Guess what! Just over a week ago I banged on a drum that may have started to hurt some of your ears by now. The drum is the madness of taxpayer-funded release time for Colorado teachers unions. And then (out of the blue?) yesterday the front page of the Denver Post shouts about “Colorado teachers unions under fire for taxpayer subsidies from school districts.” Thanks so much to reporter Karen Crummy not only for taking note of this issue my Education Policy Center friends have highlighted for years but also for doing lots of her own digging to tell a pretty disturbing story.

The Post’s findings about the number of districts paying tax dollars for union officers and other teachers to leave the classroom, and the lack of accountability for the practice, track very closely with the findings in Independence Institute papers from 2004 and 2010. That’s probably why Crummy saw fit to interview and quote one of my Education Policy Center friends:

“It’s bad enough that they pay for union release time at all, but to not even have a basic level of accountability, especially in these tighter budget times?” said Ben DeGrow, an education policy analyst at the Independence Institute who has advocated that schools change union leave policies. “It’s kind of appalling.”

Yes, you could say that, especially when the article identified more than $5.8 million in taxpayer subsidies to teachers unions over the past five years. But don’t worry, the state’s largest teachers union gave the Post an answer for that:

“This impacts student achievement. People don’t understand the value of our role in helping the district function,” said Beverly Ingle, president of the Colorado Education Association.

Wow. Taking days to go the CEA Assembly and elect officers and conduct business for a private organization impacts student achievement? Lobbying against educator effectiveness legislation impacts student achievement? Negotiating a new union contract with taxpayer-paid employees on the other side of the table impacts student achievement? Enlisting volunteers for partisan political campaigns impacts student achievement? I could go on….

But strangely enough, it’s the comment only paragraphs later in Crummy’s story by a local CEA official — from the only one of Colorado’s largest 20 school districts identified as not having any taxpayer-subsidized union leave — that sends the most stinging rebuke:

“The way we look at it is, ‘Why would the district pay us not to be in the classroom?’ ” said Jim Smyth, president of the Mesa Valley Education Association.

I am told that way back in 2003 a bill to outlaw taxpayer-subsidized union release time almost passed the legislature. Too bad it was almost. In these tough budget times, it might make a difference for a few teachers who are being laid off. If publicly-funded union perks aren’t on the chopping block now, then how can the cries of abject poverty be taken seriously?

Maybe, just maybe, the attention this time will make a difference for fiscal sanity and educational accountability.

Sometimes it’s easy for policy wonks like my friends in the Education Policy Center to focus on the abstract — the numbers and the philosophical debates. A story like Brundin’s, with interviews of students and parents, quickly reminds you that policy changes like expanded choice within DPS have ramifications sometimes not considered. Sure, it means various families have more educational options, but what does that look like in real life?

Choice can be empowering and liberating, but it’s also messy sometimes. The Public Radio story shines a light on the special distress that often accompanies the transition from elementary to middle school. (I’m not even close to being there yet, so don’t ask me what it’s all about.) Some families avoided the dilemma by enrolling students years before into one of the growing number of Colorado’s K-8 schools. But for those who need to make the transition, Denver now offers an unprecedented array of options — including, as the story points out, a (yucky) all-girls school.

Most interesting, though, is what Brundin captures about the process itself. She quotes one mom as saying:

When you have so many choices you start to feel almost like it’s your responsibility to have information and I think that’s the freak out is having the time to go and look through all the information on every school to make sure they’re getting the best they can get is hard. It’s a lot of responsibility.

I’m sure many parents can relate to this Denver mom. It’s valuable to note a few things, though. First is the fact that expanded choice helps to foster a greater sense of responsibility — and by extension, more direct family involvement in the educational experience, a healthy thing. Second, schools explicitly are finding ways to make themselves appealing to students and parents, including the thousands who showed up to the expo. Third, one source of information that helps to make things a little easier for parents is the fantastic School Choice for Kids website.

But then the reporter talked to a father and son newly moved from Baltimore. In this situation Denver comes across as a beacon of educational opportunity. While some parents seem stressed by the abundance of choices before them, Brundin concludes her story by noting what the plethora of options means to the newcomers:

So while the parents around them are freaking out, Craig and Marquise Williams seem calm, content with too many choices, rather than none at all.

The power of educational choice in real life. Chaotic, yes? But simply beautiful, too.

Am I surprised? No. Let me repeat what I’ve said many times: Full-time online education is by no means the best option for all students, or even most students. But it works very well for many families who have chosen the learning option. Which some might have a hard time understanding if you believe the straw man presented by an opponent in the Post story:

“Kindergarten kids learning in front of a monitor — that’s just wrong,” said Maryelen Calderwood, an elected school committee member in Greenfield, Mass., who unsuccessfully tried to stop K12 from contracting with her community to create New England’s first virtual public school last year. “It’s absolutely astounding how people can accept this so easily.”

Well, if the idea people carry around in their head is of a 5-year-old sitting in front of a computer screen all day, then it would be astounding for people to be so accepting of online education. But simply put, that’s a caricature. For a better picture of what an online student’s day looks like, listen to this 10-minute iVoices podcast interview with three students from the Colorado Virtual Academy. While some lessons (though less for younger students) as well as the assessments and teacher interactions are on the computer, cyberschool also includes real textbooks, science kits, art supplies, and even field trips!

I’m not sure if the person quoted in this story really believes in the caricature or not. The way her quote is worded makes it oh so unclear. She could read later on in the Post story and also get a good idea. But I’m guessing she might disapprove of a 5-year-old blogging. (Note: I don’t spend anywhere near the whole day in front of the computer, though sometimes that’s the case for some of my Education Policy Center friends.)

Instead of rushing to implement harsh responses rooted in oversimplified misunderstandings of what online education is and is not, let’s look at making smart policy changes that bring education into the 21st century. There needs to be room for families to choose a quality full-time online option, as well as room for students to blend their education with customized online course opportunities.

Some knotty (not naughty) questions remain as the innovative online sector experiences some growing pains, but some really have gone overboard in seeking to use blunt instruments to bash virtual learning opportunities — or at least their straw-woven facsimiles. While I may be perpetually young, I wasn’t born yesterday.

In a radical rethinking of what it means to go to school, states and districts nationwide are launching online public schools that let students from kindergarten to 12th grade take some—or all—of their classes from their bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens. Other states and districts are bringing students into brick-and-mortar schools for instruction that is largely computer-based and self-directed.

The first sentence talks about full-time online education, something that Colorado has had going for more than a decade. (You didn’t hear it from me, but a helpful new report on this topic from my Education Policy Center friends may be coming soon.) About 2 percent of our state’s K-12 public school students are enrolled in a full-time online program, and the number has been rising significantly in recent years.

Recently, there has been some negative news about online schools that should generate some concern — concern about outdated policies that are stifling effective innovation in the digital realm, as well as concern that certain politicians will overreact and attack the online education option that works for many families. The case has been made eloquently in Pam Benigno’s Denver Post op-ed and in an informative podcast with the Innosight Institute’s Michael Horn.

The second part of the paragraph I cited concerns what is commonly known as “blended learning” — which you can read about (again) from the Innosight Institute, or watch a feature about one of its most stellar examples: Arizona’s Carpe Diem charter school. There is significant potential for growth in this area in Colorado, provided the policies are in place and innovative entrepreneurship is given room to serve students.

Elsewhere, the Journal article mentions the high-performing hybrid model of Rocketship Education, which I first told you about more than a year and a half ago. Talk about a little edublogger ahead of his time! Speaking of which, Larry Sand also brings up Rocketship in his new City Journal column on “Disrupting Class.”

Sand writes about how online and blended learning, which continue to grow quickly, have tremendous potential to dramatically change the education system as we know it. The Journal article quotes the president of the National Education Association as saying “his organization opposes full-time online schools but supports integrating virtual lessons into classrooms.” Sand dissects the opposition in his piece, noting it’s not just the full-time variety of cyberschooling that has unions :

The blended-learning approach has attracted a great deal of interest from foundations and think tanks. Its appeal is obvious: students would potentially achieve more with the help of technology and fewer classroom teachers. No wonder the unions are terrified.

Union leaders use scary rhetoric, saying digital learning replaces teachers with technology to make parents think that any program outside their sphere of control will just be a computer babysitting kids. What we’re really talking about, though, is the power of technology to expand the reach of an effective teacher, to make for more productive uses of time and resources. That very well could mean fewer instructors on the big scale. But we have to remember: education is first and foremost about ensuring students learn and grow, not about maintaining and protecting jobs.

• 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.

It’s actually the 43rd Phi Delta Kappa poll of American opinion on the public schools. Who has time to actually read it these days? Maybe you do, but instead I’ll just point you to some highlights brought out by more astute commentators:

• Writing on his Education Week blog, Rick Hess notes a promising response on teacher effectiveness vs. class size, while bringing attention to Americans’ increasingly polarized views about teacher unions
• Edspresso calls some of the results into question because it “lacks much needed context” that could better inform respondents’ answers about issues such as online learning and school choice
• Adam Emerson at redefinED has his own justified critique, observing that the wording of the question on vouchers suppressed favorable responses — quite a contrast to the Education Next survey released a couple weeks ago
• Alexander Russo summarizes a USA Today story that documents the phenomenon of more Americans loving their local schools while being down on the American public education in general

There. Pointing you to the revealing insights of other well-informed education observers rather than taking extra time to pore over the pages of the survey itself. That’s Pretty Darn Klever, don’t you think?

The statewide teachers union has sued the Colorado Board of Education over new rules requiring the public disclosure of teacher arrests.

The board passed the new rules this spring at the prompting of Fort Collins resident and board chairman Bob Schaffer.

The first attempt to establish the rule was shot down by a 4-3 vote in May 2010. The State Board went back to the drawing table to address concerns and complications, but the teachers union remained fundamentally opposed:

Marti Houser, general counsel of the Colorado Education Association, said, “Our concerns relate to the constitutional and statutory rights of our members, not that we don’t care about the children. … If we are moving to a process … of reporting every arrest, that would be very unfortunate [and] a huge burden for the Department of Education.

“There aren’t very many educators being arrested … very, very few are convicted or plead guilty” to crimes, she added.

A “huge burden” for a small number of teachers? Schaffer’s crusade to enact the change was provoked by 2009 coverage of two Poudre School District teachers who had been arrested. Parents were never notified. Both teachers ended up with convictions for different kinds of crimes that involved harming children. Part of the “very, very few” perhaps. But the public’s (and especially the parents’) right to know is a very important factor in this equation.

So this past April the State Board unanimously approved the new rule — which went into effect at the end of May. As Ed News Colorado noted:

The new rule, named 1 CCR 301-87 in administrative jargon, contains no enforcement or reporting requirements so districts essentially will be on the honor system in using it.

Apparently, CEA is concerned that enough districts would do the honorable thing. So now the Colorado State Board of Education has another lawsuit on its hands. That almost certainly means they’ve been doing the right thing.

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:

According to district data, 74 of Harrison’s 820 teachers performed at the “distinguished” level during the 2009-2010 school year; 89 percent of that elite group returned to their jobs. A total of 103 tenured teachers received either an “unsatisfactory” or “progressing” evaluation score, a third of whom resigned or were dismissed.

Since Miles became superintendent, Harrison’s scores on state exams in math, reading, and writing have steadily increased. In reading, for example, 54 percent of Harrison students were proficient in 2005, compared to 61 percent in 2010….

At least one response to Goldstein’s article was priceless. Yesterday, the Fordham Institute’s Mike Petrilli chimed in on Twitter with a link and friendly jibe:

A few minutes later the article’s author responded:

Yes, many of us in Colorado do regard Superintendent Miles as a reform hero. But even he acknowledges that much hard work remains to keep improving the system they have put in place. If you want to learn more about Harrison’s Effectiveness and Results pay plan, along with other Colorado K-12 compensation innovations, please check out my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s new issue paper.

And if you enjoyed that Twitter exchange replay — whether you’re on the micro-blogging site yourself or not — I invite you to follow me on Twitter, too. Why? Because many days I’m posting links and quick comments there that never get posted here:

See what I mean? You can Tweet with me about that, about whether you think Mike Miles is a reform hero, or about a thousand other education topics. Come on, it’s almost as fun as getting a new set of Legos….

Well, a conversation of that report in the context of teacher pay reform research shows up in a newly released issue paper from my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow, titled Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform: K-12 Educator Pay Innovation in Colorado. The focus of the new paper is on Colorado’s significant number of local school districts and charter schools improving their teacher pay systems by moving rewards and incentives away from seniority toward measured performance.

The star of the group? If I had to pick one, it definitely would be Harrison School District 2 for its Effectiveness and Results (E and R) program — currently in its first full year of operation. Harrison’s program definitely is not an MPINO (as coined by Stuart Buck and Jay Greene). It will be very interesting to see the results it yields. Other school leaders should be paying close attention.

Unlike Harrison’s E and R program, the Nashville experiment was not true performance pay. I didn’t expect the results to be terribly successful or profound, but splashing its findings on the front page has led some readers to draw confused or misguided conclusions about K-12 compensation reform. Now, thanks to the keen eye of the National Council on Teacher Quality, we see that the U.S. Department of Education has rated the Nashville study as “does not meet…evidence standards.”

While I wouldn’t expect the Denver Post to highlight the Department’s critique on the front page, some short follow-up piece would appear to be in order — seeing as so much attention was given to the report back in September. Maybe such a follow-up could highlight what Harrison is doing in contrast, or even mention the new Education Policy Center report. Hey, I’m young. I can dream, can’t I?

What did I find, but two (not just one) very interesting pieces on K-12 education in our state — things I have told you about before right here on the blog. How exciting is that!

1. A lady named Megan Nix visited the Thomas MacLaren School in Colorado Springs to share with readers how “old school” is the “future” — for those of you keeping track, MacLaren was one of the new Colorado schools I highlighted way back in August 2009, noted for its classical education curriculum (Denise at Colorado Charters also reported on the charter school’s ribbon cutting ceremony)
2. Former education commissioner Dr. William Moloney also provided guest commentary arguing that Colorado certainly can afford a modest increase in class sizes as an effective approach to K-12 education in an unusual time of budget cuts — based on a report Moloney recently published with the Centennial Institute that I brought your attention to a couple months ago (the theme of the ineffectiveness of class size reductions is one I’ve also covered)

I’ll have to take a closer look at the Sunday Post from now on, and expand my horizons beyond the “funny papers.” At least this week, the opinions I read were serious… and interesting… and worthy of careful consideration.