Tag Archives: Education News Colorado

What to do if you’re a school district, you have a fast-growing neighborhood, and not enough tax revenue to meet the promises to build schools for the elementary and middle school kids in the area? Well, Denver Public Schools is confronting that problem right now in regards to the Stapleton neighborhood. A meeting with community members “to share a list of options about what to do about overcrowding” is scheduled for next Tuesday. While it’s hard to argue that this situation isn’t a sticky one, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow nevertheless has written a new piece for Education News Colorado (also re-posted at the Independence Institute website), proposing some suggestions to help the district and citizens think outside the box a bit. Here’s the flavor:

So I’ve already written once today, but I just had to let you know about this Education News Colorado blog post. Why? Because not only does the author Karin Piper give a great argument for school choice, she does so by talking about ice cream. What do I mean? Here’s a little sample, or scoop if you will, to whet your appetite: A great ice-cream parlor caters to the varied needs of its ranging customers with equal appreciation, just like a sound school district is inclusive of the needs of all its students. Have you ever been paying for your treat and had some guy hiss at you that your chocolate ice-cream purchase is hurting the sales of strawberry custard? Has someone told you they think less of you for not preferring their favorite ice-cream? I am going to guess no. So why do some criticize other families for attending different kind of school than theirs? Should we expect parents to sacrifice the schooling choice best suited for their kid, because one type of education should be fine for all? If we flooded all the kids into one type of public school, what are we really accommodating- the kids’ varied […]

One of Colorado’s biggest online mysteries has been solved. The many readers of the Schools for Tomorrow education blog are sleeping better tonight. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. What am I talking about? On Friday, 9News interviewed the Education Policy Center‘s Ben DeGrow about his perspective on the state record $454 million school bond proposal Denver voters face this year. In the process, his hardly-surprising online identity was revealed: An online blogger named “Uncle Charley” has written several entries for Education News Colorado trying to get readers to think about the need before they act. One blog is entitled, “More Tough Questions on DPS Bond,” which talks in part about the individual items that would be funded by this bond issue and series of property tax hikes have agreed to in Denver over the past two decades. “Uncle Charley” is actually the pseudonym for Ben DeGrow, with the Independence Institute, a non-partisan conservative political think tank. DeGrow says spending $13 million dollars on athletic fields and other monies for failing and half-filled schools is not wise. [link added] Ben said that (hardly unexpected) the quotes in the piece don’t do his argument justice. But that’s okay. He […]

Over at Education News Colorado, Mr. Alan Gottlieb gives a firsthand account of a polite clash over education reform between Colorado’s two most recent Democrat governors: [Former Governor Roy] Romer laid out the well-known, depressing facts: we are falling behind other nations in education, and we’re going to pay dearly for it soon, if we aren’t already (we are). “We’re a third world nation in terms of our performance in math,” Romer said. What got under [current Governor Bill] Ritter’s skin, apparently, was Romer’s repeated insistence that “we” — meaning Colorado and the U.S. are not doing enough to address this predicament. “We’re asleep, we’re kidding ourselves,” Romer said. Ritter bounded up to the podium like an unleashed dog, and said he wished to “offer a rebuttal, in part, as presumptuous as that may seem.” Colorado is focused on the challenges, despite Romer’s criticism, Ritter said, “in a way perhaps we haven’t been before.” With that subtle dig at the former governor, Ritter laid out his education agenda, stressing the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids (CAP4K) legislation that passed this year. He said new standards and assessments are coming, and they will be benchmarked, as Romer suggests, to standards in […]

It’s hard to argue against the idea that more fresh blood is needed in our public education system. We could do with more school and district leaders who didn’t necessarily rise through the ranks of the teachers union or education bureaucracy who can bring valuable outside skills and perspectives to the challenges faced. Education News Colorado today highlights such a success story in the Denver metropolitan area: Aurora Public Schools raised more than a few eyebrows two years ago when the board of education selected John Barry, a retired U.S. Air Force major general, to take over as superintendent of the state’s third-largest school district. “We were definitely taking a chance,” says Aurora school board chairman Matt Clark. “He was clearly a non-traditional candidate, coming from the military. But we were looking for someone who understood what it took to turn an institution around.” And turn it did. Barry began introducing changes in the way Aurora educates its 32,000 students at a breakneck pace. New curricula. New strategic plan . New coaching method for teachers. New standardized tests . New summer school programs . The launch of a new pilot school — the first of several. New emphasis on truancy […]