With the departure of Senate President Peter Groff, Colorado’s school innovation movement lost a strong and persuasive advocate in the state Capitol who led the charge on a number of key proposals this year.
But his Senate allies — buoyed by a new member with direct channels to the White House and a reform-minded governor — say they’re ready to expand upon the educational shifts that Groff helped launch and hope federal grant money will win over naysayers.
Some of the 2009 proposals — giving charter schools more access to cash and paying bonuses to schools that best help their at-risk students — ruffled the feathers of traditional education defenders, who hope to regain some ground in Groff’s absence.
Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a spate of reform-minded legislation last week, which he called “not just a step but a giant leap” toward meeting his goal of cutting the state’s dropout rate and achievement gap in half by 2016.
The task had been made easier in a Senate that includes high-profile Democrats, largely from urban areas, who break from the traditional party mold on public schools.
Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, credited Groff with building bipartisan bridges and lending a gravitas to the education-reform debate among lawmakers.
Under pressure from Groff, Romer and their allies, the legislature passed a school finance act that for the first time provides cash bonuses to schools that can show they’ve brought more of their at-risk students up to speed. The state will be one of the first in the country to establish a boarding school for at-risk kids. And it will allow charter schools to share school bond money.
Many of those feats were accomplished outside typical legislative channels in the hopes of qualifying for an estimated $500 million school innovation grant through the federal government’s “Race to the Top” program.
But it’s unclear whether the momentum will continue.
Freshman Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster and a former state Board of Education member, and some of her Democratic colleagues found the 2009 session “frustrating” and too centered on elevating charter schools at the expense of traditional school districts, she said.
“I think a lot of it was due to the Groff-Romer team. I expect things to be less frustrating (next year),” Hudak said.
Groff, who left to head the Department of Education’s Faith- Based and Community Initiatives Center, took the unusual step of appointing himself to the Senate Education Committee and was known to reach out to Republican colleagues who favor school choice.
On his way out the door, he appointed Republican Sen. Nancy Spence to the legislature’s interim committee on school finance reform.
In return, Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, appointed incoming Democrat and education reformer Sen.-elect Michael Johnston of Denver, who has advised the Obama administration on how best to promote innovation in the nation’s school systems.
But new Senate President Brandon Shaffer said Thursday he’s considering replacing Spence with the more traditionally minded Hudak in what could signal a change from Groff’s leadership.
Denver Post writer Tim Hoover contributed to this report.
Measures signed
• Make Colorado the first state in the nation where high school students can simultaneously earn an associate’s degree;
• Modernize school accountability to emphasize support and student improvement;
• Create a system to evaluate teacher performance;
• And create an Office of Dropout Prevent and Student Re-engagement.
