National Standards -

I have been perplexed by the strong conservative voices that lined up in support of national standards (Common Core).  Well known conservative educational voices, Chester Finn and Fredrick Hess, Jeb Bush and some state stalwarts all spoke out.  Their arguments, actually, made a great deal of sense:  Since Colorado has made so little progress in improving student learning, it only makes sense that we join with other states in national efforts, aided and abetted, I might add, by the promise of much needed cash.
When a roofing contractor, a financial advisor or a Nigerian citizen entreats us to enter a business arrangement, what is our first consideration?  performance...perhaps a track record?  That, of course, is the problem.  We have this perfect plan but no track record of government performing successfully, why then should we accept the premise that this is different?  A quick review of 37 years of IDEA with it's mountainous compliance issues and it's failure to deliver promised funds, might provide some insight.
We're told Washington doesn't understand local control.  Might I provide an example  School districts and personnel, as well as the public, have been very involved in the development of Colorado standards, adopted by the SBE in May, 2010.  Following adoption of the Common Core (by 4-3 vote), anxious to move forward, they asked us what they should do next.  The answer...nothing, "wait until we find out."  Is that not indicative of the future?
One thing the R2T announcement made clear, Colorado is one of the leaders in educational reform.  Others are woefully unprepared.  Are we to wait for them or are they to make a gigantic leap forward?  We already work and collaborate with other high achieving states like Massachusetts, Indiana and others.
It is rapidly becoming common knowledge that the Race To The Top competition was poorly handled.  Colorado lost points because CEA refused to sign on?  What about the Quality Teacher bill, #191?  We may have lost out in the first competition precisely because of our lack of such a plan.  The entire region west of the Mississippi was left out (no, Hawaii doesn't count).  Because we were deemed inferior?  Or, perhaps, because we have so few electoral votes?  Washington insiders are abuzz about  the possible political backlash.
Why would we want to continue down this path?  Colorado needs to move forward without emeshing itself in D.C. politics.  Cash isa  problem, there's no escaping that fact.  I would like to see us withdraw from the partnership, reprioritize our next steps and move forward, following the path we have already set out on with the excellent cooperation of our districts, our public and other state entities.

Common Core Adoption - Thoughts

The Colo. State Board of Education is unanimously committed to educational reform and will continue to follow that path, even though we sometimes disagree about how to get there.  Adoption of the Common Core national standards on August 2nd is a good example.  The Common Core are good standards, at least as good as Colorado Standards.  The question then became, why should we or should we not adopt them?  In choosing to vote against the adoption I had two main reasons.   The first:  In a 30 year history of dealing with education reform, I can not be convinced that the federal government will be able to do the job better.  I spoke of that in my first post on this subject.  Their continuing failure to live up to financial committments, as in IDEA and  Title One, their midunderstanding of the needs of rural schools, combined with greater bureauracy, in the form of compliance reporting, all point to federal edicts and stagnation. Many good people made the adoption argument  that the need for co-operation and 21st skills overcame their reluctance.  I hope they are correct and regret my skepticism.
The skepticism came from my second concern:  Why did the rules keep changing?  Heritage had an excellent  article on this July 20th...The Quiet Education Overhaul  in which they made the argument that the present administration has been using stimulous money to do an end-around congress, enticing states with that money in Race to the Top competition.  They certainly had the money part correct.  As Chairman Shaeffer said on Monday, "Let's not kid ourselves, this argument is all about the money!"  Questions we should have asked:   In original discussions we were assured that "meet or exceed" would be the goal.  If we met that goal we would continue to participate in the discussions toward developing mutually acceptable standards for states.  Why were we then told, in just the past few weeks,   you must formally adopt these standards by August 2nd at 2PM EST?  We informally learned just a day or two ago that:  unless you adopt the standards you cannot continue to engage in the assessment discussions with other states.  ( Incidentally, we learn that a new set of standards will soon be released in draft form that will deal with higher ed. Teacher Prep programs.)
Colorado Dept of Ed. staff and hundreds of individual citizens worked very hard to produce Colorado Standards and, upon adoption, the state board produced and adopted a resolution in support of our use of Colorado standards.  Many of those people feel that their work was abandoned and at least one board member is wondering why we so easily abandoned our resolution, perhaps both figuratively and actually?

Adopting National Standards

CDE staff members and state wide educators have been hard at work for almost two years creating, editing and adopting a new set of Colorado Standards, standards that are "fewer, higher & clearer" than those adopted under No Child Left Behind more than 10 years ago.  They were formally and unanimously adopted in May 2010, along with a Resolution acknowledging our committment to our own Colorado Standards.  We are now asked, as part of our submission for Race To The Top funding, to adopt National Standards.  Let me be clear, these are good standards.  At least as good as Colorado's, in some cases even better.  But we can incorporate those changes into our own standards.  The real question:   What are the downsides to this adoption?  Is the money that we would gain worth the exchange?  This money would help us develop a 21st century set of assessments to match the standards, work that will be delayed without the necessary funds.  The question?    Do we really want to put our feet upon this slippery slope?  While there is agreement upon the standards at this time, what if changes are required?  When future standards, like history and health, are adopted will it be "deemed" that we have accepted those also?   The National Standards have more curricular elements, will this lead to  loss of Colorado's greatly valued local control?  Can we depend upon the promises of the government?  Actions speak louder than words. When  Congress slashed the funds of Washington, D.C.'s highly valued voucher program, neither the president nor the Education Commissioner raised a hand to protect it. That alone is enough to stay my hand.

Money can't buy.....

For far too long we have heard the message....give us more money and we will give you better schools. Has it worked? Not to my knowledge. The fact is that, even adjusted for inflation, the amount of money spent per pupil is around seven times what it was thirty years ago. Does money matter? Of course. But administrators and boards sometimes forget what their primary purpose is; not just to educate our children but to do a better job than we are currently
doing. Yet, just as we continue to do the same things we have always done, and in the same manner, we continue to allocate our funds in the same way they have always been allocated.
Identifying goals that will truly improve student learning and then prioritizing your funds to insure that the goals can be reached, why do we seem to find this impossible?

For instance, most educators and a large portion of the public see high school education as that area most in need of reform. With the rapidly accelerating knowledge bases, why do we continue to have six or seven period days from 7:30 to 3PM? Why aren't they open from 7AM until 5 or even 8PM? Students and staff could choose the times that worked best for them, tutoring sessions, on line learning and special interest classes could be held, there are a multitude of available plans and ideas. Would it cost more? Probably not much.

We have been talking about the critical need to reform for 18 years, (remember....A Nation at Risk?) The time for action is now! Visit http://www.electmarcianeal.com/

Ending Social Promotion

Not long ago I read an article in the Rocky Mountain News about a Denver school that had made the decision to end social promotion! What an earth-shaking idea. Surely we can't do that? Stop moving students from grade to grade .....risk damaging their self esteem?

About 30 years ago educational critics began to agitate about "failing" students. While the original protests did contain some germs of truth, namely that having the student repeat the entire subject or class was not very successful, they wrongly concluded that the solution was to just pass them on and the next teacher could bring them up to the desired level. This led to teachers having learning gaps of up to six to eight years along with an expectation that they should meet the needs of all students. It also had the unintended consequence of creating generations of students who knew that they didn't have to work hard to master subjects because they would be passed on.

Simple solution: Instead of starting over the student needed to finish the work. This might be done in a variety of ways, tutoring sessions during the year, after school, or weekends; a two to four week summer school session; there are many options. This has two advantages: For those students who just need more time and attention to master the subject, it is provided. But the big advantage: re-creating students who realize that they are expected to produce satisfactory results and that true self esteem comes from working hard to master a difficult subject and achieving success.

This is step one in educational reform. Visit http://www.electmarcianeal.com/