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It’s that time of year again. I get to share some news and thoughts with you about the latest release of Colorado’s 3rd grade reading test results. We’re talking the “preliminary and unofficial” results from TCAP, the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, formerly known as CSAP. As last year’s debate on HB 1238 (the Colorado READ Act) reminded us, making sure kids have proficient reading skills by this milestone year is a crucial indicator of their future learning success. Ed News Colorado this week reports: Colorado’s third grade TCAP reading scores remained flat in 2013 for the third year in a row, according to TCAP results released Tuesday. Once again defying the trend and deserving a little extra kudos is Denver Public Schools, for boosting its 3rd grade reading proficiency up to 61 percent, closer to the state average. Also making progress is Westminster 50, which rebounded from a low 40 percent two years ago to 50 percent today. As the article points out, Aurora took a small hit but anticipates “a much different story next year,” while large suburban districts Jefferson County, Douglas County, and Cherry Creek followed the state’s flat trend line.

A great classic novel my big friends tell me I need to read someday starts with a famous line. I’m talking about Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way. I’m told Dickens was contrasting conditions in the major cities London and Paris during the tumultuous French Revolution more than 200 years ago. On a more modest scale, one could do a lot to distinguish Colorado’s two biggest education stories this year based on a pair of new public opinion surveys. Read on to find the information and draw your own conclusions.

Happy National Teacher Appreciation Day! What better way to celebrate here than to talk about blended learning? I saw a few of you scratch your heads out there. But the national Digital Learning Now (DLN) group has blessed us with a new report titled Improving Conditions and Careers: How Blended Learning Can Improve the Teaching Profession. The authors argue that the smart use of digital technology to redefine instructional and school design models can have benefits for teachers, including the following:

Having been long-winded the past couple days, I will keep this Friday posting short. But in case you missed it, please check out this week’s K-12 radio podcast interview, as Colorado League of Charter Schools president Jim Griffin breaks down the Colorado Department of Education (CDE)’s latest report on the state of charter schools. The report highlights four trends:

There are a few possible explanations for all those shouts of “May Day” Coloradans may have heard yesterday. Some might have been the annual calls for an imaginary workers’ paradise, while others might have been desperate pleas of displaced Texans and Californians calling for relief from the late-season snow. In my education policy wonk world, though, “May Day” was code for a noteworthy coincidence. Have you heard? As Ed News Colorado reports, the state legislature yesterday put the finishing touches on Senate Bill 213, the new school finance bill tied to some form of a billion-dollar tax increase initiative. Finishing its partisan course, the senate approved house amendments by a party-line 20-15 tally. Every legislative vote cast for SB 213 has come from Democrats; every vote against has come from Republicans. The Governor, also a Democrat, has given every indication of signing it into law. The strict partisan divide may have something to do with all the bill’s missed reform opportunities, including continued inequities for charters and only a tiny share of total funds assigned to student “backpacks” (and in the final version of SB 213, pgs 139-140, even that small amount of principal “autonomy” is subject to district-level review). […]

I told you yesterday that former Secretary of Education William Bennett is “very impressed” with the major innovative overhaul going on in Douglas County School District. The district has passed 9 months now without a governing union contract, and also continues to defend a groundbreaking private choice program in the courts. A prominent outside expert may be impressed, but what about the district’s teachers? The latest edition of the Colorado TELL survey is out, in which teachers answer a long series of questions about their schools as a workplace environment. Sponsored by the state’s department of education and several large education interest groups, the third TELL survey was open for teachers across Colorado to answer from February 6 to March 6. In many (but not all) cases, detailed data for each question is broken down at the individual district or school level. Yesterday Douglas County touted some very favorable news from the fresh results, starting with the fact 71.7 percent of teachers participated in the survey — 17 points higher than the 2013 state average and 22 points higher than the district’s 2011 numbers. Dougco teacher satisfaction significantly outpaced the state average on 75 of 97 data points (lower on […]

Colorado’s non-union teacher group PACE today posted some more of the results from their recent member survey. Roughly 3 out of every 4 expressed support for “a pathway for career advancement outside of the traditional, seniority-based salary schedule,” often known as a career ladder. One of their members hit the nail on the head: A high school math teacher in Harrison School District commented, “I think a seniority-based salary schedule is a horrible way to pay teachers and should be eliminated, not tweaked. A very interesting (and not terribly surprising) observation coming from a school district that has pioneered true pay-for-performance and as of a year ago showed tremendous signs of front-line support. But even more noteworthy, there is a Colorado district that is pushing change even further. Interestingly, given yesterday’s topic here, it came from the lips of former U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. William J. Bennett, who spoke Friday at a Fordham Institute event on “A Nation at Risk: 30 Years Later”:

Talk about ancient history for a kid like me. On Friday the Fordham Foundation and American Enterprise Institute commemorated the 30th anniversary of the landmark A Nation at Risk education report with this 23-minute video documentary:

Interesting news this week out of Phoenix, Arizona, where a judge ruled it unconstitutional for taxpayers to fund police union “release time” activities, and put an injunction on the practice. We’re talking about two different states, and two different sectors of government, but one has to wonder whether a similar case could be made about underwriting Colorado teachers’ union business? It may not be happening through the courts, but it appears officials in Colorado’s fifth-largest school district are taking a second look at a policy that in 2009-10 cost taxpayers more than $187,000 to release three union officers. The District Twelve Educators Association (DTEA) recently announced to its members that the Adams 12 school board is proposing changes to the part of the union contract that grants the tax-paid release time.

A sad education story is emerging from Oakland, California. Poor kids soon could be deprived of the option of attending the city’s top-performing high school and producing some of the best results nationwide. Why? Because a state audit found financial mismanagement by Ben Chavis, charismatic leader of the successful American Indian Charter, and lack of proper controls by the school’s board. The Oakland Unified School Board narrowly voted 4-3 in favor of shutting down the school that has topped California’s charts with its test scores. You’d be right to say the situation must be pretty bad for a school that successful to be shuttered down. Nationally-renowned libertarian investigative journalist John Stossel says American Indian Charter’s amazing academic track record for students so poorly served throughout most of the traditional K-12 system should overshadow the fact that Chavis and his wife made so much money off the school: