Monthly Archives: September 2011

Last December I suggested to you four education reform books as stocking stuffer ideas. One of the books on the list was an important volume edited by Frederick Hess and Eric Osberg, titled Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best. In September my Education Policy Center friends have been busy briefing school board candidates from numerous Colorado districts about a broad range of reform issues. At the forefront of nearly all local officials’ minds is the fact that once plush and growing revenues for K-12 education have faced some modest cutbacks, forcing many to re-think how schooling can be done more productively. Stretching the School Dollar is an immensely practical resource for aspiring school board directors and the leaders they hire. In that light, it’s exciting to see The Education Gadfly report that the book has been nominated as a finalist for the Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network’s “Most Actionable Research” award. “Most Actionable,” indeed!

I’ve been told (no, really, I have!) that for a little kid blogging about education policy, I have a lot of appeal. Embarrassing: at first I thought it had something to do with bananas. But you know I was so much younger then. Anyway, I don’t want you to slip up before I get to the main point of my post for today. It’s about a different kind of appeal, one I knew had to be coming but am so glad to see it finally happen. I’m talking about an appeal of last month’s sad district court decision to shut down the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program. Last Thursday, September 8, the paperwork was delivered to the Colorado Court of Appeals. First, from an Institute for Justice press release: “We are confident that the Court of Appeals will correct the trial court’s decision, which ignored or attempted to rationalize away existing Colorado and U.S. Supreme Court precedent that clearly authorizes the scholarship program,” said Michael Bindas, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represents the Oakley, Doyle and Anderson families in defending the Choice Scholarship Program.

Colorado teachers have options. That’s why I’m interested by stories like a new one from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where local teachers decided to secede from the state and national teachers union (H/T Education Intelligence Agency Communique): President of the Northwest Allen County Education Association Alan Bodenstein told NewsChannel 15, they’ve been talking about it for about a year. He said it came to a “perfect storm” of a lot of different issues that finally made them vote on it.

Yesterday was Labor Day. Which makes it a coincidence that my Education Policy Center friends decided to publish this report today, titled Nine Key Changes at the Bargaining Table: Of Colorado’s 178 school districts, 41 have a formal bargaining relationship with one or more employee unions. Because Colorado has no defined public-sector labor law, the greatest opportunity to reform restrictive policies and interest group privileges comes at the local school board level. Recent bargaining reforms in other states show the fiscal benefits that may be realized from adopting this approach. The few high-quality academic studies of the question all show that restrictive bargaining policies have a negative impact on student learning.