Category Archives: Urban Schools

A lot of my Education Policy Center friends have been on the road this week at something called the State Policy Network conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay, so I don’t exactly get what it’s all about, they told me about a visit they had yesterday to a couple of excellent schools in the area. I’m only going to talk about the one today, because it seems this Millennium Worldwide Academy in south Phoenix has a pretty special approach to educating kids in my age group. No, it’s not in Colorado, but maybe there are some school leaders or entrepreneurs looking to start a school who could learn a thing or two from Ms. Kelmer and her success with helping low-income kids from preschool to 4th grade. My Education Policy Center friends said they were amazed to watch the knowledge put on display. They heard about the “Are You Smarter than a Kindergartener?” challenge. Not too many adults could name all 43 U.S. Presidents in order like the small group of 5-year-old children at Millennium Worldwide Academy did yesterday. The older kids knew the planets in our solar system and their distances from the Sun, as well as had a solid […]

I earlier told you about the tough teacher union negotiations here in Denver that got resolved at the last minute. But there’s even more momentous negotiations going on in Washington, D.C. – a school district that has earned a poor reputation for wasteful and corrupt bureaucracy and dismal academic performance. New D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (of Teach For America fame) is trying to clean house, though, as the Washington Post‘s Steven Pearlstein notes: Negotiations are stalled over Rhee’s proposal to give teachers the option of earning up to $131,000 during the 10-month school year in exchange for giving up absolute job security and a personnel-and-pay system based almost exclusively on years served. If Rhee succeeds in ending tenure and seniority as we know them while introducing merit pay into one of the country’s most expensive and underperforming school systems, it would be a watershed event in U.S. labor history, on a par with President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. It would trigger a national debate on why public employees continue to enjoy what amounts to ironclad job security without accountability while the taxpayers who fund their salaries have long since been forced to accept […]

It’s hard to argue against the idea that more fresh blood is needed in our public education system. We could do with more school and district leaders who didn’t necessarily rise through the ranks of the teachers union or education bureaucracy who can bring valuable outside skills and perspectives to the challenges faced. Education News Colorado today highlights such a success story in the Denver metropolitan area: Aurora Public Schools raised more than a few eyebrows two years ago when the board of education selected John Barry, a retired U.S. Air Force major general, to take over as superintendent of the state’s third-largest school district. “We were definitely taking a chance,” says Aurora school board chairman Matt Clark. “He was clearly a non-traditional candidate, coming from the military. But we were looking for someone who understood what it took to turn an institution around.” And turn it did. Barry began introducing changes in the way Aurora educates its 32,000 students at a breakneck pace. New curricula. New strategic plan . New coaching method for teachers. New standardized tests . New summer school programs . The launch of a new pilot school — the first of several. New emphasis on truancy […]

CNN commentator Roland Martin hits the nail on the head today by proclaiming the need for more school vouchers, and highlighting the interest group politics that has blocked or slowed down the needed reform (H/T Mike Antonucci). His article is titled “McCain right, Obama wrong on school vouchers,” but the larger point is that it’s time to move school choice beyond partisan politics on a national scale. Here’s some of what Martin has to say: I fundamentally believe that vouchers are simply one part of the entire educational pie. There simply is no one sure-fire way to educate a child. We’ve seen public schools do a helluva job — I went to them from K through college — and so have private schools, home schooling, charter schools and even online initiatives. This is the kind of innovation we need, not more efforts to prevent a worthy idea from moving forward. Obama’s opposition is right along the lines of the National Education Association, and the teachers union is a reliable and powerful Democratic ally. But this is one time where he should have opposed them and made it clear that vouchers can force school districts, administrators and teachers to shape up […]

Lousy parenting is a typical scapegoat of those who resist public school accountability or who make excuses for poor performance. Not all parents fulfill their responsibilities, and certainly none are perfect. But the overwhelming number of parents want to see their kids reach their fullest education potential. In that light, an idea like this one seems to make sense: The Mile High Parent Campaign, set to begin on the first day of school this fall, is designed to track the time DPS parents spend furthering their kids’ education. The goal is 5,280 minutes a year, or 30 minutes a school day. “I’m just hoping to bring a little more awareness of the importance of parent engagement and to celebrate things that we, as parents, do on a daily basis,” said Marlene DeLa Rosa, chairwoman of the Parent Empowerment Council. Parents who enroll in the program will log their time online or complete a form that details how they assisted their children. Suggested activities range from reading with a child, attending back-to-school night, helping with homework or taking a child to the museum. It sure sounds nice on paper, and I wish it the best. The use of prizes and other […]

It’s Friday, it’s hot, and I don’t want to make my Education Policy Center friends work too hard. But before I take a weekend break, here’s a story from the Rocky Mountain News that caught my attention: Summer slides occur in more than just water. During summer months, poor children fall behind academically more than wealthy children do. In fact, two-thirds of the learning gap between rich and poor can be attributed to unequal summer learning activities, research shows. Education activists call this the “summer slide” for students in Denver Public Schools. The story goes on to highlight calls for more federal funding of a special summer school program. I’m still young enough to believe this kind of stuff, but do these grown-ups really think a new government program is the best way to address the problem? What about the idea of year-round school? Or maybe at least summer school programs that aren’t dictated by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.? Okay, that’s enough. If you’ll excuse me now, I think that water slide idea sounds really good.

A few weeks ago I told you about the D.C. voucher program that was threatened by Congress. Well, the 1,900 kids who have found hope and educational opportunity through the publicly-funded scholarships to attend private schools were relieved to learn that Congress decided to continue funding for at least one more year. In today’s Washington Post, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings makes the case that the program’s success calls for more than just putting it on temporary maintenance. The kids benefiting from the program have found their way out of a bad situation: Whether the children were failing school or the schools were failing the children, the District of Columbia’s leaders finally became fed up with institutionalized failure. They designed a unique “three-sector” strategy that provided new funding for public schools and public charter schools and new educational options for needy children. Working with the District, Congress and the Bush administration then implemented the D.C. School Choice Incentive Act in 2004, giving birth to D.C. opportunity scholarships. The program has clearly filled a need. Evidence does not just appear on a chart. It is visible in the long lines of parents waiting to participate. More than 7,000 students have […]

Are our schools and officials doing enough to ensure that enough skilled and effective candidates are getting into classrooms to teach kids like me? A recent Wall Street Journal article suggests the answer is still No, but a successful program is showing there’s hope for more change: Unions keep saying the best people won’t go into teaching unless we pay them what doctors and lawyers and CEOs make. Not only are Teach for America salaries significantly lower than what J.P. Morgan might offer, but these individuals go to some very rough classrooms. What’s going on? It seems that Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of “education” courses to be certified. The American Federation of Teachers commonly derides Teach for America as a “band-aid.” One of its arguments is that the program only lasts two years, barely enough time, they say, to get a handle on managing a classroom. However, it turns out that two-thirds of its […]

I recently found this disturbing story about a threat to school choice for needy kids way across the country in the District of Columbia: On Monday, the Washington Post reported that the future of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is in doubt. This program—which is currently helping 1,900 disadvantaged kids attend private schools—is set to expire next year if Congress doesn’t extend it. The Post reports that D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is championing an effort to kill the program. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program gives low-income students scholarships worth up to $7,500 to attend a private school in the nation’s capital. It has proven widely popular with parents. Since 2004, approximately 7,200 students have applied for scholarships through the program—about 4 applications for each scholarship. D.C. parent Maritza White tells what school choice has meant to her son This piece from Dan Lips at the Heritage Foundation documents the success of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, and offers recommendations for improving the program through expanded school choice. But the best proof that Congress should take its hands off D.C. parents’ educational opportunities comes from a terrific website that lets parents whose kids have benefited from the program tell their […]