The kids in Denver were big winners when the local school board and teachers union headed off a potential strike at the eleventh hour. They also won when it was agreed that tense negotiations would be averted for another three years. But how well did they fare from the actual terms of the final compromise agreement made between DPS and DCTA?

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.

No Comments »

There’s a big political party known as the Democratic National Convention going on in the heart of our state this week. Maybe you’ve heard of it. My parents say there’s lots of crazy stuff going on there - things that I’m too young to see, things that could warp my young, impressionable mind or worse.

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.

No Comments »

More clear, accurate, available and usable information about public education is a good thing - good for parents, teachers, policy makers, and taxpayers — and ultimately for students like me. One good example of a step forward in this area is the Colorado Department of Education (CDE)’s new student growth model, featured in today’s Denver Post:

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: Continue Reading »

No Comments »

Successful schools need to be highlighted, and West Denver Prep Charter School gets the appropriate treatment from Nancy Mitchell in today’s Rocky Mountain News:

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.

No Comments »

In Sunday’s Denver Post perspective section, Lisa Geissler urged parents to expand their horizons in looking for special services to meet their child’s individual educational needs. She wrote:

Colorado’s state law allows for parents to open enroll in other public schools, and the No Child Left Behind act mandates that your district pick up the transportation tab to another public school if your school is failing.

There are caveats to that open enrollment. You can find out more from your local school district’s enrollment or admissions office and the Colorado Department of Education’s website, www.cde.state.co.us.

An even better place to look is the spectacular, one-of-a-kind School Choice for Kids website. It’s the best way to help Colorado parents find the best schooling options available to them.

No Comments »

It’s hard to argue against the idea that more fresh blood is needed in our public education system. We could do with more school and district leaders who didn’t necessarily rise through the ranks of the teachers union or education bureaucracy who can bring valuable outside skills and perspectives to the challenges faced.

Education News Colorado today highlights such a success story in the Denver metropolitan area:

Aurora Public Schools raised more than a few eyebrows two years ago when the board of education selected John Barry, a retired U.S. Air Force major general, to take over as superintendent of the state’s third-largest school district.

“We were definitely taking a chance,” says Aurora school board chairman Matt Clark. “He was clearly a non-traditional candidate, coming from the military. But we were looking for someone who understood what it took to turn an institution around.”

And turn it did. Barry began introducing changes in the way Aurora educates its 32,000 students at a breakneck pace. New curricula. New strategic plan . New coaching method for teachers. New standardized tests . New summer school programs . The launch of a new pilot school — the first of several. New emphasis on truancy prevention.

“We have transformed this school district on an order of magnitude to rival any in the country,” Barry said.

With the release this week of the latest CSAP scores Barry, a onetime jet fighter pilot, may feel like he’s again speeding skyward. Aurora and Denver, neighboring urban school districts with many of the same socioeconomic challenges, were two bright spots in an otherwise largely flat year for student achievement growth statewide.

(One small erratum: Aurora is the state’s sixth-largest school district.)

Interestingly, Denver Public Schools - the other “bright spot” school district overcoming challenges is also headed by a non-traditional superintendent, Michael Bennet. Coincidence? Maybe. But more emphasis should be put on expanding our idea of what comprises successful school leadership rather than narrowing the focus to meet the narrowly-tailored ideas of certain education interest groups.

It goes without saying that John Barry probably has made some mistakes along the way. But the results show he’s largely getting the job done. Barry’s bold leadership and the fact he is less beholden to status quo interests have to account for much of the progress. Aurora Public Schools is to be commended for some visionary steps - first, in choosing the retired Air Force general to take the helm, and second, in giving him the rein to make needed and innovative changes.

Of course, changing the leadership model isn’t the only way to fix public schools. There are limits to the sort of “top-down” approach. More “bottom-up” reform that decentralizes authority and empowers parents with school choice and accountability is essential. But there’s also something to be said for school boards working to find more leaders like John Barry.

1 Comment »

Lousy parenting is a typical scapegoat of those who resist public school accountability or who make excuses for poor performance. Not all parents fulfill their responsibilities, and certainly none are perfect. But the overwhelming number of parents want to see their kids reach their fullest education potential.

In that light, an idea like this one seems to make sense:

The Mile High Parent Campaign, set to begin on the first day of school this fall, is designed to track the time DPS parents spend furthering their kids’ education. The goal is 5,280 minutes a year, or 30 minutes a school day.

“I’m just hoping to bring a little more awareness of the importance of parent engagement and to celebrate things that we, as parents, do on a daily basis,” said Marlene DeLa Rosa, chairwoman of the Parent Empowerment Council.

Parents who enroll in the program will log their time online or complete a form that details how they assisted their children.

Suggested activities range from reading with a child, attending back-to-school night, helping with homework or taking a child to the museum.

It sure sounds nice on paper, and I wish it the best. The use of prizes and other positive incentives is the best way to promote participation - though it’s safe to assume the first ones who sign up will primarily be the parents who are already most engaged, and that many parents still won’t find any motivation to get involved. But if done right, this proposal has the potential to help many families work toward rearranging their priorities.

And of course, the best form of parent empowerment is school choice. The more a mom and dad is directly involved in their children’s education, the more they can see firsthand whether their child is being well-served at their current school, or whether another option is needed that better suits his or her needs.

It’s only logical then that Denver Public Schools should count the time a parent and child spend together on the School Choice for Kids website toward the 5,280 minutes a year.

No Comments »

A bunch of political leaders are getting together with new tough talk on education reform, reports the Denver Post:

The national movement, called the Education Equality Project, began a little more than a month ago with [New York City education chancellor Joel] Klein and civil-rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton. In a short time, it has attracted an odd cast of bedfellows such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer and a handful of urban superintendents and pastors across the country.

The group’s message: In the last generation and a half, education has become too much about serving adults.

“It’s children we need to worry about,” Klein said. “Even if they graduate, they’re woefully unprepared. … Every kid should get a shot at the American dream. It’s not about politics.”

Sadly, despite exceptional success stories, today’s school system is out-of-balance - shortchanging kids and families, and favoring the monopoly interests of unions and other groups. The most encouraging thing about this Post story is seeing Democrat politicians who appear willing to stand up to the teachers unions. I look forward to seeing what happens when the rubber meets the road on the decision to stand strong or bow to union money and pressure.

Bringing balance back to the school system means empowering families with greater choice and improving education through competition. It also means high expectations and accountability - not excuses - for students, teachers, and schools. And local control at the parental and school level.

The talk about education reform continues on and on. I don’t think they’ll have it all figured out and fixed by the time I head off to school in six weeks, but maybe a little political courage will help pick up the pace.

No Comments »

It’s Friday, it’s hot, and I don’t want to make my Education Policy Center friends work too hard. But before I take a weekend break, here’s a story from the Rocky Mountain News that caught my attention:

Summer slides occur in more than just water.

During summer months, poor children fall behind academically more than wealthy children do.

In fact, two-thirds of the learning gap between rich and poor can be attributed to unequal summer learning activities, research shows.

Education activists call this the “summer slide” for students in Denver Public Schools.

The story goes on to highlight calls for more federal funding of a special summer school program. I’m still young enough to believe this kind of stuff, but do these grown-ups really think a new government program is the best way to address the problem?

What about the idea of year-round school? Or maybe at least summer school programs that aren’t dictated by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?

Okay, that’s enough. If you’ll excuse me now, I think that water slide idea sounds really good.

1 Comment »

Holding back kids who have failed, rather than just pass them on to the next grade and the next teacher, is an education policy that strikes a lot of people as good common sense. But, of course, good common sense does not prevail so often in large public education bureaucracies.

Apparently, in some cases, following the law can be a problem for public education bureaucracies, too. The brilliant Jay Greene writes about Georgia school officials who flouted a law that required students to pass a test in order to move up to the next grade:

In Clayton County 97 percent of students who failed the re-test to get promoted or simply didn’t take the re-test were promoted to the next grade. When asked about why these students were promoted, the District issued a statement that said, “the philosophy of prior administrators was to promote students who failed and provide them remediation.”

Oh. I see. The law says that students unable to pass the state’s test ought to be retained but Clayton County school officials had a different philosophy. Their philosophy was that they don’t have to follow the law.

Jay knows this is more than just a problem of disobeying the law. From his earlier research, he has found that the anti-social promotion reform strategy actually works:

In a study I did with Marcus Winters that was published in Education Financial and Policy, we found that retained students significantly outperformed their comparable peers over the next two years. In another study we published in the Economics of Education Review, we found that schools were not effective at identifying which students should be exempted from this test-based promotion policy and appeared to discriminate in applying these exemptions. That is, white students were more likely to be exempted by school officials in Florida from being retained, but those students suffered academically by being exempted.

So some Georgia school officials are ignoring a state reform that would actually benefit students? I’m still young enough to be shocked by this, I guess.

All this makes you wonder why the state of Colorado or Denver Public Schools doesn’t pursue this type of reform, a key part of the ongoing Bruce Randolph School success story. A lot of adults out there seem to want to “help” kids by promoting them for not having learned what they should. Are you really helping us, though? Self-esteem can’t be manufactured; self-esteem follows success.

Speaking of which, my Colorado Rockies could use a real self-esteem boost, and soon.

No Comments »