Trimming Bureaucracy, Adding Military School?: Latest Falcon 49 Innovation
The state’s most under-reported K-12 education story of the year — at least under-reported outside Colorado Springs — remains the deep and fast-paced innovation efforts in Falcon School District 49. Thankfully, reporters at the Gazette continue to keep tabs on developments. I wanted to share the latest two with you.
In one key cost-saving move, the […]
Colorado K-12 Hiring Keeps Pace with Student Enrollment–At Least Through 2010
I so often enjoy reading the online work of Mike Antonucci at the Education Intelligence Agency, if for no other reason than he asks the questions and does the homework that so very few others are willing to do. On his Intercepts blog today, he adds some badly needed context and perspective on the supposed […]
New Education Books Mean No Reason to Be Bored This Summer Season
Camping trips can be fun, but no one told me just how hard it would be to blog while out in the middle of nowhere in the great outdoors. No, seriously, it was fun to get away for awhile. But I hope none of you were left to wonder: If little Eddie isn’t watching the […]
New Membership Director Keeps PACE on Track
The Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE), a fast-growing non-union membership option for teachers, has welcomed aboard a new membership director. Florida Teach for America alumnus Tim Farmer explains his educational background, along with his new organization’s vision and goals.
How Did I Miss Utah’s Union Release Time Accountability Law (They Beat Colorado)?
This is one to chalk up in the “How did I miss that?” category. Way back in March, Utah enacted House Bill 183, which makes it next to impossible for teachers unions to use taxpayer-funded release time to perform union business — including lobbying and campaign activities. Maybe some intrepid Colorado policy maker can help this movement for common sense and public accountability gain traction and move east.
Putting the Brakes on National Curriculum, Testing
Hoover Institution research fellow and former Assistant Secretary of Education Bill Evers discusses an organized effort he is helping to lead to put a stop to national curriculum and national tests for America’s public K-12 schools. He explains the dangers in the current Common Core standards process and how concerned citizens can join the cause by signing an online manifesto.
Tennessee One to Watch as Colorado Moves Forward on Educator Effectiveness
Happy Monday! The debate over implementing Colorado’s educator effectiveness law (aka SB 191) continues to grow. This week the State Board of Education is scheduled to hear a staff presentation concerning the first draft of rules for creating a statewide evaluation system for teachers and principals, to set the parameters for the 2012-13 pilot program, […]
Life Skills Center of Denver Continues to Fill Important Niche for At-Risk Students
This week one of my Education Policy Center friends was privileged with the opportunity to visit a Denver charter school that fills a niche for 16- to 21-year olds who have dropped out and/or been neglected by the system. Life Skills Center of Denver is an alternative education campus that uses computer-assisted instruction in a […]
More New Charter Schools Coming Soon to Denver? (No Rude Remarks, Please!)
The warm weather here in Colorado and the lure of the swimming pool are the main reasons why readers here just get a quick update for today. Ed News Colorado’s Charlie Brennan reports that ideas for 11 new schools (eight of them charters) were pitched this week to the Denver school board.
The public charter sector […]
Context on Colorado K-12 Funding & Personnel: Time to Aim Beyond Average
The Education Intelligence Agency provides a reminder that severe economic recessions typically don’t affect K-12 public education anywhere near the same as they impact families and businesses. From 2004 to 2009, school personnel increases outstripped student enrollment growth in most states. While some pine for Colorado to attain the national average in per-pupil spending, that average is fraught with unsustainable trends. Instead, let’s liberate parents and inform them as education consumers, make the funding follow the student, and then see if funding is “adequate.”
Fordham Report on Special Education Trends Raises Important Policy Questions
If you think American K-12 education policy is a complex and tangled web of laws, bureaucracies, incentives, politics and emotions — and you would be quite normal to do so — then treading into the narrower world of special education services might make your head completely spin. It’s the day after a long and fun […]
Michelle Rhee Hits a Denver Home Run While Her Critics Swing and Miss Again
Even when you’re forever 5 years old, time flies. I can hardly believe it was last October that I cried to learn my edu-crush Michelle Rhee was leaving her important superintendent job at D.C. Public Schools. Or that it was only a couple months later we all learned she was starting the new national group […]
