Colorado has developed good policy for dismissing unqualified teachers, but not for increasing the pool of well-prepared teachers entering the workforce, according to a report out today.

The National Council on Teacher Quality, a national nonprofit, released the report today grading every state’s teacher policy. Colorado averaged a C letter grade, up from a D+ in 2009, but was ranked as No. 12 among the states making the most progress.

Yes, this is the same respected NCTQ I’ve talked about before regarding their study of teacher preparation programs. In fact, my Education Policy Center friends last year recorded an iVoices podcast with NCTQ’s Sandi Jacobs about the then-latest version of their State Teacher Policy Yearbook.

As reading the Post story might suggest, there are two distinct ways to take Colorado’s C grade in the area of teacher policy. One approach is to emphasize the fact it wasn’t graded on a curve. NCTQ correctly set a fairly high bar, so our Centennial State looks pretty good compared to most other states. Not only are we 12th in the amount of progress made in the past two years — Senate Bill 191, anyone? — but we are also 9th out of 51 (including D.C.) in the overall quality of the state’s teacher policies.

And with some good reason. While we aren’t in the elite B-range category (inhabited only by Florida, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Tennessee) and we didn’t make the most progress during the last two years (that would be Indiana), Colorado did earn the highest-possible “Best Practice” rating in the areas closing licensure loopholes and performing layoffs based on effectiveness rather than the old “LIFO” (last in, first out) rule. (Ahem, SB 191!) Our state also met the goal in four other areas:

• Alternate Route Usage and Providers;
• Evaluation of Effectiveness (SB 191… again);
• Tenure (based on effectiveness… you guessed it, SB 191); and
• (Remediation for teachers with) Unsatisfactory Evaluation (Can I get a 191, please?)

On the other hand, being 9th or 12th still isn’t good enough when you look at some of the significant weaknesses NCTQ has identified. As the Post story highlighted, Colorado hit the rock bottom rating for most of the teacher preparation goals — including elementary math, middle school, secondary, and student teaching. We also hit the lowest “does not meet” mark in the area of performance pay. While I appreciate NCTQ’s intent, and Colorado certainly hasn’t arrived, there are a number of local alternative compensation plans at work in the state’s school districts and charter schools.

On the issue of pay scales, NCTQ urges Colorado and many other states to take action by discouraging districts from tying compensation to earned degrees. Hmmm… Great idea! I’ve been on the anti-master’s bumps bandwagon with NCTQ for some time now. But there’s a good reason for that, too. The research overwhelmingly shows it has no effect on student learning. In a new piece for City Journal, Marcus Winters quantifies the value of all the major credentials educators can earn:

Research also shows that the credentials prized under the current system tell us next to nothing about how well a teacher performs in the classroom—and they explain only about 3 percent of the variation in teacher quality. Obtaining a master’s degree, it turns out, is simply unrelated to a teacher’s effectiveness….

I could go on, but hopefully you got the point. While some in Colorado might sit back and relax with a C because most states have the same grade or lower, I say it’s time to press forward and focus on continuing to fix the deficits that are holding us back from becoming NCTQ’s first state to earn an A!

This report shows that Charter Management Organizations (charter organizations that manage more than one school, currently DSST, West Denver Prep and KIPP) are not only outperforming district and other individual charter schools, but are having a significant impact on the district’s overall growth and achievement scores at grades six and above.

For those who have been following the success of the three charter school franchises (two of them completely home-grown) serving high-need students, this report is not terribly surprising. But it is good, encouraging news nonetheless. It especially gives a great deal of hope for the middle school years, in far too many cases a brutal academic wasteland that leaves many students almost irreversibly behind. For 6th through 8th graders DSST, West Denver Prep and KIPP are blowing the roof off traditional DPS schools and other charters.

The A+ Denver report raises some significant questions for future direction in DPS. Taken together with a couple of recent national studies, this report should help the knee jerk anti-charter crowd to withdraw and reassess for awhile. Bad charters are closing at a significant rate, while high-quality charters in Denver maintain their excellence as they grow. Meanwhile, across the board, charters at the elementary and middle school level continue to outperform their peers.

A well-deserved hurrah once again to the KIPPs, West Denver Preps, and DSSTs. What can be learned and implemented from these schools? Are we holding back too much? What are we waiting for?

To commemorate the occasion, Colorado’s own State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer penned his thoughts on the National Journal Education Experts blog. At the time NCLB was debated and passed Congress, Schaffer was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. So his perspective on what he describes as “an enormously bad idea” is especially insightful:

Ten years later, there are few who deny NCLB has been a failure. Anyone who expected otherwise back in 2001 was either fooling himself, or more likely, didn’t read the law.

The law actually accomplished just what it was written to do – spend enormous sums of money the federal government didn’t have and hadn’t yet printed, provide perverse incentives for lower standards, and turn school administrators and teachers into dutiful federal bureaucrats instead of the productive local educators they had previously been free to be.

Ouch. Schaffer explains elsewhere in his piece how the original idea under the name “No Child Left Behind” promoted by President Bush was a good concept that morphed into a bad program through the Congressional amendment process. He also argues that the marginally positive benefits that have followed NCLB were “well underway through state initiative” and likely would have come to fruition without the joint efforts of Bush and the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

Like I said before, I haven’t been alive long enough to know just how true that is, though his argument certainly has merit. Back in the day, my Education Policy Center friends tried to make the most of the federal legislation here on the ground in Colorado. In 2003 Pam Benigno wrote the influential, groundbreaking and frequently-cited issue paper No Child Left Behind Mandates School Choice: Colorado’s First Year. In the end, sadly, the nearly toothless and incomplete federal legislation failed to fulfill the promise, notwithstanding the best efforts of many.

For a slightly different point of view, you also should check out Kathleen Porter-Magee’s somewhat softer assessment that the law primarily fell short because of weak implementation that failed to upgrade from the NCLB 1.0 scheme. I sort of get her comparison of NCLB to the iPod, since my dad sometimes lets me play with his.

Congress may some day get around to reauthorizing the major education legislation — whether tweaking it or starting over from scratch, I don’t know. But here’s hoping that lawmakers take heed to the lessons of why NCLB failed to fulfill the lofty expectations.

Some are better known than others, which the list helps to sort out. To build out his index, Hess used Google Scholar ratings, book and article contributions, mentions in the education press and newspaper, and even mention in blogs (!) to lay out the rankings. Many — for good or ill — have graced the postings of Ed Is Watching (listed in rank order):

• 2. Diane Ravitch (NYU)
• 3. Eric Hanushek (Stanford)
• 6. Terry Moe (Stanford)
• 7. Paul Peterson (Harvard)
• 12. Caroline Hoxby (Stanford)
• 21. Jay Greene (Arkansas)
• 33. Daniel Willingham (Virginia)
• 36. David Figlio (Northwestern)
• 38. Thomas Kane (Harvard)
• 44. Paul Hill (Washington)
• 48. Patrick Wolf (Arkansas)
• 52. Kevin Welner (Colorado)
• 62. James Guthrie (SMU)
• 64. Michael Podgursky (Missouri)
• 71. John Witte (Wisconsin)
• 73. Robert Maranto (Arkansas) — He even co-authored an issue paper for my Education Policy Center friends!
• 77. Robin Lake (Washington)
• 80. Paul Teske (CU-Denver)
• 88. Martin West (Harvard)
• 94. Marguerite Roza (Washington)
• 114. Joshua Dunn (CU-Colorado Springs)

Look at that. Click on any of those links above to become educated about important research and commentary in the areas of school choice, digital learning, teacher evaluation and pay, school finance, teacher unionism, collective bargaining or more. It’s my pleasure to share some of this with my readers here.

Interestingly, 12 of the 21 names listed above were cited in Ed is Watching posts during 2011. So I am left to wonder just how much this little 5-year-old helped propel some academics higher in the Edu-Scholar Public Presence rankings? Ok, to be honest, probably not a lot. But maybe a few of them would be willing to share just a tiny bit of the credit.

Guess you could say I’m the most indirectly influential kid on the block! Enough about me, now go follow one or more of the links and get into the debate, and/or leave a comment about which edu-scholars have been overrated, underrated, etc….

One such major issue is how Colorado K-12 public schools recruit, hire, pay, evaluate and retain their teachers. The implementation of the state’s educator effectiveness law occupied a lot of time and attention last year, and an important — but unusual — deadline comes up next month. The rules adopted by the State Board of Education either must be ratified or repealed by the state legislature by February 15.

The hope also remains that this debate propels more local momentum toward important educator compensation reforms like those highlighted in my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s 2011 issue paper on the subject. Time to stay tuned in….

Meanwhile, the national debate on teacher quality presses forward. And that brings an important contribution compiling all the key research on the question in the new book Teachers Matter by Manhattan Institute senior fellow (and now one of Colorado’s own) Marcus Winters. This professionally-made 5-minute video, including a few key interview excerpts with the author, frames the issue well (H/T Jay Greene):

Nice. So this is 2012, huh? Well, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from me and my Education Policy Center friends about educator effectiveness in Colorado as the pages on the calendar keep turning. And that’s just one of the important issues on which we’ll keep focusing. It’s good to be back.

Along with our fantastic School Choice for Kids website, this is definitely something you’ll want to know about for 2012, if you are at all interested in looking for a new public school for your child here in the great Centennial State. Many school district open enrollment periods really get rolling in January. This kind of guide can be very valuable if you think the cyberschool option might be right for your family.

Shortly thereafter comes the first-ever national Digital Learning Day on February 1. Colorado is one of at least 27 states to have signed on as a partner to this effort. Participating in Digital Learning Day is something I definitely look forward to!

Meanwhile, as we here in Colorado are fighting back against the overwrought attacks on full-time online schools, yesterday comes this excellent commentary in the Detroit News by Ingrid Jacques:

…Eleven years ago, Michigan became one of the first states to open a statewide virtual school. This year, the Michigan Virtual School facilitated around 18,000 course enrollments to middle and high school students, giving more children access to advanced and specialized courses.

The state additionally offers several multidistrict and numerous single-district virtual programs, according to a report on virtual learning by Michael Van Beek, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

And starting in 2010, Michigan opened two full-time virtual charter schools — a result of legislation passed in late 2009 to bolster the state’s chances of winning money from the federal Education Department’s Race to the Top program. [emphasis added]

Yes, this is the same Michael Van Beek who I have cited in writing about transparent union negotiations, taxpayer-funded union release time (where have we heard about that recently?), public school open enrollment and teacher performance pay. Sounds like he covers a lot of the same ground as my Education Policy Center friends, huh?

Speaking of which (in addition to the new publication and the February 1 celebration) 2012 also will kick off with my friends pushing forward in the fight to break down Colorado policy barriers that limit effective online and blended learning opportunities. One key example that Van Beek mentions in the same column for Michigan would also apply to our state — namely, that “the Legislature remove seat-time requirements and instead reward schools based on student mastery of a subject.”

Sure, maybe we can take a break now so we can unwrap the presents from Santa and spend a little extra time playing in the snow. But we need to be prepared to come back next year to take part in this important work!

One of the oft-cited advantages of charters is the greater level of accountability that allows them to be closed down much more easily than other public schools when they aren’t working as they should. Until now, though, I’m not aware of any comprehensive data telling just how many charters have closed over the course of nearly 20 years since the first states adopted a law.

The Center for Education Reform finds that 15 percent of all American charter schools that ever existed — 1,036 out of about 6,700 — have closed for a variety of reasons. CER’s original research breaks down the frequency of these different reasons as follows:

• Financial (41.7%)
• Mismanagement (24.0%)
• Academic (18.6%)
• District Obstacles (6.3%)
• Facilities (4.6%)
• Other / Unknown (4.8%)

The authors of the report make a salient point:

A closure rate of 15 percent is nothing to boast about. Yet it is still lower than the small business failure rate and dramatically higher than the percentage of conventional or traditional public schools ever closed.

State-by-state closure rates are not included in CER’s breakdown. But every individual closure is listed, 16 in Colorado over the course of time. It seems like that would make Colorado’s charter closure rate lower than the national average of 15 percent, but I defer to Denise at Colorado Charters for her insights on the new CER research.

Yesterday brought the release of a three-year study on the eight earliest Denver innovation schools — including Bruce Randolph, Cole, Manual and Montclair. One key, hopeful finding? Successful innovation schools exhibit “positive cultures,” which contributes to steady, effective principal leadership.

Still, the two news stories on the study make similar points. The Denver Post highlights that innovation status is simply a tool, not a magic bullet. Meanwhile, Ed News Colorado’s headline trumpets the major (and not terribly surprising) finding that the “innovation law doesn’t spark major change.” One point in the study touched on in the latter story did cause me to roll my eyes a bit:

In particular, according to the report, principals, teachers and parents cited as positives greater control over how and when they hire, the ability to opt out of direct teacher placements by the district and the use of one-year contracts to ensure new hires are a good fit with the school’s mission.

Still, the findings on innovation schools’ staff were acknowledged as a concern by some, including Carolyn Crowder, executive director of the Denver teachers’ union. The report noted teachers at the eight schools were less experienced – by about three years – and less likely to have master’s degrees than teachers in five comparison schools.

For anyone primarily concerned about what innovation status means for improved student learning, the only response is: So what??? Every shred of research shows no connection between teacher master degrees and student learning. Nearly all research shows that teacher effectiveness plateaus after three to five years of acquired experience.

And guess what? The study’s detailed findings reveal that average teacher experience in innovation schools is about 6 years, as opposed to 9 years in non-innovation schools. Of all the findings to be concerned about in the report, this one should hardly cause more than a yawn.

I still have some hope for innovation schools — some will succeed. Though in the end charters are a more promising option. But the new report certainly leaves some food for thought about the ambiguities that remain unresolved, as well as some questions about which schools will fulfill their potential effectiveness.

News like this sadly means an opportunity for some to retread discredited arguments against charter schools. I prefer a different approach. It wasn’t that many weeks ago I introduced you to a new comprehensive national study by the Center on Reinventing Public Education that took the air out of knee-jerk anti-charter mythology. One of the things we learned was:

Despite considerable variation among charter schools, there is ample evidence that charter elementary schools on average outperform traditional public schools in both reading and math, and that charter middle schools outperform in math.

No need to rehash the explanations of the problems with over-generalizing about charter schools vs. traditional public schools nationally. It’s a fruitless line of argument you can go back and review at your leisure. Even so, it allows for many local data-driven observations, like the new one showing overall “superior gains in charters versus traditional public schools” in our nation’s capital, along with a handful of charters subject to be closed down if they continue to show sub-par results for students.

Yet broadly speaking, the numbers indicate that parental demand for charters, both in our state and across the country, continue to grow. More and more families are looking for something different, something better and more effective, for their child.

Some still may be mired in mythology as an excuse to sling mud at the whole charter school movement, but many more all the time are moving on. Like the terrific Colorado Charter Schools blog, they are discussing and working toward improvements in how charters are authorized, managed and deliver services to families. It’s their greater flexibility and nimbleness because of fewer regulations on educational inputs that makes it so much more possible — and something to celebrate, as more people embrace the charter idea.

It’s not this precocious little 5-year-old who’s dumping broccoli on the birthday cake. It’s Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine, from a couple of Washington think tanks, who a couple weeks ago released the report Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers. Sounds pretty innocent, doesn’t it? Just wait. They released the report at an event called “Are Public School Teachers Overpaid?”

Now look. I could only begin to start explaining the research methods and the finer points of the debate. As a provocative way to bring attention to the topic of K-12 employee compensation, asking “Are Public School Teachers Overpaid?” is an effective way to bring attention to your work. And it definitely brought attention. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan responded directly in a Huffington Post column. Duncan comes across as unnecessarily snippy and personal — declaring that the study “insults teachers and demeans the profession.” (See my parents’ point about breaking up parties?)

Really? That sounds a little too dramatic. But the Secretary also makes a valid point that the provocative question isn’t the best way to frame the issue. Meanwhile, his own attempt to reframe the issue — saying that the authors “exaggerated the value of teacher compensation by comparing the retirement benefits of the small minority of teachers who stay in the classroom for 30 years, rather than comparing the pension benefits for the typical teacher to their peers in other professions” — was a bit hyperbolic. It is interesting to note that many of those on Duncan’s side prefer to focus on salary and ignore some of the key benefits.

Anyway, all this to say you really ought to read the follow-up by Rick Hess on his Education Week blog. Like my friends in the Education Policy Center, Hess believes some teachers are underpaid, and others indeed are overpaid. The problem is the system is out of whack and rewards far too many things that don’t matter:

As school systems wrestle with tough fiscal decisions, it’s vital to understand that one-size-fits-all pay is insensitive to questions of productivity. Although the term “productivity” is typically regarded as a four-letter word in K-12 conversations, teacher productivity means nothing more than how much good a given teacher can do. If one teacher is regarded by colleagues as a far more valued mentor than another, or helps students master skills much more rapidly than another, it’s axiomatic that one teacher is more productive than the other. Yet, step-and-lane pay makes no allowance for such differences.

Yikes, “productivity” is a four-letter word when talking about K-12? Just looking at a few of my more recent writings that use the word (see here, here and here) probably would mean it’s about time to wash out my mouth with soap. Which probably would rule out going to any parties to see if asking the provocative question about teacher pay really is as bad an idea as some people say it is. Then again, mom and dad aren’t “edu-crats.”

So let’s keep fixing how teachers and other professional educators are paid. Anyone who needs some ideas might want to start by reading Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform: K-12 Educator Pay Innovation in Colorado.