I’m pretty partial (OK, I’m very partial) to the School Choice for Kids website (or Opcion Escolar Para Ninos, en espanol) as an invaluable source of information for parents in Colorado who want to exercise their educational options. But it’s not the only source out there.

Denver’s Piton Foundation and 9 News have teamed up to create the Colorado School Choice / Escuela Para Mis Hijos site. The site provides some different information than is available on SCFK — with special emphases on schools’ academic growth ratings and student demographics.

Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to my Education Policy Center friend Pam Benigno discuss the newer site with Van Schoales of the Piton Foundation on an informative 18-minute iVoices podcast: Continue Reading »

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In many Colorado school districts, taxpayers are subsidizing union presidents and/or other officers to take release time from the classroom for union business. Back in 2003-04 the practice cost Colorado taxpayers at least $775,000 (PDF). Since nothing is known to have changed to crack down on the process, the figure must be considerably more these days.

What exactly are union officials doing with their taxpayer-subsidized time, and how can we find out? Bargaining negotiations? Grievance procedures? District committees? Political activities? Continue Reading »

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Last year I told you about the remarkable education reform success story in Florida. The elements of this success can be traced to a comprehensive set of policy changes made while Jeb Bush was governor, including:

• School accountability
• Student accountability
• Private school choice
• Scientific-based literacy instruction
• Alternative teacher certification

In a comprehensive article for the Summer 2009 edition of Education Next, Matt Ladner and Dan Lips explain exactly what Florida did to make dramatic gains on 4th grade national test scores.

Perhaps more importantly, they take on critiques from those who say the scores are misleading because of social promotion policies or can somehow be attributed to other education initiatives voters approved: universal preschool and class size reduction. Check out the article.

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You usually hear politicians, like our governor, and those begging for more money for the school system make the case that it’s “for the children.” It’s become a cliche. Hey, I’m not blaming anyone … I’ve made the *“for the children” schpeel once or twice myself.

But the leader of an independent teacher organization in Georgia takes a whole different approach. At least when quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week about Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s plan to turn around failing schools (H/T Eduwonk): Continue Reading »

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It’s important for Colorado citizens to get involved in local school board elections. A lot of important policies and other decisions are set at the local level, so it’s good to make an informed choice and cast a vote!

If you live in Douglas County, you’ll want to know about two forums taking place where you can get to meet the school board candidates, ask them questions, and learn about where they stand on important issues like school choice, school accountability, performance pay, school financial transparency, and more. The first one, sponsored by the Douglas County Federation [local teachers union], is tonight from 7-8:30 PM at Chaparral High School.

If you miss that opportunity, I received an email from A Parent’s Voice founder Donnell Rosenberg alerting me to another forum coming up in September: Continue Reading »

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What a crazy world we’re living in these days! Last week I pointed out how a voucher group is working closely with the union on a private school teacher training project… Hatfields hugging the McCoys?

Well, here’s another example of strange bedfellows — Education Week blogger Alyson Klein notes that an odd trio is running around together promoting school reform:

In case you missed it, it basically involves Rev. Al Sharpton and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich high-fiving and fist-bumping and telling everyone about how their similarities on education policy transcend their differences on… just about everything else. They’re pro-charter, pro-merit pay, pro-accountability, and they play well with all sorts of audiences.

At the convention, a room full of conservative Republican delegates gave Sharpton a standing ovation, while, during the inauguration festivities, a crowd at an inner-city high school in majority black and Democratic D.C. took cell phone pictures of Gingrich (although he kinda got upstaged by another Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona).

Well, now U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is hopping on the tour.

Now you know how important the cause of education reform is: Newt Gingrich, Al Sharpton, and Arne Duncan are on the same road show promoting it. There may be many disagreements on nearly every other issue, but not the one that most directly affects kids like me.

If only they could all also agree about the need to save private scholarships for D.C. students.

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It’s been a couple months now since the Democrats running Colorado’s House Education Committee went out of their way to double-super kill school spending transparency. But no matter how uncomfortable it may make some politicians feel, the issue simply is not going to go away.

The Reason Foundation’s Lisa Snell points us to a new Education Week column that explains why school officials really are without excuse when it comes to true financial transparency: Continue Reading »

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Education Week’s political blogger Alyson Klein wrote yesterday about another one of Denver’s education reform leaders being exported to the nation’s capital:

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has a new teacher quality adviser … and he’s got a foot in both the merit pay and union camps.

Brad Jupp is formerly a senior policy adviser to Denver-schools-superintendent-turned-U.S.-Senator Michael Bennet. In that role, he worked on school and district performance improvement and accountability, teacher effectiveness, and school choice, among other issues.

After being on the short list for the job Duncan now holds, DPS superintendent Michael Bennet was appointed U.S. Senator. More recently, state senate president Peter Groff was appointed to direct an office in the U.S. Department of Education. Now Jupp joins Groff in the Department in the special role of teacher quality adviser.

I would be remiss not to observe that when it comes to Brad Jupp, Denver’s loss is D.C.’s gain. He has a tough job cut out for him — that’s usually the case when it comes to effecting change in the Beltway bureaucracy. But he brings a rare combination of professional experiences coupled with a keen mind, determination, and a track record of some success.

One final personal note: Without Brad Jupp, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s report on the Denver ProComp performance pay system (PDF) wouldn’t have been nearly so thorough or insightful.

In late January, Michael Bennet was replaced by reform-minded Tom Boasberg. Just this week, reform-minded Michael Johnston won a vote to take Peter Groff’s seat in the state senate. Inquiring minds would like to know who will fill Brad Jupp’s shoes. Who can fill his shoes?

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Update: It looks like I have been out-sillied by Jay Greene, who has posted the original unedited draft of “too cool” Kevin Carey’s comments.

I’m not very serious. Of course, you probably already knew that. Golly, I’m a little kid who writes about the world of education policy and occasionally cites Kermit the Frog and Cap’n Crunch.

But I don’t think you quite get how un-serious I am. At least according to Kevin Carey from The Quick and The Ed blog: Continue Reading »

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I’m 5 years old. Generally speaking, I like puppets and think they’re pretty cool. Recently learning that Kermit the Frog himself was a puppet (or muppet, you know what I mean) only increased my respect for him. But when heavily-funded teachers unions use other groups as puppets to oppose education reforms like choice and accountability — reforms that help kids like me, but especially kids in more dire straits — that’s a different story.

Case #1: Thanks to the hard work of the Education Intelligence Agency’s intrepid Mike Antonucci, we learn that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the group Republicans Opposing Voucher Efforts (ROVE). The company that registered the ROVE website is run by a former high-level National Education Association (NEA) staffer. As Greg Forster notes, it “sure looks a whole lot like it has the NEA’s arm sticking out the bottom”. Continue Reading »

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