Tag Archives: pam mazanec

Does everybody know what time it is? No, not Tool Time. Do I look like Tim Allen to you? It’s National School Choice Week! This year’s National School Choice Week is a big one, with 16,140 events scheduled around the country, including 318 here in Colorado. Governor Hickenlooper joined 31 other governors and 240 municipal and county leaders from across the country—the mayors of Denver, Aurora, Greeley, Lakewood, Thornton, and county leaders from Sedgwick County among them—in issuing an official proclamation that this week is all about school choice. Awesome. In keeping with my yearly tradition of using videos to entertain you during this important time rather than relying solely upon my acid wit, we will celebrate here on Ed is Watching by… well, watching some cool videos. But before you settle in with your popcorn or Sour Patch Kids or whatever tasty snacks education policy nerds eat while watching school choice videos, I have an important announcement: There will be a very big, very fun, and yes, very yellow National School Choice Week rally on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol tomorrow morning (January 28) at 11:30 a.m.  Be there, or forever suffer the knowledge that you missed out […]

My little legs are tired from my various policy field trips this week, so I’m going to sit down, rest, and use the brief respite to catch you up on the most interesting piece of education news this week: Yesterday’s unexpected motion and surprising vote by the Colorado State Board of Education. I may also pound down a quick snack. I’ve got to keep my strength up for the coming heavy-weight bout in Jeffco, after all. Yesterday, the State Board sat down to do its thing, which you may be unsurprised to learn consists of voting on stuff related to education. Normally, this can be a fairly dry process. This meeting turned out to be a little different, as newly appointed board member Steve Durham brought forward an unscheduled motion to allow school districts to waive out of the first portion of state-mandated PARCC testing. For those who don’t know, PARCC has two parts: A performance-based assessment administered in March and an end-of-year assessment administered in late April or May. The legality of the motion was swiftly challenged by Senior Assistant Attorney General Tony Dyl, who told the board members that despite wide latitude to waive certain portions of state […]