Public School Principals Need Autonomy to Improve Student Performance
A little over a year ago Irv Moskowitz, Superintendent of Denver Public Schools, made news by firing principals at schools in which the academic performance of the students remained flat or fell. Again this year principals were fired or reassigned in an attempt to bring some academic rigor to the schools. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) was the measure used to indicate success or failure.
Californicating Colorado: A How-To-Guide
It#39;s time to stop and examine the safety and effectiveness of many of the prescriptions touted as cure-alls for the side-effects of Colorado#39;s growth. Assuming that the rapid suburbanization is bad, planners usually propose a mix of land-use controls, housing subsidies, and public transit. This, we are told, will preserve open space, provide affordable housing, […]
Citizen Initiatives Under Attack in Colorado
Frustrated old-time politicians are taking desperate steps to resist citizen involvement in the legislative process.
Responsible government officials will try to make the process of change as non-disruptive as possible.
Governor Romer's Nanny State
Governor Romer says he wants to make Colorado the best place to raise a child. According to a January 12 Rocky Mountain News story, he believes that more support for new parents, universal access to health care for young children, family-friendly workplaces, more effective support systems for teen parents and quality child care will achieve […]
Denver's Road to Ruin
The citizens and taxpayers of the Denver metropolitan region have shown their willingness to fund numerous imaginative public works and civic improvement projects over the past decade. Denver International Airport, at a cost of nearly five billion dollars, leads the list. But don’t forget the Colorado Convention Center, Coors Field, and Elitch’s. Then there’s the proposed new Ocean Journey aquarium and a new Broncos stadium. All of these imaginative projects were (and are being) sold to the public using questionable economic assumptions. Citizens were promised that by investing our tax dollars many economic benefits would accrue to the entire region.
End Compulsory Schooling
As education is currently provided in the state of Colorado, and throughout the United States, one key fact is inexplicably overlooked: all the big decisions about how a child will be educated are made by someone other than the parents of that child. It is government that determines the significant elements of children’s education. Parents are shunted to the sidelines, where they are expected to be little more than cheerleaders supporting the decision-makers. In a society dedicated to the virtues of family life, this most salient feature of education should be, to say the least, suspect. Two ill-considered government policies make the system possible: compulsory tax-financing of schools and compulsory attendance. That combination of compulsion and learning also should be suspect. This paper will discuss why compulsory attendance should be abolished and education decisions left to parents and children.
Outcome Based Education: How the Governor's Reform…
The last third of this century has seen a fundamental shift in the way we determine educational quality. Previously, the conventional wisdom judged quality in terms of inputs: intentions and efforts, institutions and services, resources and spending. In the past several years, however, there has been an increasing focus on outputs: goals and ends, products and results, with a focus on core academic subjects. The primary question asked is less often “How much are we spending?” and more often “What are our children learning, and how well are they learning it?”
RTD is on the Prowl
Watch out Colorado. The Regional Transportation District (RTD) has an insatiable appetite for tax dollars and they are eyeing the state coffers. They have a plan to divert $40 to $50 million of state highway funds to extend light rail to Littleton.
RTD got its first taste of state revenues when they received a windfall from outside the district that allowed them to build the Light Rail Demonstration Project in downtown Denver. Now they want a massive tax rate increase of 67% plus $50-60 million from the highway fund. This kind of irresponsible behavior is a signal to policy leaders that it is time to engage in serious analysis of Colorados transportation problems and the role of structures like RTD.
Don't Give $ to School District Bureaucracy
“First God created idiots,” wrote Mark Twain. “That was for practice. Then he created school boards.” Is it time to undo God’s work, and abolish district school boards? Yes, says John Evans, an at-large member of the Colorado Board of Education. The state should just give education funding directly to the local schools, instead of passing the money through a school district bureaucracy.
Give the Taxpayer a Lobbying Break – a Little TLC!
IP-8-1995 (April 1995) Author: Fred Holden PDF of full Issue Paper Scribd version of full Issue Paper Executive Summary: Although American political heritage teaches the importance of representative government, in practice the best representation comes to those with the best lobbyists. Over half (25%) of all lobbyists registered in Colorado represent government or quasi-government entities. […]
Cooking the Books: Racial and Sexual Politics in the SAT?
America’s academic accountant has developed sticky fingers. By distorted entries in two separate accounts, grading and the SAT, the country is being scammed. We are robbed of valid measure of school results, and student achievers are deprived of just rewards for real ability.
When 90% of Stanford students receive grades of A or B, the standard curve is destroyed. When over 40% of Harvard students make the honor role every term, flunking out necessitates a deliberate act of self-immolation.
Tax and Spending Limits for Montana? Criteria for Assessing Current Proposals
IP-10-1994 (September 1994) Author: Robert G. Natelson PDF of full Issue Paper Scribd version of full Issue Paper Executive Summary: This November, Montana voters will consider two proposals to place Tax- Expenditure Limitations (TELs) in the state constitution. There is a clear inverse correlation between level of state and local government revenue and comparative economic […]
