Tag Archives: Jeffco School Board

If there’s one thing being a perpetual five year old has taught me, it’s that you have to know when to let something go. Continually bringing up the same thing may get you some attention, but in the long run it’s likely to do more harm than good. That’s especially true when you’ve already gotten what you want. Like my dad always says, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. That is, of course, assuming that there are actually any flies left to catch. The Jeffco curriculum controversy finally drew to a reasonable close at last Thursday’s board meeting, yet a handful of Jefferson County students—or more accurately, Jefferson County families—don’t seem ready to give up the misguided fight over curriculum review in the district. Sherrie Peif, an education reporter for Complete Colorado, reports that some students went out of their way to disrupt last Thursday’s board meeting—apparently with the full blessing of many adults: Students randomly stood and read excerpts from history books, and at one point blew a whistle and then recited the Pledge of Allegiance, all while other members of the public were attempting to speak … After blowing the whistle, the students were all […]

President Obama made some remarks about education yesterday, and my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow got a chance to respond in this piece from Face The State: Ben DeGrow, education policy analyst for the Independence Institute, said he is glad to finally see Obama taking a strong position on education. “Obama the candidate and Obama the President has been all over the place on education reform, and it’s been hard to pin him down,” said DeGrow. “The comments in [Tuesday’s] speech are mostly promising, and we need to hold him to those comments.” [link added] In the Face the State piece, State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer also raised the point that Obama has given no indication of wanting to help stop an effort by Democrats in Congress to take away private tuition scholarships from poor kids in the nation’s capital. Still, the President’s message yesterday was largely on the right track. Among the less traditionally Democratic education reform ideas Barack Obama embraced are charter schools, accountability, and teacher performance pay. In the latter case, Obama seems to grasp the importance of the current problem with teacher quality: In his speech, the president issued a call for a […]