About four weeks ago I raised the question about Falcon School District 49’s school buses at the State Capitol stunt: Are they serious about tough decisions ahead? Well, in a story reported this week by the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Kristina Iodice, the answer appears to be Yes:

A staffing plan that eliminates 143 jobs, including teaching positions, in Falcon School District 49 was approved Wednesday by the school board.

Board members also voted to reinstate the Transportation Department as fee-for-service operation with no budget other than the money necessary to bus special education students. That vote caused the crowd at Falcon High School to erupt in applause.

After that cheerful moment, Chief Education Officer Becky Carter delivered her staffing plan, which was approved but not released Wednesday. It eliminated 108 positions in schools; 16 in learning and pupil services; 10 in special education; six in facility maintenance, and three 3 in other/administration.

Of course, Falcon 49 is the 15,000-student school district in the Pikes Peak region that’s pursuing innovation district status. The school board set the budget parameters for each of the four zones of innovation and left specific decisions on staffing positions (except for proposed cuts at the shrinking central administration level) up to the building principals and zone leaders. Continue Reading »

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Here we are waist-deep into Colorado’s legislative session (at least I’m waist-deep, most big people are probably more like knee-deep). Pretty soon I may not be able to see the forest for the legislative bills. But there’s one policy idea from more than 1,000 miles away that has my attention right now. A few days ago Education Week reported that Georgia lawmakers have introduced a “parent trigger” bill (SB 68).

“Trigger?” I hear you say. “Whoaaaa, horsey!” (Some of you old-timers might get that one.)

Calm down. Don’t get your saddle in a bunch. The bill doesn’t have anything to do with guns or Second Amendment issues, or you might see the Independence Institute’s Dave Kopel writing about this rather than yours truly. The good folks at the Heartland Institute, who have widely promoted the parent trigger concept, explain it well: Continue Reading »

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Yesterday the superintendent of one of Colorado’s smallest school districts came before the State Board of Education. Kit Carson R-1’s Gerald Keefe was there to answer questions about his district’s innovation proposal. This wouldn’t surprise you at all if you listened to one of the newest podcasts produced by my Education Policy Center friends, in which Keefe explains why he believes his rural district should be set free from some state and federal teacher policies.

I doubt the proposal will breeze through, and some details may need to be worked out. As reported in Ed News Colorado, Kit Carson’s superintendent caught some preliminary pushback from one State Board member:

Angelika Schroeder, D-2nd District, said, “I haven’t heard the innovation” in the plan. She suggested Kit Carson should help pilot implementation of SB 10-191.

Continue Reading »

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So what does my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s brand new op-ed in the Colorado Springs Gazette have to do with President Obama’s State of the Union address last night? Piqued your curiosity at all? Maybe just a tad?

A couple weeks ago I told you about what’s going on in Falcon School District 49 near Colorado Springs, and the beginnings of their creative attempt to restructure the school district. Well, the Falcon board voted to move forward with the innovation plan — a decision Ben lauds and highlights in his Gazette op-ed.

You can find out more about Falcon’s innovation plan by listening to an iVoices podcast with school board member Chris Wright, or by visiting a new page created on the district’s website. A main tenet of the plan is moving greater autonomy from the central administrative office to the schools in the different innovation zones. To get there, the district plans to request Innovation status from the State Board of Education — a step empowered by the creation of Colorado’s 2008 Innovation Schools Act.

But what was the genesis of the groundbreaking piece of legislation? A high-need school with a bold principal (Kristin Waters, now helping to lead DPS superintendent Tom Boasberg’s efforts on innovation and reform) and dedicated teachers seeking freedom from state and local regulations to serve their students more effectively. Yes, I’m talking about the Bruce Randolph School — a 6th-to-12th grade school that President Obama highlighted by name as a success story during last night’s State of the Union address. Continue Reading »

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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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This is not the week for your average, run-of-the-mill, humdrum school board meeting. Not in Colorado, not in the Denver metro area. I already highlighted the heavy attendance at Douglas County’s Tuesday public testimony on their School Choice Task Force proposals and all the attention generated from it.

Then there was last night in the Denver Public Schools, as a divided Board of Education was set to weigh a controversial turnaround reform proposal affecting the Far Northeast (FNE) part of the city. According to Jeremy Meyer in the Denver Post, the Board stayed up well past my bedtime to approve the proposal on a 4-3 vote.

The newly-approved proposal includes a lot of features — which are well broken down in Nancy Mitchell’s Ed News Colorado story. One piece is an expansion of the successful Denver School of Science and Technology program using shared space in the Cole Arts and Science Academy innovation school. My Education Policy Center friends alerted you to this possible development back in March on an iVoices podcast with Cole principal Julie Murgel.

In its story, Ed News Colorado also published a 4-minute highlight video from the Denver school board meeting, a more balanced presentation than the 5-minute video from Douglas County two days ago. Was this proposal the right path for Denver’s school reformers to pursue? Given the low performance of the FNE schools being turned over and some strategies included in the plan, there is at least some real hope of success. Stay tuned.

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Seeing as it’s Friday, rather than laying on the analysis really thick or going off on one of my infamous tangents, I wanted to make sure you saw a long but very interesting article that came out this week. In the September edition of Denver’s 5280 Magazine is a feature by Robert Sanchez titled “The Education of Ms. Barsallo” — which highlights on a very personal level the challenges and rewards of a first-year teacher in a high-poverty public school.

The reason why I decided to give the article some special attention? Ms. Barsallo taught last year at Cole Arts and Science Academy, an Innovation School in Denver that my Education Policy Center friends had the privilege of visiting last November. So I guess you could say it has somewhat of a special place in their hearts.

But anyway, please go ahead and read Ms. Barsallo’s story in 5280 Magazine. It may pull at your heartstrings, and it also may provoke you to think a little more deeply about urban education reform. Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Colorado has been a national leader in public school choice. One of the small facets of that choice is the Innovation School concept pioneered by a 2008 state law. These public schools or school districts can seek waivers from some state laws to have more flexibility in program and/or personnel policies.

Up till now, the handful of schools that have sought and received Innovation School status are all located in Denver, designed to serve challenging urban student populations. But in the 2008 law’s own pioneer spirit, the tiny rural Kit Carson School District on the Eastern Plains is changing the trend.

On the newest iVoices podcast (click here to listen to the MP3 in another window), Kit Carson superintendent Gerald Keefe talks about his district’s Innovation waiver proposal to be brought before the State Board of Education in coming months. Rather than wait for the groundbreaking new SB 191 to go into effect, Kit Carson has some ideas of its own how to implement a more performance-based teacher evaluation and dismissal system.

In any case, it’s good to be reminded that innovation comes in all shapes and sizes — and population densities.

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From time to time, it’s worthwhile to look outside the borders of our United States to glean some valuable lessons about school reform. Rick Hess — one of the more thoughtful education policy gurus out there — recently returned from a two-week trip to Georgia and shared his thoughts.

So some of you are thinking… Georgia? A different country? Maybe like 150 years ago or something.

Wrong Georgia. We’re talking halfway around the world, not just across the continent. Anyway, Hess notes the heavy emphasis on reform in the former Soviet republic in what he calls the “land of the libertarians”: Continue Reading »

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While we certainly have our challenges and plenty of room to grow, Colorado is a state blessed with a healthy variety of public school choice. Among the growing number of options are innovation schools, made possible by a bipartisan 2008 state law.

Colorado was the first state to implement innovation schools — something I have written about numerous times here. The idea is to provide greater freedom from burdensome state regulations, district policies and collective bargaining provisions by allowing individual schools to formulate proposals that give them greater autonomy and flexibility over decisions surrounding personnel, program and budget.

Of course, even the best education reform ideas encounter problems being put into action. As Education News Colorado reported last week, Colorado’s first three innovation schools (all based in the city of Denver — Manual High School, Montclair Elementary, & Cole Arts and Science Academy) have sought and received a formal legal opinion that school district officials are violating the Innovation Schools Act by refusing to relinquish control over key areas of budget and personnel. Continue Reading »

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