I can hardly believe that School Choice Week is already here. For my Colorado friends, remember that there are several great events between now and Saturday, especially a cool “Kids Aren’t Cars” movie night I hope you can come to.

Here in Colorado the legislature kicks off School Choice Week with the introduction of House Bill 1149, a lighter version of last year’s Parent Trigger bill by Rep. Don Beezley. This latest version allows parents from schools that have spent two consecutive years under one of the state’s two lowest accountability ratings (aka “priority improvement” or “turnaround”) to petition to change the school’s management structure and/or convert it to a charter.

Because Parent Trigger II offers a slower process than in last year’s proposed legislation, it may win over more support. In the meantime, while I let the special School Choice Week moment sink in, here are some other related happenings and odds & ends that may interest you: Continue Reading »

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One thing December brings is the obligatory year-end lists. If you are even a casual reader of this blog, then you should be interested in taking a moment to vote on the “Best and Worst in American Education, 2011″ — brought to you by the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.

Being of a decidedly reform-minded bent, the group has offered up some expected developments in their five choices for each of the “Best” and “Worst” categories. Most of the items I’ve covered at one time or another during 2011. Naturally I can’t make you vote for any particular events (or even vote at all), but I am making some strong suggestions that fans could select on my behalf as one of the most inexpensive Christmas gifts you’ve ever purchased. This is my blog, and I like to save the best for last. So which of the five choices should you recognize as the worst education event of 2011? Continue Reading »

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Last week I told you that the first-ever Digital Learning Day is less than three months away. Someone out there must have been paying attention! Today the Wall Street Journal has a big — no, make that a huge! — article by Stephanie Banchero and Stephanie Simon about online education cleverly called “My Teacher Is An App”:

In a radical rethinking of what it means to go to school, states and districts nationwide are launching online public schools that let students from kindergarten to 12th grade take some—or all—of their classes from their bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens. Other states and districts are bringing students into brick-and-mortar schools for instruction that is largely computer-based and self-directed.

The first sentence talks about full-time online education, something that Colorado has had going for more than a decade. (You didn’t hear it from me, but a helpful new report on this topic from my Education Policy Center friends may be coming soon.) About 2 percent of our state’s K-12 public school students are enrolled in a full-time online program, and the number has been rising significantly in recent years. Continue Reading »

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When it comes to invoking the great Cookie Monster in blogging about public policy, who is the king? That’s right. I hate to toot my own horn, but you may remember such famous Eddie posts as:

• K-12 Officials Blaming Special Education is Sort of Like Me Blaming Cookie Monster; and
• Ben DeGrow (and Cookie Monster?) Talk Falcon Innovation on Jeff Crank Show.

Well, it appears that I’ve been falling down on the Cookie Monster-blogging job, and someone has had to pick up the slack. That would be one of Jon Caldara’s minions giving little old Eddie a little silent homage with today’s gem about Prop 103 on public radio:

The writing is on the wall for Proposition 103. Rollie Heath essentially failed to sell fresh chocolate chip cookies to a hungry Cookie Monster. Turns out, Cookie Monster couldn’t stomach what Rollie was selling in this economy. Who knew?

So yes. I colored on the Blue Book explaining the arguments for the Prop 103 tax hike. And Prop 103 helped me embrace a newfound love for toppling dominoes (so much better than the dominoes of real jobs falling over!). Now it has invoked the return of the Cookie Monster to Ed Is Watching.

Kudos to the Independence Institute’s Penn Pfiffner for debating Senator Heath over the tax hike on Colorado Public Radio, just as my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow did earlier on local 9 News television.

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Little Eddie finally has a run for his money. What do I mean? In lieu of diving into another deep topic on a Friday, instead let’s take a look at the school reform blogging debut of a recent Education Policy Center intern, Devan Crean. Writing on the School Choice Week blog, she asks the ever-important question, “Why School Choice? Why Now?” Here’s a flavor:

What has made America great in the past is the quality of education it was able to provide, but today that is no longer the case. The most troubling aspect of the lack of quality education in America today is that it is an issue that affects us all. This is not just an inner city problem; it is a problem in every community in every state.

Providing parents with more choices is absolutely an answer to the problem. As Americans, we have the freedom of choice in most aspects of our lives, and the type and quality of education should be no different.

Congrats to Devan. We look forward to seeing more contributions in the near future. Before you forget, here’s your chance to subscribe to the School Choice Week blog. It should end up being one of your favorites, right after this humble little blog here, of course. Have a great weekend, everyone!

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I’ve got a new, exciting addition to the blogroll to tell you about. Today marks the launch of Choice Media, described in its first official media release as “a non-profit news service devoted to covering all facets of K-12 education quality and reform.” It’s no amateur operation, either. A look at the website will tell you that.

Once you realize that the founder is Bob Bowdon, director of the 2010 movie The Cartel, then you sit up and take notice. Choice Media figures to introduce the message of school choice and education reform to some new audiences. Not only will they be featuring short video news pieces that I’ll be tuning in to, and a decent assortment of news aggregation, blog posts and Twitter feeds, a quick tour of the site also reveals some other interesting features: Continue Reading »

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Late last week I chimed in on the results of the 2011 Education Next–PEPG Survey of Public Opinion on school reform issues, noting the significant uptick in support for private school vouchers. Super edublogger Joanne Jacobs drew out another finding, namely that the views of teachers and the general public on key reform issues seem to be diverging rather than coming together.

But I think that perhaps the most insightful observation on the results came from Mike Petrilli at the Education Gadfly, who wrote about “the school–and the deficits–we deserve”:

…particularly timely, in this era of fiscal austerity, are new insights about the public’s views on school budgets. And guess what: On education, like everything else, Americans don’t want to make tough choices. They want to keep taxes low while boosting school spending. Sound familiar?

Petrilli notes that 65 percent of survey respondents don’t want to increase taxes to pay for education. That’s nationwide. The number should be at least as high in Colorado — which is bad news for the Rollie Heath education tax hike headed to our November ballot. Continue Reading »

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A couple weeks ago I filled you in on how there are two separate groups that have filed their legal complaints against the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program. Well, as Ed News Colorado reports, now they’ve taken the next official step:

Plaintiffs in two lawsuits challenging the Douglas County voucher pilot are asking for an immediate halt to the plan, arguing it must be stopped before any public dollars flow to private schools.

“Once the money is illegally diverted away from public schools, the bell can’t be unrung,” said Gregory M. Lipper, attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, one of the plaintiffs.

Continue Reading »

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Yes, I have problems with patience. Being perpetually 5 years old kind of does that to you. I can get myself in trouble by yelling for “Legos now!” or “Let’s go to the park now!” Still, I think my parents would be less inclined to come down hard on me for proclaiming the title of the new blog “School Choice Now!”:

School Choice Now! is the official blog of the American Federation for Children, the nation’s voice for school choice. We seek to improve our nation’s K-12 education by advancing systemic and sustainable public policy that empowers parents, particularly those in low income families, to choose the education they determine is best for their children.

Hard to disagree with that. Then again, it wasn’t much more than a year ago that I wanted to know how a kid like me could sign up to be a member of the American Federation for Children. As you can see, that’s not exactly what they’re about. It took some wise friends to talk me down from breaking the piggy bank to send an envelope full of nickels and dimes as dues money to the Federation.

Seriously, though, I’m excited to see the new School Choice Now! blog. Besides recent inspiring postings on Virginia Walden Ford and Cory Booker, the site has offered some informative updates on school choice legislation in places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Maybe they’ll soon take notice of the latest goings-on in Douglas County, too.

In any case, I hope to see the site stick around for awhile.

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As usual, I’m taking the weekend off for extra Lego time and lots of playing outdoors in the beautiful Colorado sunshine. Since tomorrow is an important anniversary, I decided to observe it today. On May 7, 2008, I began my three years of blogging here as a 5-year-old with a post titled “Denver Parents Want More Successful Schools to Choose From.” (Interestingly, FOX 31 News ran a special story last night about one of the area’s most successful and well-known charter schools, which has grown since 2008: Denver School of Science and Technology.)

Last week the prolific education reform blogger Matthew Tabor posed the question: “What makes you feel old as a teacher or blogger?” I’m not really sure how to answer that, other than I feel kind of old for… well, my age. Time doesn’t really fly when you can stay 5 for this long. Let me tell you.

But what better way to mark this commemorative 3rd anniversary Ed Is Watching post than to give a shout-out to Teacher Appreciation Week — which ends today. For all the arguing I do about the need to improve educator effectiveness in our system, it needs to be repeated clearly from time to time that we have many fine teachers here in Colorado and elsewhere succeeding and excelling in spite of the surrounding system. Three cheers to them and what they do for students! Continue Reading »

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