Tag Archives: Rocky Mountain News

Obama Excites Colorado Charter Schools, Will He Protect D.C. Vouchers?

The Rocky Mountain News today reports on jubilation from some Colorado charter school quarters at the promise of a Barack Obama presidency: So last week, when America elected a president who promises to double federal funding for charter schools, KIPP Denver founder Richard Barrett was among the area educators hoping Barack Obama will follow through on his plan for public education. “We’ve made no excuse about it. We just deal with it,” Barrett said of the school’s facility issues. “But when are we going to have equity for our kids? “If Obama’s plan would help that process, more power to it,” he added. “Fantastic.” No doubt charter school supporters in Colorado and elsewhere would be “buzzing” about the potential of more federal funding to alleviate problems in facilities and other areas caused by unequal state funding. I would be glad to see the new President-elect demonstrate that he’s a true friend to charter schools, but there are limits to his backing of school choice: But if Obama is willing to step across some boundaries, there are others he is not. [Michael] Johnston, his education adviser, said that includes vouchers. This news is, of course, not surprising to anyone who followed […]

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Barack Obama: School Choice for My Children, But Not Thy Children

Rocky Mountain News guest columnist Robert Maranto – an endowed chair at the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform – makes some striking points about some politicians’ school choice hypocrisy. Especially about one very prominent politician in particular: Candidate [Barack] Obama declares that “We need to fix & improve our public schools, not throw our hands up and walk away from them,” the way Barack and Michelle Obama have with their own children. Candidate Obama’s official education program opposes private school choice, and only under pressure gave a very qualified endorsement to public charter schools. Instead of letting parents choose, Obama emphasizes bureaucratic programs like teacher certification. Supporters of traditional teacher certification programs, like Obama education adviser Linda Darling Hammond, want all public school teachers to be certified. They argue that no one wants children to be operated on by uncertified doctors, so why should they be taught by uncertified teachers? Yet unlike medical certification, there is precious little evidence that teacher certification works. Those same rich people who would never send their children to unlicensed doctors choose to pay big bucks to have those same children taught by unlicensed teachers. Just look at Sen. Obama and other recent […]

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Arts Education is Good, But Does it Help Students in Reading and Math?

Today’s Rocky Mountain News explains Colorado education leaders’ attempt to put greater emphasis on the arts in the state’s new standards and assessments: [Commissioner of Education Dwight] Jones and [Lieutenant Governor Barbara] O’Brien addressed a news conference called to highlight a report showing that many Colorado students are not exposed to the arts, which include music, theater and dance, as well as the visual arts. The report, prepared for the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Council on the Arts, shows that art is offered at 93 percent of elementary schools, 86 percent of middle schools and 83 percent of high schools. But 29,000 students attend schools that do not offer art, the study found. Statewide, 53 percent of high school students don’t take art, which is not mandatory even at schools where it is offered. The study found that 75 percent of principals say the arts are being squeezed by the need to focus on reading, writing and math. One of the findings of the new report says that arts education “associates with higher scores” on CSAP tests. But as my smart friends at the Education Policy Center point out, the fact that the two items are associated […]

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State Board of Education Candidates Have Very Different Views on Reform

The big election is less than a month away. A few of the races that get little attention – but many Coloradans will have to decide – are the contests for the State Board of Education. Few Colorado voters are aware that this elected body is about to become more important, as Rocky Mountain News reporter Berny Morson pointed out on Saturday: The Colorado Board of Education labored in obscurity for years, setting rules that were mostly of interest to teachers, superintendents and other insiders. That’s about to change. A law adopted last spring with the backing of Gov. Bill Ritter gave the board broad authority over school reform. The result could put the board’s mark on everything from statewide achievement tests to high school graduation requirements. The article goes on to highlight the two candidates vying to represent the 3rd Congressional District (southern and western Colorado) on the State Board. These two candidates have some clearly different views. Democrat Jill Brake wants to spend more money on early childhood education, and supported the automatic education funding increase of Amendment 23 and Gov. Bill Ritter’s unconstitutional property tax hike. On the other hand, Republican Marcia Neal – a retired Grand […]

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Evidence from D.C. Shows Need to Improve Focus on School Accountability

There’s a great story in the Washington Post today about the positive impacts of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability on poor and needy students in and around our nation’s capital (H/T Joanne Jacobs): Since enactment of the No Child Left Behind law, students from poor families in the Washington area have made major gains on reading and math tests and are starting to catch up with those from middle-class and affluent backgrounds, a Washington Post analysis shows. The achievement gap between economic groups, long a major frustration for educators, has narrowed in the region’s suburban schools since President Bush signed the law in 2002, according to Maryland and Virginia test data. In Montgomery County, for instance, students in poverty have earned better scores on Maryland’s reading test in each of the past five years, slicing in half the 28 percentage-point gulf that separated their pass rate from the county average. They also have made a major dent in the math gap. In Fairfax County, another suburban academic powerhouse, such students have slashed the achievement gaps on Virginia tests. Now, my friends in the Education Policy Center tell me that NCLB has some problems and flaws that need to be […]

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Colorado Might Just Be Getting Even Smarter about Education Reform

I hope that I get smarter as I go through school some day. Likewise, despite its success with advancing school choice and accountability so far, Colorado also needs to Get Smart(er) about education reform. At least that’s the premise behind a new group called Get Smart Schools Colorado. As the Rocky Mountain News reports: The idea behind Get Smart Schools is similar to school initiatives in Chicago and New York – one group pooling expertise and funding to help promising new school models get off the ground. That’s because research shows it’s typically more effective to start good new schools than it is to transform existing schools that are failing. In Colorado, the focus will be on importing quality school models that have been successful elsewhere and on helping promising new schools find facilities, an obstacle for many. Believe it or not, this sort of group really is needed. We know the importance of smaller schools, autonomy (big word!), strong leadership, high-quality instruction, research-based curricula, parental involvement (i.e., choice), and focus on student improvement. But with an experienced and qualified staff of its own, a group like Get Smart Schools Colorado can show new schools how to get it done […]

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Missed Friday? Watch Joe Williams on Democrats and Education Reform

If you didn’t make it to our fabulous event Friday evening, you not only missed a chance to meet me, you also missed our exciting speaker Joe Williams from Democrats for Education Reform (DFER). Maybe you also missed the chance to listen live online. Well, you’re still in luck. The main page of the Independence Institute website includes the complete video of Williams’ presentation. Audience members asked many important questions and offered some conservative and libertarian challenges to the speaker’s message that Democrats could step up, take on the teachers unions and bureaucrats, and help to bring about real education reform. Mr. Williams also announced the formation of the first state DFER chapter: Colorado Democrats for Education Reform, headed by State Senator Ron Tupa. Senator Tupa was kind enough to come to unfamiliar turf as a guest and engage in some lively conversations. If you only have time for a quick read, Joe Williams sat down for a five-question interview with Nancy Mitchell from the Rocky Mountain News. My friends at the Independence Institute said they really appreciated being able to have so much access to Mr. Williams’ time while he was here in Colorado (he also recorded an episode […]

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"Brain Breaks" Not Enough for "Boy Crisis" — More School Choice, Too

According to the Rocky Mountain News, some educators in the Denver area – at least at one elementary school – are starting to adjust the school day to help boys: A not-so-quiet revolution is taking place in reading and writing instruction inside some classrooms at Hackberry Hill Elementary School in Arvada. Students are encouraged to get up and move, stretch and talk about their work every 20 minutes or so. Brain breaks, Principal Warren Blair calls them. In some cases, boys are also allowed to write about things that might have previously been frowned upon — bodily functions come to mind, or anything with a good gross-out factor. It’s part of the school’s attempts to address a global phenomenon, reinforced by recently released Colorado Student Assessment Program test results, showing boys consistently scoring lower than girls in reading and writing. Hey, I like this idea of a brain break. Sometimes you have to be creative to find ways to address the needs of different students. But I was left wondering what Hackberry Hill parents think of the idea. It would be interesting to see what moms and dads think. After all, they know their kids best. In writing about the […]

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Compromise Boost to Denver ProComp Accepted; Now It's Time to Ratify

The kids in Denver were big winners when the local school board and teachers union headed off a potential strike at the eleventh hour. They also won when it was agreed that tense negotiations would be averted for another three years. But how well did they fare from the actual terms of the final compromise agreement made between DPS and DCTA? Considering what might have been, Denver Public Schools students came out pretty well. Why? As the editors of the Rocky Mountain News pointed out yesterday, the school district’s nationally-known teacher performance pay program got a boost toward meeting its original purpose: First, it dramatically increases the incentives available under ProComp. Several key bonuses for early and mid-career teachers will more than double, from $1,000 to $2,345 a year each. These incentives reward teachers who choose difficult-to-teach subjects, work in hard-to-staff schools and whose students improve in the classroom. In that regard, a new incentive will be available to teachers in the schools ranking in the top 50 percent in growth of student achievement. These changes will ensure that, compared with the existing agreement, much more money provided by the ProComp mill-levy will wind up with top-performing teachers and not […]

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Tom Tancredo Touts Choice and Competition as Education Reform Keys

Retiring Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo – and former president of the Independence Institute (long before I was even born) – has a great piece published in today’s Rocky Mountain News. Most people associate Rep. Tancredo with the issue of immigration, but his deepest roots go back into education as a former public school teacher and as regional representative for the U.S. Department of Education during the 1980s. As he gives advice to Colorado’s current governor and one of his recent predecessors, the themes in Rep. Tancredo’s Speakout column are not novel or startling, but they’re important reminders we can’t hear enough: Last week, Gov. Bill Ritter and former Gov. Roy Romer wrote a column about the state of education in America. In it, I believe they’ve unwittingly made a powerful argument for precisely the kind of educational reform that they have publicly opposed for many years: school choice…. If history has taught us anything, it is that solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems have come only when we have unleashed the power of the free market. The answer to the education problem, simply put, is more choices for parents, and more competition by schools for students. It […]

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