One D.C. Voucher Mom’s Story Should Help Shame Congress Back into Action
Anybody who reads this blog knows I have a big soft spot for the kids in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — you know, the one axed by the Obama administration. Just type “D.C. voucher” or “D.C. school choice” in the search box on the right sidebar to see what I mean.
So it’s no […]
Let Title I Money Follow the Child and Other Creative School Choice Ideas
You think school choice just means a state voucher program or public charter schools? Think again. We are living in an age of all kinds of creative school choice ideas. There’s vouchers in Douglas County, education savings accounts and even “school passports.” Writing on the National Journal’s Education Experts blog, Colorado’s own State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer offers up another idea for a school choice initiative using federal dollars but crafted at the state level.
Your Chance to Say “Yes” to Falcon 49’s Bold, Cost-Saving Innovation Plan
Colorado Springs Gazette editor Wayne Laugesen posted a great piece last night urging citizens to give District 49 leadership a chance with its bold plan that favors students over bureaucrats:
The school board has decided the large district will go forward without a superintendent — an experiment educators are sure to watch throughout the United States. […]
New Education Honorees: Colorado Superheroes & a Ladner-Burke Bunkum
February is a big month for awards. There’s the Oscars for movies and the Grammys for popular music. Before both of them comes the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the winner of the most-watched sporting event: the Super Bowl. So I thought today would be a great opportunity to highlight a couple of freshly-announced education-related awards.
First […]
Education Next Editors Duke It Out over Reformers’ Success in Battle of Ideas
If you want to stay informed about school reform and wrestle with some stimulating insights along the way, Education Next is an invaluable publication. To celebrate its 10th anniversary (wow, that seems old!), the Education Next editors paired off into two different teams to take stock of a decade of reform and debate what the […]
Kit Carson: Colorado's First Innovation District?
Superintendent Gerald Keefe explains why his 100-student Kit Carson School District is seeking the State Board of Education’s approval to become Colorado’s first district of innovation. On the table is a proposal that would open up Kit Carson to non-licensed teachers, remove tenure as a career-long guarantee and adopt a locally-tailored instructional evaluation system.
No, Kids Aren’t Cars: Some State Legislatures Take on Teachers Union Power
“Cars are cars all over the world…” goes an old song my parents told me about. While cars are cars, it kind of goes without saying that Kids Aren’t Cars, right? But a new series of online short movies by that name reminds us that it’s past time to move beyond the old assembly-line model […]
Don’t Make Parents Choose Between Finding a Better School & Obeying the Law
During last week’s National School Choice Week emerged a sad, dramatic story that made the case for school choice better than many policy papers could. I’m finally getting around to commenting on the case of Ohio’s Kelley Williams-Bolar, who was charged with a felony for falsifying papers to enroll her daughter in a different school district. She has been called a modern-day Rosa Parks for the school choice movement.
Wrapping Up School Choice Week: Andrew Coulson Touts Tax Credits… and More!
Aren’t there any child labor laws in effect here? This National School Choice Week phenomenon is great, but the good folks of the Education Policy Center have me blogging overtime. I talked about going on strike, but they just laughed and patted me on the head. How condescending!*
Anyway, rather than write any more, I wanted […]
Utah Online School Shares Free Curriculum
The online charter Open High School of Utah is the first known secondary school to share the curriculum it develops as an open educational resource. Open High School director DeLaina Tonks highlights the decision to release Open CourseWare as creative commons licensed content and the opportunities for other online schools to share in this innovative approach.
Finding It Very Hard to Get Excited about “Collaborpalooza” Coming Soon to Denver
I’ve got to hand it to Mike Antonucci for coming up with such a great name for an education event as Collaborpalooza (try saying it five times fast). Sounds like some sort of rock & roll festival.
But according to the U.S. Department of Education that’s putting it on, the actual name of the event is […]
District 49's Innovative Strategy is the Real News in Falcon
On Jan. 13 the Falcon District 49 school board set in motion a plan designed to empower families, to streamline bureaucracy and to give principals the tools and incentives to succeed. The phrase “innovation zone” at the center of the plan is more than a buzzword or an ethereal abstraction. It represents the promise of positive, transformative change for individual teachers and students.
