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:

• A couple of stalwart California education reformers, Larry Sand and Alan Bonsteel, explain in the Los Angeles Daily News why school choice is more important now than ever
• Writing for the Fordham Institute’s new “Choice Words” blog, Adam Emerson is trying to get readers to graduate to a new conversation about parental choice, and wants your (and my) thoughtful participation
• It’s not brand new, but I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the week than to point your attention to a great video by the Foundation for Excellence in Education about the not-so-supermarket that offers a narrow selection of milk like some states offer a narrow selection of educational options

You know what, on second thought, I’ve thought of a better way. You can watch the 1-minute video right here, right now:

Have I got your school choice juices flowing yet? Yes, it’s Monday, but it’s no excuse not to wake up and get informed….

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?

Worst: As time goes on, I have less and less patience for the big people in Washington, D.C., so the bungled re-authorization of No Child Left Behind (#2) mostly makes me shrug. The magical money tree hasn’t done much for real education reform in many of the Race to the Top-winning states (#3), either. Maybe California’s new governor further messing things up (#4) just seems too far away for me to get too worked up. And as tempting a choice as it is, the chief reasons for the repeal of Ohio’s Senate Bill 5 (#5) are little connected to education reform and teachers unions.

So by default, I am casting my vote for #1: the Atlanta cheating scandal. As I wrote months ago when the story first emerged, the problem here is the predictable overreaction from reform opponents. If the scandal led to better testing security and/or greater use of online adaptive assessments, I would have to vote for something else as the worst development of the year. But the Koret Task Force page explains what really has transpired:

…[W]hat the public has “learned” is that testing is bad because it creates so much stress that well-meaning educators are pushed to the limit and eventually succumb (for the children’s sake, of course!) to the temptation to cheat, lie, and break the law.

Best: My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow wrote an op-ed explaining the sensible rationale for rolling back government employee collective bargaining privileges in states like Wisconsin (#2). expressed my admiration for the sweeping range or reforms legislated in Indiana (#5). While California made some progress in establishing working rules for its “Parent Trigger” (#3), here in Colorado the idea faltered. And my edu-crush on Michelle Rhee is no secret, so I had to give some consideration to her teacher evaluation system surviving her tenure in DC Public Schools (#4).

But in the end, we can’t do any better than recognizing 2011 as the Year of School Choice (#1). Especially when the “reinvigoration of school choice via opportunity scholarships and vouchers” hit so close to home with the passage of the groundbreaking Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program. Forget the injunction for now. Cast your vote for the accelerating national trend toward educational freedom.

Vote for the #1s, and I’ll say: Thank you very much! Of course, I could point out that there are still nearly four weeks left in 2011, and maybe we haven’t yet experienced the “best” or “worst” education event of the year. But that’s just the pesky little provocateur in me speaking….

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.

Recently, there has been some negative news about online schools that should generate some concern — concern about outdated policies that are stifling effective innovation in the digital realm, as well as concern that certain politicians will overreact and attack the online education option that works for many families. The case has been made eloquently in Pam Benigno’s Denver Post op-ed and in an informative podcast with the Innosight Institute’s Michael Horn.

The second part of the paragraph I cited concerns what is commonly known as “blended learning” — which you can read about (again) from the Innosight Institute, or watch a feature about one of its most stellar examples: Arizona’s Carpe Diem charter school. There is significant potential for growth in this area in Colorado, provided the policies are in place and innovative entrepreneurship is given room to serve students.

Elsewhere, the Journal article mentions the high-performing hybrid model of Rocketship Education, which I first told you about more than a year and a half ago. Talk about a little edublogger ahead of his time! Speaking of which, Larry Sand also brings up Rocketship in his new City Journal column on “Disrupting Class.”

Sand writes about how online and blended learning, which continue to grow quickly, have tremendous potential to dramatically change the education system as we know it. The Journal article quotes the president of the National Education Association as saying “his organization opposes full-time online schools but supports integrating virtual lessons into classrooms.” Sand dissects the opposition in his piece, noting it’s not just the full-time variety of cyberschooling that has unions :

The blended-learning approach has attracted a great deal of interest from foundations and think tanks. Its appeal is obvious: students would potentially achieve more with the help of technology and fewer classroom teachers. No wonder the unions are terrified.

Union leaders use scary rhetoric, saying digital learning replaces teachers with technology to make parents think that any program outside their sphere of control will just be a computer babysitting kids. What we’re really talking about, though, is the power of technology to expand the reach of an effective teacher, to make for more productive uses of time and resources. That very well could mean fewer instructors on the big scale. But we have to remember: education is first and foremost about ensuring students learn and grow, not about maintaining and protecting jobs.

• 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.

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!

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:

• A platform for site users to record their own education reform testimonials;
• An anonymous Whistleblower tip sheet for students, parents and teachers to invite coverage of going-on in schools around the nation; and
• An education reform store where you can shop for books (including some of my favorites), videos (such as The Cartel… duh!) and T-shirts.

Which makes me wonder if there’s a market out there for T-shirts of this blog… Nah! But I am excited and grateful to see Ed Is Watching included on Choice Media’s list of 18 education reform blogs. Jay Greene, Rick Hess, Joanne Jacobs… That’s some pretty special company to be included in, almost kind of overwhelming for a kid like me.

All that to say if you’re interested in education, choice and reform, you’d be foolish not to follow my lead and bookmark or subscribe to Choice Media as a regular stop on your Internet visits. With the ever-building momentum for more learning options and transforming the way we do education in this country, Bowdon’s site looks like it will fill a valuable niche. Of course, that also means you won’t forget little old me… right?

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.

On the other hand, Petrilli observes that 60 percent of Americans in the Education Next poll want government funding of public schools to increase. In that light, what Coloradans think of the Lobato lawsuit, demanding the courts to call for billions more in K-12 dollars and currently underway in a Denver courtroom, is anyone’s guess.

Petrilli continues:

And on what does the public want these phantom extra dollars to be spent? Not higher teacher salaries; once told that the average teacher makes close to $55,000, only 43 percent of the public supports boosting pay.

No, Americans want exactly what they’ve been getting for fifty years: smaller class sizes….

And as astute readers here know, pursuing smaller class sizes represents a long-term K-12 strategy that’s been high on cost and (except for a small subset of at-risk students in early grades, or some kinds of special-needs kids) has produced very little in results. Petrilli’s conclusion is biting, but brings home an important point worth discussing:

Many people complain that our schools aren’t responsive to public demands, but the opposite seems true. The public wants small classes and is less concerned about paying teachers well; that’s exactly the system we’ve got. And, I suppose, the system we deserve.

There is definitely something to this argument he makes. But how do we get to a much smarter overall K-12 strategy of focused and targeted class-size reductions, improved teacher quality, shared accountability and broad parental choice — in tough economic times and without clear majority support? For one thing, we have to continue the education behind education reform, carefully bringing public opinion along as effective leadership and systemic change brings results.

Thanks to Mike Petrilli for reminding readers of an important point as we continue to move the ball forward.

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.

Since Douglas County parents now have more freedom to choose the best education for their child, might I suggest in honor of the recent important holiday that the bell in question is the Liberty Bell! And might I add that if that “bell can’t be unrung” once families have used a voucher to make the first payment to the new private school for tuition, will they drop the lawsuits if some of the Choice Scholarship checks already may have gone out and been redeemed at a private school?

Of course not. They’re using the rhetoric they are for the intended scary effect, and will do what they can to stop as many families possible from exercising choice. Do they care if they disrupt the families of 500 kids, many of whom have signed up and are preparing for a new school — including attendance of summer sessions for incoming students and parents, and tryouts for music, drama or fall sports teams? I’ll let you answer that one.

If anyone out there has the time on their hands, you can read the two separate “motions for preliminary injunction” filed with the courts here and here. Both are featured, along with numerous other links to program information and media reports (even blog highlights that include some of my writings!), on a new webpage put together by my Education Policy Center friends.

That webpage is your one-stop shop for info on Douglas County vouchers. So check it out today! I hear some sort of exciting production is in the works to highlight the needs and choices of families in the Douglas County voucher program. Stay tuned!

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.

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!

I close by bringing your attention to an op-ed for Teacher Appreciation Week by Association of American Educators executive director Gary Beckner, who writes:

Union leaders would have you believe that teachers and unions are essentially the same. The fact of the matter is that there are nearly 1 million teachers in America who don’t belong to a union and certainly do not subscribe to the mentality that the union perpetuates.

Teachers deserve to be treated as individual professionals with ideas and experience that can be brought to the policy table. To create and implement meaningful education reform, the true voices of American teachers need to be heard, instead of the outdated, overreaching, politically charged mantras of union bosses. We need to empower teachers to not only have the tools they need to succeed but give them the freedom to make the choice for themselves how to be represented. It is not only important for today’s teachers but the future of a shrinking workforce.

Excellent point. Not only why you need to be aware of the informative Independent Teachers website, but also one of the many reasons I hope to continue education transformer blogging as a 5-year-old for a long time to come. Thanks to my friends in the Education Policy Center. I simply couldn’t do it without you!