Not the Time for Education Schools to Resist Transparent Review Process
A few days ago I told you about the recent Denver visit from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ)’s Sandi Jacobs, but I never really got to the interesting part: the main part of her presentation. She came to talk about the big project NCTQ and U.S. News and World Report have launched to […]
Contributing Factors, Part One
Today and tomorrow, as a part of the Antiplanner’s continuing series about the 2008 economic meltdown, I am going to look at many of the supposed causes of the crisis and show that, while some of them may have made the crisis worse, none of them were the ultimate cause of the crisis. In some […]
Douglas County Reports 28 Private Schools Apply to Accept Voucher Students
Update, 12:30 PM: The Denver Post says it’s 27 schools, not 28 — as stated on the Douglas County web page linked below. Looks like 27 is the correct number, if you count multiple campuses of Denver Christian and the Denver Street School as one school each. The Post also says 8 of the schools […]
Fat Cats
Wish I had seen this last year when HB 1365, Ritter’s fuel switching bill, was rammed through the state legislature. But it still works for this year in regards to HB 1291.
Politically-controlled Colorado health benefits exchange bill reaches Senate
Colorado Senate Bill 11-200 advances to the state Senate without the provision that “would nullify the bill unless the state is allowed to opt out of the federal Affordable Care Act,” reports the Denver Business Journal
Federal Budget Outlook
Republican and Democratic responses to Standard & Poor’s negative outlook on the federal debt are so predictable they could have been scripted years ago. Democrats want to address the deficit by soaking the rich; Republicans want to cut supposedly vital programs such as Medicare and Planned Parenthood. The problem with soaking the rich, as economist […]
Do private insurance exchanges already exist?
The Denver Post has quoted Colo. state rep Amy Stephens as saying that “Most people viewed exchanges as the most free-market part of Obamacare.” But viewing state-run exchanges as somehow free-market is also wrong because privately-run exchanges already exist.
Hoping Colorado’s New Education Commissioner Will Be a Chief for Change
Yesterday the Colorado State Board of Education was in deliberations to interview and consider one or more applicants for the state’s next education commissioner. Right now everything is in the hush-hush, so don’t even bother to ask me who any of the finalists are. Why? Because I don’t know.
The new commissioner is scheduled to be […]
Senate committee gives thumbs up to Xcel…again
The Colorado Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee along a party-line vote (3-2) approved House Speaker Frank McNulty’s and Senate Majority Leader’s John Morse’s bill, HB 1291, which rubber stamps a costly and likely illegal State Implementation Plan (SIP) on regional haze. Nine people representing a variety of different groups including consumers, unions, mining, […]
Dutch Superbus
Last fall, the Onion made fun of Obama’s high-speed rail plan with an alternative high-speed bus proposal. But Wubbo Ockels, a physicist and the first Dutch astronaut, wasn’t laughing. High-speed trains, Ockels says, are too slow and don’t go where people want to go. So he has designed and built a prototype electric-powered bus capable […]
The Call to Customize Schooling
Rick Hess, director of educational policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and co-editor of the new book Customized Schooling, explains why reformers need to move beyond “school choice” and other whole-school solutions to address challenges facing public education.
The Implementation of SB 191: A Reason for Little Me to Get Old and Skeptical?
When (or should I say if) I get older, maybe I’ll acquire a healthy dose of that battle-worn cynicism about highly-lauded education reform initiatives like Colorado’s Senate Bill 191 — also known as the “Great Teachers and Leaders” law. Sometimes I think I’m too young to adjust my expectations appropriately. But if someone as smart […]
