Tick, Tock: Accountability Clock Leading Some CO School Districts to Watershed
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Not many clocks today actually make that noise anymore. But even with the digital timepieces we’re more accustomed to now (and are pretty much all little people like me have known), if you set the alarm you know that it’s bound to go off at some point. Whether it’s a soothing […]
Unity is Strength: Independence Institute Staff Take the Plunge and Unionize
You know, maybe I’ve been too hard on teachers unions. Just this year, I’ve celebrated their declining membership rates, poked fun at their colossal loss of money in the 2014 election cycle, and had a little too much fun reliving an extraordinarily entertaining “battleflop” by Jeffco’s local teachers union. Who can blame me? My big […]
NEA: Colorado Falls from 21st to 22nd in Per-Pupil Spending – Sound the Alarms!
The bad news? Today is one of those days when little Eddie is going to be a broken record. The good news? This will be brief and to the point. Go back in your mind all the way to last March, a whole year ago. The National Education Association — the nation’s largest teachers union […]
What’s a “Bedfellow”? New Article Takes a Look at Weird Alliances and Tenure Reform
Late last year, I wrote about the sticky testing issue knot. After a series of weird events on the State Board of Education and the early prospect of a strange alliance between Republicans and teachers unions during the ill-fated effort to reauthorize ESEA, we may be looking at more of a sticky testing issue black […]
How Do We Get the Student Data Coin to Land on Both Sides?
Have you ever had a day where it just seemed like “Heads they win, Tails you lose”? On those days it may not seem like it, but the truth remains that there are two sides to the coin. (And no, I’m not talking about the coin flip required in Jeffco’s union contract to determine which […]
Down Goes ESEA Reauthorization?
As the “Great Testing Mess of 2015” grinds on, one of the questions that’s been in the back of the education world’s collective mind is how a federal ESEA reauthorization might affect state’s situations. We’ve talked before about some of the weird politics behind the reauthorization effort, and I even speculated that things may not […]
Another Victory For Choice: Alabama’s STC Program Wins the Day
I love to see choice win. In fact, I’m hoping that we will have a favorable ruling on the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program from the Colorado Supreme Court any day now. In the meantime, I’ll have to make due with another victory for scholarship tax credits down south. Just this week, the Alabama Supreme […]
State Board Gets Even Weirder On Testing Issue
Last month, we kicked off the 2015 legislative party together. I promised it would be an exciting year, and that has certainly been the case. But I may have been wrong about where that excitement would be coming from. The legislature has its hands full when it comes to education-related issues, but the real party […]
AG Slaps Down State Board Waivers on PARCC Testing
Last month, we talked about some State Board of Education weirdness that resulted in a vote to allow districts to apply for waivers from the first half of the state’s new PARCC tests. Called the Performance-Based Assessment, this portion of PARCC is administered in March. Since then, we’ve seen some entertaining fireworks at board meetings […]
Today’s Policy Field Trip to Senate Ed and the Discussion to Come
As you all know, I love policy field trips. And I especially love those field trips when they are about something as fun as school choice. Maybe that’s why I had so much fun at today’s Senate Education hearing. Well, the very end of it, anyway; I showed up a little late. My little legs […]
Should I Get My Hopes Up about Colorado Course Choice Once More?
Hopes were a little high last May when I offered K-12 online pilot program ideas in the wake of House Bill 1382′s adoption. My Education Policy Center friends have been talking about the promise of Course Choice and course-level funding for a few years now. It sure would be nice to see Colorado take even […]
Tom Coyne Smart Jeffco Whistle Bomb
Every now and then, an op-ed drops from the sky like one of those whistle bombs in the movies. The resulting explosion gets folks all riled up, and usually leads to some highly entertaining (though not terribly productive) conversations. Today is one of those days, with a Denver Post op-ed that sees Jeffco’s Tom Coyne outlining […]
