Tag Archives: conversation

While Education Week’s annual Quality Counts report is just one of many K-12 state rankings out there, it tends to get a lot of attention because it’s more accessible and easier to interpret that data directly from, say, the U.S. Census Bureau or the National Center for Education Statistics. The latest edition of that report was just released, which means we’re about to see a bevy of questionably accurate news articles, accusations, and assertions crop up in the near future. In the meantime, we can talk a little about the latest results and what they may or may not tell us. Some of you may remember that the Education Policy Center spent some time talking about Education Week’s 2016 Quality Counts report in a recent paper on Colorado school finance. Here’s a refresher on last year’s report: Published annually by Education Week, this report ranks states on “chance for success,” academic achievement, and school finance, with ratings in each of these categories consisting of both an overall grade and a number of more granular rankings. The 2016 report, which relied upon 2013 data, ranked Colorado 37th overall in the area of school finance. As some interest groups have reported, the […]

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 […]

The Denver Post‘s Jeremy Meyer reports today on the latest from the Bromwell Elementary controversy: Parents who skirted district rules to get their children into a high-performing Denver school must go through the choice process for next year, a school committee said. Bromwell Elementary’s collaborative school committee met Wednesday to decide what to do with students from outside of the neighborhood who did not follow the district’s enrollment procedures. In one instance, a family enrolled by using a grandparent’s address. The committee said students who failed to prove they live within school attendance boundaries must enroll through the district’s choice process, which operates on a blind lottery. Superintendent Tom Boasberg must approve the recommendation. First, let me say that Denver Public Schools appears to be fairly treating people who tried to cheat the system. It isn’t right when one of my friends tries to move my checkers when I’m not looking, and it isn’t right for people to pretend to live at a different address so they can enroll their child into a different school. But the conversation can’t end there.

The political saga of undoing educational choice and opportunity in Washington D.C. continues. It got more interesting yesterday when the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a reporter that he was taking a different position on the voucher program in the nation’s capital than Congressional Democrats who are currently threatening to pull the plug on it: Duncan opposes vouchers, he said in an interview with The Associated Press. But he said Washington is a special case, and kids already in private schools on the public dime should be allowed to continue. “I don’t think it makes sense to take kids out of a school where they’re happy and safe and satisfied and learning,” Duncan told said. “I think those kids need to stay in their school.” Initial reactions have run the gamut.

I’m pretty smart for a 5-year-old. But sometimes I wander into a topic that’s just over my head. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it’s probably just best if I let the big people talk about it themselves. My friends in the Education Policy Center released a new Issue Paper today, called Deferred Retirement Compensation for Career K-12 Employees: Understanding the Need for Reform (PDF). It was researched and written by Dr. Michael Mannino from the University of Colorado Denver. Rather than try to explain the paper myself, here’s the summary from the Independence Institute website: To improve understanding of public K-12 retirement compensation, this Issue Paper provides historical estimates using a substantial sample of retiree characteristics and salary histories. Deferred retirement compensation from a hybrid defined benefit plan is defined as the difference between an employee’s estimated retirement account balance and the greater pension value she expects to receive. When accounting for K-12 employee compensation, large amounts of deferred compensation should be included. For the 846 Denver Public Schools retirees in the sample, average lump sum deferred compensation is $627,570. Wow, it would take a lot of piggy banks to put that much money in. But I think […]