Tag Archives: evaluation

Every now and then, an op-ed drops from the sky like one of those whistle bombs in the movies. The resulting explosion gets folks all riled up, and usually leads to some highly entertaining (though not terribly productive) conversations. Today is one of those days, with a Denver Post op-ed that sees Jeffco’s Tom Coyne outlining one of Colorado education’s biggest issues: The difficulty of removing ineffective teachers from the classroom. Coyne smartly argues that despite spending enormous amounts of money, Colorado districts haven’t been able to achieve their academic goals. Coyne quantifies these shortcomings in Jeffco at some length using some pretty convincing data. As he puts it: As taxpayers, we spend an enormous amount of money each year to achieve these goals. For example, based on the most recent Colorado Department of Education data, in the 2012-13 school year, total revenue per student in Jeffco was $10,420, or over $260,000 for every classroom of 25 students. In aggregate, total revenue in Denver’s most affluent suburban school districts (Boulder Valley, Cherry Creek, Douglas County, Jefferson County, and Littleton) was about $2.5 billion in 2012-13. Despite this spending, we aren’t coming close to reaching our student achievement goals.

I’m back from the beach, and thankfully didn’t get sunburned too badly. A lot went on while I was gone. And though I sometimes have to pick and choose what to write about when I’m blogging almost every day, trying to catch up on a week’s worth of news is — well, it’s like trying to build a tall sand castle just a few feet from the water’s edge. You get the picture. What you really don’t want to miss though is a great op-ed written by U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman for yesterday’s Washington Post. The good senator from Connecticut notes that vouchers must remain part of the solution to help kids with educational needs in our nation’s capital: There are low-income children in the District [of Columbia] who can’t wait for their local schools to turn around. Without programs such as this one, their opportunity will be lost forever.

According to Jay Greene’s evaluation of the Technorati authority ratings (which measures the number of blogs providing inbound links in the past 90 days) of education policy blogs: 1. Joanne Jacobs 194 2. Eduwonk 148 3. Jay P. Greene 100 4. Bridging Differences 98 5. Flypaper 97 6. Core Knowledge 95 7. The Quick and the Ed 93 8. Ed Week’s Politics K-12 89 9. This Week in Education 85 10. Edwize 74 (most recent available) 11. Matthew K. Tabor 65 12. D-Ed Reckoning 51 13. Edspresso 50 14. Sherman Dorn 49 15. CF Policyblog 31 16. Ed Week’s NCLB Act II 31 17. Education Intelligence Agency 22 18. Swift and Change Able 20 19. Ed is Watching 14 20. Reason — Out of Control 13 [emphasis added] Hey, I’m #19! Not bad for a 5-year-old, huh? (But hey, let’s be fair: I couldn’t do it without a little help from my Education Policy Center friends) With your help, we can go even higher! After all, I haven’t even hit my prime yet….

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.

Thankfully, most education policy in our country is governed at the local and state level. Though the federal government’s role in education is too big, it’s still very limited. I wish that were really the reason you don’t hear Barack Obama and John McCain say a whole lot about education. Over at Pajamas Media, Greg Forster has a list of five things the next President – whoever it may be – can do to advance education reform: Expand the D.C. voucher program to make it a national model Keep testing outcomes transparent Fund differential teacher pay Improve data transparency for better evaluation of education programs Keep pushing teacher unions to comply with financial disclosure reporting Not many people are going to pick the next President based primarily on education. But it would be best if the media and citizens press the candidates to articulate their positions on these five specific issues. Kids like me can’t vote yet, but we sure appreciate it.