Colorado has the political clout, the state government organization and a growing slate of education reforms to position itself well to win an extra $500 million in education stimulus money.
What it lacks, when compared with other states, is a track record of school reform leading to significant student improvement.
As U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan comes to Denver today to visit a pair of schools, Colorado’s student-achievement data show that some of the most ambitious efforts at reform have yet to produce results.
Six-year college-graduation rates are below the national average among white and Latino students. Latino fourth-graders have not showed measurable gains in reading. And the percentage of minority students who go on to college after high school here is well below the national average.
So, as Duncan sorts out winners and losers in a heated 50-state battle for a piece of the $4.35 billion devoted to education, the question will come down to what will matter more: Who you know? What you plan? or What you’ve already done?
“I think it will be based on what you’re willing to do with additional resources,” said Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, who is working on the lengthy application, due in August.
Should Colorado win the “Race to the Top” dollars from this federal pot of money, it will be among an elite group of states with ample federal support to dramatically overhaul public schools. The winners will also eventually be models for how other states should structure all things education — from teacher training programs to holding principals accountable.
The dangle of such a large purse has sparked excitement and debate across the country about how and where is the most effective way to spend this money.
What do states need to do to prove they have the capacity to handle and manage these dollars? Should the money go to places struggling with reform or to those with thriving programs already in place?
“We’ve come to understand that the model we have today will not work for many kids, particularly kids coming from poverty,” said U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, former Denver Public Schools chief, who today will take Duncan to Bruce Randolph Middle School and Montclair Elementary. “We have to be willing to try new things to produce different outcomes.”
Colorado is close to passing a law that will track teacher performance. State officials are already working on reading and writing standards for kids as young as kindergartners, and have created a way for independent-minded principals to strike out on their own with freedom to hire and fire teachers liberally.
By August, Colorado education officials will have to prove how effective the state’s teachers are and how well high-quality teachers are fanned out across the state.
It must show gains in student- achievement-data collection and prove how it will support — or hold accountable — schools that are chronically low-performing.
Should Colorado win the grant, state officials are already weighing how to ultimately divvy the money.Colorado may partner with another state — or get with several Western states to compose a region — to work on some of these reforms together. Federal officials have said they favor state collaboration.
Education reformers nationally are urging Duncan to consider giving grants to states in one or two areas where they’ve shown strengths, and not expect a single state to work on so many issues at once.
“It’s a bandwidth problem,” said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, a Washington-based advocacy group. “We know there are interesting things going on here and there, but no state has yet tried a serious game-changing strategy for everything.”
Tennessee has been tracking teacher performance for many years and has an impressive database showing which educators are the most effective with certain students. The state, however, has below-par tools for tracking how well students are doing, Haycock said.
The two schools Duncan will visit today are part of Denver’s boldest effort at culture-changing reforms.
Montclair Elementary, tucked in a leafy east Denver neighborhood, was one of the first schools in the state to apply for “innovation status.” Under this, Montclair can set its own calendar and hire and fire teachers more freely.
Bruce Randolph has a turnaround story: Once on the brink of a shutdown, the principal and teachers have significantly strengthened the academic program in the middle school’s low-income neighborhood. Just last year, Bruce Randolph met all its federal targets in reading and math.
O’Brien will meet with Duncan today to talk about Colorado’s odds of winning a “Race to the Top” grant. She calls the process humbling.
“We may not always know what works,” O’Brien said, “but we know the old way doesn’t work with a whole lot of kids.”
