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I don’t have a lot to write about on this manic Monday. But after venturing over to Jay Greene’s blog and finding not one, but two, closely related news stories that make me want to pull my hair out. Well, how could I not share the experience with you? Irony reigns, the world is spinning out of control, and vulnerable kids bear the brunt of it all. The first story, which takes us back to last week’s developments in Alabama’s new scholarship tax credit program, makes me want to scream in frustration: The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit Monday contending that low-income students attending failing public schools are being hurt by a new state law that provides tax credits to families that transfer their children to private schools. Are you kidding me? Of course not. As Jay Greene blogger Jason Bedrick notes:

Seeing as how it’s back-to-school season, it must be time for my Third Annual “Let’s Take a Closer Look at the PDK/Gallup Public Education Survey” posting. It will teach you to take the headlines with a grain of salt. Without time to delve into every issue and inspect every question, there are a few points worth examining about American public opinion on education. The greatest clarity perhaps comes from a result consistent between PDK/Gallup and the new Harvard/Education Next survey, and consistent with previous years: About half of Americans give their local public schools an A or B grade, but only one in five do the same for the schools nationwide. Now that we have that out of the way, let the conflict begin! American Federation for Children responded quickly to the results of one particular question that alleges 70 percent opposition to private school vouchers: The poll asked respondents about various other forms of educational choice, including charter schools, homeschooling and online education. In each of those instances, respondents overwhelmingly favored these educational options. When PDK asked respondents about their support for publicly funded private school choice, the question was worded, “Do you favor or oppose allowing students and […]

Seeing as how it’s been at least a couple days since I’ve mentioned Douglas County, it seemed like the perfect time to make sure you all also saw my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s new op-ed in the Colorado Observer: There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things,” Machiavelli wrote in his 500-year-old classic The Prince. The Florentine political philosopher keenly recognized the challenges of undertaking any kind of major reform project. A conservative area like Douglas County is no exception, where the grievances of displaced interest groups have helped to forge a focused and empowered political opposition. In 2011, two years after reformers swept a majority of seats, Dougco’s school board became the nation’s first to adopt a local private school choice program. The action triggered a costly (but privately funded) lawsuit and the beginnings of a resistance.

At least one popular television series has taken on the challenge of refuting widely held beliefs rooted in misinformation. While I certainly can’t promise you the same level of entertainment value, in the spirit of MythBusters I urge Coloradans to check out a brand-new podcast of my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow on the Amy Oliver Show. Listen to Ben debunk some of the myths behind Amendment 66, the billion-dollar-a-year statewide tax increase “for the kids.” You will learn how, contrary to claims made by prominent supporters:

Little Coloradans like me have to grudgingly admit that, yes, good ideas and insights can come from Kansas, at least from time to time. In this case, a University of Kansas researcher conducted a study and found that newer teachers are more likely to be engaged at their jobs than many of their senior colleagues. The findings, based on Gallup’s 2012 broad national survey of teachers, bear some examination: According to [researcher Shane] Lopez, K-12 teachers with less than one year of experience are the most engaged teachers at work, at 35.1 percent, based on survey data. Engagement falls precipitously to 30.9 percent for teachers with one to three years of experience, and it falls further to 27.9 percent for educators with three to five years of experience. Engagement improves slightly for teachers with five to 10 years of experience (30.8 percent) and again for those teaching more than 10 years (31.8) but is still significantly lower than the first-year rate. It took me awhile to realize that “engagement” referred not to a status of someone who is planning to get married but to active effort, dedication, and focus on classroom responsibilities. Examples of engaged teachers include those featured in […]

An old baseball player from a long time ago once famously said, “It’s deja vu all over again” (or so my Education Policy Center friends would have me believe). Little voices have been asking me when I’m going to write something about the latest round of TCAP results — Colorado’s annual state testing for different grades in math, reading, writing, and science. But first, I had to figure out what year it was. Wednesday’s headline at Ed News Colorado started out “State TCAP scores mostly flat….” In August 2012, the same publication reported the release of state test results under the headline “State scores mostly flat….” So I didn’t know how worthwhile it would be to write about last year’s news on a blog that’s already two days behind the curve.

The Aspen Daily News yesterday reported on the struggle facing school board members in the upscale mountain community as they ponder whether to support the billion-dollar tax hike headed for November’s ballot: Board member Elizabeth Parker told Pitkin County commissioners in a joint meeting Tuesday that she would have a hard time throwing her support behind Amendment 66, which voters will decide in November, because it will likely lead to future requests for local tax increases. Yes, that’s one valid concern. One can imagine how that might make it difficult for a school board official to hesitate in supporting a proposal that means more tax dollars for education programs. Initiative 22 (probably soon to be renamed Amendment 66) puts the heat on a number of districts to ask local residents for more in property taxes. It also provides state dollars to underwrite many local mill levy elections, and creates three new types of mill levy taxes.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about good old SB 191, Colorado’s 2010 law passed in an attempt to create a more meaningful teacher and principal evaluation system. As the 2013-14 school year gets underway, school districts across the state are meeting the requirement to put the new system into place. What can we expect? That’s the question to ask, as observers wonder how the new system will affect classroom practices and behaviors, as well as interactions with principals and the role of districts in support. What we do know as of August 1 is who will follow the state’s model evaluation system. Ed News Colorado tells us that 160 of 178 districts have adopted this approach fully, further noting: Another 10 districts will use a “hybrid” – usually the model system for principals and their own systems for teachers. Jeffco, the state’s largest district, is among the “hybrid” category. According to Ed News, only seven districts are going their own route completely:

For some Colorado students, the school year is already back. For most of them, it’s coming very soon. So I can enjoy the last days of summer vacation, I wanted to share something quickly for you to help appreciate some more of the possibilities raised by The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning in Colorado. So in the spirit of Rocketship Education, Carpe Diem, and KIPP Empower LA that I’ve written about before, here are a couple more videos to watch about schools successfully adopting blended learning models. Unfortunately, they won’t let me embed them here. But you should still check out Aspire ERES Academy (Oakland, CA) and the BLAST Alliance College-Ready Prep Schools (Los Angeles). Yes, most of these highly promising innovations come from California, but that’s far from a good reason to dismiss them out of hand. Glimpse the future, contemplate the policies that Colorado needs to change, and join in helping to inspire and bring more effective blended learning models to life. The tremendous potential is undeniable.

How many of my posts here have been inspired by a story at Education Next? Someone with too much time on their hands and go find the exact answer. But you’ll have to add this one to the count, because I think readers would find interesting a new piece by Marc Holley & Co., “Competition with Charters Motivates Districts.” It’s a creative project in which the authors look for evidence from 12 different urban school districts across the U.S. — geographically disbursed in four different regions — to see to what extent the growth of public charter sectors might actually “prompt low-performing districts to improve their practice.” They looked at more than 8,000 media reports since 2007 to determine whether the dozen districts responded constructively and/or obstructively. They conclude: