The governor’s executive order was quite clear: Members of a panel who were to devise ways of linking teacher evaluations to student achievement were to meet on or before March 1.
They have not.
But don’t blame panel members. Gov. Bill Ritter hasn’t bothered to appoint them yet.
The foot-dragging is indefensible, and is further evidence, we think, of the Ritter administration’s unnecessary appeasement of the teachers union, which has never been a fan of these efforts.
In a story in The Denver Post, Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien had the audacity to blame the delay on the governor’s bicycle wreck, which happened a day after the deadline, and her own personal vacation.
What’s next? The dog ate my homework?
It seems to us that the Ritter administration is dragging out the implementation of this very important reform, hoping that Colorado will somehow manage to score Race to the Top federal grant money without being forced to take on the issue.
We, too, hope the state gets a share of the grant money, which is intended to push groundbreaking education reform. But we find it infuriating that state leadership would seem to allow the sandbagging of this crucial piece of the reform plan.
And frankly, we don’t think Colorado has much of a chance of getting Race to the Top funding without it.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has made it crystal clear that quality teaching, and holding educators accountable for moving students forward, is one of four key elements he wants states to address.
Colorado had an iron in the fire, with draft bills ready to be introduced by freshman Sen. Michael Johnston, D-Denver. Those bills would have changed teacher tenure laws and ended the practice of forced placement, which has resulted in unwanted teachers being foisted on the lowest-performing schools.
They also would have required teacher effectiveness to be linked to growth in student achievement.
Those were precisely the kinds of reforms the U.S. Department of Education said they were looking for in applications for the competitive Race to the Top program, which will distribute hundreds of millions of dollars to successful bidders.
For some reason, those draft bills were put on the back burner, never to see the legislative light of day.
Instead, the governor issued an executive order to create a panel to come up with those very ideas that were buried. His reasoning was that he wanted the efforts to be collaborative, giving the Colorado Education Association a seat at the table.
The panel’s deadline for making policy change recommendations is not until Sept. 30. It isn’t required to come up with a rubric for multiple measures of teacher effectiveness until Dec. 31.
In the meantime, the first round of Race to the Top winners will be announced in April.
At the pace Colorado is going, we have to wonder if the governor’s latest blue-ribbon panel will even have had its first meeting by then.
