Arne Duncan

While Gov. Bill Ritter navigates the media storm set in motion by the surprise announcement that he will not run for reelection in 2010, Lt. Governor Barbara O’Brien is busy wrapping up the Colorado application to win K-12 school funding through the federal Department of Education’s $5 billion Race to the Top program. The program aims to reward innovative approaches to education reform. O’Brien is proposing new student performance testing and teacher evaluation, among other things. She spoke with the Colorado Independent over the holidays about the proposal and why many districts in the state have yet to sign on to the application.

A recent New York Times editorial points out that Race to the Top—U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s $4.3 billion tool for reform—has failed to address one key reform area:  a longstanding practice of allowing school districts to shunt inexperienced, unqualified teachers to low-income schools in lieu of firing them.

Even as charter school supporters swept the Douglas County School Board election Tuesday, charter school advocates were losing power in the Denver Public School Board election, according to unofficial election results.
According to the Denver Post, charter-school advocates are warning that a union victory could have far-reaching statewide implications, given the current push for reform at [...]

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced that it will open up its offer of financial help with the Race to the Top application to all states. That’s good news for Colorado, which will likely apply for the funds.
The $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition, which has been billed as U.S. Secretary of [...]

Dwight Jones, Colorado’s Commissioner of Education, is on a 14-city race himself right now, in order to seek support from local school districts for the state’s Race to the Top application.
The $4.3 billion competition, which has been billed as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s greatest tool for reform, will grant stimulus funds to states [...]

Everybody loves charter schools these days, from the Gates Foundation to researchers.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan likes charter schools so much he has made them a cornerstone of his education reform plan, requiring schools to lift caps on charter schools, making them eligible for his $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” contest. To date, seven [...]

If Colorado doesn’t win Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top, it won’t be for lack of studies. Last week, yet another “How Colorado Can Win the Race to the Top” study was released by the Colorado Legacy Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Colorado Department of Education.
“Improving Teacher and School Leader Effectiveness:  [...]

Conventional wisdom holds that teachers’ unions are one of the greatest obstacles to education reform. A Colorado school that opened this fall is bucking that conventional line of thinking: It’s piloting a model in which unions actually lead reform.

Does the Race to the Top—Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s $4.3 billion education reform contest among the states—handicap rural states?
Rural states like Vermont think so and their governor’s offices have responded with strong criticism. So why does Colorado’s governor seem to love Race to the Top?

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan may be talking big about promoting innovation with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) education dollars, but Colorado schools won’t see any sweeping developments this fall. That doesn’t mean, however, that the stimulus program won’t be making an impact. Federal Recovery funds are being used to prop up current programs and to lay the groundwork for more ambitious future change.