Tag: Charter Schools

The conservative Colorado Springs Gazette wrote recently that a Tancredo general election candidacy would doom Republican candidates all down the ticket. Yet "the Tanc" charges on. That's what he does. And that's why his supporters love him.

Notes from the first day of spring, AKA the 72nd day of the 2014 legislative session.

Denver Board of Education candidates scoff at the raft of conflict-of-interest allegations that have marked the race, but the allegations may yet gain traction given the vast sums and complex financial arrangements the board is trusted to oversee.

Charter school champion The Walton Foundation has released its 2010 giving breakdown for the group’s education donations. Seven geographic areas received money: Albany, Denver, East and South Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Newark and Washington, D.C. Though the city of New Orleans received roughly $5 million of the Wal-Mart-related organization’s $157 million in education philanthropy for the past year, many non-profits that have a hand in the city’s school landscape were also recipients of Walton largesse.

Billions of private dollars have forced journalists and lawmakers to take seriously the school choice movement, be it voucher programs and tax credits, charter schools and reforms to teachers contracts within traditional public schools. Their money is highly strategic as well, with funds being poured into non-profits and research facilities that pursue the educational conceptions these wealthy donors promote.

The House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a June 1 hearing on the state of charter schools in America. The testimony and series of questions and answers spanned nearly three hours, covering topics like charter school accreditation processes, the increased role of private management firms in operating local charter schools and the difficulty of scaling successful charter schools to address state-specific and national needs.

Former Lt. Governor Jane Norton said she was spurred to try to win Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet's U.S. Senate seat by what she sees as the dramatic expansion of government in the Obama era. In stump speeches, emails and interviews, she has vowed to work to cut federal spending as a way to end the "government takeover" of the private sector. One of the ways Norton proposes to trim spending is to eliminate the federal Department of Education. That dramatic proposal has predictably shocked members of the left-leaning Colorado politics-blogosphere, but it also surprised at least one conservative member of the small crowd gathered two weeks ago at the Lamplighter restaurant in Alamosa, where Norton reportedly first unveiled the proposal.

Last night, the Denver Public School District seized hard drives from the Contemporary Learning Academy, in order to investigate allegations that the school set...

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...

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...