I’m pretty smart for a 5-year-old. But sometimes I wander into a topic that’s just over my head. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it’s probably just best if I let the big people talk about it themselves.

My friends in the Education Policy Center released a new Issue Paper today, called Deferred Retirement Compensation for Career K-12 Employees: Understanding the Need for Reform (PDF). It was researched and written by Dr. Michael Mannino from the University of Colorado Denver.

Rather than try to explain the paper myself, here’s the summary from the Independence Institute website:

To improve understanding of public K-12 retirement compensation, this Issue Paper provides historical estimates using a substantial sample of retiree characteristics and salary histories. Deferred retirement compensation from a hybrid defined benefit plan is defined as the difference between an employee’s estimated retirement account balance and the greater pension value she expects to receive. When accounting for K-12 employee compensation, large amounts of deferred compensation should be included. For the 846 Denver Public Schools retirees in the sample, average lump sum deferred compensation is $627,570.

Wow, it would take a lot of piggy banks to put that much money in. But I think I get it a little bit now. One of the main points is we could definitely do a much better job of how we pay our teachers, principals, and the other people who work in our public schools. The current system isn’t cutting it, at least not in the best interest of students like me who our schools are supposed to serve.

If you don’t have time to read the report, or you have read it and need some clarification, you really ought to listen to this podcast conversation with Dr. Mannino:

The author has some good, reasonable recommendations to make. Isn’t there a way we can fix this?

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By lobbying for an overhaul of tax-and-spending measures in the state constitution, the education establishment groups that came together to form Believe in a Better Colorado are barking up the wrong tree. Or at least they have put the cart before the horse. Pick your favorite overused cliche.

Until we fix the way schools are funded, it’s a futile effort. That’s why my friends in the Education Policy Center recommend a careful look at Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools from the Center for Reinventing Public Education. Co-authors include Paul Hill and Marguerite Roza, two of the sharpest minds to study the current school system and what could work better.

Here is a key excerpt from the report explaining the problem:

Overall, we have a system in which so much is controlled by decisions made in the past, sometimes for reasons and on behalf of people who are no longer in the system, and at such a distance from schools, that educators have scant flexibility to adapt to the needs of here and now. Teachers and principals, the people whose work the whole system is supposed to support, get complexity and constraint rather than help. In the meantime, the costs of everything are hidden, and people who would like to make trade-offs in pursuit of more effective schools cannot do so.

Our school finance system has:

• a lot of money in it;
• considerable diversity in how much is spent, per state and per district;
• great complexity in terms of the financial interactions between states and localities and the federal government;
• patterns of inequitable distribution of state and local funds;
• federal programs that only partly compensate for inequities in state and local fund distribution;
• course funding practices that provide higher-paid teachers and smaller classes for students in elective classes; and
• complex expenditure patterns at the local level that cannot readily be tied to student outcomes.

Let’s talk about new and effective ways to revamp Colorado’s school finance system that address these issues. If you’re serious about the topic and want to learn more of the how as well as the why and wherefore, please read the entire paper (PDF).

We need to fund students, not programs and bureaucratic mandates. And more flexibility is required for local schools to spend money innovatively and effectively while being held accountable for the results. This shouldn’t be too much to ask. Then I might be able to believe in a better Colorado.

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According to a report cited in the Los Angeles Times, 12 of the top-performing 15 schools in California that serve low-income students are charter schools (H/T Joanne Jacobs). Nearly all of them!

Number 1 on the list is the American Indian Public Charter run by the amazing Ben Chavis:

“These poor kids are doing well because we practice math and language arts,” [Chavis] said. “That’s it. It’s simple.”

He insisted that it is easier to teach poor students than more affluent ones because they are more motivated to succeed. “It’s the opposite of what everybody says,” he said. “It’s easier to do it with the poor kids and the minority kids because they have nothing, so they should be the highest.”

Asked why most educational researchers say the opposite, he said: “They’re liberal and lazy . . . and they see these kids as victims.”

Ben Chavis and his students are among the leading stars of the award-winning Flunked documentary. As you can imagine from his remarkable can-do attitude, Chavis has succeeded where the naysaying bureaucrats in the traditional education system have not.

Then you hear the ridiculous news that the school board in Memphis, Tennessee, has gone out of its way to reject a charter school proposal based on an existing, successful school (H/T Colorado Charters). It kind of makes me want to scream and pull my hair out.

Anyway, I’m proud to say Colorado has its own star charter schools that serve large amounts of poor students. I’m thinking of:

• Cesar Chavez Academy
• Denver School of Science and Technology
• West Denver Prep

Why can’t more schools imitate their success? I don’t know, but it sure is exciting to hear California is seeing some similar results.

What isn’t so exciting is being told that I can’t go to this big Founders’ Night party tonight where all my friends in the Education Policy Center are going. Bummer. They tell me I’d think it’s boring and that it goes on past my bedtime, but I’m not quite buying it.

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Rocky Mountain News guest columnist Robert Maranto - an endowed chair at the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform - makes some striking points about some politicians’ school choice hypocrisy. Especially about one very prominent politician in particular:

Candidate [Barack] Obama declares that “We need to fix & improve our public schools, not throw our hands up and walk away from them,” the way Barack and Michelle Obama have with their own children. Candidate Obama’s official education program opposes private school choice, and only under pressure gave a very qualified endorsement to public charter schools.

Instead of letting parents choose, Obama emphasizes bureaucratic programs like teacher certification. Supporters of traditional teacher certification programs, like Obama education adviser Linda Darling Hammond, want all public school teachers to be certified. They argue that no one wants children to be operated on by uncertified doctors, so why should they be taught by uncertified teachers?

Yet unlike medical certification, there is precious little evidence that teacher certification works. Those same rich people who would never send their children to unlicensed doctors choose to pay big bucks to have those same children taught by unlicensed teachers.

Just look at Sen. Obama and other recent presidential candidates.

Sen. Obama’s family chose to send him to Hawaii’s elite Punahou School, which does not even consider certification when hiring new teachers. (I asked their personnel office.) Barack and Michelle Obama themselves rejected Chicago’s notoriously poor public schools, which are staffed by certified teachers, to send their daughters to the much storied Laboratory (”Lab”) School. When asked whether she hires certified teachers, the Lab School’s personnel director said “we do not look at that; it doesn’t make any difference.”

Need an explanation? Insisting that teachers pass through a state certification system is front and center in the National Education Association’s agenda. The benefits for students from this policy are essentially zero. But it gives NEA greater control. NEA also opposes school choice, for the same reason: it threatens their monopoly status. Who cares whether it benefits students or not?

Barack Obama the candidate has no reason to irk a powerful lobbying group that has endorsed and supported his campaign. During the last presidential debate, Obama made the dubious claim that evidence “doesn’t show that [private school choice] actually solves the problem.”

But Barack Obama the parent knows better than to trust the NEA talking points. And he’s not skeptical enough about the data to put his own kids in private schools.

As Robert Maranto points out in his Rocky article, all the recent major Presidential candidates have been products of private school education. And many send their children to private schools. Then why is it so hard for some to support school choice for students whom it really could help?

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Like other public schools, charter schools can fail, too. The advantage is it’s generally easier to shut charters down or to reconstitute them in a way that better ensures success. The Denver Post has a story today about giving just such a second chance:

An embattled Denver charter school has a new name and a new agreement with Denver Public Schools after a vote by the school board Thursday.

The former Challenges, Choices and Images charter school for kindergartners through 12th-graders is now Amandla Academy — named after the Zulu word for strength.

The school voluntarily terminated its charter contract with the district, effectively severing the district and the current school leaders from any financial liabilities incurred by CCI.

“This was all legal stuff to get the new school to go forward without being encumbered,” said Russell Caldwell, senior vice president at the brokerage firm D.A. Davidson. “The good news is DPS financially and legally acted very prudently to allow the new charter to have conditions in which it will grow and flourish.”

The agreement turns the K-12 school of 600 students into a contract school through June 30, and Amandla officials plan to submit an application to become a charter school before the contract runs out.

What exactly are contract schools? Funny you should ask. Because Marya DeGrow, one of my friends in the Education Policy Center, wrote an Issue Paper three years ago titled Contract Schools Bring Innovative Choices to Denver Public Schools (PDF). A “contract school” is defined in the School Choice for Kids glossary as:

A tuition-free independent school that is not operated by the school district. The school’s operator signs a contract with the local Board of Education to provide an educational program. Contract schools are not under charter school law.

In any case, I certainly hope the school formerly known as CCI has gotten its act together, after some fairly serious problems reported with the leadership and culture of the school. The school can live out its focus on ancient African principles - such as propriety, order, truth, and purpose. For the sake of the kids who benefit from the unique program offered at CCI/Amandla, a second chance like this ought not be wasted or taken for granted in the least.

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What does it take to attract teachers to serve in the more challenging school environments? Part of Denver’s ProComp program rewards teachers who work at hard-to-serve schools with a $2,345 bonus this year.

While the extra money definitely plays a part in providing incentives to some, there are other factors that help attract teachers to challenging environments they might not otherwise choose. As Ed News Colorado reports about a new study:

Augenblick, Palaich and Associates surveyed teachers and principals at 16 relatively high-performing public schools – some charters, some district schools – in six cities coast-to-coast. The study, undertaken in collaboration with district and union leaders from Aurora, Denver and Jefferson County public schools, was funded by Denver’s Rose Community Foundation.

The study participants were overwhelmingly from elementary schools, so people reviewing results should keep that in mind, researchers stressed.

Dale DeCesare, one of the study’s authors, said he was surprised by the emphasis teachers placed on the effective use of technology. Overall, availability of technology ranked as the third most important factor in creating positive working conditions.

As someone surfing the Internet and reading an education blog, you must have some appreciation for the value of technology. The article goes on to explain how teachers value the power of technology in helping them to collaborate effectively and to connect with students in new and interesting ways. The explanation comes with the necessary caution that readers should avoid “jumping to the conclusion that more technology equals better results.” Technology can enhance good teaching, but it cannot substitute for bad teaching.

Other factors that teachers found to be important? More planning time (including group planning time); effective instructional leadership; flexibility from district and union work rules; and strategic interventions for struggling students.

Next what we need is a study to show how much each of these factors contributes to improving student achievement.

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I hope that I get smarter as I go through school some day. Likewise, despite its success with advancing school choice and accountability so far, Colorado also needs to Get Smart(er) about education reform. At least that’s the premise behind a new group called Get Smart Schools Colorado.

As the Rocky Mountain News reports:

The idea behind Get Smart Schools is similar to school initiatives in Chicago and New York - one group pooling expertise and funding to help promising new school models get off the ground.

That’s because research shows it’s typically more effective to start good new schools than it is to transform existing schools that are failing.

In Colorado, the focus will be on importing quality school models that have been successful elsewhere and on helping promising new schools find facilities, an obstacle for many.

Believe it or not, this sort of group really is needed. We know the importance of smaller schools, autonomy (big word!), strong leadership, high-quality instruction, research-based curricula, parental involvement (i.e., choice), and focus on student improvement. But with an experienced and qualified staff of its own, a group like Get Smart Schools Colorado can show new schools how to get it done and succeed without being bogged down by the well-meaning but counterproductive bureaucracy.
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Today’s post is the first in a series on new charter or option schools opening up in Colorado this year. I’m out there keeping an eye on developments in the world of education that are important to parents. This definitely includes knowing about specific new options that may happen to be in your area or the area of someone you know, with a child who might fit well into the school’s environment.

Our first featured school is The Imagine Classical Academy at Indigo Ranch - located in the Falcon School District on the east side of Colorado Springs. The Academy is scheduled to open its doors for the upcoming 2008-09 school year. A temporary facility (pictured at right) will be used for the first year, while the permanent site is under construction.

Catering to students in kindergarten through 6th grade in its first year, the Academy will a use the Core Knowledge curriculum, and has school uniform requirements. Check out the school’s website for access to much more information on enrollment, program, staff, and more.

The Academy is the first of two schools being opened by principal and charter school developer Tina Leone, under an operating agreement with the national non-profit Imagine Schools.

For information on all your education options in Colorado, don’t forget to check out School Choice For Kids.

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My parents and my friends at the Education Policy Center say that school is a place for learning what I need to be successful some day, and that includes hearing both sides of an argument. It’s kind of scary then to see that some schools are busy indoctrinating kids.

As the Heartland Institute points out, the British High Court ruled that due to at least 11 scientific errors contained in Al Gore’s feature-length movie An Inconvenient Truth, schools who show the movie to students in class must balance the presentation with contradictory evidence.

In Colorado, our Governor Bill Ritter has made it clear he wants all K-12 students “to understand the science of climate change.” Yet as more students are exposed to this topic, it is important they receive a balanced presentation and not an uncritical indoctrination from Al Gore’s movie.

The British approach is to make a universal mandate for all their classrooms. But in Colorado, we value local control. One way then to ensure your public school student is not being indoctrinated in climate change hysteria or anything else is to petition the local school board or your school principal. Of course, school leaders are more likely to listen to the concerns of students and parents where they have the power of choice and can use their feet to find someplace that doesn’t indoctrinate.

An important tool helping parents to become good education consumers is our School Choice for Kids website - search to find the right school near you! As for me, I’ve still got a lot of time before school begins again. I’m going to go enjoy it.

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