 3 – is the annual Homeschool Day at the Capitol, with a chance to meet elected state representatives and senators, to participate in two workshops, and to join in a noon rally. And younger homeschooled kids can participate in the Future Statesmen Program, which sounds pretty neat to me. Show up at the Homeschool Day at the Capitol, and you might just meet one of my Education Policy Center friends there with information on the new, exciting paper Colorado’s Homeschool Law Turns Twenty (PDF) – a real […]

School choice doesn’t provide all the answers to our education challenges, but it’s becoming very hard to deny that choice in itself yields some positive results. Look at the new results (PDF) from the University of Arkansas’s School Choice Demonstration Project for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). Milwaukee isn’t just famous for that show about two women who work as brewery bottlecappers. The Wisconsin city is the granddaddy of school choice programs, and probably the best place for in-depth studies of all sorts of issues surrounding choice. And the School Choice Demonstration Project has brought together some of the best and most experienced education researchers – including Patrick Wolf, John Witte, and Jay Greene – to do just that. The series of studies released this week focus on everything from fiscal impacts to parental satisfaction to academic growth and real estate prices. Some of the more interesting findings:

Yesterday morning some of my Education Policy Center friends were down at the State Capitol (now, like me, they can hardly get out of their driveways… snow day!). They joined Dr. Michael Mannino, author of the Independence Institute report Deferred Retirement Compensation for Career K-12 Employees: Understanding the Need for Reform (PDF), for his informational presentation to the joint House and Senate Education Committee. New Ed News Colorado reporter Nancy Mitchell provided some colorful coverage of yesterday’s unusually well-attended proceedings (hey, I don’t even want to get out of bed at 7:30 AM): Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, drew applause from a standing-room only crowd when he closely questioned Michael Mannino, a University of Colorado professor who helped write the report. “Is it possible that your phrases like drastic tax increases and meltdowns could be fear-mongering on your part … in support of your political agenda?” Merrifield asked, an apparent reference to the report’s sponsor, the Independence Institute, which bills itself as a “free market” think tank based in Golden. “Could it be that you’re making an assumption to support your personal views that teachers shouldn’t have a defined benefit plan?” Merrifield asked at another point. “I want people to […]

Last week the Christian Science Monitor featured a full-length article on the state of teacher performance pay, with special focus on Denver’s ProComp program. It’s an especially great piece for someone who has little familiarity with the topic — as some of the leading figures are quoted: Brad Jupp from DPS, Phil Gonring from the Rose Community Foundation, Paul Teske from the University of Colorado Denver, and Kim Ursetta from the teachers union, to name a few. Once you’ve read the article, if you still yearn to learn more, you should check out the Issue Paper Denver’s ProComp and Teacher Compensation Reform in Colorado (PDF) by my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow. He’s glad to give other groups an “honest education in ‘professional pay’”.

I’ve written about it a lot: the attack by Congress against students in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, that is. But I’m not ready to give up yet. And you shouldn’t be, either. If you need some inspiration – or maybe you’re just learning about this attack on school choice that benefits low-income kids in our nation’s capital – you really ought to listen to Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, explain the situation in this 10-minute iVoices podcast: Is it really true that the best we can hope for is saving the scholarships of the 1,700 kids who currently receive them, and leaving out in the cold the thousands more on waiting lists to escape some terrible D.C. public schools? Maybe that is the best we can hope for on behalf of Washington D.C. students for now, but don’t give up. After all, it’s important to note – as Adam Schaeffer does on the Cato-at-Liberty blog – that voucher and tax credit programs across the country are growing and growing in bipartisan political support. Keep your chin up. Stay in the fight.