It was a Race to the Top, but Colorado, amazingly, finished close to the bottom.
Of the 16 finalists for President Obama’s cash giveaway for education reform, only New York and Washington, D.C. — areas with some of the country’s worst schools — finished below Colorado. It was an embarrassing plummet for a state whose bid just a year ago looked so promising.
Colorado had been at the forefront of education reform since Gov. Roy Romer ushered in CSAPs and then-state lawmaker Bill Owens pushed for charter schools. Even Denver Public Schools for the past five years have been incubators for what are now emerging as national reforms.
This was Colorado’s race to lose. And we did.
Obama dangled $4.35 billion in front of states to spur them into developing innovative education-reform plans. But Colorado’s plan lacked ambition, bold ideas and statewide impact. It also failed to build great teachers and leaders, according to the Obama administration’s scoring system.
Colorado does have a plan that would do all of that, but it’s gathering dust in the legislature.
Meanwhile, Tennessee walked away with half a billion — some of it your money — by implementing a plan very similar to that dusty one sponsored by state Sen. Michael Johnston. In fact, Tennessee consulted with Johnston in the early stages of its plan to address teacher-related issues such as tenure and dismissal.
And why not? Even candidate Barack Obama praised Johnston, then a principal at Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts, for heading the state’s first district public high school to get 100 percent of its 44 seniors into a four- year college. “I’m here to hold up this school and these students as an example of what’s possible in education if we’re willing . . . to try new ideas and new reforms based not on ideology, but on what works to give our children the best possible chance in life,” he said.
Yet, so far, Colorado hasn’t been bold enough to try those reforms.
Johnston told me last week he’s confident his bill will be introduced this week. He’s been trying to build a coalition of nonprofits, student groups, business leaders and foundations to help propel it forward.
The bill would tie teacher evaluations to student performance and would end the direct placement of teachers. (Far too many bad teachers are now foisted upon struggling schools.) It also would tie principal evaluation to the success of teachers. That’s good for teachers because principals would have a vested interest in their development.
Had it been introduced in January, when it was ready, Colorado could have been Tennessee. But the teachers unions didn’t like it.
Tennessee lawmakers held a special session to pass their bill. And the teachers union fought it, too. But when its passage became inevitable, union leaders got behind the bill — before it ran them over.
Until Democrats in Colorado are willing to ruffle the feathers of the teachers unions that help get them elected, kids will continue to suffer. I’ve been told some in the Colorado Education Association “get it,” and that they are trying to gently nudge their union brothers and sisters forward. Gov. Bill Ritter also has taken that same genteel approach, hoping to waltz union members down the aisle.
But sometimes, they need to be dragged, kicking and screaming. They fought charter schools, too, until they saw how successful the model could be.
Obama gets it. The status quo is no longer acceptable. If you have to fire all the teachers at a school, as they did in Rhode Island, he’s cool with that. As a Democrat who worked in the inner city of Chicago, he has seen the system’s failures and is uniquely qualified to lead this push for reform. It’s a Nixon-goes-to-China moment.
The time is now, and our leaders have to get it right. The only sacred cows in education ought to be the children.
Dan Haley can be reached at dhaley@denverpost.com.
