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The Waiting for Superman debut (coming soon to a theater near you, my Colorado friends) really has super-charged the discussion about the American education system and the need for change. This weekend the Washington Post featured a column by 16 major school leaders — including Denver Public Schools superintendent Tom Boasberg, former Pueblo City School superintendent J. Wm. Covington and my edu-crush Michelle Rhee. The theme?: But the transformative changes needed to truly prepare our kids for the 21st-century global economy simply will not happen unless we first shed some of the entrenched practices that have held back our education system, practices that have long favored adults, not children. These practices are wrong, and they have to end now. It’s time for all of the adults — superintendents, educators, elected officials, labor unions and parents alike — to start acting like we are responsible for the future of our children. Because right now, across the country, kids are stuck in failing schools, just waiting for us to do something.

Interesting new story out of northern Colorado… Sherrie Peif of the Greeley Tribune reported yesterday on some turmoil in the Weld County Re-1 School District as the local school board considers changing the process of addressing teacher policies: On Friday, Jo Barbie, the district superintendent, sent an e-mail to teachers telling them that the board was considering a policy change that would affect the Valley Education Association. Barbie attached a copy of the changes to the policy that struck all wording in the current policy and added two sentences that VEA members said essentially take away their right to choose their own union representation. The story goes on to explain that just over half (52 percent) of Weld Re-1 teachers belong to the union, and that a lot of teachers may feel left out of the representation: “In the past year, the board has been contacted that the views that are being expressed aren’t always the views of everybody,” board member Steve Reams said. “We want to make it where every teacher can come in here and engage in that.”

Yesterday I brought your attention to a new report on what effective teacher evaluation systems should look like, and expressed my wish that the implementation of SB 191 ends up reflecting the six principles in schools across Colorado. It wasn’t much later that local education reformer Amy Slothower posted about some of her recent frustrating experience observing Denver Public Schools stuck in a rut on — guess what? — the teacher evaluation system. Here are some key paragraphs: I’ve been working in education reform for 10 years now, and I’ve come to accept that this business is full of frustrations and battles over divergent interests and an achingly slow pace of change. However, the A-Plus Denver committee meeting I attended this morning has me so aggravated that I am moved to do something I’ve never done before: blog about it!…

It’s a dreary day outside. Maybe fall has finally fallen. Rather than pontificate and show off my brilliant vocabulary, I decided today just to point your attention to a new report by The New Teacher Project (PDF) on six key design principles for teacher evaluations (H/T Eduwonk): Annual process Clear, rigorous expectations Multiple measures Multiple ratings Regular feedback Significance Some of these principles definitely have been advanced in Colorado by Senate Bill 191. We need to keep our eye on the Governor’s Council of Educator Effectiveness as they implement the legislation. Stay tuned.

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about teachers and policies related to them. But what about those who teach teachers — at least those teachers who receive traditional certification from postsecondary schools of education? Last week the Fordham Institute released the results of a survey of more than 700 education professors “to determine how they view their own roles and what they think of myriad K-12 policy developments that have taken place over the last decade.” The report Cracks in the Ivory Tower? sheds some light on education policy debates. As Checker Finn points out, there are some modest signs of more education professors being open to reforms of teacher tenure, incentive pay and alternative certification. But overall, they still “see themselves as philosophers and evangelists, not as master craftsmen sharing tradecraft with apprentices and journeymen.” Our own State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer, participating as one of the “Education Experts” on the National Journal blog, is not terribly impressed. Schaffer latches onto the finding that only 36 percent of education professors see teaching math facts as “absolutely essential” compared to a much higher percentage who believe in the critical importance of teaching 21st Century […]

We’re getting closer to that Waiting for Superman Colorado premiere… less than two weeks! While we know that a school isn’t necessarily better because it’s a charter school, the coming of the movie reminds us there are some innovative charter operators attaining remarkable results. One of the charter networks deserving positive attention is Rocketship Education, the “hybrid” school network that launched a few years ago in San Jose, California. (To get up to speed, go back and listen to the iVoices podcast with Rocketship Education CEO John Danner.) The most recent results (PDF) show that Rocketship’s two elementary schools — both of which serve high-poverty stuent populations– are continuing on a high trajectory of academic performance:

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about the federal government’s “magical money tree.” Funny how we forget so quickly about $100 billion of borrowed taxpayer funds shipped around the country to prop up the K-12 status quo. Or have we forgotten? Rich Lowry at National Review writes a column today that takes a big-picture view of stimulus education funding from the perspective of someone outside the education field. Sometimes it takes that kind of perspective to provide needed wisdom: The stimulus bill devoted $100 billion to education (about $80 billion of it for K–12). As Reason magazine notes, that’s twice the Department of Education’s annual budget. “Race to the Top” is less than 5 percent of this staggering gusher of money. It’s not “Race to the Top” that is the Obama administration’s signature education initiative, but spending that the teachers’ unions would only have dreamed of two short years ago. These funds have kept school systems from having to undertake wrenching changes, or any changes at all….

Today I don’t have a lot to say, but am hoping my school choice and market-reform supporting friends take a dive into Rick Hess’s new National Affairs piece titled “Does School Choice Work?” While Dr. Jay Greene is correct that we should be optimistic over the progress made thus far in building support for school choice, Hess offers some serious food for thought about what we’ve learned and where we can go from here. With little comment, I want to share a few provocative remarks from Rick Hess to spur your interest in reading his long but important article: Competition matters only when it pinches, and the reality is that competition in K-12 education has not yet been given a robust test. And:

Are you a parent of school-aged kids and live in Colorado? Perhaps you already have been to our enormously helpful School Choice for Kids website to learn about all the education options available near you and great tips to navigate the school district open enrollment process. (If you haven’t, why not check it out now?) But maybe you are looking for other handy resources on school-related issues. Then there’s another site to add to your list, EdNews Parent. The three areas of emphasis are Healthy Schools, Teaching and Learning, and Safe Schools — with an opportunity for parents to ask questions of 14 different experts. (Here’s hoping my mom and dad don’t log on to ask about how to deal with their 5-year-old son’s blogging addiction or Lego obsession….) Of course, I have to give the standard disclaimer about the site. I don’t necessarily endorse any or all of the advice offered there, nor should you necessarily rely wholly on that advice alone. But I did want to make known the availability of another important resource for Colorado parents, one that has some promise and potential and one you might find to be of value.

The past week has brought all kinds of big buzz in the education world. The news that 26-year-old billionaire and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to donate $100 million to schools in Newark, New Jersey, is as big as any. We’ve yet to see the details, so it’s hard to say for sure whether this is a good idea or not. Of course, as recently as yesterday President Obama made national headlines acknowledging the obvious, stubborn fact of education reform that simply pouring more money on the problem does no good. The USA spends more than $500 billion on K-12 education a year, about a billion dollars annually in Newark. So that should give some perspective to Zuckerberg’s generous challenge grant donation. (That, and the fact I broke open my piggy bank to start counting pennies and got nowhere close to $100 million.) As the Heritage Foundation’s Lindsey Burke observes: …the only hope of success for Zuckerberg’s $100 million venture into large-scale philanthropy is if the money is used to fundamentally reform the existing broken system in Newark.