Category Archives: Uncategorized

Run for cover, and hold onto your wallets! Tomorrow marks the beginning of the first session of the 69th Colorado General Assembly. At first, I thought about just re-posting last year’s pre-session warning. Yet while there may be some similarities between 2012 and 2013, it would end up being a lazy thing to do, and less than accurate to boot. At the risk of being repetitive, though, I first will point readers to the legislative preview by Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl. He notes that: The question of school finance is expected to overshadow all other education issues. Democratic Sens. Mike Johnston of Denver and Rollie Heath of Boulder are crafting a plan that would significantly overhaul the school funding formula – contingent on subsequent voter approval of new revenues for schools. A big looming question then is just how significant the proposed school finance changes will be. If they’re not pushing toward real student-centered backpack funding — as Senator Johnston and others discussed last month at a packed Capitol event — then selling voters on a tax hike will become that much more difficult. While the statehouse shouldn’t be as consumed with K-12 education issues last year, Engdahl does […]

Not too long ago I was telling you about new information out grading Colorado schools’ performance. But how is Colorado doing in applying policies that promote an excellent, equitable and efficient education system? Today the national group Students First released its first-ever State Policy Report Cards. How did Colorado do? Depends how you look at it. When you look at our ranking among the states, it makes you feel pretty good:

A Friday quickie for readers to chew on. Back in late November, the U.S. Department of Education released the first-ever data where we could truly compare the rates at which students in different states are graduating high school on time. Unfortunately, Colorado’s 74 percent graduation rate put us in the bottom third. But now that we can finally look at all states based on a common measure of how well students are completing their secondary education (more than 43 years after we put a man on the moon), someone has to ask: Just how accurate is the comparison? In an insightful new EdFly blog post, Florida’s Mike Thomas reminds us that different graduation standards can seriously cloud the picture. After highlighting some different headlines that take to task certain states’ graduation output, he notes:

“Nobody has figured out how to mass produce high-quality, cost-effective schools,” PBS correspondent John Merrow explained on a televised feature last week about the successful Rocketship Education public charter school network. Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for bringing to my attention the interesting 9-minute video about how to replicate an innovative and successful education model:

Well, a new year has come, and you favorite edublogging prodigy is back from a well-deserved break playing with Legos and wishing for more snow. Before things start to heat up again, it’s time for a little more perspective. Jay Greene guest blogger Matt Ladner sent Happy New Year’s greetings by directing our attention to Education Week writer Sean Cavanagh’s look back at 2012 school choice developments and a look ahead to what 2013 might bring. While 2011 certainly qualified for its Year of School Choice designation, the year that just passed was more of a mixed bag. Should even an idealistic 5-year-old be surprised that the tremendous momentum couldn’t be completely sustained, and that progress also entails challenges? Still, most of the trends Cavanagh cites are positive, including:

A few weeks ago I was one of the first to share the bad news that a judge had struck down one of Louisiana’s school choice programs that offered hope and opportunity to so many students. Well, I couldn’t think of a better way to end a year of blogging — yep, this is the last one from me for 2012 — than to share a powerful story of a young life negatively affected by the ruling. The American Federation of Children brought my attention to a piece written by school choice champion Kevin Chavous about 14-year-old Louisiana voucher scholarship recipient named Tyrell. This young man’s outlook improved greatly at the private school he’s been able to attend the past few years. Troubled so much by a lawsuit against the program that enabled his turnaround that he was losing sleep, Tyrell showed up at the courthouse where the program’s fate was being decided:

Last week a couple of my Education Policy Center friends had the privilege of visiting an innovative Denver charter school that’s serving kids close to my age: Rocky Mountain Prep. This new school is following in the footsteps of successful forebears that serve high-need student populations — placing a foundational emphasis on high expectations with competent, caring and dedicated teachers. But at the same time Rocky Mountain Prep is also pioneering a blended learning model for delivering instruction to enhance the number of students who can be effectively reached. Currently, the southeast Denver school serves students in pre-kindergarten through 1st grade, but is slated eventually to go through 8th grade. Classrooms use a rotation model in which some students at a given time will be learning on specialized software (including Dreambox), receiving small group instruction, or more focused attention on areas identified where they are struggling. Special grant funding enables a teaching apprentice, rather than an aide, to join the classroom’s lead instructor. The idea enables class sizes to be a little larger while maximizing the impact on student learning during these important formative years.

I love anniversaries, don’t you? Exactly one year ago I commented on a front-page Denver Post story documenting the use of taxpayer-funded union release time in Colorado school districts. Without taking a comprehensive look, the Post reporter found $5.8 million in subsidies to teacher unions. So on this not-quite-historic 1st anniversary, it’s interesting to see a new video posted of a recent interview with one of the union officers paid by taxpayers to take leave from the classroom. In the Spotlight on Corruption production, the District Twelve Educators Association (DTEA) official discloses some of what she does:

Can you believe it’s been a whole year since the launch of the Colorado School Grades website? My friends at the Independence Institute are proud to be one of the 18 sponsoring partners of this helpful resource. The passing of 12 months means a whole new set of data, and a lot of curious parents searching through the user-friendly Colorado School Grades site to see where their child’s school rates. Grades are assigned to all Colorado public schools based on objective measures of academic achievement and academic growth. Congrats to the top-rated schools at each level for this year:

Recently I told you about my Education Policy Center friends’ visit to Liberty Common High School in Fort Collins — which principal just so happens to be outgoing State Board of Education chair Bob Schaffer (whose farewell dinner earned a nice tribute in the Colorado Statesman). Well, if you’re going to make the 2-hour round trip from Denver, does it not make more sense to visit two great schools in one fell swoop? I might say visiting Ridgeview Classical Academy — a rigorous K-12 charter school — was a no-brainer. But the truth is you need all the brains you can get to succeed there. Talk about a place where knowledge, intellectual curiosity, and academic work are neither repressed nor scorned, but embraced by students as part of the school culture? How many other high schools you know would see as the norm three sophomore-level students solving advanced geometry proofs as an elective activity?