When I wrote a month ago about how the old momentum for open Colorado school district-union negotiations had returned, what came out at last night’s Douglas County school board meeting was something I didn’t expect to happen — at least not so soon. Ed News Colorado’s Nancy Mitchell offers up the somewhat surprising scoop:

In an unusual move, the president of the Douglas County teachers’ union on Tuesday asked school board members to open contract talks to the public.

“By letting the sunlight shine on our negotiations, parents, taxpayers and employees will benefit by seeing the open dialogue around our district’s priorities,” said Brenda Smith, president of the Douglas County Federation of teachers. “I hope you consider this.”

At the previous board meeting, a group of citizens with Parent Led Reform — following the release of their petition to open union negotiations — made the same plea initially. So pressure has been building for awhile, pressure for collective bargaining transparency in Colorado’s third-largest school district.

But last night’s development leaves this curious kid with two nagging questions. First, why would the DCF come out in favor of open negotiations and why now? Mike Antonucci, a guru on many issues related to teachers unions, has articulated well why union officials and district administrators tend to be naturally averse to the idea. Continue Reading »

3 Comments »

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has released an interesting new study titled “The Fiscal Effects of School Choice Programs on Public School Districts.” Author Benjamin Scafidi took a state-by-state look at total per-pupil spending, breaking out the fixed costs from the variable costs.

Here’s the basic idea. Take a state’s K-12 “expenditures on capital, interest, general administration, school administration, operations and maintenance, transportation, and ‘other’ support services” and set them to one side. Subtract these “fixed costs in the short run” — as Scafidi conservatively considers them — from the total spending.

What’s left over are the expenditures tied more closely to actual enrollment, which districts have shown can be easily reduced when numbers of students leave. A voucher or tax credit given to student up to that amount safely can be considered not to have any fiscal harm on the district.

On a national scale Scafidi finds: Continue Reading »

No Comments »

Since today is February 29, I’ll take a timely leap from some of my usual fare to point you to two new podcasts produced by my Education Policy Center friends. In the first, Gina Schlieman explains how school-level autonomy has empowered some positive changes in Britain. In the second, foundation president Tom Kaesemeyer highlighted a program rewarding high-poverty Denver-area schools that are getting good results, and observed that exceptional principal leadership was at the top of the list of common school factors.

Next, a recently published op-ed by Ben DeGrow, who hosted both of the aforementioned podcasts, explains one of the key merits of Colorado’s 2010 educator effectiveness legislation:

Principals as instructional leaders will share accountability with classroom teachers for promoting student growth, which must make up at least half of educator evaluations.

In an unusual step, legislators and Governor Hickenlooper recently ratified some of the details for the state’s coming new educator evaluation system. It’s by design, not by accident, that the policy holds principals to similar standards as teachers. Such a system gives school instructional leaders more reason to retain or remove teachers based on their professional effectiveness at helping students learn. Will it be perfect? No. Are there any devils in the details? Maybe. But I’ll do my part to keep things focused in the right direction. Continue Reading »

No Comments »

A good thought-piece to read this week is John Katzman’s new Education Week article “Putting the Schools in Charge.” While I don’t agree with everything in the piece, the author has a laudable vision about sweeping systemic K-12 changes and makes some very sound assessments of the best ways to get there. And as I so often like to do, his main point particularly has a strong Colorado connection worthy of highlight.

First and foremost, Katzman recommends sparking needed innovation by giving more power to school-level leaders, including greater choice over how and where they purchase central services:

Right now, every state distributes state and federal funds to districts; in turn, the districts distribute funds to schools. Imagine that states instead channel funds directly to schools and require that the schools contract with a school support organization (SSO) for an array of services similar to what its district’s central office now provides….

Continue Reading »

2 Comments »

One of this blog’s themes that regular readers are familiar with is the power of digital technology to help transform the capability and productivity of public education. Combined with the right policies and innovative direction of resources, this technology has tremendous potential to effect positive change. Digital Learning Now’s Roadmap for Reform released last October — not to mention a forthcoming (or so I’m told) Colorado version — highlights some great ideas.

One policy action endorsed by Digital Learning Now is that the “state ensures all public school students and teachers have Internet access devices.” Definitely a worthy goal, inasmuch as it helps to equip students for a 21st century career. But it also can be a double-edged sword. As a new article by Kristina Iodice in the Colorado Springs Gazette points out, giving students take-home access to iPads is fraught with danger if not done right:

Manitou Springs School District 14 is in the middle of a two-year rollout of iPads to many of its roughly 1,420 students. In the fall 2011, about 490 students in fifth through eighth grade, and 90 high school students, received the devices. About 500 high school students will get them in the coming 2012-13 school year.

Some parents are concerned that the district is not doing everything it could to safeguard students, although school officials insist it is compliant with state and federal law. Internet browsers on the iPads do not include parental controls…. Continue Reading »

6 Comments »

Last April I asked the question: Is momentum growing for open school union negotiations in Colorado? The results ended up mixed — with Colorado Springs District 11 opening more of their bargaining to public view while Jefferson County redoubled under a veil of secrecy.

Well, tagging on at the end of an Ed News Colorado story about Jeffco school district employees pleading with the Board to stop budget cuts was this little nugget about last night’s meeting:

Shortly before public comment began Thursday, board members voted 4-1 to close employee negotiations to the public. Board member Laura Boggs was the only “no” vote.

Defenders of the status quo learned their lesson from last year. Since the teachers union bargaining agreement in the state’s largest school district says negotiations are supposed to be open, they needed to act early and decisively to keep the prying eyes of taxpayers away from important discussions. Sad. But thankfully, it’s not the only Colorado front in the fight to open union negotiations and bring the public into public education. Continue Reading »

3 Comments »

Update, 1/5/12: Chris Tessone at the Flypaper blog also makes note of the Denver Post story, correctly observing: “It’s difficult to make an argument that taxpayers should be directly subsidizing union leaders. Organized labor already extracts indirect subsidies by skimming dues from teachers’ paychecks, sometimes against the desires of teachers.”

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: Continue Reading »

2 Comments »

One thing December brings is the obligatory year-end lists. If you are even a casual reader of this blog, then you should be interested in taking a moment to vote on the “Best and Worst in American Education, 2011″ — brought to you by the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.

Being of a decidedly reform-minded bent, the group has offered up some expected developments in their five choices for each of the “Best” and “Worst” categories. Most of the items I’ve covered at one time or another during 2011. Naturally I can’t make you vote for any particular events (or even vote at all), but I am making some strong suggestions that fans could select on my behalf as one of the most inexpensive Christmas gifts you’ve ever purchased. This is my blog, and I like to save the best for last. So which of the five choices should you recognize as the worst education event of 2011? Continue Reading »

No Comments »

With all the breathless attention on K-12 online education these days, you’d almost think it was a brand-new phenomenon — not something that got its start in Colorado more than a decade ago. This time it’s the Washington Post, chiming in to note that some are questioning the educational value of cyberschools.

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: Continue Reading »

No Comments »

Pretty much nobody is in school today, as we all gear up for the big turkey feast tomorrow. As my parents constantly remind me, the fourth Thursday in November is about more than food and football. Yes, Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. While I could gratefully mention the standard fare — family, friends (like those big people in the Education Policy Center), freedom, our big screen TV, and my growing (ahem!) Legos collection — more fitting for the blog are seven things to be thankful for in Colorado K-12 education: Continue Reading »

No Comments »