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….

I’m talking about yesterday’s release of the latest results for math and reading from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), better known as the Nation’s Report Card, the gold-standard test to measure what 4th grade and 8th grade students in different states are learning about important subjects. Without further ado, here are some good reads:

• Linking to a Colorado Department of Education news release, Ed News Colorado reports that our state’s 8th graders showed improvements in both math and reading, but 4th graders made “no significant change”
• Fordham’s Mike Petrilli speculates that the now-defunct national Reading First initiative may account for the better national showing in reading by 8th graders than 4th graders
• Kevin Carey of Education Sector notes continuing national progress in math scores, observes the stubbornness of the achievement gap, and raises the specter of how the results filter into national debates over reauthorizing ESEA and adopting Common Core standards
• Speaking of the achievement gap, Matt Ladner lays out how poor students and (more specifically) poor, African-American students did state-by-state on 4th grade reading; interestingly, Colorado — which continues to remain above the national average on overall NAEP scores — was below the mark in the former category
• Education Week blogger Michele McNeil takes a look at the results through the lens of states that won Race to the Top, and finds unexpected positive gains from Hawaii and Maryland, while also observing remarkable math gains among Washington, D.C., students — which would be a credit to the bold reform program of now-former Chancellor Michelle Rhee

That’s certainly a lot easier than diving into the data and coming up with original observations myself, at least for now. More time to ruminate later. But I thought you might find these initial insights interesting, at least as much as you can while reveling in last night’s election results.

• Identified a problem with students transferring out of online programs after the student count day that determines funding;
• Observed shortcomings among online schools in academic test performance and completion rates; and
• Found one bad apple of an irresponsible online school operator that since has changed management companies.

The discouraging news cannot be completely brushed aside, yet the attention brought to online schools in Colorado demands context and a focus on genuine, equitable policy solutions that benefit students and support the ability of families to choose among excellent educational options. That’s why I have waited to write about the “story of the month” until my Education Policy Center friend Pam Benigno’s op-ed response was published today in the Denver Post:

Key policy changes also can be made to help improve online learning results while protecting innovation. University teacher preparation programs are drastically behind in training teachers how to use digital tools and how to effectively educate students from a distance. Many veteran teachers need intensive training to develop these new skills, especially as more and more students enroll in programs that blend the power of online learning technology with traditional schooling in various ways.

Further, both traditional and online educators need stronger incentives to keep students in school and ensure they complete course requirements successfully. Rather than funding schools based on how many students show up in early October, the state should use multiple student count dates to determine funding. And as Utah has begun to do this year, funding should follow students to the course level, allowing traditional and digital learning opportunities to be blended and personalized.

The Fordham Foundation’s Education Gadfly echoes the theme about the need for serious policy changes, with a few insights along the lines of “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

Elsewhere in the piece, Benigno strongly asserts that the last thing online schools and students need is more onerous regulation. My fear is that some lawmakers simply are looking for a large blunt object with which to hit online schools and score some political points. I hope not. Of more interest are those officials interested in honest and effective solutions. Along with today’s opinion-editorial in the Post, they ought to read three thoughtful comments posted on the Ed News stories by former State Board of Education member (and current online school employee) Randy DeHoff: here, here, and here.

Lori’s LOLz (a great Colorado education blog written by an online school parent) also has posted a pair of published letters from other cyberschool moms — one from liberal Boulder and one from conservative Colorado Springs — to offer another valuable perspective that should not be overlooked in the debates that move forward.

Finally, officials need to consider the success of programs that effectively blend traditional and online instruction. After all, while we raise the bar and demand quality educational results, we need to be looking to the future and continue not trying to squeeze all kids into the same learning box.

The anxiety level in the room rose quickly after Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs and chair of the House Education Committee, briefed the group on his idea for a bill that would hold back third-graders who are the furthest behind in literacy. [link added]

About five years ago my Education Policy Center friends hosted an event with a couple experts who explained some major reasons behind Colorado’s “reading crisis.” Not all kids will be reading as well at the 3rd grade as I am, unfortunately. Let’s hope the issue of teacher training doesn’t get overlooked in this policy discussion. Not surprisingly, though, the idea to end social promotion already has opposition:

Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, said, “Retaining a student is almost a guarantee they will drop out,” calling retention in grade “a death sentence.” Her comments were echoed by several other members of the task force.

Really? Not so fast. What the facts do show is that non-proficient readers in 3rd grade are eight times more likely to drop out than their proficient peers. And Florida has successfully shown that holding back 3rd grade students who don’t demonstrate basic literacy can be done effectively. A major peer-reviewed study shows the success of Florida’s policy:

Our findings suggest that retained students slightly outperformed socially promoted students in reading in the first year after retention, and these gains increased substantially in the second year.

All in all, I’m glad to see this issue moving forward, and hope yesterday’s discussion leads to some fruitful changes. Florida has shown that ending social promotion and providing scientifically-based early literacy interventions absolutely works. Kids need to learn how to read. Let’s not be afraid to follow another state’s success in this area. Kudos to groups like Colorado Succeeds who have emphasized this issue as a need for change.

Yesterday Harvard professor Paul Peterson wrote yesterday on Education Next about a new U.S. Department of Education report rating state math and reading standards for 4th and 8th grade. Though USDOE’s report didn’t acknowledge it, Dr. Peterson and his team had published very similar research — comparing state standards to the “gold standard” National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — just a year ago:

Every state, for both reading and math (with the exception of Massachusetts for math), deems more students “proficient” on its own assessments than NAEP does. The average difference is a startling 37 percentage points.

Interestingly, the new USDOE report concludes:

All NAEP scale equivalents of states’ reading standards were below NAEP’s Proficient range; in mathematics, only one state’s NAEP scale equivalent was in the NAEP Proficient range (Massachusetts in grades 4 and 8).

A case of deja vu? Though the Education Next and USDOE studies used somewhat different methods to compare the data, they came up with almost the exact same answers. Peterson noted yesterday that the correlations between the findings for all states — not just Massachusetts — were statistically very high, with one notable exception:

Colorado is the one state where we provide substantially different rankings. Ednext ranked it 4th; the Department says it is 45th. I suspect the difference is due to a change in standards in Colorado, but I invite readers to throw light on the discrepancy.

Why did last year’s survey find our state among those with the highest math and reading standards, while the new government study places us among the lowest? I’m not sure how to explain that away. Colorado’s State Board of Education adopted new academic standards in 2009, but assessments have yet to make the transition. Is there something significantly flawed in either the state-reported data (Ed Next) or school sample data (USDOE), but only for Colorado? Could the feds be relying on old data? Frankly, I’m baffled.

And I don’t like to be in the oddball state. But I would be glad if someone got to the bottom of it so we could know the truth. As for whether it was worthwhile for the USDOE to reproduce very similar work already done by private researchers just to find a major discrepancy for Colorado… well, that’s the million-dollar question.

“Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,” Duncan said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing tonight and tomorrow. “I feel very, very badly for the children there.”

“You have seen massive increases in class size,” Duncan said of the Texas public school system during Perry’s terms as governor since December 2000. “You’ve seen cutbacks in funding. It doesn’t serve the children well. It doesn’t serve the state well. It doesn’t serve the state’s economy well. And ultimately it hurts the country.”

Eduwonk and Time Magazine education columnist (and Democrat) Andrew Rotherham was as puzzled as anyone by the Secretary’s broadside, and got a chance to follow up directly:

When I asked [Arne] Duncan about this dire assessment in an interview I had scheduled today for my next School of Thought column, the former head of the Chicago school system was light on specifics:

“Texas has challenges. The record speaks for itself. Lots of other states have challenges too. But there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done in Texas and a lot of children who need a chance to get a great education.”

To which edublogging guru Joanne Jacobs aptly replied:

The statement is meaningless: All states have challenges that require hard work. The question is whether Texas is shirking.

Both Rotherham and Jacobs point out that Texas hasn’t been shirking. A stellar performer? No, but certainly nowhere near the bottom. The Lone Star State’s graduation rate significantly outperforms the Windy City, where Duncan once ran the schools, and even Texas’ minority students edge out their Chicago counterparts. (To be fair, Rotherham has his own issues with Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s education platform and posits that “it’s debatable how much credit Perry deserves for education reforms that largely predate his administration.” But I’m not writing here to wade into these deep political waters.)

Further, the Secretary’s claim that Texas has witnessed “massive increases in class size” does not comport with reality — as analyzed both by PolitiFact and the Dallas Morning News. The line of criticism itself is strange enough given that only six weeks ago Duncan told a national news reporter that reform should focus more on teacher quality than class size.

But what do I know? I’m just a kid, and a lot of this political debate flies way over my head. Someone tells me the big election is 442 days away. If it only gets more absurd the closer we get to November 6, 2012, just how crazy is all this talk going to get?

Anyway, while I’m trying to get my bearings a bit, maybe it’s time to take a look at a couple of good summer reads on the world of education:

• Writing at City Journal, Colorado’s own Marcus Winters reviews Terry Moe’s new Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools, an “important, imaginative book”
• Too Simple to Fail: A Case for Educational Change by Barker Bausell is the focus for Jay Greene guest-poster Stuart Buck, who calls it “one of the best education books I’ve read”
• Though it’s not new, the Ed Next Book Club interviews David Whitman, author of the controversial 2008 tome Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism

Now I don’t want to hear any of you say — at least after you’ve swum in the pool 100 times, shot model rockets, played Nintendo Wii and built the entire Star Wars rebel fleet out of Legos — that you’re bored this summer. (If I can get my Education Policy Center friends to buy one or two of them, I’ll do the same.) Okay?

We, the undersigned, representing viewpoints from across the political and educational spectrum, oppose the call for a nationalized curriculum in the Albert Shanker Institute Manifesto “A Call for Common Content.” We also oppose the ongoing effort by the U.S. Department of Education to have two federally funded testing consortia develop national curriculum guidelines, national curriculum models, national instructional materials, and national assessments using Common Core’s national standards as a basis for these efforts.

We agree that our expectations should be high and similar for all children whether they live in Mississippi or Massachusetts, Tennessee or Texas. We also think that curricula should be designed before assessments are developed, not the other way around.

But we do not agree that a one-size-fits-all, centrally controlled curriculum for every K-12 subject makes sense for this country or for any other sizable country….

As one of the key manifesto organizers, Dr. Jay Greene sums it up well in his notice at Education Next: “Centralization of education is bad for everyone except the central planners.” Another co-organizer, Dr. Greg Forster, gives the background and makes a strong case for the manifesto in an article for the Witherspoon Institute. A third co-organizer, former Assistant Secretary of Education Bill Evers, in a piece for The Hill, brings home the legal point that the curriculum proposal is an overreach of federal power.

Education Week blogger Catherine Gewertz takes note of the “counter-manifesto,” and observes that the original Shanker Manifesto “has more than 200 signatories.” Gewertz earlier reported that Minnesota and South Carolina have joined New Hampshire and Texas as states considering legislative proposals to withdraw from some or all of the national Common Core standards initiative.

Yet it’s my own home state of Colorado that appears to have among the most “Closing the Door on Innovation” signatories — including State Board of Education chair Bob Schaffer, vice-chair Marcia Neal, and member Paul Lundeen; state senator Keith King; Centennial Institute fellow (and Independence Institute senior fellow) Krista Kafer; and my Education Policy Center friends Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow (so they tell me, their names haven’t shown up yet on the list).

A longtime outspoken voice against the Common Core standards, the Cato Institute’s Neal McCluskey lauds the “counter-manifesto” effort and makes the case for a key antidote, namely that “[school] choice is essential right now.” Hard to argue with that. When it comes to education and learning, more power to parents and less to the federal government.

AEI education guru Rick Hess says now the Common Core debate gets interesting. Still, “Closing the Door on Innovation” is a manifesto worth signing in ink — or the electronic equivalent thereof — not crayon, as colorful as that might be. That being the case, a leading question is how long will it take before this manifesto gets more signatories than the one from the Shanker Institute?

At tonight’s meeting, principals and teachers from Glenwood Springs and Sopris elementary schools, Glenwood Springs Middle School and Glenwood Springs High School, as well as district officials, will all be on hand to explain the concept and answer questions.

Called “Moving On,” the new levels approach to student placement is the next step in district’s ongoing effort to adopt a standards-based learning model.

The standards approach is intended to ensure that students achieve a certain degree of proficiency in a subject area, primarily reading, writing and math, before they move on to the next level.

I like the name “Moving On.” It’s somewhat easier to grasp than the common lingo: Standards-Based Education. It fits the long-term trend of moving to more customized learning for individual students. I like the concept for the Doogie Howser-like potential it would provide me. The challenge to making this kind of major transition lies both at the state level — where testing and funding systems will need to be revamped — and at the local level.

Roaring Fork isn’t the first school district in Colorado to the gate. Westminster District 50 just outside Denver is in its second full year with its learner-centered SBS program in place. While I did have a few nice things to say about it after my Education Policy Center friends took the tour last May, I later raised some significant concerns about the implementation.

If you look at the latest Colorado Growth Model data, the results aren’t terribly encouraging. The Crown Pointe Academy charter school still outshines the entire surrounding Westminster School District in boosting student learning in reading, writing and math. Not far behind are Sunset Ridge and Metz Elementary — two of the three schools my Education Policy Center friends were taken to on their tour — but the rest are lagging. This observation tells me just how important school-level leadership and teacher buy-in are. It just might make all the difference.

With about 5,200 students, Roaring Fork is a little more than half Westminster’s size. The mountain district also has no union bargaining agreement, unlike its urban/suburban counterpart. There may be other differences, too. Roaring Fork leaders and teachers certainly should take notice of what’s working and what’s not in Westminster as they get “moving on” — hopefully, moving on up to a deluxe school system at 6,000 feet above sea level!

The big news, alas, isn’t news at all, which is that proficiency levels remain dreadfully low in both reading and math (worse in math), that gains have been tiny, that college readiness is nowhere near what it ought to be, that the achievement gap hasn’t narrowed by a micron….

Second, Education Sector’s Chad Aldeman observes that the headlines “are grim: reading scores are down a total of four points since 1992, while math scores are up from 2005, the only prior year of testing, and achievement gaps are relatively stagnant.”

Finally, two experts quoted in an Education Week story came to somewhat different conclusions:

“Yes, there have been gains [for 12th grade], and they’re significant, but overall, the results are still disappointing, especially in comparison to the big gains at 4th and 8th grade,” said Tom Loveless, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who follows NAEP trends.

And:

Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford University professor emeritus of education who focuses on college-readiness issues, saw the 12th grade NAEP scores as an encouraging sign that more students are building the skills necessary to succeed in postsecondary education. Mr. Kirst, who has examined the new math and reading frameworks in depth, said they are far more rigorous and demand skills much better matched to college than previous testing blueprints, so overall score gains of 2 and 3 points since 2005 are notable because they reflect progress on a tougher exam.

Also of interest, this release of 12th-grade NAEP scores was the first to include a state-by-state breakdown. But only 11 states volunteered to participate. Colorado was not among them.