Tag Archives: cynical

Some day I might grow up to be cynical about education politics, but for now I see a big glimmer of hope. What do I mean? Look at yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: Low-income families in the District of Columbia got some encouraging words yesterday from an unlikely source. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin signaled that he may be open to reauthorizing the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a school voucher program that allows 1,700 disadvantaged kids to opt out of lousy D.C. public schools and attend a private school. “I have to work with my colleagues if this is going to be reauthorized, which it might be,” said Mr. Durbin at an appropriations hearing Tuesday morning. He also said that he had visited one of the participating private schools and understood that “many students are getting a good education from the program.” This could be the sign of a big turnaround for the influential Democratic senator, whom I have rightly critiqued in the past. At the Flypaper blog, Andy Smarick says Durbin’s statement “was a major step in the right direction”, and wonders if the D.C. 6’s dramatic sit-in a few weeks ago had an impact.

If Barack Obama and the Democrats really are going to pull $122 billion off the magical money tree and send it to fund education programs in the states, could we at least hope the dollars are spent sensibly on effective reforms? For example, will the feds dump freshly-printed greenbacks into traditional, union-controlled teacher licensure programs that do nothing for the bottom line of education? Or might they consider using the cash to improve the quality of the teaching workforce – you know, boost effective performance pay so we can reward good teachers, and repeal harmful tenure laws so we can get rid of bad teachers? Surely some reasonable share of the $122 billion could be used to make a real positive difference. Right? I’ve already been told my problem is that I’m not old enough yet to be properly cynical about all this. I’m not ready to admit that, but I have been trying to find the seeds to plant a magical money tree in our backyard. That way, I can have my own bazillion-dollar weekly allowance without hitting up my parents or the federal government.

In just a few minutes the excitement begins anew: the Colorado state legislature reconvenes. With the economy in the doldrums and tax revenues down, it’s going to be an interesting four months under Denver’s golden dome. But what about the kids? What about K-12 education? Ed News Colorado gives us a preview of the speeches and schedules that kick off the new session. Ed News also takes a look at some of the bigger education issues that figure to be debated. Standardizing a system of concurrent enrollment, creating unique teacher identifiers, adding flexibility to the School Accountability Report, cutting back on CSAP tests, expanding charter school access to bond money – all these figure to be important debates. Given time, I’ll jump into all of them. For now, though, I wanted to hone in on this one: There’s talk that several lawmakers are interested in legislation to encourage greater parental involvement in schools, including possibly a bill that would require businesses to give employees time off for school activities. (Similar legislation has gone nowhere in past years.) I can’t understand why this idea hasn’t passed before. Who could possibly be against more parental involvement? While they’re at it, I hope […]