[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

"Analysis: The Final State of the Presidential Race"

He’ll, You Pieces of Garbage

The Future of Warfare -- No more martyrdom!

"Kamala’s Inane Talking Points"

"The Harris Campaign Is Testament to the Toxicity of Woke Politics"

Easy Drywall Patch

Israel Preparing NEW Iran Strike? Iran Vows “Unimaginable” Response | Watchman Newscast

In Logansport, Indiana, Kids are Being Pushed Out of Schools After Migrants Swelled County’s Population by 30%: "Everybody else is falling behind"

Exclusive — Bernie Moreno: We Spend $110,000 Per Illegal Migrant Per Year, More than Twice What ‘the Average American Makes’

Florida County: 41 of 45 People Arrested for Looting after Hurricanes Helene and Milton are Noncitizens

Presidential race: Is a Split Ticket the only Answer?

hurricanes and heat waves are Worse

'Backbone of Iran's missile industry' destroyed by IAF strikes on Islamic Republic

Joe Rogan Experience #2219 - Donald Trump

IDF raids Hezbollah Radwan Forces underground bases, discovers massive cache of weapons

Gallant: ‘After we strike in Iran,’ the world will understand all of our training

The Atlantic Hit Piece On Trump Is A Psy-Op To Justify Post-Election Violence If Harris Loses

Six Al Jazeera journalists are Hamas, PIJ terrorists

Judge Aileen Cannon, who tossed Trump's classified docs case, on list of proposed candidates for attorney general

Iran's Assassination Program in Europe: Europe Goes Back to Sleep

Susan Olsen says Brady Bunch revival was cancelled because she’s MAGA.

Foreign Invaders crisis cost $150B in 2023, forcing some areas to cut police and fire services: report

Israel kills head of Hezbollah Intelligence.

Tenn. AG reveals ICE released thousands of ‘murderers and rapists’ from detention centers into US streets

Kamala Harris Touts Mass Amnesty Offering Fast-Tracked Citizenship to Nearly Every Illegal Alien in U.S.

Migration Crisis Fueled Rise in Tuberculosis Cases Study Finds

"They’re Going to Try to Kill Trump Again"

"Dems' Attempts at Power Grab Losing Their Grip"

"Restoring a ‘Great Moderation’ in Fiscal Policy"

"As attacks intensify, Trump becomes more popular"

Posting Articles Now Working Here

Another Test

Testing

Kamala Harris, reparations, and guaranteed income

Did Mudboy Slim finally kill this place?

"Why Young Americans Are Not Taught about Evil"

"New Rules For Radicals — How To Reinvent Kamala Harris"

"Harris’ problem: She’s a complete phony"

Hurricane Beryl strikes Bay City (TX)

Who Is ‘Destroying Democracy In Darkness?’

‘Kamalanomics’ is just ‘Bidenomics’ but dumber

Even The Washington Post Says Kamala's 'Price Control' Plan is 'Communist'

Arthur Ray Hines, "Sneakypete", has passed away.

No righT ... for me To hear --- whaT you say !

"Walz’s Fellow Guardsmen Set the Record Straight on Veep Candidate’s Military Career: ‘He Bailed Out’ "

"Kamala Harris Selects Progressive Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Running Mate"

"The Teleprompter Campaign"

Good Riddance to Ismail Haniyeh

"Pagans in Paris"

"Liberal groupthink makes American life creepy and could cost Democrats the election".


Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Education
See other Education Articles

Title: The Real Story with Obama's Colorado School Turnaround
Source: Dissenting Opinions
URL Source: http://jwpegler.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... th-obamas-colorado-school.html
Published: Jan 27, 2011
Author: jwpegler
Post Date: 2011-01-27 11:18:41 by jwpegler
Keywords: None
Views: 7820
Comments: 10

During the state of the union address, Obama praised the Bruce Randolph school in Colorado for turning themselves around rather dramatically in a few short years.

Three years ago, Bruce Randolph was one of the poorest performing schools in Colorado. In 2010, 97% of the seniors graduated. Many of the graduates were the first in their families to get admitted into college.

How did they do it?

Sen. Michael Bennet and the school's principal Kristin Waters, convinced the Colorado government to give the school almost complete autonomy from the state's education bureaucrats over budget, staffing, schedule, school calendar, and curriculum.

One of the first things they did is terminate all of their tenured teachers and told them they could re-apply for their jobs. Only 5% got their jobs back. 95% of the tenured teachers weren't up to par.

The Gate's Foundation has done significant research into why public schools fail. Their conclusion is that it's all about teachers. The producer of the movie "Waiting for Superman" came to the same conclusion. Good teachers succeed and bad teachers fail our children. It's not any more difficult than that.

In the private sector a business can: A.) fire bad employees and B.) pay good employees a lot of money. You can do that in government. That's the problem. It has to change.

If we're really serious about fixing the public schools, we need to give principals the ability to terminate bad teachers and reward great ones with substantial performance bonuses tied to international test scores. We also need to get schools out from under their state's education bureaucracies and let the principals and the parents who have kids in the school have a greater say in how the schools are run.

This is how the Bruce Randolph school was able to succeed. It's how other schools will be able to succeed as well.

Unfortunately, the teacher's unions have viscously blocked every attempt to implement these types of common sense reforms.

The big question is whether or not Obama and the Democrats are willing to do battle with their largest specialist interest group (the NEA) so that our kids can have a fighting chance in the global economy?

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: jwpegler (#0)

The big question is whether or not Obama and the Democrats are willing to do battle with their largest specialist interest group (the NEA) so that our kids can have a fighting chance in the global economy?

You might want to read a bit about the "race to the top" program, which is specifically designed to give local schools the ability to innovate. The NEA has already spoken out against some of the program's methods and goals.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574308442726348678.html

The Administration can expect more such opposition to “Race to the Top.” School choice is anathema to the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which also oppose paying teachers for performance rather than for seniority and credentials.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told the Washington Post last week that charter schools and merit pay raise difficult issues for his members, yet Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said states that block these reforms could jeopardize their grant eligibility. We’ll see who blinks first. The acid test is whether Messrs. Duncan and Obama are willing to withhold money from politically important states as the calendar marches toward 2012.

Race to the Top is bound to have some impact, and lawmakers in several states—including Tennessee, Rhode Island, Louisiana and Massachusetts—already have passed charter-friendly legislation in hopes of tapping the fund. But the exercise will fail if it is merely a one-off trade of cash for this or that new law. The key is whether the money can be used to promote enough school choice and other reforms that induce school districts to change how the other $800 billion or so is spent.

Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.

go65  posted on  2011-01-27   11:27:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: jwpegler (#0)

The big question is whether or not Obama and the Democrats are willing to do battle with their largest specialist interest group (the NEA) so that our kids can have a fighting chance in the global economy?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Get rid of the teachers; union and wer're free!?

U R Serious. Damn.

Poor Barack. Not that long ago, he was taking the world stage in Cairo, with a speech that offered a "new start" in relations to the regions -- empty words which have long since proved to have been just another part of the vicious deceptions currently being exposed by al Jazeera. Now Cairo is ablaze with the promise of a genuine new start, driven by the needs of ordinary people, not the greeds of the elite. More than ever, Obama looks like yesterday's man, abandoned by history as it sweeps forward, leaving him mired with the goons and the loons, fighting a rearguard action to save the pomps and privileges of a rotting empire."

The Bottom 98% no different than the Tunisians/Egyptians/Palestinians. ;}

mcgowanjm  posted on  2011-01-27   11:36:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: go65 (#1)

There is a lot of speculation today on whether or not Obama knew how this Colorado school succeeded. I think Obama did know and decided to use the example because Obama has long been a supporter of Charter Schools.

Even GOP Congressmen praise Obama and his Education Secretary for understanding the issues and honestly wanting to fix the problems. This is an area where the GOP and Obama should be able to work together. Unfortunately, most Democratic politicians aren't on board because the NEA is their largest pressure group.

The issue for me with Obama on education is that he is not using his bully pulpit to bully the bullies in the NEA to accept these types of reforms.

Chris Christie is desperately trying to reform schools in New Jersey. Obama could lend his voice Christie to help him beat back the NEA and their protectors in the State Legislature. He's not doing it because he doesn't want to offend his base.

America's technical prowess has always been a key component of our prosperity. Today, the public schools are graduating kids who don't know enough about math and science to get into science, engineering, and computer science programs in college. We rely on foreign nationals from India and China who come here to go to college and decide to stay to help us compete. That's great, but at some point the bulk of these people are going stay in their home countries. What will we do then?


"It's very important to remember the law is not simply what powerful people would want others to believe it is." -- Julian Assange

jwpegler  posted on  2011-01-27   11:43:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: jwpegler (#3)

go56 will never acknowledge the fact that government intervention always results in failure.

I belive it was John Lennon who said, "everything the government touches turns to shit."

"There will be no more money when the U.S. dollar has no value, until that time we can keep printing more." -- go65, LF's answer to Ben Bernanke --

Capitalist Eric  posted on  2011-01-27   11:56:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Capitalist Eric (#4) (Edited)

The country in general has a bad case of Ostrich syndrome.

We've known that the schools were failing since the 1970s. We've also known since the 1970s that the baby boomers were going to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare. There have been courageous politicians in both parties who have warned us. Yet, nothing was done.

Over the last few years the Gates Foundation has spent a ton of money and done a lot of research into why the school system is failing. It's all about teachers. Good teachers need to be rewarded and bad teachers need to be fired. Other organizations who have looked at this have come to the same conclusion.

Government rules and regulation prevent this from happening.

The answer is to put the parents who have kids in the school and the school principal in charge of the school. Obama's own example of the Colorado school demonstrate this. It has to be done nation-wide. It has to be done now. The only way it's going to be done is if Democrat politicians grow the cajones to beat the NEA back with a baseball bat.


"It's very important to remember the law is not simply what powerful people would want others to believe it is." -- Julian Assange

jwpegler  posted on  2011-01-27   12:54:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: jwpegler (#5)

It's all about teachers.

So it takes a village?

What about parents?

What about the direct correlation between student performance and poverty?

How will increasing poverty by cutting programs for the poor to preserve tax breaks on income over $250k help improve our schools?

Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.

go65  posted on  2011-01-27   13:34:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: go65 (#6)

What IS it with you morons trying to divert the thread?

Stay on topic, dummy.

"There will be no more money when the U.S. dollar has no value, until that time we can keep printing more." -- go65, LF's answer to Ben Bernanke --

Capitalist Eric  posted on  2011-01-27   15:13:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Capitalist Eric (#7)

What IS it with you morons trying to divert the thread?

Stay on topic, dummy.

Diverting threads is their main topic. Can't have any illuminating discussion. Might lead the kiddies to having to grow up. Liberalism is a mindset of immaturity.

Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.

Rudgear  posted on  2011-01-27   15:50:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: mcgowanjm (#2)

Get rid of the teachers; union and wer're free!? U R Serious. Damn.

Roooooll another one

Just like the other one...


Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill

jwpegler  posted on  2011-01-27   16:33:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: jwpegler (#9) (Edited)

Get rid of the teachers; union and wer're free!? U R Serious. Damn.

Roooooll another one

Just like the other one...

How ab out the Longshoremans'.

Think that should go as well?

40 hr work week as well? Overtime?

Minimum wage?

LMFAO As long as you're the Master and they're the slave and you don't have to think about the slaves, everything's OkieDokie. 8D

mcgowanjm  posted on  2011-01-28   9:48:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

Please report web page problems, questions and comments to webmaster@libertysflame.com