Today’s lead story at Ed News Colorado highlights the disparity in private parent and community giving within Denver Public Schools. Reporter Charlie Brennan notes that no school raked in more than the nearly $230,000 at Bromwell Elementary, a school with a low 8 percent study poverty rate. The general findings are no surprise, yet nonetheless disappointing:

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: Continue Reading »

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Hey, wait a minute! Doesn’t America have an unemployment problem? Do we need a bunch of kids glutting the job market? I have to ask because Michelle Luce, writing for Education Debate at Online Schools, brought my attention to a Fox News story about a Wyoming school giving jobs to elementary students:

“My son Kaleb is a pencil sharpener –” his mother Angie Hiller started.

“– Writing tool assistant,” Coffeen’s school counselor Jennifer Black corrected, smiling.

Kaleb is one of many students who hold volunteer “leadership jobs” at Coffeen — one of several new initiatives at the elementary school that encourage responsibility, accountability and prepare students for the real world, according to Coffeen [Elementary] Principal Nicole Trahan.[link added]

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Don’t ask, because I don’t know what happened to all my time today. Rather than go in depth and expound on something profound, I will just direct you to this fascinating story in Wired magazine about “How Khan Academy is changing the rules of education”:

“This,” says Matthew Carpenter, “is my favorite exercise.” I peer over his shoulder at his laptop screen to see the math problem the fifth grader is pondering. It’s an inverse trigonometric function: cos-1(1) = ?

Carpenter, a serious-faced 10-year-old wearing a gray T-shirt and an impressive black digital watch, pauses for a second, fidgets, then clicks on “0 degrees.” Presto: The computer tells him that he’s correct. The software then generates another problem, followed by another, and yet another, until he’s nailed 10 in a row in just a few minutes. All told, he’s done an insane 642 inverse trig problems. “It took a while for me to get it,” he admits sheepishly.

Carpenter, who attends Santa Rita Elementary, a public school in Los Altos, California, shouldn’t be doing work anywhere near this advanced….

Funny, that’s what some people say about this 5-year-old’s edublogging prowess. But I digress. The article by Clive Thompson is a long and substantial one, but also engaging. If it doesn’t make you think about the current education paradigm — and whether and how we can go about it more effectively — then you’re not trying too hard. I’ve told you about Khan Academy before, but have yet to point you to anything this in-depth.

While Khan definitely has his critics, this article sure makes it look like his video-based program is having tremendous results for some students in the areas of math and science. Happy digging!

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Learning to read is essential to a quality education. Kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? There has been increased attention in recent years on the importance of phonics and scientifically-based reading instruction. These are crucial features of instructing students in the early grades, ensuring they get off to a strong start in their educational careers, yet in too many cases (at least in Colorado) teachers are not adequately prepared to impart the learning to students.

Yet can what sustain and build on those reading skills as students reach 8th grade and beyond? Take a glimpse at what has gone on the past few years in a small corner of the New York City Public Schools (New York City? I can almost hear some of you ask in the voice of disgruntled Texas cowhands. Yes, the Big Apple!). In a New York Daily News op-ed, Sol Stern highlights the success of the three-year Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) program piloted in 10 Bronx and Queens elementary schools:

After the first year, [then school chancellor Joel] Klein announced the early results: On a battery of reading tests, the kindergartners in the Core Knowledge program had achieved gains five times greater than those of students in the control group. The second-year study showed that the Core Knowledge kids made reading gains twice as great as those of students in the control group.

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The warm weather here in Colorado and the lure of the swimming pool are the main reasons why readers here just get a quick update for today. Ed News Colorado’s Charlie Brennan reports that ideas for 11 new schools (eight of them charters) were pitched this week to the Denver school board.

The public charter sector in Denver is brimming with activity and opportunity for greater growth. Highly successful West Denver Prep and KIPP Sunshine Peak were among those proposing expansions to the board. Other proposals were two all-boys (Yippee!) charter schools — Miller-McCoy Academy and Sims-Fayola International Academy. Continue Reading »

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Perhaps you saw this week’s news that Colorado state senator Rollie Heath and several advocacy groups are “pushing ahead” with a proposal that would take more from wage-earners, investors and consumers all over the state to finance K-12 and higher education:

The plan would raise state personal and corporate income tax rates to 5 percent from the current 4.63 percent. The state portion of sales taxes would go from 2.9 to 3 percent.

The additional revenue could be used only for public schools and the state’s higher ed system and couldn’t be used to supplant existing funding. The measure sets 2011-12 spending for schools and colleges as a floor….

The most interesting part of the story is not the predictable 5-year, $3 billion proposal itself, which so far has had trouble gaining traction among education establishment and business groups. Instead, not only did Senator Heath proclaim the tax increase proposal was “for the children,” but he also propped a classroom of Douglas County 4th graders behind him to drive the point home. As Kelly at WhoSaidYouSaid points out, there is a little problem with that: Continue Reading »

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The big news in Colorado education the past couple days is the release of the latest round of 3rd grade reading scores on the state CSAP test. While we still have a long ways to go, it is mildly encouraging to see the small increase in reading proficiency across Colorado:

Statewide, 73 percent of third-graders scored proficient or better — 67 percent proficient and 6 percent advanced — on the 2011 Colorado Student Assessment Program reading test, up 3 percentage points from last year.

More telling, though, than the big sweeping numbers is identifying the pockets of success. And nothing jumps off the page more than the fact that all 3rd graders at Harrison School District 2’s Wildflower Elementary in Colorado Springs are at least proficient in reading, as reported by the local Gazette: Continue Reading »

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February is a big month for awards. There’s the Oscars for movies and the Grammys for popular music. Before both of them comes the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the winner of the most-watched sporting event: the Super Bowl. So I thought today would be a great opportunity to highlight a couple of freshly-announced education-related awards.

First and foremost, the group Stand for Children Colorado yesterday announced well-deserved recognition, along with giving out $1,000 each, to 10 superhero teachers across the state:

At Stand for Children, we’ve seen the impact a great teacher can make. And after reading nearly 100 nominations for outstanding teachers across the state, we know you have, too. Please join us in celebrating the ten teachers listed below who have won $1,000 to recognize and reward their commitment.

The list includes teachers from Evans to Grand Junction and all along the Front Range, teachers who represent the elementary and middle and high school levels, as well as six neighborhood schools, three charters and an alternative school. Congratulations to each and every one of them! Read the entries to see what their nominations had to say about them.

Now for something mostly different. Matt Ladner this morning has accepted — on behalf of Lindsey Burke as well — a prestigious Bunkum Award from the “NEA’s ‘academic’ mouthpiece” for their Heritage Foundation analysis of Florida’s success in closing the racial achievement gap. Rich with irony, Ladner explains how their Think Tank Project critic actually published a table undermining her critique and how she ignored some earlier work he had done with Dan Lips, then of the Heritage Foundation.

Some of us out here in the hinterlands confess to being a little envious, but send out kudos for the important honor. I also am glad he chose not to use his acceptance “speech” to ramble on and thank all the little people. I say that, despite so often being considered a little person myself. Mom says I still have a lot of growing to do, you know.

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This morning, Colorado’s outgoing governor Bill Ritter formally recognized some schools and school districts for outstanding academic performance.

A couple observations, first about the school districts. As Ed News Colorado’s Nancy Mitchell explains and breaks down, there are five levels of rating districts can earn from the state’s Department of Education. Only 14 of 178 earned the highest (“Accredited with Distinction”), while 7 districts received the lowest (“Accredited with Turnaround”). Most districts fall somewhere in between.

Many times we’ve heard during the discussion about Douglas County’s groundbreaking private school choice proposals (which passed on to the superintendent in resolution form on Tuesday night) that the district doesn’t need choice because it’s the highest-performing district in the state. But a careful look at the list shows Douglas County isn’t anywhere in the top 14 “with distinction.” Maybe — just maybe — a whole slate of expanded choices and options for families will help the district compete and rise to the top. Hmmmm.

With the governor’s blessing today, the Colorado Department of Education also recognized 32 schools as “Centers of Excellence” for demonstrating the highest rates of student academic growth while serving at-risk student populations (75 percent or more). Included on the list are a number of Denver schools I have highlighted to you before, such as:

• Beach Court Elementary (neighborhood school)
• Cole Arts and Science Academy (K-8 innovation school)
• KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy (K-8 charter school)
• West Denver Prep — Federal campus (6-8 charter school)
• West Denver Prep — Harvey Park campus (6-8 charter school)

Congratulations to all 32 schools and 14 districts that received these highest honors. Now onward and upward to even greater things for Colorado students!

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We’re getting closer to that Waiting for Superman Colorado premiere… less than two weeks! While we know that a school isn’t necessarily better because it’s a charter school, the coming of the movie reminds us there are some innovative charter operators attaining remarkable results.

One of the charter networks deserving positive attention is Rocketship Education, the “hybrid” school network that launched a few years ago in San Jose, California. (To get up to speed, go back and listen to the iVoices podcast with Rocketship Education CEO John Danner.) The most recent results (PDF) show that Rocketship’s two elementary schools — both of which serve high-poverty stuent populations– are continuing on a high trajectory of academic performance: Continue Reading »

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