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The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so it seems. The article in today’s Denver Post, headlined “Nearly one in three Colo. graduates needs remedial courses in college, study finds”, almost could have appeared the year before … or two years ago … or the year before that. To be exact, the new report from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (PDF) finds that 29.3 percent of Colorado’s 2008 high school graduates who attended a Colorado two-year or four-year college needed formal remedial help in math, reading and/or writing. Six years ago my Education Policy Center friend Marya DeGrow completed an issue paper on the same topic, titled Cutting Back on Catching Up (PDF). Using the same CCHE data, she noted that 26.6 percent of Colorado’s 2002 high school graduates needed remediation — at a cost of $18.9 million to the state of Colorado and $15.4 million to the college students themselves.

Ed News Colorado reports on an attempt by Denver Public Schools leadership to help its struggling schools break out of their struggles: [DPS superintendent Tom] Boasberg, in an email to principals Friday afternoon, said “it is our intention” not to place any unassigned teachers at year’s end into schools now on probation under the district’s school rating system. He also said DPS “will seek to limit forced placements” in the district’s poorest schools, or those receiving Title 1 federal grant money based on student poverty rates. Whether the teachers are poor performers, or they just aren’t warm to the school’s culture and its program to achieve excellence (presuming an effective one is in action), it does more harm than good to force teacher placements — at least as a policy on paper. If the current approach is the best we can do to deal with the “dance of the lemons,” then we might as well give up on urban school reform. But I’m too young to give up, and you should be, too! Writing at the Ed News blog, Alexander Ooms lauds what DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg is trying to do: “Changing the lemon dance to a game of musical […]

It’s a busy day in Eddie’s world, so I don’t have a lot of time to write. But I would feel badly if I didn’t point you to some good news about the success of the Milwaukee Voucher Program. Research by the University of Minnesota’s John Robert Warren (PDF) confirms that voucher students have significantly more success in terms of graduating form high school than their public school counterparts. Hip, hip, hooray for school choice!

Being the cute little kid that I am and all, you’d probably think I’d be all on board for raising more federal dollars to fund the long-running, early childhood school readiness program known as Head Start. If not as a blogger, at least as a stage prop … right? Wrong. I mean, it sure sounds like a nice idea on paper. But when you look at the long-awaited comprehensive research on Head Start that finally was released last month, you realize the billions of dollars spent every year is not accomplishing a whole lot of results beyond making us feel good about ourselves. What do I mean? Check out the report by the Heritage Foundation’s David Muhlhausen and Dan Lips. In the dozens of measurements that made up the areas measured — cognitive development, social development, child health and parenting outcomes — virtually none showed a positive impact from Head Start. Their conclusion?

As Ed News Colorado reports today: The number of full-time students attending online programs across the state grew 12.5 percent to 13,128, or the equivalent of the 19th largest school district in Colorado. The remarkable point in the story is that 12.5 percent is the second-lowest rate of annual growth for Colorado public online programs in the last six years. Still, it’s gigantic compared to the state’s overall enrollment growth of 1.7 percent. Ed News Colorado points out one reason why the demand continues to grow:

February is here, and that means my friends at the Education Policy Center have a special event right around the corner. Here is the information — I hope you can join us: Randy DeHoff, Vice President of the State Board of Education will speak at our offices about 21st Century Learning. Is 21st Century Learning truly the wave of the future, or just another educational fad? Reception begins at 5:30 PM, followed by the program at 6:15 PM. Educators are invited to a private 5:00 PM meeting with Mr. DeHoff. I’m not sure what’s such a big deal about the 21st Century — it’s the only one I’ve ever lived in. But 21st Century Learning is an issue on the minds of a lot of parents, teachers and other educators. Just how important and how relevant are “21st century skills” like problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and self-motivation, as opposed to the good, old-fashioned mastery of content? Where is the balance? What will it take for today’s students (like me) to succeed in a globally competitive economy? I hope you can make it on February 11. RSVP online here.

Last week I introduced you to my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow‘s new 3-page report on “What Should School District Financial Transparency Looks Like?” Highlighted prominently in the paper and in Ben’s testimony last week before Colorado’s House Education Committee was the remarkable work of Jefferson County Public Schools — Colorado’s largest school district — in creating perhaps the best online financial transparency database of any school district in the nation. This week Ben interviewed Lorie Gillis, the chief financial officer of Jeffco Public Schools, for a 12-minute iVoices podcast. Follow this link or click on the play button below to listen:

Yesterday I heard education lobbyists testify before Colorado’s House Finance Committee that tax credits must be repealed to help offset budget cuts to K-12 schools. I can’t say whether or how much they have a point, because for years (or so big people tell me) of funding increases they have constantly said there’s not enough money. It kind of reminds me of that little boy who kept yelling something until nobody believed him anymore. Well, has it occurred to anyone that the structure of the system, the framework for how we spend money on K-12 education, might need to change? Is that even part of the conversation? Enter the Cato Institute‘s Adam Schaefer, who puts the spending on a national scale into context in his brand-new piece for National Review: K–12 schooling is the biggest item on state and local budgets. Judging by the 2005–06 totals from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), state and local governments now spend well over $500 billion each year on public K–12 education. The Bush and Obama administrations have overseen a startling increase in the federal involvement in and funding of K–12 education, but the federal government provides just 9 percent of education […]

The New Orleans Saints’ first trip to the Super Bowl may be the biggest story out of The Pelican State these days, but it’s not the only one. Serious school choice supporters ought to check out a great new article in Education Next. Harvard research fellow Michael Henderson details the interesting behind-the-scenes story how his native Louisiana came to adopt a now-growing private school choice program. How much of the momentum for creating the program was fueled by the terrible 2005 disaster of Hurricane Katrina? Or are there important lessons for school choice advocates in other states they can apply to their own political battles to expand educational opportunity for K-12 students? Michael Henderson’s account and analysis deserve some serious consideration. Please check it out.

Education News Colorado reports on the latest K-12 student enrollment numbers from the Colorado Department of Education, leading with the following: State enrollment figures released Monday show the number of Colorado students living in poverty climbed this year at its highest rate since at least 2003 as families grappled with the dismal economy. As of Oct. 1, 39 percent of students in kindergarten through grade 12 were eligible for participation in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program, a common indicator for poverty. To qualify for the program, a family of four must report an annual income below $40,793. Colorado’s overall enrollment was up 1.7 percent this fall, to 832,368 students, while the poverty rate was up 3.08 percent. Enrollment growth has typically exceeded growth in poverty in recent years.