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It’s a remarkable thing — or maybe it just says that much about Congress — that our representatives in D.C. are still considering the bad policy known as the $23 billion education jobs bailout. Maybe some members of Congress are searching desperately for a way to justify more profligate spending in the face of an especially angry electorate. Why else is the issue still alive and kicking? Well, because of the National Education Association (NEA), of course, seeking to play the sympathy card for teachers who face layoffs. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has brought due attention to debunking the education jobs bailout. But no one can keep up with Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency, who as recently as today notes once again that teacher layoff numbers are inflated in part by the fact that “most get rehired back anyway.” Above all, what’s desperately needed in the ongoing debates and discussions about budget cuts and downsizing teacher workforces is the big picture context. Over at the Big Government blog (which I’m pretty sure is not a site that actually advocates for big government), Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute lays it all out, including a big […]

About a month ago I brought your attention to the remarkable story from the New Jersey legislature, in which a liberal Democrat committee chairman moved a voucher bill hearing outside after union members hogged all the seats and refused to give up any to children supporting the bill. Well, today the Wall Street Journal has the latest news on this legislation, and it’s not all good for school choice supporters: A bill that would give poor children in New Jersey scholarships to attend private schools is bottled up in the Democratic-controlled Legislature even though it has the backing of prominent members of the party.

Is the United States headed down a primrose path to national education standards? A couple weeks ago I brought your attention to the televised version of that debate going on here in Colorado. Of course, there’s been a terrific back-and-forth between the Fordham Institute’s Mike Petrilli and the University of Arkansas’s Jay Greene. The latest blast comes from the Heritage Foundation’s Jennifer Marshall, who questions exactly how “voluntary” the Common Core Standards are and notes that two new states — Minnesota and Virginia — are bowing out of Race to the Top over just such concerns. We’re heading into the heart of summer, which means it may not be near the top of your priority list or even on your radar screen. But I encourage you to stay tuned and get involved in this important debate, for the sake of kids like me.

Budget times are tougher than usual for school district coffers all over. I get that. So what’s the solution? For some interest groups entrenched in the status quo (read: teachers unions), laying off teachers with less seniority is preferred to all teachers giving up their lavish health care plan for a more reasonable one. At least that’s the case in Milwaukee. A long story in this week’s Journal-Sentinel (H/T Eduwonk) explains: “The reality is we cannot sustain the current system without major structural change,” [Milwaukee School Board President Michael] Bonds said. “We could literally save hundreds of jobs with the stroke of a pen if teachers switched to the lower-cost health-care plan.” The teachers union has countered that the board is bargaining in public by offering jobs in exchange for health-care concessions.

(H/T Colorado Charters) Newsweek magazine has released its annual list of “America’s best high schools,” and Lafayette’s Peak to Peak Charter School tops the competition in the state with a 35th ranking nationally. The next closest from Colorado are Niwot High School at #180, Boulder’s Fairview High School at #201, and Lakewood High School at #228. But does the list really capture “America’s best high schools”? Two years ago one of the Ed News Colorado bloggers correctly pointed out the weaknesses and limitations that would omit the Denver School of Science and Technology, for example, from this list. And Newsweek‘s methodology hasn’t changed since then. Take the news for what it’s worth. Peak to Peak Charter School is doing something right by encouraging lots of its students to take classes of the challenging Advanced Placement variety. But it’s really stretching the matter to say definitively that it’s one of the 35 best high schools in the nation.

The Pueblo Chieftain reports that Pueblo County School District 70 has combined its two union bargaining agreements into one: The district’s board on Tuesday night approved a single contract with the Pueblo County Teachers Association and the Association of Classified Employees. In at least one respect the move makes sense, because the two contracts contain a similar unjust and burdensome requirement. Both the district’s non-union teachers and classified employees have to file a written form each year within a narrow time frame to opt out of paying a full year of union dues. As a 2008 Independence Institute op-ed points out, the onerous policy affects real people:

Update, 6/16: Teacher Beat blogger Stephen Sawchuk notes that both Colorado’s own Harrison School District and now the Pittsburgh School District have fashioned pay plans that make master’s bumps “a thing of the past.” It’s summertime. The Internet isn’t exactly brimming with exciting new developments in the world of education to write about. So instead I point you to a new blog post from Dr. Eric Hanushek at Education Next about the irrational policy of awarding teachers automatic pay increases for earning masters degrees: What does this bonus do? It induces many teachers to want to have a master’s degree. (Over half of all teachers have an advanced degree now.) Getting a master’s degree is frequently something done concurrently with a full time teaching job, so the last thing these teachers want is a challenging academic program that requires real work. As a result, schools of education are willing to sell master’s degrees that require minimal effort. Master’s degrees become a very profitable product. A profitable product that, as research has shown time and again, does absolutely nothing to benefit the learning of students. And as the Center on Reinventing Public Education showed in 2009, 2 percent of all K-12 […]

Harvard University professor Dr. Paul Peterson, along with colleague Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadón, has unveiled some new research that underscores one of the top untold Colorado education stories of recent years. The issue is how high are states setting the bar to measure student learning in the basic subjects of reading and math–also known as “performance standards.” The findings? Since 2007 states have raised the bar a bit on reading performance standards but have made no improvement with math. Essentially every state “deems more students ‘proficient’ on its own assessments than NAEP [the National Assessment of Educational Progress] does.” The researchers measured the strength of a state’s performance standards by how well the state’s proficiency ratings in various subject tests match up with the “gold standard” NAEP test.

I sure hope no schools in Colorado are doing this sort of thing. It’s a story told by a New Jersey mom, via the Washington Examiner‘s Mark Hemingway (H/T The Union Label): I am looking for your opinions and insights based upon a very distressing situation my youngest daughter brought to my attention last week involving a school fundraiser.

How embarrassing! Apparently my friend Democrats for Education Reform turned 3 years old a few days ago (H/T Eduwonk), and I missed it altogether. Think of all the great advice I could offer to someone who just turned 3! Anyway, DFER executive director Joe Williams offered his reflections on the growth and influence of the Democratic Party’s go-to advocacy voice for reforming public schools: Just three years ago, today’s conventional wisdom (that the political tide is beginning to turn in favor of reform) would have been laughable. Trust me, I heard the laughs and saw the eyes roll in state after state when I told people what we were trying to do. Good luck with that, they told us. Yep. DFER has come a long way, baby. It’s a great thing to see strong voices for education reform in both major political parties. But to celebrate now, I’m going to have to send a belated birthday card. What kind of card do you think: Snoopy? Dora? Lightning McQueen? Maybe DFER’s still into Winnie the Pooh….