Permitting teachers, administrators and parents to control their own schools and, in turn, their children’s destinies, is hardly controversial.
Or rather, it shouldn’t be.
It’s a given that Colorado teachers unions continually fight against parental school choice. We know they whine about accountability. We know they’re not crazy about charter schools, either.
Now, many people are trying to offer public schools the flexibility and independence to improve and compete and guess what?
Unions still oppose reform. So what does that tell you?
“It’s gotten to the point where I am tired of trying to make sure everyone is happy but students — when they should be the first ones on the list,” says Peter Groff, a Democrat and the new state Senate president.
The issue of school independence was brought to the forefront recently when Bruce Randolph School in Denver, attempting to save its school from failing grades and closure, requested sovereignty from the bureaucratic muddle imposed on it by the district and the union.
The idea of allowing all Colorado schools to control their own budgets, hiring and curriculum is growing.
Groff will be bringing forward such progressive legislation this session.
Unions, naturally, already oppose the idea. Where Gov. Bill Ritter — who likes to tell us he’s “fighting for children” — will fall should tell us more about where his loyalties lie.
Groff says it’s something he’s been thinking about for a while. “I think this idea will give the principal and teacher the ability to craft programs that will directly impact the students they have in the classroom. The principal may say, ‘This is what we need to do for these kids to bring them up to proficiency and above.’ Second, it gives parents the ability to pick and choose schools in the district that work for their kids.”
How will Groff, who unlike many of his party’s counterparts isn’t beholden to the Colorado Education Association (CEA), overcome entrenched interests in the legislature?
How will Groff slide such an idea past Sue Windels, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee?
After all, Windels’ notion of an independent thought consists of slightly altering the wording of CEA talking points.
“I would hope that anyone who has the best interest of education in Colorado in mind would support autonomy for schools,” explains Groff. “Listen, no one said that we’re going to blow up the unions. No one said we’re going to tear down agreements that were made. It just gives the district the prerogative to create ‘innovative zones’ and help kids.”
Bipartisan support for such a bill is sure to come. Just how many Democrats in the legislature will be willing to stand up to the CEA is unclear. And those reform-minded Democrats who do stand up should be careful.
When Denver school board president Theresa Peña and vice president Bruce Hoyt got behind some mild restructuring of failing Denver schools, they soon made enemies.
Denver Classroom Teachers Association president Kim Ursetta put the organization’s dollars behind two fringe candidates and challenged Peña and Hoyt. Ursetta claimed her candidates “best matched what our values are, and that includes listening to teachers.”
Which tells us plenty about the DCTA’s values. They stink. Values that attempt to inflate the organization’s membership, coddling a broken system all the way.
Then again, Peña and Hoyt both survived.
Meanwhile, Groff and other Democrats nationwide are forging ahead with reform.
Does this mean times are changing? It’s yet to be seen.
What we do know is that allowing schools to work more independently will undermine the counterproductive centralization of the No Child Left Behind Act and also weaken the teachers unions here in Colorado.
In other words, a win win.
Best of all, it may actually help some kids.
After more than three years of writing a metro column for The Denver Post, I will be moving to the editorial pages. My new op-ed column will appear Tuesdays and Fridays, and I will make regular appearances in Sunday’s Perspective section.
New metro columns from William Porter and Susan Greene will begin Sunday.
