Tag Archives: K-12 education

State education rankings are commonly used in conversations about the U.S. education system. One of the most popular ranking systems is from the U.S. News and World Report.  The Cato Institute conducted a study which focused on the U.S. News and World Report’s education measurement, and set out to assess the bias behind this ranking system. The determined bias was due to the lack heterogeneity (demographic diversity) from state to state and subsequently skewed data.

You know how this almost-six-year-old is no fan of the huge spending bill the President flew out here to sign last week. While it sounds nice on paper, I’m here to clue you in to the fact we aren’t going to be saved by a “magical money tree”. In the meantime, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has a tip on how to make the best out of a bad situation. As he writes in yesterday’s edition of the Colorado Daily – if nearly a billion dollars is going to flow into Colorado for the purposes of K-12 education, let’s at least attach it to some serious and radical reforms: If the federal government is bound to spend untold billions it doesn’t have on education, nearly all would be better served by a student-centered approach to distributing the funds. Washington would do much better to offer incentives to states and school districts that attach funds directly to students, empowering families with a wide array of public schooling options. After all, parents best know how to make use of the money to meet their children’s needs. The so-called “stimulus” is a fait accompli. Yet for all the mammoth debt, the […]

A week ago I brought your attention to concerns from Colorado charter school parents and leaders that grant money for facility projects was at serious risk. Public charter schools already face significant inequities when it comes to receiving funds for construction and maintenance. But cutting back the state’s charter school capital construction fund from $10 million to $5 million – as initially proposed by the governor and lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee (JBC) – also put eligibility for federal grant funds at risk, a double whammy. So news like this from the Colorado League of Charter Schools is really good concerning the circumstances: We are excited to report that our efforts at the Capitol, and especially your calls, emails and persistence have paid off. The JBC has revised its proposal and is now recommending that charter school capital construction funding be cut by $2.5 million instead of $5 million. Your efforts helped save $2.5 million in funding for charter schools. We couldn’t have done it without you!

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 […]

Colorado’s largest school district is one of many asking voters this year for more operating tax revenue and for bond debt to fund school construction. An article in Sunday’s Denver Post quoted one of my Education Policy Center friends with concerns about Jefferson County’s proposals (designated 3A and 3B): “They are asking taxpayers to build in a district with declining enrollment,” said Ben DeGrow, a policy analyst at the conservative Independence Institute think tank. Referendum C, a five-year timeout from TABOR revenue restrictions passed in 2005, and a 2007 law that allowed local property taxes to grow should be providing “a lot more revenue” for Jefferson County and other school districts, DeGrow said. Referendum C provided more than $300 million to K-12 education in 2006-07. No one doubts that Jeffco and other school districts need a certain amount of money to provide educational services. So it’s not a simple matter of voting Yes “for the kids” (like me) and voting No “against the kids.” If funding were attached directly to the student, and the parents could decide where to send their children, there would be a stronger case for that simplified line of thinking. However, that’s not how the system […]