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DPS teachers ok contract

Denver teachers have ratified a contract agreement giving them a cost-of-living increase of 2.5 percent for this school year, union leaders announced today.

Chavez twists & turns not yet over

Nearly five hours of emotional, often angry, comments Friday about the Cesar Chavez Schools Network in Pueblo depicted an organization in chaos, complete with allegations of financial misdoings, teachers bullied into signing loyalty oaths and principals pressured to enroll more and more students until class sizes hit 45.

Hernandez demoted but not out at Chavez

PUEBLO - An emotional five-hour meeting ended late Friday with Lawrence Hernandez and his wife demoted but not out at the Cesar Chavez Schools Network they founded. They will be in charge of two of the five schools, both in Pueblo.

Crowding at Metro State forces tough conversations

Metropolitan State College of Denver has been the face of opportunity in Denver’s urban core since 1965. But record numbers of students coupled with budget cuts and a student turnover problem are causing the school’s leadership to rethink certain aspects of Metro’s open enrollment policies. Some policy changes are already in the works to limit student numbers.

Hernandez reportedly out at Cesar Chavez

Lawrence Hernandez, whose Cesar Chavez Academy in Pueblo drew national acclaim, has been suspended as the CEO of that school and others in the Cesar Chavez Schools Network he founded, according to published reports. His future - and that of his wife Annette, the chief operating officer of the school, along with chief finance officer Jason Guerrero - will be discussed at a network board meeting today.

More News...

Unions gagging on Obama reforms

To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration's first recipe for school reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that make unions gag. Read Washington Post story.

Education news roundup: September 25

New park or new school? Developer offers Stapleton choice
School nurse shortage hampers swine flu response
New GI Bill a bureaucratic bog

DPS board candidates detail views on big issues

Education News Colorado sent all 11 Denver school board candidates a detailed questionnaire, designed to help voters learn positions on key issues. Six of 11 candidates responded. With links to full, unedited responses, and candidate websites.

Lawrence Hernandez was demoted but will still be in charge of two
Cesar Chavez campuses in Pueblo. Read story.

Opinion and Commentary

Get teacher-leaders involved in big decisions

The Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) has just released a white paper “New Student Assessments and Advancing Teaching as a Results-Oriented Profession.” The paper is is co-authored by CTQ president Barnett Berry, director of research and policy Alesha Daughtrey, and Renee Moore, Dave Orphal, and Marsha Ratzel of the Teacher Leaders Network. This description is from the CTQ website:

The paper raises cautions about the use of value-added models (VAMs) as "the preferred method" to estimate the effects of individual teachers on student achievement. Even highly accomplished teachers who embrace accountability, the authors say, "are skeptical of using VAMs as a central measure of their effectiveness," citing the narrowness of what the models measure and reports from researchers of significant and high error rates. However, the paper supports "the strategic use of value-added data, with the models' limitations in mind" and urges the engagement of expert teachers in efforts "to sharpen those models and their underlying student assessments to improve accountability systems in ways that support more effective teaching."

As educators are confronted with new standards and accountability measures, implementation of these new “realities” will not be successful without identifying teacher leaders and putting them to work in their schools. As budget cuts loom, it is important to recognize the role of teacher leaders at the school and district level. We need to be very thoughtful about removing teachers from these positions as a way to increase the number of teachers in the classroom. CTQ has also published a new book, "Teaching 2030," co-authored by Barnett Berry and 12 accomplished U.S. teacher leaders. I have not read the book but I am intrigued based on a short animated clip that spotlights some of the themes of the book. I was especially impressed by their challenge to teachers’ unions to behave more like professional guilds. CTQ has embraced the notion that teachers can do more than react to what is being done to them and is proactively articulating what needs to be done. Good for them.

A must read on urban debate at Manual [UPDATED}

Melanie Asmar at Westword has written a superb piece on the Manual High School Denver Urban Debate League, focusing on super-smart siblings Teague and Theron Harrison. I hung around the debate team during its inaugural season a couple of years ago and it was clear back then that if they could harness their energies, the Harrisons had the smarts to go places. Here is my story on the Manual debate team from the fall of 2008. Asmar's piece is comprehensive. This weekend the Manual team and the Harrisons will be competing in the Denver city championship, vying for a spot in the national tournament next month in New York City. Kudos to Manual teacher Charlie Smith, the debate coach, and to the kids who have made the program a success against some tough odds. Go, Thunderbolts!

From the publisher: A close watch on DPS elections

No matter where you stand on public education issues, there is little doubt that this fall’s school board elections in Denver represent a watershed moment. The current board is split 4-3 on whether the current direction of reforms should continue, and whether Superintendent Tom Boasberg should keep his job. Three seats are up in November. Theresa Peña and Bruce Hoyt, strong supporters of the current regime and direction, are term-limited and cannot run again. Arturo Jimenez, who lines up against the Boasberg agenda on most issues, is up for reelection. As an incumbent, he has a leg up in winning his seat.

No one doubts that this fall’s elections will be bruising and, by education politics standards, big-money affairs.

So for the current 4-3 split in favor of Boasberg to stand, both Peña’s at-large seat and Hoyt’s southeast Denver seat would have to be won by candidates who support the district’s current direction. All that could change, of course, if the current effort to recall board President Nate Easley, a Boasberg ally, succeeds. If Easley loses his seat this spring to a candidate who opposes current choice and turnaround initiatives, Boasberg won’t be in his job come November. So the stakes couldn’t be higher. And given Colorado’s vanguard positions on teacher effectiveness, school innovation and growth model data, the outcome of Denver school politics will reverberate nationally. It is for these reasons that Education News Colorado has just hired a reporter to cover the DPS elections and related issues. We believe that people interested in schools and the politics of education will be keenly interested in following these races closely. At the same time, we do not want to sacrifice our coverage of important issues elsewhere, be they state policy initiatives, vouchers in Douglas County, Jeffco budget woes or Aurora innovations. Our new reporter is Charlie Brennan, a familiar name to people interested in Colorado journalism. EdNew's Colorado's Charlie Brennan

Cribs, teacher edition

No matter where you stand on the whole Wisconsin controversy, this is just flat-out funny:

The logical extension of vouchers?

Some questions regarding the current Douglas County School Board push for vouchers: Would it be appropriate, much less legal, for the governing board of a public library system to allow current library subscribers, if they so chose, to receive library funds to rent DVDs from Netflix, Blockbuster, or the local video store down the street (do these still exist)? I am, of course, trying to make an analogy to the current push by Douglas County school board members to establish a “scholarship” program whereby families would receive tax money dedicated to public schools to use as tuition at private schools. Is my analogy off the mark, or could we even apply it to other public services? Park districts, police and fire protection, maybe even our justice system?

Are we ready to admit now that vouchers are not about improving student achievement? They are about an ideology that values choice, regardless of effectiveness.

Does the school board of Douglas County, or any school board for that matter, have the legal authority to establish a voucher system? Isn’t the purpose of public school boards to govern the public schools under their jurisdiction? I realize that public schools contract out some services to private companies, including contract schools. But the school board still “governs” those private companies ensuring that the private companies follow contractual obligations thereby ensuring the tax payer that funds are being used wisely and effectively.