“This regulation would negatively impact nearly all charter school teachers in the country,” Board Chairman Bob Schaffer said. “In essence this regulation would strip charter schools of their status as government groups when it comes to retirement system participation.

“If that were to happen, teachers at those charter schools who now participate in the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association would be forced to find jobs elsewhere or forfeit their accrued pension wealth.”

Writing at the Weekly Standard, Joy Pullmann notes the same consequence for charter school teachers nationwide and wonders what the motivation might be:

It’s odd for a government agency to try to strip, rather than enlarge, public-sector benefits. So is this just an oversight, or a sneaky backdoor attempt to please unions piqued at Obama’s pro-charter education policy so far?

Meanwhile, the Manhattan Institute’s Josh Barro takes a different tack in his February 8 Forbes column:

But the regulation also offers us an opportunity to discuss a broader issue: why do charter schools even want to participate in defined-benefit pension plans? As it turns out, they often have good reasons for wanting in—but those have to do more with the dysfunctional structure of the system than with inherent advantages of DB pensions. With a more rational retirement system, many more charter schools would give up DB pensions voluntarily.

Both raise excellent points, noting the inequitable and unjustified short-term devastation the rule would cause while exploring the possibility for a more sound policy through long-term changes. Colorado and other states definitely need to pursue dramatic pension system overhauls like those Barro highlights. But the drastic, selective, and backhanded approach currently under consideration is absolutely the wrong medicine for students and educators who have chosen public charter schools.

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.

You have to go no farther than Douglas County, Colorado’s third-largest school district, where union leaders have lashed out against the reform-minded school board. Rather than sit back and let contentious negotiations fester behind closed doors, or allow the unseemly tactics to continue outside them, a group of local citizens is urging the board to open negotiations and shine the light on the real disputed issues. You can read (and sign, if you support) their petition here. It reads in part:

Negotiated union policies greatly impact how our tax dollars are spent and how our schools and classrooms function. In tight budget times, when we rightly demand greater accountability of our elected school board to make tough decisions, these decisions should be made in full view!

Meanwhile, at the State Capitol, Representative Kathleen Conti has introduced House Bill 1118 with the goal of “ensuring transparency in collective bargaining negotiations.” As my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow explained in a 2010 issue backgrounder, a similar bill was introduced, and very nearly passed, eight years ago (back in the dark ages…).

HB 1118 is slated for a committee hearing later this month, so you can expect to hear more soon about this important issue of public transparency and accountability. As I’ve pointed out before, open negotiations not only would remind union officials who they’re bargaining against (you: the taxpayer), but it also would help clarify who really is in charge of public education.

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!

The second annual National School Choice Week is coming up soon. It’s almost time to stop gearing up and to start getting into action. For most of my fellow Coloradans, there aren’t any good excuses to not be able to attend even of the numerous events going on during the week of January 22-28:

• On Thursday evening, January 26, you can watch the movie Kids Aren’t Cars at the Independence Institute’s new Freedom Embassy, with a brief talk afterwards by my Education Policy Center friends
• On Tuesday evening, January 24, you can attend the Restoring American Exceptionalism Denver Townhall with guest speakers Hugh Hewitt and Dick Morris at the Douglas County Events Center
• Or the night before — Monday, January 23 — you can check in at the Colorado Springs edition of the Restoring American Exceptionalism townhall with featured speaker Michelle Malkin
• Want to celebrate School Choice Week with an educational experience where you never have to leave the comforts of your own home? Online education parents, school leaders and supporters can sign up for a January 25 Advocacy Academy Webinar through the Colorado Coalition of Cyberschool Families
• On January 28, teachers can “enjoy a Saturday morning breakfast and spend some time finding ideas and projects at the Resource Area for Teachers (RAFT),” compliments of the Professional Association of Colorado Educators
• On Friday afternoon, January 27, big people can find the School Choice Happy Hour in Denver
• What better time than School Choice Week to visit a school that is doing something different? You can arrange a visit to the TR Paul Academy of Arts and Knowledge, a Fort Collins charter school, on either Tuesday or Wednesday

There may be more National School Choice Week events coming up in Colorado, but these are the ones I’m aware of. Show your support by showing up to one or more of these great events! And don’t forget to tell a friend….

This made for useful sound bites, but was always problematic because the definition of classroom spending was amorphous. Principals and curriculum specialists weren’t classroom spending, but teachers’ dental benefits were. There was bound to be a lot of cheating to reach the magic number. Unions hated it. And even though unions hated it, I didn’t like it either. In 2006, I wrote that I remained “doubtful that meeting such a threshold has any effect on the quality of instruction or on student performance.”

Very similar points were made by my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow when Colorado’s Amendment 39 and Referendum J were on the ballot in 2006 — before my time. He noted that unions and established interest groups were on the right side of the issue, if largely for the wrong reasons. While the proposals crashed and burned here in Colorado, apparently a few other states like Georgia latched on.

The “65% Solution” still had enough mojo to emerge as part of a Florida ballot initiative package in 2008. In one of my first-ever postings here, I speculated about the danger of mixing good & bad policy for short-term political benefit. Since then, though, the report from Georgia is the first I’ve heard on the issue.

Another lesson? Not all reform fads are good. The so-called 65% Solution neglected the root of a systemic problem in K-12 education. Reshuffling dollars spent with new bureaucratic titles or accounting categories sells the problem short. Let the money follow the student based on need and parental choice, and we won’t need to worry about changing state law or the constitution to require certain shares of K-12 dollars fall into a certain category.

That would be change we could all rally behind. No dustbins needed.

Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl as usual does a great job previewing the session and legislative initiatives likely to emerge. If you want the in-depth take, you simply have to go check out the story. According to the story, action is likely to be seen on the following fronts, among others:

• School finance reform
• Standardized testing implementation
• Charter authorizing standards
• Educator effectiveness rules ratification
• Online education oversight and regulation
• School construction funding
• School discipline policies
• A new version of the “parent trigger”
• “Restrictions on automatic salary increases for teachers who earn master’s degrees” (yee haw!)
• Private tuition tax credits

Many, not all, of these present some welcome changes. And of course, the devil remains in the details. In the meantime, word on the street is that another bill is coming to require school district-union bargaining transparency.

It looks like 2012 could bring some more Colorado legislative activity on K-12 education than a slow 2011 did. How much legislation passes, not to mention how much will be worth passing, remains to be seen. But now that my Education Policy Center friends are so much closer to the State Capitol, you can bet that little Eddie will have more of a front seat to observe what’s going on….

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!

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:

“This impacts student achievement. People don’t understand the value of our role in helping the district function,” said Beverly Ingle, president of the Colorado Education Association.

Wow. Taking days to go the CEA Assembly and elect officers and conduct business for a private organization impacts student achievement? Lobbying against educator effectiveness legislation impacts student achievement? Negotiating a new union contract with taxpayer-paid employees on the other side of the table impacts student achievement? Enlisting volunteers for partisan political campaigns impacts student achievement? I could go on….

But strangely enough, it’s the comment only paragraphs later in Crummy’s story by a local CEA official — from the only one of Colorado’s largest 20 school districts identified as not having any taxpayer-subsidized union leave — that sends the most stinging rebuke:

“The way we look at it is, ‘Why would the district pay us not to be in the classroom?’ ” said Jim Smyth, president of the Mesa Valley Education Association.

I am told that way back in 2003 a bill to outlaw taxpayer-subsidized union release time almost passed the legislature. Too bad it was almost. In these tough budget times, it might make a difference for a few teachers who are being laid off. If publicly-funded union perks aren’t on the chopping block now, then how can the cries of abject poverty be taken seriously?

Maybe, just maybe, the attention this time will make a difference for fiscal sanity and educational accountability.