January 19, 2010
Colorado Scrambles For Dollars With New School Reform Plan
(From The Denver Post, January 19, 2010)
By JESSICA FENDER and JEREMY MEYER
Colorado education officials will unveil a reform proposal today that asks for $380 million in federal Race to the Top funding, but they are missing a key plank regarding teacher evaluations that will likely give other states a leg up in the contest.
Months of work have led to a nearly 150-page plan that touches on nearly everything, including incentives for top teachers, resources focused on failing schools and sharing data across the state.
But while Colorado's application vows to address such issues as teacher performance, tenure and dismissal through a commission born today of an executive order from Gov. Bill Ritter, other states with more advanced teacher-tracking systems have put their evaluation plans into law.
Colorado began the competition as a front-runner, but analysts say the lack of guidelines for tenure and dismissal will likely hurt the state's chances at being among the first chosen for a share of the $4.35 billion program. As many as 45 states nationwide are revamping their K-12 systems to compete for hundreds of millions in stimulus dollars that will be granted in two rounds of competition.
Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien has spearheaded Colorado's Race to the Top effort and said she would rather have the support of teachers and their union than forge ahead with a plan that schools are unhappy with.
Educators are worried about kinks in the state's year-old tracking system, O'Brien said.
"It's more important we go forward trusting each other," O'Brien said. "We understand their (teachers') desire to make sure it works before people's entire careers are upended. This has to be right for Colorado, win or lose."
She said that while Colorado may not be among the first states chosen for the program in April, it will be in good shape for round two in September. And President Barack Obama was expected today to announce his request for another $1.35 billion from Congress' 2011 budget to extend the competition and allow individual districts to participate.
Breakneck pace
Education watchers have been struck by the rapidity and breadth of changes across the country since the Race to the Top was announced last year.
Tennessee on Friday passed a law making student performance 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation and tenure eligibility. Louisiana also has linked teacher pay to student performance. In Florida, similar efforts have led to teachers in a number of districts refusing to participate in the Race program.
State legislatures have called special sessions and made massive policy changes -- like removing caps on the number of charters schools -- in order to compete, according to Joe Williams, executive director of the New York-based Democrats for Education Reform.
"There is a lot that is happening quickly," said Williams, pointing to last-minute activity in Tennessee, Rhode Island, New York, Delaware and other states. "A state like Florida may not get buy-in from the teachers unions, but it has a very strong application."
Ritter's executive order sets forth that, starting March 1, the Colorado council -- an amalgam of teachers chosen by the Colorado Education Association, public and charter school administrators, a parent and a student -- will define what an effective teacher is and then determine how to measure effectiveness by the year's end.
The process could lead to a massive change in a system where teachers are now virtually guaranteed a job after spending three years in the classroom.
"It's a big, big deal. It needs to be handled carefully," CEA spokeswoman Deborah Fallin said. "It shouldn't just be thrown into the legislative hopper. This needs more work and needs more time."
Council may not cut it
Andrew Rotherham, co-founder and publisher of Education Sector, said he doubts Colorado's commission model will sway the evaluators who will tally scores on the applications.
"The biggest set of points come around teacher effectiveness. That is also the most contentious debate in our field," Rotherham said. "You are going to be judged based on the policy landscape as it exists on Jan. 20. They are not going to let you punt on that sort of stuff."
Colorado's plan also includes a program to give the most effective teachers $10,000 awards for developing and sharing their curricula with colleagues and provides for up to $1 million incentives for institutions that best prepare teachers for the classroom.
And the state's chances are also bolstered by ongoing reforms to do away with the Colorado Student Assessment Program for what designers hope will be more meaningful and accurate tests that take more than test performance into account.
So far, 134 school districts (there are 178 in the state) representing 94 percent of students have approved of Colorado's Race application, the type of buy-in that could bolster the state's chances.
Colorado's biggest net change may be the advent of data-based decisionmaking, as more districts gain access to student and teacher performance records as well as best practices from their colleagues elsewhere, said O'Brien.
"It's astonishing. I have never seen so much reform take place when all there is is the hope of some new money," O'Brien said. "No state has had the money or the political will to implement reform until now."
