I’m sure many of you were preoccupied with lesser stories in the news about the upcoming presidential election, economic struggles, and the like, not to notice the earth-shattering development of last Friday (via a 9News story about the DPS bond proposal):

“Uncle Charley” is actually the pseudonym for Ben DeGrow, with the Independence Institute, a non-partisan conservative political think tank.

My apologies for not warning you to fetch the smelling salts in advance. Alan told me suspicions were rife that “Uncle Charley” was a pen name for Ward Churchill or William Ayers. Well, all I can say is you’re very likely to recover from the disturbing shock of my true identity.

I’ve never been completely comfortable blogging under a borrowed name for the past 18 months. I agreed to do so under the original terms of PEBC’s proposal to foster a provocative discussion. But even so I have taken great care to write in a way that I could defend under my own name.

For the curious souls, “Uncle Charley” is an old baseball slang term for a nasty curveball. In my case, it’s more likely a high hanging curve that’s been clobbered for numerous extra-base hits and sent me to the showers early. Instead of someone that sounded like an old stodgy conservative, you got a not-so-old stodgy conservative.

Enough about me. The mystery is over. This is the final post I’ll write under the name “Uncle Charley”. Henceforth, each of my entries will be filed under my own name. I hope you will continue to judge and critique my arguments on the basis of their content.

Now on to the next juicy scandal that will attract readers to Schools for Tomorrow.

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Not much could be scarier than the endless string of political advertising that’s been increasingly inflicted upon us over the past few months. The best thought is the light at the end of the tunnel only a few days away now. All this campaigning has soured my stomach and numbed my brain. It has divided my attention a dozen ways or more.

As Alexander Ooms highlighted yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News story, it seems even the well-funded Denver’s teachers union has had its struggles with the distractions of election season. The DCTA president admitted that her group has sacrificed resources that could have been used on the district’s bond and mill levy campaign to focus on defeating three state ballot amendments.

Interestingly, the issue committee Protect Colorado’s Future that DCTA has poured $10,000 into (along with more than $200,000 from their CEA building mates and $3.3 million from the NEA in Washington, D.C.) in order to oppose the amendments has released a new, outrageous mailer. In a roundabout way, the kind of advertising it exemplifies has plenty to say about the state of public education.

You really have to follow the link and see the ad for yourself. Like Godzilla, Amendment 49 and Amendment 54 are going to crush fire departments? This is the height of absurdity only occasionally reached in contemporary political campaigns. As Mike Rosen warned his audience on 850 KOA yesterday about a radio ad produced by this same group: “They think you’re stupid. Don’t be stupid.”

Doubtless that admonition could be made in reference to many of the blurry, grainy TV attack ads and over-the-top mail pieces bandied about this election season. But Protect Colorado’s Future has elevated – or should I say denigrated – it into a new art form.

It might be a bit much to presume that DCTA, CEA, and NEA officials think you’re stupid, just because they’ve funded this campaign. I don’t know that the teachers union has any say at all over the committee’s design and production of ads. But someone should ask them if they feel the slightest remorse about boatloads of educators’ dues money clearly appropriated in hopes of preying on ignorance.

Probably not, I guess. After all, their Jefferson County union compatriots only a few weeks ago littered the school district email system with “absurd scare tactics” about imagined threats to teacher retirement funds. Someone must have figured that obliterated fire departments play better with the undecided voters in the general public.

You know what’s more than ironic, but scary? The money of teachers being used to exploit fears and ignorance through deception. Thankfully, this election will be over in a matter of days. Sadly, I expect these horrible campaign tactics will live on.

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Teacher pension systems make up a sticky topic for conversation. And since I’m short on time anyway, I’m not going to risk getting bogged down in the muck. You really ought to take a look, though, at the unsurprising but staggering news in this Washington Post story:

The market downturn is ravaging public pension funds across the United States, with many state and local governments seeing more than 20 percent of their retirement pools swept away in the turmoil.

Even before the financial crisis, many large pension funds already were considered to be inadequately funded, according to the Government Accountability Office. The losses could force some states and local governments to ask taxpayers to pay more into the funds or to demand more contributions from the police, teachers and other government employees whom the benefits cover.

Jay Greene sums up the problem well:

The problem, according to pension administrators cited in the article, stems in part from “an increase in pension benefits.”  That is, when the market is doing great and pension funds are flush, state policymakers are tempted to accede to teacher demands to raise benefits.  But when the market drops, the pension benefits cannot be cut.  It’s a one-way street.  Pension benefits may be increased but it is illegal to decrease them.

So, guess who is going to have to pay the pension piper?  Taxpayers.

Yes, terrific. Another bailout. If this news doesn’t shake you out of your slumber and get you reading the recent report by the Committee for Education Development’s Janet Hansen, I don’t know what will. Hansen spoke last week at a PEBC breakfast event, helping to move forward the discussion. As she carefully pointed out, there are plenty of details, nuances, and oft-overlooked considerations that go into the design and restructuring of teacher pension plans.

This post can’t afford getting stuck in that muck. But policy makers and concerned taxpaying citizens need to move beyond the oversimplified dichotomy of traditional defined benefit vs. traditional defined contribution plans. We have to work hard to find politically viable ways to ease the burden on taxpayers, and expand the plans to meet the needs of teachers off the traditional full-career path. For the sake of the students, as well as the economic well-being of their parents and communities, this issue cannot be relegated to third-rail treatment any longer.

I know we all don’t want to get stuck in the complexity of teacher pensions, but it’s a reform issue that has to be addressed thoroughly, fairly, and honestly in the near future.

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How can school district superintendents be held accountable if they break their promises to the public? The question is raised by a documented allegation forwarded by two concerned Jefferson County taxpayers. The conservative outlet Face The State reports that Jeffco’s 2008 mill levy proposal (3A) may pose a problem for the integrity of school district officials:

This is the third time since 1999 that district officials have asked for voter approval on a mill levy tax increase and bond measure.

The move has Jeffco homeowners Jeff Sacco and Linda Sasenick calling foul. After a Colorado Open Records request, Saco and Sasenick were outraged to discover a 2004 promise from Superintendent Cindy Stevenson that the district would wait five years before asking for more money (PDF). And according to a recent report in the Denver Post, Jeffco has sought about $940 million in bonds for capital construction in recent years.

According to the official minutes of the November 9, 2004, Strategic Planning and Advisory Council meeting: “Cindy [Stevenson] emphasized that Jeffco will continue to be efficient and effective with our budget. We committed to voters not to return for 5 years for more money.” Unless I missed something, the calendar hasn’t turned to 2009 yet. That directly hurts the case for 3A (the mill levy increase).

Other arguments are raised against 3B (the bond):

But Sacco and Sasenick are left questioning the need for new schools considering enrollment has fallen by 2 percent since 1999. “What possible needs do they have that are so critical?” Sacco asked.

Last week, the story was about an “old curmudgeon” who created a brief public firestorm by writing sarcastic arguments for Jeffco’s 3A and 3B that were published in the voter guide. I’ve talked to Sacco. He happens to be on the same side of the issue as the curmudgeon, but rightly disagrees with the tactic. Indeed, Sacco has taken a higher road to air his legitimate concerns. However, he says the traditional media sources have shown utterly no interest. At least Face The State gave him a little publicity.

I believe Cindy Stevenson deserves the opportunity to give her side of the story and fill in the context to explain the document. But I also believe JeffCo voters first deserve the opportunity to have her publicly answer the question about the five-year promise.

Certainly, Stevenson ought not be judged by the integrity of this statement alone. But if there is reasonable substance to the allegations, in what way should she and the district be held accountable? I think it’s an important question.

And I think we ought to resist the curmudgeonly, therapeutic, knee-jerk, “throw-the-bums-out” approach. Our first priority instead should be a strong grassroots demand for laws enforcing greater financial transparency, so citizens can easily monitor the checkbook and other budget expenses their school district makes.

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There’s a very good possibility that next year will bring sweeping changes to the federal government’s executive administration. The look ahead to what this means for education policy has already begun. But the question has to be asked: What lessons have been learned from the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind policies? Are they the right lessons?

Andy Rotherham and Sara Mead, new Democrats who very well could be influential policy voices in an Obama administration, argue in a new Brookings Institution report that the Department of Education should create a bureaucracy to foster local education innovation and entrepreneurship. The problem is evident in the contradiction of tasking a federal bureaucracy to get the job done, but the idea of scaling up entrepreneurship is great and in many ways essential.

Fordham’s Michael Petrilli is critical, and my conservative instincts are inclined to agree with him:

Part of the proposal’s audacity is its desire for federal officials to pick winners and losers (those “entrepreneurs” that deserve federal largesse, and those that don’t) and to expect everything to just go swimmingly. I know Sara and Andy haven’t slept through the past seven years, but have they learned any of the key lessons of the No Child Left Behind era? Did they notice what happened to Reading First officials who dared to suggest that some of the reading programs available on the open market weren’t any good and didn’t deserve federal funding? Did they notice how “losers” in the process were able to push their claims through the media and the political process?

And:

We don’t need another “game-changer” in education at the federal level—we’re still coping with the current game-changer, NCLB. What we need is more humility and some realistic expectations. But it looks like we’ll have to wait at least another four years for that.

 Jay Greene expresses some insightful observations, as well as a bit of humility:

My mistake and the mistake of NCLB was in not considering how much implementation of those incentive systems matters.  The federal education bureaucracy lacks the familiarity with local circumstances, the nimbleness to respond to changing circumstances, and the political will to apply sanctions to properly implement an incentive system.  Incentive systems are good for education reform but the federal government is too big, slow, far-away, stupid, and cowardly to do it right.

While I think Petrilli and Greene both truly are on to something, it’s hardly reasonable to expect Rotherham and Mead to accede to these observations. Eight years ago, exuberant Republican education officials flocked to Washington, D.C., with the belief that they could use federal tools to meet their goals for reforming the system. Would they have heeded Democratic voices that begged the lessons of the Clinton administration be learned?

If a Democratic administration moves to Washington in 2009, perhaps those like Rotherham and Mead would at least be willing to scale down their expectations a bit and stay focused on limited objectives that have a better chance of success. But I’m afraid it’s too much the nature of our political system for individuals on either side of the aisle to miss the significance of vital lessons.

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Did you watch last night’s presidential debate? I thought it was going to be a snoozer like the previous two, but this one did a lot more to capture my attention. And the prolonged discussion on education reform near the end really made my day.

If you read my postings enough, you can probably guess who my preferred candidate is, but I’m not going to disclose it here. The main takeaway I had from last night’s education exchange between John McCain and Barack Obama was the importance that school choice has assumed in the national debate.

Noted education research Jay Greene, whom I frequently cite here, said it best:

Just think.  Only twenty years ago school choice and competition was hardly a glimmer in Ronald Reagan’s eye.  Now the idea is so widely accepted as reasonable that the leaders of both parties differ only on the mechanism for producing choice and competition.  We’ve come a long way, baby.

Jay is right. First, both the Republican and the Democratic candidate gave their “props” to the importance and success of public charter schools as an important and viable option. Obama even explicitly noted that he took action “despite some reservations from teachers unions.”

Second, they articulated their disagreements about school vouchers. McCain has been one of the strongest supporters of the bipartisan Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. On the other hand, I believe Obama fumbled the issue in three ways:

1. He struggled to acknowledge D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s support of vouchers.

2. He strangely implied that McCain’s exclusion of state or local voucher programs from his federal plans means he doesn’t care about voters “in the other 50 states.”

3. He misstated that “the data doesn’t show that [vouchers] actually solves the problem,” when most of the best studies say they improve student and systemic outcomes.

I think these three points won the question and this particular round of the debate for McCain. Nevertheless, just to see the major party presidential candidates not disagreeing over the broader policy concept of school choice, but simply over what brand or brands work best—well, as I said, that made my day.

Of course, it’s not so much to either candidate’s credit that school choice could take center stage at the nationally-televised debate. It’s rather a reflection on years of hard work, advocacy, and opportunities taken by people in a movement that spans political parties and racial divides. While we endure all the clamor about crass campaign ads and tactics for 19 more days, this moment at least was one I’m proud to cherish as an American and a school choice supporter.

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Now, let’s be honest. Some of you think I give the title “school reformer” a bad name (though I think that distinction has already been taken). However, I can confirm that I am not responsible for writing any of the pro-3A language in the Jefferson County ballot book—you know, the language that caused quite a stir yesterday.

Even if we hadn’t learned the culprit’s identity, here’s first and foremost how you could tell. Uncle Charley thinks we can do a lot more to reward teachers for performance, and believes the idea of paying new teachers six-figure salaries isn’t one to be joked about. I have noted the strong case for fewer, better, more highly-paid teachers, and the best teachers who consistently demonstrate top-notch performance and are willing to take on mentoring responsibilities should no doubt be eligible to earn six-figure salaries.

That way, we wouldn’t have to tempt teachers with large gifts from parents and others. From the Rocky Mountain News:

<blockquote>Teachers in the Boulder Valley School District are being told they can’t receive gifts worth more than $25 from parents, co-workers or anyone else, even though that practice has been common at some schools for years, district officials said.

Reports of questionable gifts to teachers — and concerns that Boulder Valley’s 30-year-old policy was unclear — prompted the district to clarify its policy this fall. According to the revised policy, employees can’t accept gifts worth more than $25 unless they fall into an excepted category.</blockquote>

I may be dating myself here, but whatever happened to giving the teacher an apple (still worth considerably less than $25, I believe, if inflation hasn’t run amok)? I guess we’ve stopped concerning ourselves with giving teachers apples, and are worried about what happens when we give them iPods.

Hardly a “socialist utopia,” but not altogether a bad deal, either.

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I read a great post by Jay Greene this morning, and it reminded me of an important principle in policy making: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As Greene portrays, sometimes defenders of the status quo violate this principle by hiding behind the isolated anecdote. In this particular case, Greene is defending Washington, DC, school chancellor Michelle Rhee’s teacher proposals from a weak attack:

According to Jennifer Jennings, the blogger formerly known as Eduwonkette, the answer is no.  We need to preserve teacher tenure, she argues, because she has found an example of a really great teacher, Art Siebens, who was fired when his DC school was reconstituted.  His case is “haunting for the glimpse it offers into the brave new world of unchecked principal autonomy.”

The fear some status quo defenders purvey is that significant reforms in the education system – in this case, reforms of tenure and teacher compensation – might unjustly have a negative impact on someone. Such arguments of course neglect the obvious fact that no human-administered policy will be perfect. The questions of policy always include real-world trade-offs of benefits and drawbacks.

As Greene indicates, there are other policies that could be enacted to mitigate the fears raised by Jennings’ anecdote:

For a system with reduced tenure protections to work, principals would also have to be properly motivated to distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers.  But this could be done either through meaningful merit evaluation and rewards for principals or through market accountability in choice programs.  If continued employment or pay raises for principals depended upon identifying effective and ineffective teachers, they are unlikely to let talented teachers like Art Siebens go and are likely to get rid of duds.

If we here in Colorado go ahead with any bold education reforms – whether it’s fixing “tenure,” overhauling standards and assessments, or expanding school choice – can we count on the people deciding the policies to allow for the rare and occasional injustice if the change provides many more benefits system-wide?

It would be nice if our education policymaking ultimately were more rational in this regard. Make the big fixes first. Arrange incentives to match intended outcomes. Then focus the remaining energy to solve as many of the individual injustices as possibly can be solved. Too often, though, the fray of interest-group politics gets these basic priorities out of order.

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A couple weeks ago I noted that Michael Bennet might be “busting the crash-and-burn cycle” for reform-minded urban school superintendents.

I may not be the only one who is hopeful. In a piece for Forbes magazine, the eminent Checker Finn cites the Mile High City as a model of innovation:

Denver also has a new school-grading scheme based on students’ academic growth. It uses labels from “distinguished” to “accredited on probation” instead of letter grades. The 10 schools at the top are enjoying cash bonuses up to $24,000 for principals and $12,000 for teachers. Just as important, they gain greater control over their curricula and budgets, and are less subject to the whims of the central bureaucracy. The 35 schools at the bottom must adopt interventions, such as mandatory curriculum, personnel changes and external expertise, or face closure (five of the 35 are already shut).

As Alan Gottlieb noted when these reports were released in mid-September, the top middle school and high school performers under Denver’s new grading system are the popular, innovative charter programs of West Denver Prep and Denver School of Science and Technology, respectively.

Finn groups Denver with its much larger cousins on either coast, New York and Los Angeles (which Finn praises for its charter conversion of troubled Locke High School). Together, he sees reasons for cautious optimism:

Nobody says unconventional supes always make smart decisions. Nobody can yet be sure that this particular trio of reforms will pay off. But these school systems have nowhere to go but up. And the old ways sure weren’t working.

In the end, Denver has the opportunity to outstrip the other two and become America’s mecca of urban education reform. We’ve got a ways to go, but if Bennet has truly beaten the odds and the three-year curse, maybe we’re on course for history in the making.

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(This post is certified safe in the politically correct zone. No mention of presidential candidates or hot button issues….)

That’s a great way to introduce this post, because I’m wondering today … Are our public schools now more about education, or more about politics? That includes parents who dress their children in provocative political T-shirts. That also includes lobbying groups that hide behind the skirts of a classroom teacher to defend their support of deceptive political propaganda.

What am I talking about? An absurd Speakout column in today’s Rocky Mountain News, co-authored by former CEA Teacher of the Year (and hand-picked CEA representative on the governor’s P-20 Council) Adele Bravo, attacking a series of initiatives on the state ballot with hollow arguments and deceptive rhetoric. Bravo is bylined as “a teacher in Lafayette,” just like her co-author, a local union president, is bylined as “a firefighter in Littleton.”

There isn’t much I can write here about the arguments and the amendments themselves that doesn’t already seem to have been taken care of in the comment section by keen readers (including the article’s insinuation that a vast array of newspapers, community leaders, and civic groups constitutes “narrow special interests” pushing a “reckless agenda”—makes you wonder who the “narrow special interests” really are).

Arguments and amendments aside, it’s what the rhetoric says about the current state of public education in Colorado that is most intriguing. The union authors seek to tie their opposition to the three measures to “speaking up for smaller class sizes” and advocating “for the tools and resources we need to educate your children.” This is merely code speak for “our union leaders would have a harder time getting members to toe (and subsidize) the party line, and we might actually have to focus harder on representing individual members’ interests.” But that doesn’t sound as compelling in a newspaper column.

CEA and its parent NEA have given nearly $1.3 million to the committee fighting Amendments 47, 49, and 54. Yet rather than putting their own name on the baseless attacks published in the Rocky, they find “a teacher” to do it. Maybe they don’t want to be the face of public opposition because CEA recently hired a lobbyist as their executive director. Such an approach tends to lend credence to an amendment that purports to “keep lobbyists in line.”

I’ve never been inside the lair known as CEA headquarters, but a former CEA staff employee told me what a burning hive of political campaign activity the place is during election season. And how can we forget about the infamous Fort Collins case that detailed CEA’s campaign outsourcing services in a state legislative race? The state supreme court in its less-than-apparent wisdom manufactured an argument to exculpate the union from state campaign finance laws, but an IRS investigation is underway.

When push comes to shove, CEA and NEA align themselves with union hardball politics while hiding behind the children. Has anyone contemplated how this kind of rhetoric (not to mention the millions of dollars of clout behind it) might affect the larger efforts of education reform?

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