Timing is everything, they say. What were the odds that these two key votes would go down the same day? The dual development certainly is noteworthy.

On Tuesday the Colorado House of Representatives adopted House Bill 1118, which simply requires school districts to open up union negotiations to public observation so taxpayers and teachers can see dollars and interests negotiated in good faith. The vote was 33 to 31, with one member absent. All other Democrats but one voted No. All Republicans but one voted Yes.

Later that night the Douglas County Board of Education unanimously voted to approve a resolution that the district’s union negotiations be held in public view. Last month the grassroots group Parent Led Reform, led by local mom Karin Piper, proposed the issue before the Board. Continue Reading »

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A couple weeks ago I excitedly tweeted about a great blog piece in which four of Colorado’s leading Democrats — Lt. Governor Joe Garcia, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, and State Senator Michael Johnston — explained why they support school choice.

Then today Todd Shepherd of Complete Colorado forwarded me an interesting little tidbit of information that ties right in. It’s a tidbit that (to the best of my knowledge) no one has reported on, and hey, even 5-year-old blogging prodigies like to share scoops once in awhile. Apparently, on January 9 of this year, Mayor Hancock took a 30-minute call from former tennis champion Andre Agassi on the subject of “Education Reform.”

Some of you may be scratching your head, but there is a good reason not to be surprised. After holding the number 1 world ranking, winning eight Grand Slam singles titles and claiming an Olympic gold medal, Mr. Agassi opened a highly-successful Las Vegas charter school, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. The school has graduated close to 100 percent of its mostly low-income students ready to do college work. Continue Reading »

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If I weren’t so little, I might have stayed up to hear the first result for Colorado’s most talked about education bill of the session. But it went past my bedtime before the House Education Committee agreed to adopt HB 1238, as Ed News Colorado reported:

The House Education Committee Monday gave a full hearing – more than seven hours – to House Bill 12-1238, the proposal that would require improved literacy programs in the early elementary grades, create a preference for retention of third graders with weak reading skills and add early literacy results to the factors in the state’s accountability system for rating schools.

Continue Reading »

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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 »

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Hard to believe it was five months ago I asked the question: Is major education reform about ready to give Iowa a try? At the heart of the story is a local connection. Jason Glass, appointed the state’s education chief a little more than a year ago by incoming Governor Terry Branstad, has some notable Colorado roots.

Branstad and Glass forwarded a fairly bold plan for the Hawkeye State. Ideas included significant changes to teacher preparation, pay and retention; focusing on literacy through cutting back on social promotion; school accountability enhancements; and more flexibility and student opportunity through charters, online programs and other public education options.

Of course, the state’s top executive certainly can’t — nor should he be able to — update laws by fiat. Still, Gov. Branstad’s plan has faced a particularly difficult time since being launched in the Iowa legislature in February. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow provides some of the detail in a new story for School Reform News: Continue Reading »

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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 »

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Many Colorado schools and teachers impart to their pupils the importance of fairness, whether through formal lessons, classroom conversations, special events or codes of conduct. Meanwhile, school officials could glean some important ideas about fairness from legislation being considered by our western neighbors in Utah. The grassroots reformers at Parents for Choice in Education are supporting Senate Bill 82, which “strengthens the Equal Access law for all employee associations.”

What do they mean by “Equal Access”? Rather than trying to explain the problem that needs to be solved, I’ll just direct you to point number 8 in my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s 2011 issue backgrounder “Nine Key Changes at the Bargaining Table”:

Nearly all of Colorado’s existing certified education employee bargaining agreements grant union agents exclusive access to school district property, events or information that is denied to other union or non-union membership groups. Common provisions include specified union authorization to contact teachers through workplace mailboxes, bulletin boards and district email systems; or special privileges to use district facilities for meetings at no cost.

Continue Reading »

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Colorado’s legislative bid to enhance early literacy is getting some national attention. The bipartisan House Bill 1238 enlists parents and educators to focus on interventions for struggling readers in the early grades and requires the local superintendent to sign off before a non-proficient reader can advance past 3rd grade. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow was sought out for comment by American Family Radio News reporter Bob Kellogg:

“Something needs to be done to provide consequences and hold schools accountable for helping students learn to read,” he says, “because if students just keep getting passed up through the system and graduate without those skills, we’re not preparing them well for life.”

Also in the story, Ben highlights the success Florida has experienced by cutting back severely on 3rd grade social promotion. Indeed, research by Jay Greene and Marcus Winters shows the average student held back for extra reading help gained more than a half-year’s learning proficiency on struggling students who were pushed up through the system. HB 1238 isn’t exactly the same, nor quite as strong, as Florida’s law. But it does represent a significantly positive step. Continue Reading »

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My Education Policy Center friends asked me to stop playing around in the snow long enough to give a quick update and comment on something I mentioned last week. As Ed News Colorado reports, Rep. Don Beezley’s “Parent Trigger II” successfully passed its first obstacle with a favorable 7-6 party line vote in the House Education Committee yesterday.

In other words, the proposal that represents a small, positive step for parental empowerment stepped out from beneath the groundhog’s shadow. And not a moment too soon, for such a commonsense piece of legislation.

Yes, it’s sad to see only Republican representatives showing a modest support for the education consumer. Is it just Colorado where Democrats seem so universally wed to protecting K-12 institutions of power (the Colorado Association of School Boards and Colorado Education Association both testified against HB 1149) at the expense of a little extra parent voice in the school turnaround process? Continue Reading »

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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 »

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