It is Spring Break time, yet I find myself thinking about the classroom. The more I investigate the job that Representatives have, the more I realize that I need to know a lot more about the educational system. Some of the budgeting woes in Denver stem from the competing instructions voters have given legislators: keep government spending low vs. increase spending on schools. Add to that mixed message the Obama administration’s take on education reform, the Race to the Top, and things get complicated quickly.
Colorado is a finalist in the first round of federal funding for the Race to the Top Program. We now need to defend our application in meetings in Washington, D.C. Editorials in the Denver Post last week were chiding Ritter for not appointing a panel to link teacher evaluations to student achievement, a key component of the federal program. The fear is that without the work of that panel, Colorado will not win an award in the first round of funding.
I’ve written applications for federal programs where large sums of money are involved. Success often rests on the ability to make the reader understand how your project meets the goals of the program. In the case of Race to the Top, one goal is to make teachers more accountable for the results. With the current drop-out rate in western Colorado, clearly we need some change.
What I hadn’t understood, until I was reading the latest issue of Newsweek, was that a majority of the nation’s teachers come from the bottom quartile of students entering colleges and universities. Some innovative programs in the nascent charter school movement are encouraging top students to become teachers by offering salaries competitive with other industries in exchange for teaching in really tough neighborhoods. We need great teachers if we are going to change the local drop-out rates. Evidently a kid that has two years of bad teachers is lost forever. We can’t afford to throw away our future that way.
Homework:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234590
http://www.newsweek.com/id/154901
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14642101
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14516241
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14507608
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html
Colorado is a finalist in the first round of federal funding for the Race to the Top Program. We now need to defend our application in meetings in Washington, D.C. Editorials in the Denver Post last week were chiding Ritter for not appointing a panel to link teacher evaluations to student achievement, a key component of the federal program. The fear is that without the work of that panel, Colorado will not win an award in the first round of funding.
I’ve written applications for federal programs where large sums of money are involved. Success often rests on the ability to make the reader understand how your project meets the goals of the program. In the case of Race to the Top, one goal is to make teachers more accountable for the results. With the current drop-out rate in western Colorado, clearly we need some change.
What I hadn’t understood, until I was reading the latest issue of Newsweek, was that a majority of the nation’s teachers come from the bottom quartile of students entering colleges and universities. Some innovative programs in the nascent charter school movement are encouraging top students to become teachers by offering salaries competitive with other industries in exchange for teaching in really tough neighborhoods. We need great teachers if we are going to change the local drop-out rates. Evidently a kid that has two years of bad teachers is lost forever. We can’t afford to throw away our future that way.
Homework:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234590
http://www.newsweek.com/id/154901
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14642101
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14516241
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14507608
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html
RSS Feed