Tag Archives: audio

A Breakthrough in Building Student Brain Power for Colorado Success?

Maybe this isn’t the best time to bring up the subject — what, with the hot summertime sun baking our brain cells and the new school year still many weeks away for most kids. But I wanted to let you know about a Colorado nonprofit group creatively working to bridge an important gap sometimes overlooked in the world of education policy. Listen to Cognitive First Children’s Campaign founder and executive director Larry Hargrave explain on an iVoices podcast how his group seeks to make brain skills testing and intervention resources more accessible to Colorado students:

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Are More Teacher Licensure Alternatives on Their Way to Colorado?

Every student in Colorado deserves to have a top-notch teacher in the classroom — especially those kids who are “at-risk” because of poverty and related issues. We shouldn’t put unnecessary obstacles in the way of getting skilled and caring new teachers licensed and ready to go. Instead, we should be looking for high-quality alternative programs that serve the needs of those college-educated adults who want to change careers without going back to get an education degree. We need more content experts, especially in math and science, who have a firm footing in the basics of pedagogy and classroom management. This year Colorado passed Senate Bill 160 (PDF). By giving the state board of education greater flexibility to approve alternative licensure programs, this new law may enable the recruitment and preparation of more highly-qualified teachers to help fill needs in Colorado schools. This week David Saba, president of the American Board for Certification of Teaching Excellence (ABCTE), talked more about these issues on an iVoices podcast, which you can listen to by clicking the play button below:

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Co-Author Discusses Report on Public vs. Private School Teacher Satisfaction

Recently I told you about a new report from the Friedman Foundation that compares satisfaction between public school and private school teachers, offering an argument for how school choice can benefit teachers, too. Well, it gets better, because the Independence Institute was able to get a co-author of the report, Christian D’Andrea, on an iVoices podcast to discuss it in greater depth: Enjoy.

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Talking Temper Tantrums & Teacher Pay

Following the Boulder teacher “sickout” that roiled the community recently, my Education Policy Center friends Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow discuss the problem of public employee strikes and the need to reform teacher pay in a brand-new iVoices podcast: Whatever you think about how teachers ought to be paid, trying to make a point through a collective temper tantrum was not the way to go. If I tried that, I’d at least get sent to my room without dessert. Even worse, I might be grounded and not allowed to play with my Legos or Gameboy Advance. Though they haven’t gone down the path Boulder teachers have taken (at least not yet), similar disputes in Jeffco and Greeley look like they may go unresolved into the next school year.

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A Parent's Voice: Terrific Source of Information for Colorado Moms & Dads

Rather than dwell on the latest anti-D.C. scholarship program developments that have me burning angry again (I hope this group stands up and does something about it), I decided to focus on the positive this Monday morning. Colorado’s charter school parents and other school choice supporters have another great resource at their disposal. If you haven’t checked out the new website A Parent’s Voice, you’re missing out on a terrific resource – one that complements our own School Choice for Kids site. Recently, my Education Policy Center friend Pam Benigno sat down with A Parent’s Voice creator and charter school mom Donnell Rosenberg to discuss the background and features of the site. You can listen to their iVoices podcast conversation here: Right now, Colorado is relatively blessed by our political situation as it pertains to school choice. But none of it — whether it’s open enrollment, charter schools, or online education — should be taken for granted. To ward off potential anti-choice political attacks like what’s transpiring in Washington D.C., as well as to enhance your child’s educational opportunities (both present and future), it is very important to arm yourself with the best information tools possible. A Parent’s Voice is […]

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Kansas Teacher Explains Why His Colleagues Broke Away from NEA

Recently, a group of public school teachers in rural Kansas were tired of being represented by the nation’s largest teachers union and decided to do something about it. From Education Week: Teachers in Riley County have voted to decertify from the Kansas National Education Association and the National Education Association. The approximately 58 teachers in the district voted earlier this month to have Riley County Educators serve as their negotiating agent. Riley County High School industrial arts teacher and track coach Garry Sigle, who also serves as spokesman for the Riley County Educators, was kind enough to record an iVoices podcast explaining why he and the other teachers chose this course of action and what the process is like: The Association of American Educators (AAE), which has provided assistance to the teachers in Riley, explains that these teachers in the Kansas district are not the first local to decertify from NEA in recent years. It has happened in several other states, though not yet in Colorado. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow tells me he is working to get more information on the decertification option to put up on the Independent Teachers website. I’ll keep you updated.

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Keeping Effective Teachers? Colorado Would Grade Better on the Curve

An absolutely vital key to successful education is high-quality instruction. So how well is Colorado doing in keeping effective teachers on the job in classrooms like mine? (Answer below) On a new iVoices podcast, you can listen to Sandi Jacobs – vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) – talk with my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow about her group’s new State Teacher Policy Yearbook and where Colorado fits in: To dig more in depth, go take a look at NCTQ’s Colorado report (PDF).

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Ben DeGrow Plugs Commonsense, Parent- & Taxpayer-Friendly Reform

Yesterday morning, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow took to the airwaves for a quick interview on Colorado’s Morning News (850 KOA). He talked about the awful federal “stimulus” bill, the need for online financial transparency, and gave a shout-out to parent-friendly school choice reforms. I was too busy getting out of bed and getting ready for school to hear it for myself, so I was glad to get a copy we all can go back and listen to: Right on! Now is the time for commonsense reforms that empower parents and taxpayers, not federal boondoggles that subsidize more of the same.

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Independence Institute Highlights Rural Colorado School Performance

There are plenty of kids in Colorado who live out in the country or in remote small towns. I don’t know many of them myself. Yet while I’m sure they have their own challenges in learning and education, they don’t get as much attention as those of us who live in and around the big city of Denver. That’s part of the reason why my friends in the Education Policy Center put together a project looking at the academic performance of Colorado’s rural school districts, compared with the numbers of poor and non-white students they serve. The author of the newly-released Assessing Colorado Rural Public School Performance (PDF) is Paul Mueller, who spent the summer working in our offices. (Just in case you were wondering, I didn’t see much of Paul, because I spent much of my summer months off school playing outdoors rather than visiting the Independence Institute.) Anyway, for those of you who don’t have the time to read Paul’s paper, you can listen to him and Pam Benigno talk about the findings of the report – including a couple school districts that succeeded at “beating the odds” despite high-poverty or high-minority student populations – on an iVoices […]

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