New Colorado School Grades Website Offers Important Info to Families

by Eddie | 2:50 pm, December 12, 2011

Having more educational choices by itself is a good thing. Yet without enough accompanying information for families to make wise and effective choices, a lot of potential is lost. That’s one of the reasons why my Education Policy Center friends continue to offer the fantastic School Choice for Kids (SCFK) website, with all its helpful [...]

Please, Please, Stop the Taxpayer-Funded (Colorado Teachers) Union Madness!

by Eddie | 11:04 am, December 9, 2011

Sometimes you have to look outside the world of education to capture attention for issues affecting Colorado schools and the students and taxpayers invested in their success. Two headlines in particular popped up this week. The first comes from the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which is litigating Cheatham v. Gordon, a troubling case of wasted [...]

Tell Hoover Institution Your Best and Worst Education Events of 2011 (Vote #1)

by Eddie | 1:16 pm, December 5, 2011

One thing December brings is the obligatory year-end lists. If you are even a casual reader of this blog, then you should be interested in taking a moment to vote on the “Best and Worst in American Education, 2011″ — brought to you by the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education.
Being of [...]

Independence Institute Report Helps Build K-12 Financial Transparency Momentum

by Eddie | 4:37 pm, November 16, 2011

Not long ago my Education Policy Center friends released a report analyzing how well Colorado’s 195 local education agencies (i.e., school districts and BOCES) are complying with the 2010 Public School Financial Transparency Act. As you might imagine, this kind of work presented the challenge of capturing a perfect static picture in a dynamic online [...]

“Audits for Thee, Not for Me,” But More Attacks on Online Ed. Option to Come

by Eddie | 12:17 pm, November 9, 2011

Despite what you may hear, legislative “gridlock” isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it quite often can be a good thing. Case in point comes from this story yesterday in Ed News Colorado:
Colorado’s top senator says he’ll introduce legislation to “rein in” online schools after his request for an online education audit was rejected [...]

New I.I. Report Shows Colo. Local K-12 Agencies Have Lots of Room to Follow the Law and Improve Financial Transparency

by Eddie | 1:19 pm, November 7, 2011

So here we are, almost a week after the election here in Colorado that got a lot of big people’s attention. Prop 103’s “for the kids” tax hike went down in a ball of flames. A record number of local school tax and debt elections ran headlong into defeat. In at least one case, “negative [...]

Reveling in Election Results? New NAEP Scores Mixed Bag for Colorado & Nation

by Eddie | 11:08 am, November 2, 2011

With all the important results related to education in last night’s election here in Colorado — hooray, the only dominoes that toppled were the ones supporting the Prop 103 tax increase on families like mine, AND the school choice champions in Douglas County all won — it would be easy for me to overlook some [...]

Colorado Digital Learning Policies Middle of the Pack with Room for Great Improvement

by Eddie | 11:42 am, October 18, 2011

Yesterday I let you know about Education Policy Center director Pam Benigno’s published response to Colorado’s K-12 controversy of the month concerning online education programs. One of the great aspects of her piece was the focus on effective student-centered policy solutions. She directly suggested changes to how students are counted and funded — whether a [...]

Effective Colorado Online K-12 Education? Change Policies Without More Regulation

by Eddie | 3:48 pm, October 17, 2011

Colorado’s education story of the month has been the state of public online schools. An in-depth investigative report by Ed News Colorado (and Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network) coincided with a request for a formal legislative audit by the state senate’s highest-ranking Democratic official. Ed News Colorado’s three-part series:

Identified a problem with students transferring out [...]

Inquiring Minds: Is Major Education Reform About Ready to Give Iowa a Try?

by Eddie | 2:54 pm, October 4, 2011

In this musical play my grandma told me about, called The Music Man, there’s a song that strongly suggests people from Iowa are stubborn, and (kinda tongue-in-cheek) tells listeners that “you really ought to give Iowa a try.” Back in January, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow noted how one-time Colorado education innovator Jason [...]

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