Schools for Tomorrow Blog

News of a school board moving beyond an initial adversarial approach to facilities and charter schools:

The district sponsored few charters and refused to lease empty schools to them even as many of its buildings stood empty. Still, other city charter schools thrived.

On Tuesday night, [city name] school board members heard a plan to sell three of the 12 schools the district has shuttered in recent years to charter schools. The district also intends to partner with the schools. Board members are expected to approve the agreements next week.

“For too long we said we would partner with charter schools, but it wasn’t real,” said board member Pam Costain.

The city above is not the New Orleans, Washington DC or New York, but (similar to Denver) a smaller district also in fly-over country: Minneapolis, MN, with 91 schools and 33,000 students. If a charter facility partnership can make it there, perhaps it can...

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Who’s got skin in the game?

Why haven’t DPSRS and PERA merged yet? The deadline they set was January 1 and I know it’s not January 1, but it’s game time. The merger seems like it would be good for everyone. It was supported by DPS, PERA, the teachers’ union, and others. Only DPSRS was lukewarm.

A merger would be a boon to Colorado teachers in and out of PERA, DPS and to the kids who need it most. It wouldn’t hurt any districts. DPS now pays a staggering $1300 per student into the pension; PERA districts pay $500. DPS charter schools pay through the nose. I’m not sure I even support pensions, but so long as we have them, a merger makes sense for everyone.

So will someone please tell me who’s holding up this parade?

Alan Greenspan recently told Congress that “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending...

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Speak out!  David Hoff from Education Week just called me about my disappointment with the Linda Darling-Hammond appointment.

David indicated that there are many prominent educators talking to him about their concerns with LDH but no one would go on the record.  What’s up with that?

We need an open spirited discussion of how the Feds should lead education.   What’s she going to do? Blacklist TFA, New Leaders, KIPP, New Teacher Project, New Schools Venture Fund, Gates, Broad, NYC dept of Education, charter community, The best urban sups, etc, etc.   There are too many of us struggling to develop schools where all kids succeed.

Not to mention the fact that most involved with these reform efforts are Democrats!  We are hardly a collection of Republicans as some would paint us.

By now, the people who frequent this site are all likely familiar with the Believe in a Better Colorado (BBC) campaign. CEA, CASE, and CASB-the Education Lobby’s sometimes Iron Triangle-decided to all play together on the same team for this one. They have worked to educate school employees and taxpaying...

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So this is what happens when you want to change a system? No wonder education has been a mess for so long. I’ve been a supporter of Obama and of Dems, and I’ll be unspeakably...

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I was over at Manual High School late last week, after the Denver school board heard school facility-sharing recommendations from the district staff. One recommendation that caught me by surprise was locating an alternative high school program called Concerned About You Academy at Manual. I spend a lot of time at Manual and had not heard anything about this co-location proposal.

So I asked Manual Principal Rob Stein whether he knew the program was likely to be located inside Manual. He stared at me as if i were speaking gibberish. He may have thought I was kidding, until he made some calls and found out it was true.

Manual got blindsided.

According to DPS, Concerned About You Acdemy would consist of 300 overage (18-21) under-credit dropouts. The program would be co-operated by Aims Community College and the Central Missionary Baptist Church.

Then, today, Manual learned the proposal was put on hold, at least in part because of this...

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Some people who opposed Denver Public Schools’ recent $454 million bond issue — which the city’s always-generous voters passed by a  better than 2-1 margin — disparaged the district for wanting to spend $29.1 million of that on new “learning landscapes,” aka playgrounds.

But, fellow cynics, here is what someone who has been involved in this plan for several years wrote to me today about the investment — which includes grassing over the remaining pea gravel school yards at Denver elementary schools. It may make you think twice:

I just saw the the details of the DPS bond funding for learning landscapes. It is truly amazing. With the funding, all 85 elementary schools will have integrated school/community playgrounds, averaging in cost from $350,000 to $1.05 million. When this initiative was started, only five schools had grass. DPS has to be the number one school in the country for its elementary facilities....

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The debate continues over how to rate teachers.  This piece from Jay Mathews at the Washington Post:

Posted in Teacher pay, Teaching and learning | No Comments »