In other words, the proposal that represents a small, positive step for parental empowerment stepped out from beneath the groundhog’s shadow. And not a moment too soon, for such a commonsense piece of legislation.

Yes, it’s sad to see only Republican representatives showing a modest support for the education consumer. Is it just Colorado where Democrats seem so universally wed to protecting K-12 institutions of power (the Colorado Association of School Boards and Colorado Education Association both testified against HB 1149) at the expense of a little extra parent voice in the school turnaround process?

Interestingly, California Democrat Gloria Romero today expounded on her support of a more comprehensive parent trigger bill coming out Florida:

This is not a Democratic or a Republican fight. It’s a fight for parents, by parents. This is also a civil rights issue that is personal to me. My mother had a sixth grade education; I have a Ph.D. I know what education means for ending poverty, and I know how hard we are making it for millions of children to get the quality education they need and deserve.

If you are poor, African-American, Latino or a member of any other underserved constituency, too often your success in school is tied to your zip code and to government officials who make life-altering decisions for you. Those with financial means move to a different school, but those who stay need a way to make the schools work for their children.

Or as Colorado’s Rep. Beezley was quoted in the Ed News story:

Help me offer a little bit of hope … to parents with children in some of our lowest performing schools…

The far-from-conservative Metro Organizations for People came out in support of HB 1149, noting that the existing five-year turnaround process is “far too long.” If they were in California or Florida, they may have found support from the Democratic caucus so far. There’s still time for the Colorado legislature to debate and vote on this bill in a bipartisan (or better yet, nonpartisan) fashion. I hold out hope that it can be the case.

And now today it’s the first-ever Digital Learning Day, centered at a site where you can participate in a live chat and watch a series of webcasts, including an online national townhall meeting at 1 PM Eastern (11 AM Mountain). Colorado is well represented, as the townhall features National Online Teacher of the Year Kristen Kipp from Jeffco Virtual Academy. Also, at 1:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM MT, our local Englewood High School will be one of numerous school sites around the country interacting online via Skype.

I tell you what. There is so much more going on in the digital learning arena here in Colorado, and my Education Policy Center friends are right in the middle of it. If you haven’t seen their helpful guide for parents that came out within the past couple months, you really need to check out Choosing a Colorado Online School for Your Child.

What’s more, last week they also co-sponsored an event with the Donnell-Kay Foundation that brought together nearly 50 of the state’s online education leaders to help craft a digital learning policy roadmap! The keynote speaker and facilitator for that event, Susan Patrick from iNACOL, also is speaking out on this important day:

“By embracing the transformative power and promise of online learning, kids everywhere can have access to the best teachers, engaging content and mastery-based learning opportunities. With new learning models, we can overcome achievement gaps, level the playing field and ensure America’s kids rise to meet the demands of a world that is increasingly globally-competitive,” said Susan Patrick, president and CEO of iNACOL.

Her group highlights four key areas of need policy change to expand effective digital learning opportunities not only in Colorado but also throughout the nation:

• Break down barriers of student access
• Move away from seat time to “competency-based” learning
• Provide equitable, student-centered funding
• Embrace new models of accountability and assessment

Hear, hear, time for Colorado to step up! You’ll be seeing more from me on this front in the near future. In the meantime, Happy Digital Learning Day!!

Colorado has developed good policy for dismissing unqualified teachers, but not for increasing the pool of well-prepared teachers entering the workforce, according to a report out today.

The National Council on Teacher Quality, a national nonprofit, released the report today grading every state’s teacher policy. Colorado averaged a C letter grade, up from a D+ in 2009, but was ranked as No. 12 among the states making the most progress.

Yes, this is the same respected NCTQ I’ve talked about before regarding their study of teacher preparation programs. In fact, my Education Policy Center friends last year recorded an iVoices podcast with NCTQ’s Sandi Jacobs about the then-latest version of their State Teacher Policy Yearbook.

As reading the Post story might suggest, there are two distinct ways to take Colorado’s C grade in the area of teacher policy. One approach is to emphasize the fact it wasn’t graded on a curve. NCTQ correctly set a fairly high bar, so our Centennial State looks pretty good compared to most other states. Not only are we 12th in the amount of progress made in the past two years — Senate Bill 191, anyone? — but we are also 9th out of 51 (including D.C.) in the overall quality of the state’s teacher policies.

And with some good reason. While we aren’t in the elite B-range category (inhabited only by Florida, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Tennessee) and we didn’t make the most progress during the last two years (that would be Indiana), Colorado did earn the highest-possible “Best Practice” rating in the areas closing licensure loopholes and performing layoffs based on effectiveness rather than the old “LIFO” (last in, first out) rule. (Ahem, SB 191!) Our state also met the goal in four other areas:

• Alternate Route Usage and Providers;
• Evaluation of Effectiveness (SB 191… again);
• Tenure (based on effectiveness… you guessed it, SB 191); and
• (Remediation for teachers with) Unsatisfactory Evaluation (Can I get a 191, please?)

On the other hand, being 9th or 12th still isn’t good enough when you look at some of the significant weaknesses NCTQ has identified. As the Post story highlighted, Colorado hit the rock bottom rating for most of the teacher preparation goals — including elementary math, middle school, secondary, and student teaching. We also hit the lowest “does not meet” mark in the area of performance pay. While I appreciate NCTQ’s intent, and Colorado certainly hasn’t arrived, there are a number of local alternative compensation plans at work in the state’s school districts and charter schools.

On the issue of pay scales, NCTQ urges Colorado and many other states to take action by discouraging districts from tying compensation to earned degrees. Hmmm… Great idea! I’ve been on the anti-master’s bumps bandwagon with NCTQ for some time now. But there’s a good reason for that, too. The research overwhelmingly shows it has no effect on student learning. In a new piece for City Journal, Marcus Winters quantifies the value of all the major credentials educators can earn:

Research also shows that the credentials prized under the current system tell us next to nothing about how well a teacher performs in the classroom—and they explain only about 3 percent of the variation in teacher quality. Obtaining a master’s degree, it turns out, is simply unrelated to a teacher’s effectiveness….

I could go on, but hopefully you got the point. While some in Colorado might sit back and relax with a C because most states have the same grade or lower, I say it’s time to press forward and focus on continuing to fix the deficits that are holding us back from becoming NCTQ’s first state to earn an A!

• The Alliance for School Choice has released the latest version of the School Choice Yearbook… The big news? More than 210,000 students nationwide are enrolled in publicly-funded private educational choice programs, a 25 percent increase in just four years!
• Remember Education Savings Accounts, the cutting-edge school choice program with a superior design? Well, today a Maricopa County judge ruled that Arizona’s first-of-its-kind ESA program for special needs student was constitutional!
• Finally, speaking of special needs students, the Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio is about to launch its fourth voucher program, the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship!

Good news on all three fronts. Before my hyperactivity takes over and my short attention span fades away, here’s one last call to invite you to this evening’s Kids Aren’t Cars movie night at the Independence Institute in Denver. Hope to see you there!

At the other end of the poverty – and fund-raising – spectrum is Johnson Elementary in southwest Denver, which reported fewer than $3,000 in private gifts in 2010-11.

If a donation of five or six figures came through the door of the school, where 96 percent of students are low-income, said Principal Robert Beam, “You’d be writing a story about a principal who is dancing in the streets all day long.”

The timing of the story is remarkable. Why? Yesterday substantial checks went out to 14 metro area public schools and 2 public charter management organizations (CMOs) serving high-poverty student populations, with awards totaling $500,000. And they didn’t just go out to schools based on need, but to schools with a proven record of serving their students well:

Award winners were selected based on a variety of factors, including academic performance and growth, percentage of students qualifying for the Federal free and reduced lunch benefit, school culture, leadership, and instructional effectiveness.

So states the media release from the benefactor Foundation For Great Schools, a coalition of five private Colorado foundations, including the Daniels Fund (which also helps support my Education Policy Center friends). When they cite “academic performance and growth,” they aren’t kidding. All 16 recipients earn an A or B from the new Colorado School Grades site:

• Montview Math and Science Elementary (Aurora)
• Tollgate Elementary (Aurora)
• South Elementary (Brighton)
• Ricardo Flores Magon Academy (Charter School Institute – Westminster)
• Community Leadership Academy middle school (Charter School Institute – Commerce City)
• Beach Court Elementary (Denver)
• Bryant Webster Dual Language K-8 middle school (Denver)
• Denver School of Science and Technology CMO (Denver)
• Girls Athletic Leadership School (Denver)
• Greenwood ECE-8 middle school (Denver)
• KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy (Denver)
• West Denver Prep CMO (Denver)
• Deane Elementary (Jeffco)
• Stein Elementary (Jeffco)
• East Elementary (Littleton)
• Valley View K-8 elementary school (Mapleton)

I haven’t seen any reports indicating increased street-dancing activity taking place near any of the above schools. Yet while various kinds of celebrations may take place at each of those centers of learning, I will study up on the definition of this great word philanthropy. Remember: You can find more information on Colorado schools and the open enrollment process at the fantastic, parent-friendly School Choice for Kids website.

In the video, Bowdon highlights the wonderful news about last July’s decision rejecting the NAACP lawsuit. Justice Paul Feinman wrote in that opinion:

The court is not permitted, nor would it be appropriate, to substitute its own view of this complex societal question of how best to educate our children for the conclusions already reached by the legislative and executive branches.

I am pained to say this, but the Manhattan judge’s demonstration of humility could serve as a lesson to Colorado judges who have presumed authority in the Lobato school funding lawsuit. That 2009 ruling has opened the door for the costly postlude to the original round of legal debates. Now that the judiciary has said it can determine school finance policy, they have started getting their chance to weigh in. And it’s not been pretty.

Professor Joshua Dunn, the CU-Colorado Springs scholar who broke down the conclusions in Part 2, Round 1 of the Lobato case on an iVoices podcast, has followed through with a Colorado Springs Gazette op-ed that drives the point home:

Shockingly, Judge Rappaport claimed that “the interpretation of the Education Clause does not need to be harmonized with either TABOR or the Gallagher Amendment.” In other words, the judge believes she is free to ignore those inconvenient amendments.

To illustrate what a preposterous, and dangerous, position that is, imagine the U.S. Supreme Court saying that the President’s commander-in-chief powers did not have to be harmonized with the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press. Outrage would be the appropriate response.

I guess there’s a lot of outrage going on then. Outrage that a group like the NAACP would play legal hardball to deprive poor children of color of educational opportunity. Outrage that the anti-charter forces there still haven’t given up. Outrage that a New York judge shows more humility than our Colorado bench. Outrage that parts of our state constitution get ignored. On and on it goes….

But it’s Friday, so I’m going to mellow out. And just smile…. And play Legos. Have a great weekend!

The second annual National School Choice Week is coming up soon. It’s almost time to stop gearing up and to start getting into action. For most of my fellow Coloradans, there aren’t any good excuses to not be able to attend even of the numerous events going on during the week of January 22-28:

• On Thursday evening, January 26, you can watch the movie Kids Aren’t Cars at the Independence Institute’s new Freedom Embassy, with a brief talk afterwards by my Education Policy Center friends
• On Tuesday evening, January 24, you can attend the Restoring American Exceptionalism Denver Townhall with guest speakers Hugh Hewitt and Dick Morris at the Douglas County Events Center
• Or the night before — Monday, January 23 — you can check in at the Colorado Springs edition of the Restoring American Exceptionalism townhall with featured speaker Michelle Malkin
• Want to celebrate School Choice Week with an educational experience where you never have to leave the comforts of your own home? Online education parents, school leaders and supporters can sign up for a January 25 Advocacy Academy Webinar through the Colorado Coalition of Cyberschool Families
• On January 28, teachers can “enjoy a Saturday morning breakfast and spend some time finding ideas and projects at the Resource Area for Teachers (RAFT),” compliments of the Professional Association of Colorado Educators
• On Friday afternoon, January 27, big people can find the School Choice Happy Hour in Denver
• What better time than School Choice Week to visit a school that is doing something different? You can arrange a visit to the TR Paul Academy of Arts and Knowledge, a Fort Collins charter school, on either Tuesday or Wednesday

There may be more National School Choice Week events coming up in Colorado, but these are the ones I’m aware of. Show your support by showing up to one or more of these great events! And don’t forget to tell a friend….

This report shows that Charter Management Organizations (charter organizations that manage more than one school, currently DSST, West Denver Prep and KIPP) are not only outperforming district and other individual charter schools, but are having a significant impact on the district’s overall growth and achievement scores at grades six and above.

For those who have been following the success of the three charter school franchises (two of them completely home-grown) serving high-need students, this report is not terribly surprising. But it is good, encouraging news nonetheless. It especially gives a great deal of hope for the middle school years, in far too many cases a brutal academic wasteland that leaves many students almost irreversibly behind. For 6th through 8th graders DSST, West Denver Prep and KIPP are blowing the roof off traditional DPS schools and other charters.

The A+ Denver report raises some significant questions for future direction in DPS. Taken together with a couple of recent national studies, this report should help the knee jerk anti-charter crowd to withdraw and reassess for awhile. Bad charters are closing at a significant rate, while high-quality charters in Denver maintain their excellence as they grow. Meanwhile, across the board, charters at the elementary and middle school level continue to outperform their peers.

A well-deserved hurrah once again to the KIPPs, West Denver Preps, and DSSTs. What can be learned and implemented from these schools? Are we holding back too much? What are we waiting for?

Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl as usual does a great job previewing the session and legislative initiatives likely to emerge. If you want the in-depth take, you simply have to go check out the story. According to the story, action is likely to be seen on the following fronts, among others:

• School finance reform
• Standardized testing implementation
• Charter authorizing standards
• Educator effectiveness rules ratification
• Online education oversight and regulation
• School construction funding
• School discipline policies
• A new version of the “parent trigger”
• “Restrictions on automatic salary increases for teachers who earn master’s degrees” (yee haw!)
• Private tuition tax credits

Many, not all, of these present some welcome changes. And of course, the devil remains in the details. In the meantime, word on the street is that another bill is coming to require school district-union bargaining transparency.

It looks like 2012 could bring some more Colorado legislative activity on K-12 education than a slow 2011 did. How much legislation passes, not to mention how much will be worth passing, remains to be seen. But now that my Education Policy Center friends are so much closer to the State Capitol, you can bet that little Eddie will have more of a front seat to observe what’s going on….

Denver Public Schools students and parents have from now until January 31 to exercise their school choice, using a new process that allows families to list up to five schools in order of preference. The Denver Post opined recently that the new, streamlined system is fairer and ultimately will prove more user-friendly. Parents can learn more from DPS at meetings either tomorrow morning at East High School or Wednesday evening at George Washington High School.

The range of educational options is expanding within DPS, and sometimes coming directly to families as schools compete for students. Viva Colorado’s Roxana Soto reports (H/T Ed News Colorado) that leaders from the newest West Denver Prep school are going door-to-door in the city’s Montbello neighborhood to recruit fifth-graders into their highly successful program:

On this particular morning, the recruiting team, which includes the principals of the two new schools, hopes all this favorable information will help them persuade parents on the fence. All recruiters are equipped with marketing materials and Google maps showing where current fifth-graders live.

“It’s just a time for us to make sure that every fifth-grader knows there’s an awesome option in their neighborhood,” says [WDP enrollment manager Alicia] Lucero.

Yes, there’s no doubt the first four West Denver Prep middle schools have been “awesome,” and there’s every reason in the world to believe the new Montbello and Green Valley campuses will follow suit. But the success also may create a dilemma as the charter franchise reaches out to families in these neighborhoods. Does “West Denver Prep” create too much confusion among denizens of the city’s northeastern corridor and necessitate adjustment, or do all the successful schools retain the well-earned brand of distinction?

A minor issue, I guess. Whatever the name is, the beautiful, real-life chaos of school choice expands and thrives, bringing more opportunity along with it. And families in our state can find the information they need by visiting the incredible duo of fantastic informational sites, School Choice for Kids and Colorado School Grades.

Onward and upward for Colorado educational choice in 2012. In the meantime, don’t forget that now is an ideal time to exercise the right to search for a better learning option while the first round of open enrollment lasts. It will be over before you know it.