Any large-scale effort at serious reform or innovation in K-12 education eventually leads to the vexing question of what to do about teacher preparation, ensuring there are enough effective instructors available. The consensus is fairly widespread that broadly speaking, today’s schools of education just aren’t getting the job done.

Released this week, the National Council on Teacher Quality’s Teacher Prep Review has been a long time in coming. The large-scale analysis of more than 1,100 teacher prep programs, in painting a bleak picture, has stirred up lots of debate and discussion. Here follow some of the highlights: Continue Reading »

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A few days ago I told you about the national attention attracted to Douglas County School District’s market-based pay system. That was before Choice Media highlighted the story on its Ed Reform Minute, or the Education Intelligence Agency’s Mike Antonucci linked to the Reuters story with the quip:

In Douglas County, Colorado, they are actually going to offer more pay to attract teachers in shortage areas, thus becoming the first school district to enact the law of supply and demand.

Supply and demand? Whoa, how radical for K-12 education! First, let me assure you there is no known threat of economists taking over schools. Put those conspiracy flowcharts away. Douglas County’s fluid system assigns new teacher hires to one of five different salary bands, based on which of 70 teaching job descriptions for which they have applied. Both middle school and high school social studies instructors (who presumably cover economics in class) fall in the lower two pay bands.

For some, however, like displaced union president Brenda Smith, a basic principle of economics is just a passing fad for the world of education: Continue Reading »

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Without a doubt, it’s easy for us Education Transformers to get impatient at the pace of progress, and that’s when any positive change appears to be taking place at all. Some days it just seems easier to put your head down on the desk and daydream, or maybe go count your pennies to see how much more you need to buy the new set of Legos.

Today offers a somewhat subtle example, but a very important one nonetheless. Douglas County School District’s innovative work of adopting market-based pay, recognizing the economic realities of supply and demand for different teaching specialties, got a national write-up by Reuters’ Stephanie Simon. I’m already tuned into what’s going on in Colorado’s third-largest district, so more than the information itself, it was this reaction that caught my eye:

“It’s quite novel,” said Eric Hanushek, an education economist at Stanford University.

That would be the same Eric Hanushek who is rated as the third-most influential “Edu-Scholar” in the country. And what’s his honest reaction? Dougco’s work in this area is “quite novel.” Former Education Secretary William Bennett would list market-based pay among “all of the good reforms” Dougco uniquely has taken on. I just prefer to call it one of a kind. Continue Reading »

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Yesterday I took a glance back at how Colorado’s charter school law came to be, a truly fascinating story that’s worth the time to check out. To keep the history kick going, today I’m turning my attention to an Ed News Colorado story by Todd Engdahl about Colorado voters’ “habit” of rejecting education tax increases.

Behavioral patterns connected with exercising a little self-restraint are usually deemed to be good habits. Raising taxes is anything but an effective solution for a education system that isn’t exactly built to be productive. A key problem with the current billion-dollar tax initiative is that it’s not tied to nearly enough substantive reform to give voters confidence that the money will yield significantly positive results. Continue Reading »

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Just a short one today. Because it all has to do with things that happened in the way-back long ago dark ages of 1993 (before my time), I defer to my Education Policy Center friends. What better place to start than today’s Denver Post column by Vincent Carroll, who writes about when the good guys in education reform prevailed.

Twenty years ago on Monday, then-Gov. Roy Romer signed into law Colorado’s Charter Schools Act, the third of its kind in the country. Carroll captures the essence of it well and, importantly, also points readers to a great new Independence Institute non-fiction story: Continue Reading »

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Douglas County School District continues to move forward with major system changes that recognize and reward performance in meaningful ways. And the press continues to pump up the controversy while leaving factual disputes unresolved. Today’s Denver Post turns attention to a DCSD elementary school where a principal misapplied the new employee evaluation standards, creating a false impression of how many teachers rate “highly effective.”

I already provided some clarification to that story, when it still only graced the pages of local newsprint. But the Post story includes an observation about a different Dougco elementary school that bears a closer look:

Parents at Saddle Ranch Elementary held a rally Thursday in support of the school’s teachers after they heard that about 18 of the campus’ 35 teachers were leaving the district. They said none of the teachers at the school were given a highly effective rating, and they believe those teachers are not being valued.

District officials would not comment on teacher ratings at the school, and said only eight teachers, including three retirees, have officially said they are leaving. [emphases added]

Continue Reading »

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It’s Friday! Which means it must be time to provide some more clarity on the bold innovations taking place in Douglas County. Today provides a great opportunity to highlight a fairly balanced 9News story, making sure to emphasize and elaborate on some key points and add one or two others that may have been left out for sake of time.

The premise of the report is an unusually high number of teachers leaving DCSD’s Chaparral High School. Two teachers and union members — including one who served on DCFT’s 2012 negotiation team — say they are departing for greener pastures because of an “adversarial” relationship with the central administration, particularly related to the development of a teacher evaluation system:

“Teachers were not a part of the process. We did not collaborate. We were not a part of the conversation of what was going to be included in it,” [Chaparral teacher and DCFT negotiator Carlye] Holladay said.

The first issue to address is the entire perception that Chaparral is representative of some massive teacher walkout. The 9News story showed a slide of district figures that indicate teacher turnover is only up ever so slightly, in line with last year’s numbers. Given the scope of changes, that’s rather remarkable. But the next slide in the presentation also tells more of the story: Continue Reading »

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When is it okay to be disruptive in class? Most teachers rightly would frown on the idea of little whelps like me acting out or speaking out of turn when a lecture or other class instructional activity is taking place. But disruptive innovation via the blended learning strategy is an entirely different matter. I’m talking about the future!

In recent weeks I’ve introduced you to an innovative idea to provide oversight of expanded access to digital learning opportunities in Colorado, explained why the school finance tax proposal coming to a ballot near you missed the chance to break out of the 20th century, and highlighted how blended learning models can benefit teachers. But as usual, the good folks at the Clayton Christensen (formerly known as Innosight) Institute now have me thinking even a little more deeply how technology, policy, and practice very well could merge to transform the way learning takes place.

Hats off to Christensen, Michael Horn, and Heather Staker for their new paper, Is K-12 blended learning disruptive? An introduction to the theory of hybrids. And I’m not talking about cars that can run on different types of energy. The authors make an interesting case for two different kinds of blended learning models, based on their potential to foster long-term change: Continue Reading »

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Apologies to all if I seem a little off-kilter today. You see, it’s finally sunk in that for the first time I can remember, there is a world of Colorado education without a Lobato funding adequacy lawsuit. A few months ago, as the two sides argued their respective cases before the state Supreme Court justices, I remarked how we need school finance reform, not a constitutional crisis. And yesterday’s ruling gives us that helpful reprieve.

I can understand, no doubt, why emotions are running high for some plaintiffs who expended so much time and energy fighting to sway the judges into ordering more education funds from the state tax coffers. (Then again, there’s not so much sympathy for the school boards that voted to spend taxpayer dollars suing for more tax dollars and forcing the state to spend money to defend the case. How many of these school districts contributed funds, and how much?)

As Professor Joshua Dunn noted in a radio conversation yesterday, one can only wonder what sort of success the Lobato plaintiff team might have had instead spending the past 8 years focused on improving education without expecting the judiciary to give perceived solutions to authentic problems. I use the word “perceived” for a reason. Continue Reading »

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Update, 5/28: I took off for the long holiday weekend, and came back to learn that Our Colorado News had updated the article on the Trailblazer teacher evaluation controversy, addressing some of the shortcomings I identified. I’d like to thank them for making an effort to improve the story.

If you can’t stifle dramatic local innovation at the legislature, there’s always the route of misleading newspaper articles. When it comes to the bold transformational changes going on in Douglas County, and the overheated political opposition that goes along for the ride, you almost have to expect it.

The local journalists at Our Colorado News have picked up the slack, publishing a story rife with relevant omissions to try to convey a conveniently crafted political message:

Trailblazer Elementary School Principal Linda Schneider says 70 percent of her teachers are “highly effective” under the Douglas County School District’s new evaluation system.

The district questions that finding, and is summoning all the school’s teachers for a second, independent review….

District-wide, about 15 percent of teachers are rated “highly effective,” according to information provided by DCSD.

Under the evaluations, each teacher is assigned a rating ranging from “highly effective” to “ineffective” that is tied to pay increases. “Highly effectives” could get a substantial raise, while “ineffectives” likely won’t see increases.

Continue Reading »

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