Tag Archives: Legos

It’s Lego-time around here, so I don’t have long to blog right now. But I did want you to hear about how Colorado families and schools are working together to enhance the online education experience and make our state’s thriving cyberschool community the talk of the nation. Click the play button below to listen to a new iVoices podcast as my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow discusses with Judith Stokes of the Colorado Cyberschools Association and Lori Cooney of the Colorado Coalition of Cyberschool Families about their collaborative effort to benefit students: As always, you can learn more about ALL your Colorado education options at our fabulous School Choice for Kids website. And now back to my Legos….

Our own appointed U.S. Senator and former Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennet conducted a recent Q & A on federal education reform with Linda Kulman for Politics Daily. Here’s his answer to one question about incentives not matching objectives in the education system: We have not updated our theory of human capital, which is a fancy word for saying how do we attract and retain people to public education, since the labor market was one where women had two professional choices: being a nurse or being a teacher. We say to people, “We’d like you to come be a teacher, we imagine that you’re going to teach “Julius Caesar” every year for the next 30 years, we’re going to pay you a really terrible wage compared to what you could make doing almost anything else. … The way most school districts and states pay teachers in this country (is) if you leave any time in the first 20 years, you leave with what you’ve contributed to your retirement system … but if you stay for 30 years, you (get) a pension that’s worth three times what your Social Security is worth. No matter what else you want to do, […]

My mom and dad have been drilling the importance of sharing into me for years. I’ve finally got it down now (okay, for the most part). But as far as I recall, sharing my Legos or Matchbox cars with other kids has never been encouraged as a way to save money. I guess it’s a little different when it comes to school districts and “sharing” services. A recent article in the Pueblo Chieftain offers an account of a new development in the region’s two largest school districts: Talk of consolidating Pueblo City Schools and Pueblo County School District 70 may be too early right now, but the concept of sharing services is not.

Following the Boulder teacher “sickout” that roiled the community recently, my Education Policy Center friends Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow discuss the problem of public employee strikes and the need to reform teacher pay in a brand-new iVoices podcast: Whatever you think about how teachers ought to be paid, trying to make a point through a collective temper tantrum was not the way to go. If I tried that, I’d at least get sent to my room without dessert. Even worse, I might be grounded and not allowed to play with my Legos or Gameboy Advance. Though they haven’t gone down the path Boulder teachers have taken (at least not yet), similar disputes in Jeffco and Greeley look like they may go unresolved into the next school year.

I’m 5 years old. Generally speaking, I like puppets and think they’re pretty cool. Recently learning that Kermit the Frog himself was a puppet (or muppet, you know what I mean) only increased my respect for him. But when heavily-funded teachers unions use other groups as puppets to oppose education reforms like choice and accountability — reforms that help kids like me, but especially kids in more dire straits — that’s a different story. Case #1: Thanks to the hard work of the Education Intelligence Agency’s intrepid Mike Antonucci, we learn that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the group Republicans Opposing Voucher Efforts (ROVE). The company that registered the ROVE website is run by a former high-level National Education Association (NEA) staffer. As Greg Forster notes, it “sure looks a whole lot like it has the NEA’s arm sticking out the bottom”.

I may not have been able to throw my Legos far enough to hit him, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan is taking plenty of lumps from others, reports Joanne Jacobs and Jay Greene (see here and here and here). Of course, what Duncan is allowing to happen to the Washington DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is perhaps just the most outrageous of the latest challenges to school choice. There’s also the recent Arizona Supreme Court decision, and continuing attacks against the Milwaukee voucher program. In a new iVoices podcast, listen to Scott Jensen from the Alliance for School Choice discuss with my Education Policy Center friend Pam Benigno not only the challenges but the opportunities facing supporters of educational freedom at this momentous time: Let’s stay strong and not lose heart, folks. School choice is a major (and indispensable) part of the answer to our education woes, and there are many, many kids my age and older who are worth fighting for.

Today is a busy day: Lots of playing outside to do … I’m going to the zoo! So instead of a longer post, I’m just going to point you to what my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow wrote yesterday about Washington DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and “collaboration”: Maybe some think it would be nice that Rhee “collaborated” more with union officials — or career bureaucrats, for that matter. But it certainly isn’t necessary, and may even be counterproductive. Yes, the situation is complicated by politics. Not including the Washington Teachers Union at the table may end up unleashing various obstructions from an entrenched group. In his piece, Mr. Ben takes on two very different comments about Michelle Rhee’s recent visit to Denver — the one I was so sad to have missed. Have I mentioned how much I really like Rhee? Maybe she’ll play Legos with me sometime… or come to the zoo and look at the tigers with me – I love the Tigers!

Okay, I’m throwing Legos again (sorry). I just can’t throw them far enough to hit Education Secretary Arne Duncan. First, he ignored and downplayed the positive results of the D.C. voucher program in helping to improve students’ reading skills. Now comes the insulting letter from the U.S. Department of Education that swipes opportunity away from untold numbers of poor kids in our nation’s capital. When will the madness stop? Liberal pro-Obama Fox News commentator Juan Williams shares the outrage. Check out this Cato at Liberty post to read what he had to say, and click on his picture to watch the video. Just so you know that we’re not alone (not nearly alone), Jay Greene also has been rounding up other responses to the Obama-Duncan hit on D.C. vouchers here and here and here. Not sure why this issue is so important? Listen to Virginia Walden Ford from D.C. Parents for School Choice about what’s at stake. Watch some of the D.C. scholarship students tell you themselves. There’s more, lots more out there. But I think I need to stop, give myself a timeout and go to my room so I can calm down.

So I just started cooling down a bit from yesterday (I assure you, no Legos were thrown … at least not directly at anybody). Then I watched this Fox News clip about the U.S. Senate trying to take away vouchers from people like Mercedes Campbell (H/T Edspresso): That Glenn Beck guy? I can tell he feels like I do. Jeanne Allen explains what’s at stake so eloquently. And then I’m just left feeling bad for Mercedes and the 1,700 other kids in Washington, D.C., whose scholarships are at stake. Are you outraged yet, too? After taking a couple deep breaths, I had to go around and look for some good news, and found this: “Appeals Court Rules School Choice Program is Constitutional”. At least the 1,947 kids benefiting from Arizona’s corporate tax credit program have won a victory. And I don’t have to consider throwing Legos at any judges. That could probably get me in trouble, anyway.

Way to go, U.S. Senate. You made a 5-year-old boy cry. How dare you vote to take away scholarships from D.C. kids who really need them! Have you seen these kids? Even the Eduwonk – no big fan of vouchers – says “the spectacle of forcing the kids to leave their schools before they age out is pretty cold-hearted.” Uh-huh. Fifty-eight U.S. Senators – including Colorado’s own Michael Bennet and Mark Udall – have decided to spend billions on wasteful pork projects, but can’t spare anything to keep 1,700 students from exercising the choice to enroll in a better school. And to think I’ve said nice things about Mr. Bennet before. I’m thinking about taking it back. Andy Smarick at the Flypaper blog asks: “Why are they doing this?” He makes some very good points, and I have to agree with him. But really, I’m just plain mad right now. I’ve even thought about throwing some of my Legos at the next U.S. Senator who comes my way. (Not that many ever have, mind you.) Will President Obama show the Senators who’s in charge? His press secretary said today that “it wouldn’t make sense to disrupt the education of those […]