Schools for Tomorrow Blog

The Rocky Mountain News has just posted a newsflash that Denver Public Schools Supt. Michael Bennet will be named to the U.S. Senate tomorrow to finish out Ken Salazar’s term.

This is great news for Bennet, but what does it mean for DPS? There’s currently no clear number two person in the district who can step in and take the reins. It’s even a mystery who a temporary fill-in might be. With new schools and facilities-sharing initiatives just underway, and pension merger negotiations in a fragile state, this is a less than ideal time for a sudden leadership change.

Just a couple of weeks ago, it appeared that Bennet might be headed to D.C. to lead the U.S. Department of Education. So we’ve been wondering for a while now what his sudden departure might mean for the district. Here is what I wrote in my “Letter from the editor” in my weekly enewsletter recently:

There…

Alexander Russo writes:

Looking back at Duncan’s record, the specific moments that concern me the most include (a) last year year when Duncan went along with a cynical and failed Mayoral effort to link citywide gang violence with the school system — even though little of the violence was taking place in school, (b) Duncan’s stubborn resistance against NCLB transfers, tutoring, and accountability requirements that he will now be enforcing, (c) Duncan’s insistence on closing buildings down for a year to turn them around, and (d) his failure to revamp the teachers contract, which gives annual raises but still calls for an extremely short day and short year.

Perhaps most important, Duncan failed to convince more white and middle class parents to send their kids to public schools, and failed to convince legislators to revamp the state funding system even during boon times and with Democratic control of the legislature and the…

Here’s the full announcement:

You have to love Mike Klonsky’s consistency. While people across the spectrum are praising Barack Obama’s selection of Arne Duncan as next education secretary, here’s Mike’s opening salvo:

Well, you can’t win ‘em all. While I had no expectations that the Obama team would select the only progressive educator on the list for Sec. of Ed, I had hoped he would steer clear of the hatchet-swinging, test crazy, union busting, NCLB-loving, privatization-minded, Klein-Rhee-Vallas-Duncan types.

Sure. Let’s just leave all inner-city kids in schools that have been failing them for the past 50-plus years. That’ll show the little bastards.

With the Secretary of Education position now decided, one might think the game of guessing DPS’s new Superintendent in the new year would pass.  Not so fast…

Obama did it! He picked an education reformer that can work with both camps.  I think this could be a game changer for the way Dems talk about education reform.  Rumor is that there will be a press conference at Chicago charter school.  How’s that for symbolism, if true?

Greg Palast of the Huffington Post blasts Joel Klein (New York) and Arne Duncan (Chicago), two candidates floated by “reform” minded columnists for Secretary of Education.  Palast argues that either of the two would result in a “Way-to-go-Brownie” moment for Obama.  I must admit I am excited at the prospect of Bennet as Education secretary.  He’s taken on entrenched positions, proposed alternatives and navigated the bureaucracy.  He’s outside the current reformer versus status quo mess and he’s outside the Chicago political mess (versus Duncan).  He’d leave some big shoes to fill.

On May 21 of this year, The Denver Classroom Teachers Association issued a vote of no-confidence in Supt. Michael Bennet after negotiations over a new contract reached an ugly impasse.

This week, that same organization tossed bouquets Bennet’s way as word surfaced that he was being seriously considered by Barack Obama for Secretary of Education. (And this isn’t idle speculation, by the way. He’s really being vetted, or so I’m told). In the intervening months, the contract was settled after a mediator stepped in. But DPS won most of the major mediation skirmishes, so I didn’t expect DCTA to be feeling especially benevolent toward Bennet.

So I decided to go to the source, and emailed DCTA President Kim Ursetta about the apparent union u-turn.

“It is not an endorsement- simply factual comments about MFB in his role as superintendent,” Kim replied.

The DCTA office had received multiple media calls about the Bennet rumor and Kim…

The latest tangent from the speculation regarding Bennet’s potential as Secretary of Education, is a press release from the Denver teacher’s union supporting the choice:

“He is reform-minded and interested in new approaches,” wrote Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. “As a non-traditional superintendent, he thinks outside the box to find new answers to old problems, especially concerning student achievement. . . . Michael Bennet would bring new ideas and approaches to the U.S. Department of Education.”

I could not find the actual release online (please send the link if someone can); the following is from an article in the Denver Post.

Now DPS and the DCTA certainly have a cordial relationship, but they have clashed pretty hard over changes to ProComp, and Innovation Schools  – both “out of the box” solutions.  DCTA’s support on the recent DPS bond was minimal. And in the last round of Board elections, there was a clear divide between the…

Alexander Russo has some entertaining gossip speculation about what might be going on behind the scenes in the selection of a new education secretary.

With expectations growing that President-elect Obama will announce his education secretary pick soon, the Denver Post (soon to be the only major newspaper act in town?) has chimed in on the right side:

Obama must choose a reformer.

Of course, the selection to head the Department of Education is mostly symbolic, since the position holds limited authority. But in this case, the symbolism may be quite crucial. A Linda Darling-Hammond selection, for instance, could deflate and demoralize Democrat reform groups, and inflame the loyal opposition party to grab the reform banner and run with it.

On the other hand, as the Post suggests, an Arne Duncan (or maybe a Joel Klein?) would be acceptable to the cause of education reform. It’s not clear who the Post might think would fit the bill of even “bolder choices,” but hopefully not the souls behind this agenda. (And no, I’m pretty sure the editors didn’t intend to write “Boulder…

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter has an article on Bill Gates, which happens to also mention Denver’s own Michael Bennet as a potential Secretary of Education. Gates, as we’ve seen, has spent lots of money with little effect, so it’s interesting to see how his thinking has evolved.  Much of this is pretty basic to ed reformers, but it’s good to see it getting play more broadly via Newsweek:

Betraying his own professional background, Gates shakes his head in dismay at the idea of secondary schools and colleges trying to function at all without simple software that offers them basic statistical information about how students and teachers are performing over time (for-profit colleges are an exception). Everyone in education knows why: unions have simply prevented teachers from being judged, even in part, on whether their students improve during the course of the year. It’s no surprise that Gates is a believer in merit pay and…