Tag Archives: Marya DeGrow

You know, maybe I’ve been too hard on teachers unions. Just this year, I’ve celebrated their declining membership rates, poked fun at their colossal loss of money in the 2014 election cycle, and had a little too much fun reliving an extraordinarily entertaining “battleflop” by Jeffco’s local teachers union. Who can blame me? My big boy policy friends at the Independence Institute are always talking about union political spending, making sure union negotiations are required to be public, and helping teachers learn more about how they can opt out of paying union dues. Ben DeGrow did a scathing analysis of posts on the Jefferson County Education Association’s Facebook page back in January, and just this month Ross Izard published an article decrying union efforts to undermine tenure reform and accountability systems in education. I’m just a little guy, and I’ve got to follow the grownups’ lead. But now it seems like the grownups may be changing their minds. Faced with impossible expectations and the cruel management of Jon Caldara, staff members are banding together for support.

A week ago I told you what a big school choice week it was going to be at the Colorado State Capitol. And it was. Ed News Colorado has a short video recap of Thursday’s charter school rally. It was left to one of my friends at the Education Policy Center – namely Marya DeGrow – to cover Friday’s Homeschool Day at the Capitol. Several legislators showed up to show their support and appreciation. Marya handed out hundreds of flyers about her new, exciting paper Colorado’s Homeschool Law Turns Twenty (PDF). And she let me be an honorary homeschooler for a day! Maybe you don’t have time to sit down and read the whole paper, or maybe you need to be persuaded why the paper is so important.

It’s easy for those who have secured the benefits of educational freedom to take them for granted. That’s especially true in the case of homeschooling, as parents in New Hampshire have responded to a bill that would restrict their rights: The legislation has angered many home schoolers who showed up in record numbers when the bill was being debated in Concord. “There were about a thousand home schoolers there. It was a record-breaking crowd, never been that many home schoolers,” the [Home School Legal Defense Association’s Mike] Donnelly notes. “In fact some of the people at the state house said that they’ve never seen such a large crowd inside ever.” It’s encouraging to see so many Granite State homeschoolers rallying to action. If what’s going on across the country doesn’t wake up and make Colorado homeschoolers vigilant, then maybe a refreshing and comprehensive look at the history of securing parental rights in this arena will. My Education Policy Center friend Marya DeGrow has written a simply awesome new issue paper called Colorado’s Homeschool Law Turns Twenty: The Battle Should Never Be Forgotten (PDF). Two decades ago, after numerous legal battles and legislative battles and struggles with local and state education […]

High school and college are still a long ways off for me, but I found this interesting for those of you who are interested in education. A recent report from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (PDF) found that 29.9 percent (that’s almost 3 in 10!) of Colorado public high school graduates entering Colorado public colleges and universities in 2007-08 needed remediation. Wow, that’s a mouthful! And as Ed News Colorado points out, it isn’t good news, either: Remediation costs at least $27.6 million a year, $14.6 million in state tax dollars and $13 million in tuition paid by students, the report said. (The actual cost is higher, because some remediation costs, such as summer school, weren’t included in the total.) “It’s unfortunate,” said Gov. Bill Ritter, that money is spent on remediation “instead of investing those funds in financial aid, classroom instruction and innovative research. We can and must do better.” But has Colorado been doing better than in recent years?

Like other public schools, charter schools can fail, too. The advantage is it’s generally easier to shut charters down or to reconstitute them in a way that better ensures success. The Denver Post has a story today about giving just such a second chance: An embattled Denver charter school has a new name and a new agreement with Denver Public Schools after a vote by the school board Thursday. The former Challenges, Choices and Images charter school for kindergartners through 12th-graders is now Amandla Academy — named after the Zulu word for strength. The school voluntarily terminated its charter contract with the district, effectively severing the district and the current school leaders from any financial liabilities incurred by CCI. “This was all legal stuff to get the new school to go forward without being encumbered,” said Russell Caldwell, senior vice president at the brokerage firm D.A. Davidson. “The good news is DPS financially and legally acted very prudently to allow the new charter to have conditions in which it will grow and flourish.” The agreement turns the K-12 school of 600 students into a contract school through June 30, and Amandla officials plan to submit an application to become a […]

It’s exciting to see how much school choice has grown lately (even though it would be better to see some of it happening here in Colorado). I’ve told you about new programs in Georgia and Louisiana just in the past several weeks. Well, if you want to get a sense of all the different private school choice programs out there, you have to check out the Independence Institute’s “Voucher and Tax Credit Programs in the Nation” page. The page has just been updated by Marya, one of the nice people here in the Education Policy Center. I know it’s summer, so I can’t stand to think much about school either. But if you want to get a good historical picture of school choice in the United States, you also should read the newly-updated report by senior fellow Krista Kafer. So check out the updated web page and the updated report. Think of it as your homework assignment: a fun homework assignment. Besides, it’s not really that much to read and it’s not due right away either. Back to the playground!

Two of the Education Policy Center staff – Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow – just got done speaking to all those in attendance at the Independence Institute Candidates Briefing. It was hard to fit inside of 30 minutes a real flavor of all these busy people (including Marya DeGrow and Raaki Garcia-Ulam) do. There were plenty of good questions from the audience. The candidates seemed especially interested in information about school finance, because it’s so hard to find reliable information. And they’re interacting with members of the public, many of whom drastically underestimate how much our schools spend. This stuff is kind of boring and hard to figure out, but ask Mr. DeGrow for help. He’s done a lot of the hard work digging through the data. But for the candidates here, it gets even better this afternoon, as Pam is going to talk about our School Choice website. Me? I’m going to play outside before it starts raining.