Monthly Archives: April 2011

Have Colo. Springs Union Leaders Given Up Safeguarding "the Future of Children"?

Remember about six weeks ago when I told you that the Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA) was blackballing the District 11 Board of Education’s decision to open collective bargaining negotiations to public observation? CSEA president Kevin Marshall told the Colorado Springs Gazette that the decision was made to “protect the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement between teachers and safeguard the future of children by keeping the negotiations private.” The Gazette reported last night that a new chapter has begun in the struggle over whether to keep negotiations open or closed. It appears that the union reluctantly has agreed to jeopardize “the future of children” — well, maybe just a little bit, since only one of many sessions has been opened: The open session will be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at the Jefferson Education Center, 1801 N. Howard Ave., off Leleray Street. People may stay for the entire 12 hours, or they may come and go as they wish said District 11 board President Tom Strand.

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Colorado and Michigan Taxpayers Both Still Underwriting Teachers Union Release Time

A year ago this time Colorado teachers unions were taking numerous taxpayer-funded leave days to lobby against Senate Bill 191 at the State Capitol. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has written about the topic many times — first with a 2004 issue paper that found nearly $800,000 in taxpayer subsidies underwriting the practice. The privilege remains embedded in many collective bargaining agreements. The Jefferson County Education Association, for example, gets 275 days each year releasing teachers from the classroom to do union business with the district responsible for paying the substitute costs. Evidence showed an earlier president of the Poudre Education Association engaged in political activities while most of her salary was paid from public funds. The same arrangement remains in place. But of course it’s not a problem isolated to Colorado. A couple weeks ago Michigan Capitol Confidential posted a story on its public information requests concerning teachers union leave subsidies, and the results from the Great Lakes State are interesting:

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I.I. Report Covers Colorado Teacher Pay Innovations, Harrison Program; U.S. Dept. of Education, NCTQ Challenge Nashville Study

Last fall a story about a report on teacher pay reform made the front page of the Denver Post: “Offering teachers bonuses for student growth didn’t raise scores, study finds.” Yes, the front page. Back then I shared a fresh reaction with insights from national experts like Rick Hess concerning what the study actually did or did not say about the Nashville incentive pay experiment. Well, a conversation of that report in the context of teacher pay reform research shows up in a newly released issue paper from my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow, titled Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform: K-12 Educator Pay Innovation in Colorado. The focus of the new paper is on Colorado’s significant number of local school districts and charter schools improving their teacher pay systems by moving rewards and incentives away from seniority toward measured performance. The star of the group? If I had to pick one, it definitely would be Harrison School District 2 for its Effectiveness and Results (E and R) program — currently in its first full year of operation. Harrison’s program definitely is not an MPINO (as coined by Stuart Buck and Jay Greene). It will be very interesting to see the […]

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D.C. Voucher Program Renewed: Rounding Up Reactions, Controlling My Exuberance

So I hear the federal government came really close to shutting down this past weekend. Bigger people than me can tell you whether the last-minute deal to avert a shutdown was in total a good deal or not. But I do know one aspect of the deal that is definitely praiseworthy: namely, that the SOAR Act reauthorizing and expanding the D.C. school voucher program was adopted. How happy do you think I am? Bet you can only imagine. But giving myself an opportunity to restrain my childish exuberance, here is a roundup of encouraging, uplifting, and insightful reactions: The Eduwonk unpacks some of the politics and says to pay attention to how the program’s infrastructure is reassembled to serve student’s needs during the implementation process… Paul Peterson, writing at Education Next, reminds us that the political victory was made possible by the high-quality research in Patrick Wolf’s official evaluation of the D.C. voucher program — causing me to nod in approval… Lindsey Burke from the Heritage Foundation makes me smile, saying the adoption of the SOAR Act represents “a monumental win”… When Flypaper’s Chris Tessone calls it “a big win for school choice and all kids in DC,” I squirm […]

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Big Week for School Choice in Arizona: Education Savings Accounts for Colorado?

Matthew Ladner is right when he says: “This has been quite the week for parental choice in Arizona.” Of course, as my GoBash blogging friend noted, on Monday a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the state’s private school tax credit program — an important precedent. But Ladner’s statement comes from a posting primarily about an innovative proposal making its way through The Grand Canyon State’s legislature: Yesterday the Arizona Senate gave the final passage for SB 1553, Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the nation’s first system of public contributions to education savings accounts as a choice mechanism, 21 to 7. Designed to replace Arizona’s special needs voucher program lost to our Blaine amendment, the ESA program will allow the parents of a child with a disability to withdraw their child from a public district or charter school, and receive a payment into an education savings account with restricted but multiple uses. Parents can then use their funds to pay for private school tuition, virtual education programs, private tutoring or saving for future college expenses. Could it really be “the way of the future” for school choice? If so, the future may be now. I have to give more thought to […]

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Denver Post Highlights Growing Trend of Parents Exercising Public School Choice

Update, 4/8: Denise at Colorado Charters offers more specific reasons why so many Denver families are exercising public school choice. Interesting news today from the Denver Post today under the headline “53 percent of DPS students opt out of assigned campuses.” Colorado has one of the nation’s very best, parent-friendly open enrollment laws — in effect for nearly two decades — which allows students to transfer to a public school outside their zone of residence under certain basic conditions. Individual districts approve the specific parameters of their own open enrollment policies. What the Post article highlights is the continuation of a steady upward trend in the share of families exercising public school choice. Ten years ago about 3 percent of Colorado public school students were enrolled in a district outside their residence; today it’s closer to 8 percent. You can check out the state department of education data for yourself.

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As Digital Learning Opportunities Expand, Program Quality Should Follow, Too

Digital learning. It’s a big educational wave of the future… and of the present. The use of online technology in formal learning can take on so many forms that it’s difficult to imagine all the possibilities of what it could look like. As digital learning opportunities began to expand, we want to keep the focus on ensuring students and parents have access to a great variety of choices. But what about quality? It seems to be the education policy issue du jour. The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel shines light on the debate, but Flypaper’s Peter Meyer says the article “gets lost in the weeds” and should pay more attention to curriculum. New forms of delivering instruction and increasing learning shouldn’t lose focus on the content at hand. That’s where I stand with Harvard’s Paul Peterson, for example:

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Education Next's One-Two Punch for Effective Teaching, Productive Spending

The good experts at Education Next have come forward with a potent one-two punch on teacher quality with a relevant message for Colorado policy makers, particularly in a time when tightened budgets weigh heavy on some minds. Are they listening? …. Part of the short-term solution to the K-12 budget situation is cutting unproductive spending in the form of rewards for teacher master degrees. Dr. Paul Peterson writes in Education Next, explaining how he and fellow researcher Matt Chingos have added one more proof to the gigantic pile of evidence that shows the ineffectiveness of “master’s bumps.” It’s past time to confront this reality that costs Colorado somewhere around $140 million per year. The second half of the one-two combination is a piece by Dr. Eric Hanushek, in which he quantifies the economic benefit of providing students with more effective teachers:

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Many Interesting Angles to Watch as Douglas County Voucher Pilot Rolls Out

Maybe it’s a little hometown Colorado bias at work here, but in my mind Douglas County vouchers is the education story of the year. I hope you didn’t think the story was essentially over once the Board adopted the program a few weeks ago. Because it’s not. Now that the official policy for the pilot scholarship program has been posted online for your careful review, there are at least four angles to keep an eye on moving forward:

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Falcon 49 School Bus Capitol Photo-Op: Serious About Tough Decisions Ahead?

There are plenty of gag April’s Fools news stories floating out there this morning (my wishful-thinking favorite so far is Edspresso’s “Obama Administration Flips on School Vouchers”). But confusing as it may be, this story is legit: The same Falcon District 49 I lauded for taking a step towards more productive spending, the same district my Education Policy Center friends recently visited for an innovation meeting — yes, even the same Falcon that inspired me to write about the Cookie Monster — is behind this bizarre stunt. From this morning’s Colorado Springs Gazette: The keys [of all 84 district buses] were delivered Thursday morning to lawmakers by District 49 school board members and officials who drove to Denver in a 51-bus convoy — in rush hour traffic —to protest statewide budget cuts….

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