Newsletter May 16 2012

On Monday night, Denver CBS4 investigator Rick Sallinger broke a story about Adams 12 dismissing two teachers for allegedly bilking thousands of dollars in PTO funds that were supposed to go for student trips. I never like to see such a story as the one featured in the 3-minute video. Interviewed by Sallinger, school board [...]

Many Colorado secondary students may benefit from greater opportunity to take a number of traditional face-to-face classes and digital courses simultaneously. Students' ability to "self-blend" courses in this manner is hampered by school district control of per-pupil funding and course options. Following the national Digital Learning Council's guidelines, Colorado should alter the K-12 education funding system to enable greater student access to effective online course options.

While their hopes for widespread inattention may be dashed when it comes to this issue of teacher options, union officials maintain an advantage when it comes to incredible campaign finance reporting logic. Specifically, the union's small donor committee (known as Public Education Committee) uses a clever fiction to report exactly $250,000.00 in "non-itemized" contributions on its most recent report. More than 99 percent of the committee's revenues have been "non-itemized." What other groups get the benefit of government systems to provide regular collections for their political activities? What other groups can report exactly $250,000.00 in "non-itemized" contributions with a straight face?

I’ve been telling you a lot lately about education goings-on in Colorado, and with good reason. There has been plenty to comment on. Yet once in awhile it’s good to step back and take a look at some other states. Today, specifically, I wanted to share with you a few thoughts about new developments from [...]

Can you believe it? Last week I didn’t write anything about the release of the CSAP TCAP results for 3rd grade reading. The state’s overall share of proficient 3rd grade readers (74 percent) is slightly better than the previous year. Colorado can still do better. To me, this is one of the most fundamental measures [...]