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I may be young, but I didn’t fall off the apple cart yesterday (or however that expression goes). In fact, your little Eddie sometimes is way ahead of the curve on local education issues. Take Colorado’s emerging debate over Common Core Standards: Been there, done that. Six weeks after I first brought your attention to the concerns raised by State Board of Education member Peggy Littleton, the Denver Post comes through with a front-page story this morning: A backlash over national education reforms is growing in Colorado, with some school leaders rejecting what they call a federal intrusion into the classroom. The piece by Jeremy Meyer not only highlights Littleton’s efforts and some statements made by U.S. Senate candidates Jane Norton and Ken Buck, but it also zooms in on one of the state’s smallest school districts out on the Eastern Plains:

From time to time, it’s worthwhile to look outside the borders of our United States to glean some valuable lessons about school reform. Rick Hess — one of the more thoughtful education policy gurus out there — recently returned from a two-week trip to Georgia and shared his thoughts. So some of you are thinking… Georgia? A different country? Maybe like 150 years ago or something. Wrong Georgia. We’re talking halfway around the world, not just across the continent. Anyway, Hess notes the heavy emphasis on reform in the former Soviet republic in what he calls the “land of the libertarians”:

I’ve had a great time lately with the cool (and here in Colorado, I mean “cool”) fireworks shows and water fights. Still, it’s good to be back sharing some more good news about school choice. Yes, I’m behind the curve in letting you know about what Louisiana has done, but better late than never — besides, it’s summertime: Washington, D.C. (June 25, 2010) – Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal this week signed into law the nation’s 20th private school choice program, which will allow children with special needs to use state-funded scholarships to attend the private schools of their parents’ choice.

Looking for something a little different than the traditional schooling model, maybe even cutting edge and innovative? After all, exposing Colorado families to more choices and educational options is a big part of what the “glimpse at new schools” series is all about. You might be interested in this: Aurora Public Schools opens the doors of Vista PEAK Exploratory in August. The school was highlighted a few months back in a story for the Aurora Sentinel: It’s an approach that will offer students a new way of planning their education from an early age, one that will give children access to specialized programs in science, math, visual arts, business and other areas. This new “pathways” method will play a central role in the Vista PEAK Exploratory School on East 6th Avenue and Harvest Road that’s set to open later this year, the first part of a campus that’s eventually slated to include a high school and a satellite college campus.

The faithful readers of Ed Is Watching (I love you, mom and dad!) know that during the past two summers I have dedicated many blog posts to introducing interesting new education options in Colorado. Links to all the posts are compiled on our A Glimpse at New Schools page. This year, I’ve decided to get an earlier head start while we head for the mid-summer doldrums. To kick off the 2010-11 edition, it seems appropriate to highlight the offspring of some golden oldies. I’ve written before about West Denver Prep middle school and Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) — both top-notch, “distinguished” charter schools. The great news is that these schools won’t be contained, but rather are multiplying under successful models and sound leadership. The 2010-11 school year doubles the number of West Denver Prep campuses from two to four, with new sites shared at Lake Middle School (starting with 6th graders only) and Emerson Street School. And DSST (the original campus in the Stapleton neighborhood contains both a middle school and a high school) will open a second campus in far northeast Denver’s Green Valley Ranch. If DSST II hits the same trajectory of getting 100 percent […]

Last week I pointed you to some research and analysis that put the current K-12 budget cuts and proposed education jobs bailout in perspective. Well, what are the answers then? One way is to open the doors for parents to more quality education options that aren’t as labor-intensive. One way is to let successful entrepreneurs like Rocketship Education continue to thrive at their hybrid learning model and share what they learn with others. But Colorado also is a national leader in online public schooling, though we certainly have room to improve over time both in terms of quality and quantity. Briana LeClaire of the Idaho Freedom Foundation — who appears to be closely connected with our friend and cyberschool champion Lori Cooney — has a great metaphor. In highlighting a successful district virtual school program in her state, she suggests it’s time to throw away the teachers’ union hymnal and find a new song to sing. I like it … Sing on, education reformers!

Talk about taking a walk into another dimension of reality. I’ve heard about those Twilight Zone episodes, but my mom won’t let me watch them yet because she says they give me nightmares. I love you, mom, but if you’re so concerned about me getting nightmares, you shouldn’t have let me watch this production from Silly Retro Theaters (H/T This Week In Education):

All things being equal, most parents and teachers want smaller class sizes for their kids in school. Isn’t that a great idea? Parents like to see their children get more individualized attention in the classroom, and teachers prefer a more controlled environment and a smaller workload. And who can blame them? To some extent, this reasoning makes sense. A class of 25 or 30 little Eddies is more manageable than a class filled with 50 or 60 of me (I can only imagine what kind of nightmares my mom would have reading that!). But given the fact of limited resources and the need to make policy decisions that lead to the best results for the most students, how wise is it to focus education spending on class size reduction?

As the boss Jon Caldara noted yesterday, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers took time this week to talk to my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow about the latest with that school funding lawsuit. Lobato, you’ve heard of it? Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to the 12-minute interview: A quick follow-up with three points:

A little earlier this week the U.S. Department of Education released the research results from the final evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). What did it say? Basically, an admission that the very small program hasn’t had any tremendous impacts — oh yeah, except for this one: The Program significantly improved students’ chances of graduating from high school, according to parent reports. Overall, 82 percent of students offered scholarships received a high school diploma, compared to 70 percent of those who applied but were not offered scholarships. This graduation rate improvement also held for the subgroup of OSP students who came from “schools in need of improvement.” Writing on Jay Greene’s blog, Greg Forster deconstructs the control group (since the graduation rate for D.C. Public Schools is actually 49 percent), and concludes the grad-rate benefit from the voucher program is “somewhere between 12 percentage points and 33 percentage points.”