Considering what might have been, Denver Public Schools students came out pretty well. Why? As the editors of the Rocky Mountain News pointed out yesterday, the school district’s nationally-known teacher performance pay program got a boost toward meeting its original purpose:

First, it dramatically increases the incentives available under ProComp. Several key bonuses for early and mid-career teachers will more than double, from $1,000 to $2,345 a year each. These incentives reward teachers who choose difficult-to-teach subjects, work in hard-to-staff schools and whose students improve in the classroom.

In that regard, a new incentive will be available to teachers in the schools ranking in the top 50 percent in growth of student achievement.

These changes will ensure that, compared with the existing agreement, much more money provided by the ProComp mill-levy will wind up with top-performing teachers and not sit in the bank.

The district now also will be better equipped to offer more in starting salary to attract high-quality candidates into the teaching workforce. Both of these factors are steps in the right direction. They address some of the weaknesses in the original ProComp, as highlighted by our own education policy analyst Ben DeGrow.

It now is up to the school board and teachers union members. For the sake of the students, their charge is clear: to ratify the agreement and move forward.

From their website: “Our vision is every child in Colorado will be healthy, valued, and ready to learn.” Colorado Bright Beginnings helps thousands of families every year all across the state, with regional affiliates throughout Colorado.

Maybe you don’t have young children of your own, but you can tell a friend about the services they offer, or sign up to volunteer for Colorado Bright Beginnings yourself.

But if you do fit the description of having young children and you live in our state, consider looking up Bright Beginnings Colorado. And remember, it’s also not too early to start looking for the right school to meet your child’s needs.

But I guess there also was a serious and “inspirational” event yesterday in Denver, an event that should give real “hope” to education reformers that “change” might come:

For too long, panelists agreed, the Democratic Party has walked in lockstep with the teacher unions, and has shown little will to take them on.

“As Democrats, we have been wrong on education, and it’s time to get right,” said Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker, a rising political star. Booker said he was “practically tarred and feathered” by his local union for even broaching the subject of school choice.

“This is my wildest dream,” Booker said during a panel discussion, looking out at an overflowing Denver Art Museum auditorium. “I never thought I’d see a room full of Democrats interested in doing this (taking on the unions).”

Among those in attendance was National Education Association President Reg Weaver.

Apparently there was no comment from Weaver. Booker and other urban reformers like Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein were joined by the liberal lightning-rod Al Sharpton and local Colorado Democrat leaders past and present - including former Gov. Roy Romer and current state senate president Peter Groff. (Perhaps, more notably, many other Democrat leaders were not on board.)

Yesterday’s enclave could be promising of a really healthy development. Strong leadership from both political parties to challenge the clout of the teachers union - which obstruct school choice and other reforms - is needed to hasten the progress we see around the country. Enough of the status quo.

Are we going to have figured out the best way to deliver public education by the time I get out of high school? Events like the one yesterday give a glimmer of hope that the old politics at least may eventually get out of the way.

The model shows how students have grown academically compared with peers in the same grades with similar scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program over the past two years.

“The bottom line is, the model tells us how much growth the child has made and whether that growth is good enough to meet state standards,” said Richard Wenning, associate education commissioner.

Other states have adopted growth models, but Colorado is the nation’s first to use percentiles to describe the growth, Wenning said.

Fortunately, the growth model doesn’t just compare students with their peers. It also uses an objective standard:

The district’s summary also looks at how much growth is enough for students to reach proficiency within three years, or by 10th grade.

Those figures also are broken down by race, income level and gender.

For example, in Denver, 23 percent of low-income students who have been below grade level are expected to become proficient within three years.

In Cherry Creek School District, 28.9 percent of low-income students below grade level are expected to catch up.

Jefferson County is doing slightly better: 30 percent of low-income students below grade level are on track to reach proficiency in three years.

CDE’s growth model should be a supplement, not a replacement, to other assessment and accountability data. It helps to give the public a fuller and clearer picture of how well schools and students are performing.

Now if only we had the same kind of push for more disclosure on public education inputs. In other words, we all would benefit from greater online transparency in school district budgets and spending. Hawaii is doing it: Why can’t Colorado?

If Leo Casey is going to make the charge of cherry picking and improperly citing evidence, he has to deliver proof of those charges. To the contrary, the facts indicate that Casey is the one cherry picking and improperly citing research.

Is there a union for playing fast and loose with the truth? Maybe Leo Casey should join it. Oh, I forgot. He’s already a member of the AFT.

By the time he had delivered this rhetorical punch, Greene had already dismantled Casey’s arguments in effective and short order. When will they ever learn? Never, of course. Admitting that 9 of the 10 high-quality school choice studies show solid evidence of academic gains would be self-defeating. (Then again, another new study has just shown positive results from the Ohio EdChoice voucher program.)

After digging into the question of how well school choice works, you may also want to educate yourself about the historical background of School Choice in the United States.

As he gives advice to Colorado’s current governor and one of his recent predecessors, the themes in Rep. Tancredo’s Speakout column are not novel or startling, but they’re important reminders we can’t hear enough:

Last week, Gov. Bill Ritter and former Gov. Roy Romer wrote a column about the state of education in America. In it, I believe they’ve unwittingly made a powerful argument for precisely the kind of educational reform that they have publicly opposed for many years: school choice….

If history has taught us anything, it is that solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems have come only when we have unleashed the power of the free market. The answer to the education problem, simply put, is more choices for parents, and more competition by schools for students. It is not another ambitious big government “solution” put together by the same special interests that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo - a status quo that even Romer and Ritter admit leaves our students lagging far behind youngsters from Seoul and Singapore as they enter a newly competitive global economy.

In case someone reading this post is new to the site, I don’t mind repeating myself, too. The best tool to help parents understand and take control of their educational options in Colorado is our School Choice for Kids website. Check it out!

School is getting back into gear for most students across Colorado. An ever more popular and innovative option for parents and students is the online school. The newest - Insight School of Colorado - is authorized by the Julesburg School District in the far northeastern corner of the state.

Technology and cyberspace are ever changing, so you may need to revise your notions of what an online education program looks like for the typical student. Here’s what Insight has to offer:

Enrolling at Insight means having access to the very best online high school education, including

• A personal mentoring program
• A nationally recognized curriculum
• Professional one-on-one instruction
• In-person meetings
• Social activities
• All the administrative and technology support you and your family need

There’s also a video that explains more about the Insight program (free Quicktime software needed). Social activities, you say, at an online school? According to the website, there will be a school newspaper, student government, academic clubs, occasional field trips throughout Colorado, and “Yes, there will be a prom!”

As an online district school of choice, the opportunity to enroll in Insight is open to students age 14 to 20 anywhere in Colorado. But only local Julesburg students have the option to enroll part-time; all others must sign up for at least 5 courses. Students at Insight benefit from the development of an individual learning plan, 24-hour-a-day academic and technical support, and the opportunity for upper-level students to earn as many as 12 college credits through the University of Phoenix Pathways program.

It’s too late to sign up for the upcoming fall semester, which starts next Monday, August 25. But the enrollment process remains open for the coming spring. No matter where you live in Colorado, Insight might be the right fit for your high schooler. Check it out!

Other new schools featured:

• eDCSD Online
• The Studio School in Adams 12
• Cesar Chavez Academy-North Central
• Early College High School Arvada
• AXL Academy
• The Imagine Classical Academy at Indigo Ranch

West Denver Preparatory Charter School was born over lukewarm coffee in the basement of a church called The Pearl in a graffiti- stained neighborhood at the south end of Federal Boulevard.

In meeting after meeting, a carefully selected and diverse group - The Pearl’s minister, the city’s chief operating officer, a troubled kid from L.A. turned veteran teacher - drew the bones of a school they hoped would change minds about what can be achieved in public education in Denver.

Today, West Denver Prep ranks No. 1 among the city’s 44 middle schools in the academic growth of its students. It stages annual lotteries to select pupils from an overflow of applicants and, from those not chosen, tears are not unusual. [emphasis added]

Read the whole thing. Three cheers to West Denver Prep, and continued best wishes for success. Here’s hoping other schools - as well as education policy makers - take the time to watch, listen, learn, and follow its example.

…First of all, due to strong community request and concern regarding the upcoming changes to the high schools in the area, we are enrolling both 9th and 10th graders this year (very small classes of both, between 30-40 students per grade). Going forward we will only be enrolling 9th graders each year - around 80 students each year - and we expect to reach capacity in 2012, with approximately 320 students. Because we are enrolling 10th graders this year, our first graduating class will happen in Spring of 2011!

Finally, I notice that you have our Open House and Information Sessions on the site - but all the dates are past. I would truly appreciate it if you would update the site to say that ECHS at Arvada will be accepting walk-in enrollments through August 22nd. Interested families can stop by the school and speak to Ms. Paula Kendall, our Office Manager, in the main office anytime between 8am - 4:30pm. They can also email me at sbrock@echswest.org if they would like more information or to set up a tour.

For anyone in the Denver metro area still looking for a free high school in which to enroll for 2008-09, this is the week to check out ECHS at Arvada as an option. Remember, you can find all your Colorado schooling options at the School Choice for Kids website.

There’s no need to rehash all the places where the newspaper’s editors went wrong. Denise at Colorado Charters took care of it pretty well with a two-part series (here and here).

According to a 2007 Harvard University national survey, most Americans don’t really know much about charter schools. Though interestingly, support for charters and equalized funding for charters is much higher among those who actually understand how they work. Perhaps if the Aurora Sentinel editors were similarly well-informed, their opinion would change.

But the reason I wanted to bring this all to your attention was the full and fresh treatment given today at the online news shop Face The State. One of the Education Policy Center’s own is quoted in the story:

“The claim that charter schools lack accountability is laughable,” said Ben DeGrow, an education policy analyst with the Independence Institute, a Golden-based free market think tank and frequent supporter of charter schools. “In many ways they’re more accountable than traditional public schools. If charters are managed poorly or fail to meet academic performance standards, they actually can be shut down.” [link added]

That’s somebody I want to grow up to be like. Anyway, you really ought to read the whole story, and then work to help my friends here in the Education Policy Center educate the public about school choice in Colorado — and particularly in this case, charter schools.