Tag Archives: Douglas County

Begging for Tire Scraps: SCOTUS Takes MO Blaine Case

Yesterday, we talked Dougco. Because I’m a fan of loosely connected thematic writing, we’re going to do the same today in a more peripheral sense. Don’t worry, today’s post will include markedly less discussion about the nether regions of the male body. Some of you may remember that there was a pretty important—and pretty disappointing—Colorado Supreme Court decision about Dougco’s local voucher program last June. The program was struck down under an incredibly broad interpretation of our state’s Blaine Amendment. The decision was so sweeping, in fact, that Justice Allison Eid had this to say about it in a dissenting opinion: Today, the plurality interprets Article IX, Section 7 as prohibiting the expenditure of any state funds that might incidentally or indirectly benefit a religious school. This breathtakingly broad interpretation would invalidate not only the Choice Scholarship Program (“CSP”), but numerous other state programs that provide funds to students and their parents who in turn decide to use the funds to attend religious schools in Colorado. The plurality’s interpretation barring indirect funding is so broad that it would invalidate the use of public funds to build roads, bridges, and sidewalks adjacent to such schools, as the schools, in the words […]

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Unions, Hackers, and Genitalia Tweets! Oh My!

At six years old, I’m probably a little too young to take classes on detailed human anatomy. Fortunately, the Douglas County Federation of Teachers (DCFT) recently stepped up to the plate to help me learn this important material. Always thinking of the kids, those folks. As a healthy reminder that the teachers union holds the moral high ground in education, DCFT’s official Twitter account sent out the following tweet during one of Dougco’s District Accountability Committee meetings. The tweet references an elementary school teacher who happened to be speaking at the meeting. Ahem. Let’s just allow that to settle for a moment.

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Ugly Smear Column Tries, Fails to Shove Conservative Education Reform Aside

I hope you all enjoyed a nice, long break from recent depressing edu-happenings over the last few days. I also hope that your disappointment is tempered by hope for the future. As my friend Ross Izard pointed out in a recent op-ed—and as my dad always says—it ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings. I never have figured out who that fat lady is, but I’m pretty positive it isn’t Michael Vaughn, a former DPS spokesperson turned communications director for Education Post. Mr. Vaughn recently wrote a post-election Denver Post op-ed about the fact that “real” reform is winning in Colorado. It’s a rather nasty piece in which he celebrates reform victories in Denver while all but dancing on the graves of conservative education reformers around the state. When I look at what conservative education reform folks have pushed for over the past few years in Jeffco, Thompson, Dougco, and other districts, I see a long list of meaningful reforms. New curricula, new charter schools, pay-for-performance systems, equal funding for charter students, collective bargaining reform—you name it, it’s there. But that doesn’t seem to qualify as true reform for Vaughn, who instead offers this definition of the term: I know there’s no tried-and-true […]

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Meet Colorado's New PPI Report Card, Same as the Old PPI Report Card

It’s Friday again, my friends, and that means it’s time for a more colorful look at education policy as we head into the weekend. I really wanted to highlight the American Federation for Children’s “Education Revolution” video, which was released a couple months ago but only just made it to my desk. But you’ll have to watch that on your own. We have colorful interactive maps to play with! The Center for Education Reform (CER) recently released its 2015 Parent Power Index. It is absolutely stuffed with colorful, clickable goodies that are entirely too much fun to be considered education policy. But I’ll leave you to play with the report on your own time. We have important business to discuss! If you’ll remember, Colorado came in 12th in the country last year, which was a very slight improvement from 13th in 2013. At the time, CER described Colorado this way: Parents here are an active lot but have often been rebuffed at the legislative level when trying to expand their choices. That said, there is a strong charter law here. Many elements of digital learning are offered. The citizens of Colorado get to vote in school board elections when they […]

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On Pay for Performance and Using the Right Yardstick

Pay for performance (PFP) is an incredibly hotly debated facet of education reform. I’ve never really quite understood that because, well, rewarding folks for doing great work strikes me as common sense. I mean, I get more allowance money if I do my chores well, and not so much if I “clean my room” by just moving a pile of toys from one corner to another, less visible one. Yet as a recent Denver Post article highlights, things aren’t always as clear cut for folks who are skeptical of PFP. The article provides very brief outlines of PFP system variants in Denver, Jefferson County, and Douglas County. It also launches a number of thinly veiled assaults against the concept of pay for performance, which means that—you guessed it—Little Eddie feels compelled to say a few things. Before we get to that, though, I find it interesting (and slightly disingenuous) that the article does not include any mention of Harrison School District’s innovative compensation model. Harrison’s system is certainly the most fully developed and interesting PFP system in the state, and perhaps one of the most intriguing in the nation. Sure, Harrison is significantly smaller than the three largest districts in […]

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Little Eddie's Wednesday Triple Play: Dougco, School Choice, and Accountability

I feel like we have few distinct tracks here on Little Eddie’s edu-blog. We often talk about Jeffco and its ongoing struggles, I always love to talk about school choice in any form, and I’ve been known to get into financial issues from time to time. But what happens if—don’t freak out me here—what happens if we blend three of our favorite tracks into a single blog post? Oh yes, it can be done. In fact, I’m going to do it right now. Let’s start with our good friends in Douglas County, who you will remember we’ve talked frequently about in recent months. Back in August, I highlighted an amicus brief co-authored by my edu-buddies Ben DeGrow and Ross Izard in support of Douglas County’s local voucher program. I also spent some time pumping you up for oral arguments in the related Supreme Court case (no decision yet, I’m afraid), celebrating the district’s return to the state’s top accreditation rating, and deconstructing some attacks against Douglas County’s pay system. That, my friends, covers both Douglas County and school choice. Now for the third track: Accountability.

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Eddie's Top Posts of 2014: Part Two

Yesterday, we embarked on a fun little tour of your favorite policy explorer’s best 2014 blog posts. Knowing that you’re still trying to work through all the holiday tryptophan, however, I limited myself to covering just the first half of the year. (Fun make-you-sound-smart-at-your-next-holiday-party factoid: The turkey-tryptophan thing is actually a myth.) As promised, we’ll wrap up the rest of 2014’s highlights today. Without further ado, I present Little Eddie’s favorite blog posts from July through December 2014:

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One More Year: Districts Take Different Paths as 191 Closes In

It’s almost Turkey Day, and that means it’s time to start thinking about the things we’re thankful for. At the top of my list are my dog, my parents, and pumpkin pie with Cool Whip on it. But while I sit here smacking my lips at the thought of tomorrow’s pie, some school districts are feeling thankful for a very different reason: This year’s reprieve from SB-191’s requirement that 50 percent of teacher evaluations be based on multiple measures of student learning. This afternoon, Chalkbeat posted an article detailing some of the districts that have chosen to press ahead with SB-191’s requirements along with some others that have chosen to wait. The article is based on a survey of Colorado’s 20 largest districts, which together employ more than two-thirds of the state teachers. Chalkbeat found that just over half of the districts—including our friends in Douglas and Jefferson County—have decided to forge ahead as originally planned. Some other districts have decided to weight their growth data at zero percent of the evaluation formula, basing evaluations only on professional quality standards. The lone outlier from the 50-0 dichotomy is Mesa, which decided to weight growth data at 25 percent for the […]

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Sticky Numbers: Making Sense of Dougco's Pay System and Its Outcomes

Like Elmer’s glue, numbers get sticky when misused. And just like glue is tough (but fun!) to peel off your hands, it can take a little while to clear up sticky number messes. Yet clean them up we must, and so I dedicate today’s post to clearing up some numerical confusion surrounding Dougco’s pay-for-performance system. The most recent illustration of sticky confusion in Dougco comes courtesy of comments on a recent Denver Post op-ed written by Doug Benevento, Vice President of the Douglas County Board of Education. Some of the comments are the typical anti-reform, pro-union rhetoric to which we’ve all sadly grown accustomed, but some others hint at some more systemic misunderstandings of the district’s pay structure and the numbers associated with it. Those need to be addressed. The first big misunderstanding is DCSD’s actual turnover rate. One commenter accuses Benevento of “finagling” (great word) CDE’s official 17.28% teacher turnover figure to make the district look better. Yet it is CDE, not Benevento, doing the finaglin’.

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Rubric's Cube: Understanding Colorado's Recent Voucher Grade

We’re all instinctively wary of being graded, I think. Being evaluated can make you a little nervous, and there’s always that slight moment of panic as a teacher hands back an exam. Yet, that information often proves to be extremely valuable. A good evaluation helps you identify strengths, weaknesses, and things you’ll do differently moving forward. Still, it’s always important to look at the rubric being used when you interpret results. Today, the Center for Education Reform released a new report that grades voucher programs across the United States.  Being well-informed readers of my blog, many of you may recognize the template; the organization has previously released reports that grade state charter laws (Colorado outscored all but eight other states) and scholarship tax credit programs. The voucher grades, however, are brand new. I know, I know. You want to know how Colorado on the test. But like that infuriating teacher that stands in front of the class making small talk while his students sweat bullets over the stack of graded tests in his hand, I’m going to make you wait. Yes, I’m that guy.

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