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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The must-read, full-length education story of the week is a piece by Dana Goldstein at the American Prospect, titled “The Test Generation.” Before you think this little guy has gone completely loony tunes, you have to know a couple things:

1. The article is all about Colorado, and mainly about the implementation of Senate Bill 191, but it opens with and focuses plenty of attention on the remarkable pioneering work of Harrison School District Two; and
2. While I don’t agree with all the article’s points and conclusions, it’s a mostly fair assessment that provides some interesting insights into Colorado’s efforts to forge ahead on enhancing educator effectiveness.

Showing the story’s release was timed well, earlier this week the co-chairs of the State Council on Educator Effectiveness presented their thick set of recommendations (PDF) to the State Board of Education for consideration. More thoughts on that to come in the near future.

More interesting is Goldstein’s close look at Harrison superintendent Mike Miles, whose focused leadership in the development of a groundbreaking new teacher evaluation and pay system have unsurprisingly garnered criticism from the teachers union. Yet so far the results speak for themselves: Continue Reading »

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It has been said that flattery will get you nowhere. I don’t know who said that, but it wasn’t a 5-year-old education blogger and his name wasn’t Eddie. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow hosted a podcast with prolific education blogger and new media entrepreneur Matthew Tabor from Education Debate at Online Schools. After Matthew put up this post late yesterday, Ben wants to record podcasts with all the prolific education bloggers he can:

…Ben is a favorite of mine because he exemplifies that holy trinity of blogging: clear, concise and thoughtful. Think about it – it’s tough to pull off all three at the same time.

Also, from what I hear, he’s a mentor to 5-year old education blogger Eddie, who posts his analysis of education policy at Ed Is Watching.

You can’t buy that kind of good press. Well, maybe you can. I just haven’t saved enough in my piggy bank to even begin imagining the possibility. It’s not the first time Matthew has said nice things about me, this blog and my friends. Anyway, the podcast discussion is thought-provoking and hopefully inspiring. Please listen!

And for all that and more, I urge you to bookmark Matthew’s site to get helpful news and great insights, like his recent piece praising Pennsylvania’s governor for seeking to remove “master’s bumps” (teacher pay incentives for earning master’s degrees) out of the education budget. Yes, you read me right. What was once kind of a visionary, off-the-wall suggestion has been reinforced by research, touted in the Independence Institute’s Citizens’ Budget, and now is up for serious debate in one of our nation’s largest states.

I’d like to think I played maybe just a tiny part in that whole process. Then again, I could be flattering myself. It is Friday, after all.

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If you want to stay informed about school reform and wrestle with some stimulating insights along the way, Education Next is an invaluable publication. To celebrate its 10th anniversary (wow, that seems old!), the Education Next editors paired off into two different teams to take stock of a decade of reform and debate what the movement has achieved and has yet to accomplish.

In one corner stand the venerable Checker Finn, Paul Peterson and Marci Kanstoroom, who argue that education reformers (or education transformers, as I prefer) still have some distance to go to claim victory in the battle of ideas:

It’s way, way too early to declare victory. Atop the cliffs and bastions that reformers are attacking, the opposition has plenty of weapons with which to hold its territory.

They say the battle is fought on too many fronts, the general public has not bought in to reform, and the gap between good policy ideas and effective implementation remains large.

On the other side stand Rick Hess, Mike Petrilli and Marty West declare the battle of ideas essentially won but heavily caution reformers of trying to get too ambitious, of overpromising what specific reforms can accomplish, and obsessing with closing achievement gaps at the expense of broadening the coalition of support: Continue Reading »

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It’s always fun to discover a great new education blog on a Friday. I’m talking about the blog “redefinED: the new definition of public education” by Florida reformers John Kirtley and Doug Tuthill (H/T Eduwonk). A series of their recent entries report and provide analysis from Jeb Bush’s very recent Excellence in Action conference in Washington, D.C. — including the hot topic of digital learning. More to come on that front later.

Overall, the blog offers some interesting insights from a couple of experienced and thoughtful leaders in the movement to expand school choice and make our schools better. I agree that a large part of the battle of ideas surrounding education reform falls in the lap of how public education is understood to be defined, and look forward to reading Kirtley and Tuthill’s blog regularly.

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Last year I told you that all I wanted for Christmas was to be nominated for an Edublog Award. Ok, so it wasn’t really ALL I wanted for Christmas, but that’s beside the point.

Well, the 2010 Edublog Awards competition is up and running, and I am proud to say that someone DID nominate me! Thank you so much to Lori at Lori’s LOLz for putting my name in the virtual hat as a contender for “Best Individual Blog”:

Ben DeGrow, along with 5-year old Eddie keep their eyes on the goings on in education in Colorado. Every day I look forward to reading their thoughts on the latest news and information that they share along with their ‘Edifying’ podcasts.

All I can say right now is that both Ben and I are blushing. Seriously, though, I’m very grateful to Lori and very honored for the consideration. Here are my nominations (know that there are more categories than these):

• Best individual blog: Colorado Charters
• Best group blog: Jay P. Greene
• Best new blog: Rick Hess Straight Up

If I had time to explain why each of the nominations was made, I’d do so. But I invite you to check them out for yourself and add them to your regular reading, if you have any interest in education policy. Remember, if you have your own blog, you can make your 2010 Edublog Award nominations, too, but you have to do so by this Friday, December 3.

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Thanks to Mike Antonucci’s Intercepts blog, I learned that today is “National Blogging for Real Education Reform Day.” The American Association of School Administrators and ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) are hosting this “grassroots effort to bring together Pk-12 and higher education educators.”

I like to help educate people and am definitely grassroots, but I probably don’t fit the bill of whom they’re looking for to blog on the topic. Nevertheless, here’s a post for real education reform on November 22, 2010, and it has to do with educators. Specifically the way they are paid. I’m talking about all the money we pay teachers and other educators just because they have a master’s degree.

As noted in a Saturday Associated Press story (H/T This Week in Education), we spend about $8.6 billion nationally each year on these “master’s bumps” — which have no connection to improved student learning. In Colorado, thanks to the research of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, we know the amount is nearly $140 million annually (that figure is from year-old data). My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow pointed this out in July 2009 testimony he gave before the state’s Fiscal Stability Commission. Continue Reading »

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