The kids in Denver were big winners when the local school board and teachers union headed off a potential strike at the eleventh hour. They also won when it was agreed that tense negotiations would be averted for another three years. But how well did they fare from the actual terms of the final compromise agreement made between DPS and DCTA?

Considering what might have been, Denver Public Schools students came out pretty well. Why? As the editors of the Rocky Mountain News pointed out yesterday, the school district’s nationally-known teacher performance pay program got a boost toward meeting its original purpose:

First, it dramatically increases the incentives available under ProComp. Several key bonuses for early and mid-career teachers will more than double, from $1,000 to $2,345 a year each. These incentives reward teachers who choose difficult-to-teach subjects, work in hard-to-staff schools and whose students improve in the classroom.

In that regard, a new incentive will be available to teachers in the schools ranking in the top 50 percent in growth of student achievement.

These changes will ensure that, compared with the existing agreement, much more money provided by the ProComp mill-levy will wind up with top-performing teachers and not sit in the bank.

The district now also will be better equipped to offer more in starting salary to attract high-quality candidates into the teaching workforce. Both of these factors are steps in the right direction. They address some of the weaknesses in the original ProComp, as highlighted by our own education policy analyst Ben DeGrow.

It now is up to the school board and teachers union members. For the sake of the students, their charge is clear: to ratify the agreement and move forward.

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In large part due to its remarkable success with its original Pueblo school, the Cesar Chavez School Network is expanding. 2008 brings the opening of Cesar Chavez Academy-North Central in Colorado Springs, open to students in kindergarten to 8th grade. The free public charter school is authorized by the state’s Charter School Institute.

The original Cesar Chavez Academy (CCA) has forged an excellent reputation. Working with a high-minority and high-poverty student population, CCA has helped nearly all its students to reach proficiency in reading, putting it on a rare plateau. The school’s success in closing the achievement gap has earned the attention of the U.S. Department of Education and generated a substantial waiting list of families waiting to get in.

The website for the new Colorado Springs school declares the focus of its mission up front:

It is the primary goal of the school, through an integrated K-8 program to dramatically increase the number of students who exceed district and state averages on the CSAP assessment and who enter secondary education prepared to succeed in a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum.

High expectations, equal learning opportunities, teacher teamwork, and parental involvement are all hallmarks of the CCA franchise. Like its predecessor, Cesar Chavez Academy-North Central will operate with an extended school day and an extended school year calendar. Those interested in enrolling at CCA-North Central can use the online form available here.

We sure hope to see Cesar Chavez Academy’s Pueblo success replicated in Colorado Springs. If so, you can expect parents will be trying to break down the doors to get in.

Other new schools featured:

• Early College High School Arvada
• AXL Academy
• The Imagine Classical Academy at Indigo Ranch

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Thankfully, most education policy in our country is governed at the local and state level. Though the federal government’s role in education is too big, it’s still very limited. I wish that were really the reason you don’t hear Barack Obama and John McCain say a whole lot about education.

Over at Pajamas Media, Greg Forster has a list of five things the next President - whoever it may be - can do to advance education reform:

• Expand the D.C. voucher program to make it a national model
• Keep testing outcomes transparent
• Fund differential teacher pay
• Improve data transparency for better evaluation of education programs
• Keep pushing teacher unions to comply with financial disclosure reporting

Not many people are going to pick the next President based primarily on education. But it would be best if the media and citizens press the candidates to articulate their positions on these five specific issues. Kids like me can’t vote yet, but we sure appreciate it.

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Okay, I think it’s a long and boring paper, but Ben in the Education Policy Center says the new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality is very important.

What it boils down to is there are a lot of rules, mostly written by well-meaning people, that end up negatively affecting how well kids learn in the classroom. The NCTQ report Invisible Ink in Collective Bargaining proves the realization that more damage is often done by lawmakers at the state level than by the private union negotiations at the local level.

The report’s authors say there are three major reasons this “preeminence of state authority” is so poorly misunderstood:

• The old media doesn’t much either understand or pay attention to the issues that govern education–namely, “few have focused on the outsized influence of the teachers union in the statehouse.”
• Neither school district or union officials have a vested interest in bringing public attention to their private bargaining sessions. Short of threats to strike, the media doesn’t get how the issues that are negotiated locally have an impact on education’s bottom line.
• Few scholars have researched the impact of collective bargaining on — or “the origin and history of state involvement in” — public education. Into this vacuum, pro-union and anti-union ideologies devolve into shouting matches.

One good example of research that others could emulate can be found in Dr. Terry Moe’s Collective Bargaining and the Performance of Public Schools. Interestingly, my friends in the Education Policy Center also are among the few that have paid attention to these issues. The Independence Institute has focused on these broader concerns through local Colorado examples, with such reports as Take Public Funds off the Negotiating Table and Nullifying the Probationary Period.

Because more research is badly needed, the general proposal of the NCTQ report is a great idea:

Better data and more transparency can dismantle myths and assumptions about collective bargaining and the role of unions, calling to task ideologically based positions. It is the surest path to achieving more informed negotiations and responsible results out of statehouses and decisions that are geared toward the best interests of school children.

Hey, that includes me! Okay, I guess I like this report, too.

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A bunch of political leaders are getting together with new tough talk on education reform, reports the Denver Post:

The national movement, called the Education Equality Project, began a little more than a month ago with [New York City education chancellor Joel] Klein and civil-rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton. In a short time, it has attracted an odd cast of bedfellows such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer and a handful of urban superintendents and pastors across the country.

The group’s message: In the last generation and a half, education has become too much about serving adults.

“It’s children we need to worry about,” Klein said. “Even if they graduate, they’re woefully unprepared. … Every kid should get a shot at the American dream. It’s not about politics.”

Sadly, despite exceptional success stories, today’s school system is out-of-balance - shortchanging kids and families, and favoring the monopoly interests of unions and other groups. The most encouraging thing about this Post story is seeing Democrat politicians who appear willing to stand up to the teachers unions. I look forward to seeing what happens when the rubber meets the road on the decision to stand strong or bow to union money and pressure.

Bringing balance back to the school system means empowering families with greater choice and improving education through competition. It also means high expectations and accountability - not excuses - for students, teachers, and schools. And local control at the parental and school level.

The talk about education reform continues on and on. I don’t think they’ll have it all figured out and fixed by the time I head off to school in six weeks, but maybe a little political courage will help pick up the pace.

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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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Last night my friends in the Education Policy Center hosted a get-together for teachers to eat, fellowship, and watch Flunked: The Movie.

Afterwards, teachers discussed the themes and stories in the film, expressing a wide range of views. Besides the discussion, a lot of people stayed around for the ice cream sundaes. I wish I could have come just for that part, but the Education Policy Center staff has promised to save me some. Summer just wouldn’t be as good without ice cream.

For those who weren’t able to make the movie and the event, here is some of what you missed:
Information was given out about the Independence Institute’s teacher website (set to move to a new location soon). A representative from the Professional Association of Colorado Educators shared information about his group. An Independence Institute intern told teachers about the opportunity to take the Free People, Free Markets class.

Teacher guests were given the chance to take home copies of some relevant Independence Institute publications - including one on Denver’s ProComp plan, and one on the national Tough Choices report. Finally, the Education Policy Center also made mention of the School Choice for Kids website and handed out a few bookmarks.

Besides the special annual summertime teachers event, the Independence Institute gives teachers a free invitation to all education events with an opportunity to sit down and have a teachers-only discussion with guest speakers. To find out about these events, stay tuned to this blog and sign up for the Education Policy Center e-newsletter.

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My parents say I’ve still got a lot to learn about civics and government, but it seems to me that the people running for President like to talk a lot more about education than they can actually do to help fix education. A major reason Presidential candidates talk about education as much as they do is all the money and political clout of the National Education Association (NEA) teachers union.

As NEA has done every time, the union recently endorsed the Democratic candidate for President. Last week, Barack Obama gave an official acceptance speech to NEA’s big annual meeting via satellite. Obama said a lot of things the union delegates wanted to hear, but at one point he was loudly booed: Why? He suggested changing the way most teachers are paid, including more money given out based on performance. He also spoke highly of charter schools.

Not too surprising, NEA officials edited out Barack Obama’s comments about merit pay and charter schools. Wow, this union really goes out of its way to block sensible reforms that benefit students, parents, and professional teachers!

When you think about it, maybe it would be better if the Presidential candidates didn’t talk so much about education. Policies for our schools are best created and enacted closest to the child and the classroom, and not done so well from the White House or the U.S. Department of Education.

A lot of people like to talk about local control, but let’s take it a step further. What could be more local than giving more control to parents to choose the best school for their child? That’s the idea behind our School Choice for Kids website.

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Are our schools and officials doing enough to ensure that enough skilled and effective candidates are getting into classrooms to teach kids like me? A recent Wall Street Journal article suggests the answer is still No, but a successful program is showing there’s hope for more change:

Unions keep saying the best people won’t go into teaching unless we pay them what doctors and lawyers and CEOs make. Not only are Teach for America salaries significantly lower than what J.P. Morgan might offer, but these individuals go to some very rough classrooms. What’s going on?

It seems that Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of “education” courses to be certified.

The American Federation of Teachers commonly derides Teach for America as a “band-aid.” One of its arguments is that the program only lasts two years, barely enough time, they say, to get a handle on managing a classroom. However, it turns out that two-thirds of its grads stay in the education field, sometimes as teachers, but also as principals or policy makers.

The article goes on to point out some of the positive outcomes from a new study on the effectiveness of Teach for America. Brooke Dollens Terry, a friend of the Education Policy Center who does similar work in Texas, followed up with a letter to the Journal that hit the nail on the head:

If America wants to increase learning and help its students compete with other countries, states should examine the Teach for America model closely and evaluate if their state certification policies encourage or deter the brightest individuals from entering the classroom.

Colorado is doing well in some areas of teacher quality, but we certainly can do better.

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Thinking about last week’s Denver teacher sick-out, it doesn’t make me happy to see teachers walk out on the kids in their classes. But seeing Ben Hummel’s latest cartoon at least made me chuckle a bit:

The leader of the the non-union teacher group PACE is right that “children deserve teachers who are dedicated to their education.” I might add, and not so much teachers who are dedicated to sunbathing.

But then I see what’s going on in Los Angeles - requiring teachers to skip an hour of school each day to carry picket signs (H/T Flypaper blog) - and Denver’s situation doesn’t seem so bad.

Still, I would like to have good teachers, professional teachers, who are there for me during school hours. But you’ll have to excuse me now … it’s summertime, and I’m ready to play in the sun, too!

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