Let's stop the spin and start the real school reform

Is it true

that DFER and Stand for Children have given $250,000.00 to each Anne Rowe, Happy Haynes, and that twit running in NW Denver and that all their campaigns are being run by RBI strategies?  

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by: Fong @ Sun Aug 14, 2011 at 19:32:35 PM UTC

That's the rumor

I don't think campaigns have to report contributions until end of September.  Ballots are mailed 2 weeks after that, so realistically no one will know what they are up to until then, and the full extent until after the election.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of Oct. 1st contributions too, so the money isn't known until after.

Here are a few other things though.

Stomp on children may not be giving the money away.  They are a 527, and may very well just hire a bunch of canvassers and do direct mail themselves instead -- this way they can insure they control the whole message and know how it's used, rather then trust the campaigns to do it (I've heard none of the reform races are being run by the sharpest marbles in the sack, but they have the money to make up for incompetence).  STAND also just hired a field director (some kid from Handcock's campaign), which leads me to believe more that they will be doing a lot of independent expenditure supporting Happy Hanes, Ann Bye Rowe, and Jennifer Draper Carson.  Working independently also makes it less obvious they are trying to buy these races with out of state money -- if dumped in directly even the Post would probably have to run some article about it.

DFER (which is really just one of a number of Van Schoales' outlets anymore) thew in with One Chance Colorado, the people running the innocuous sounding TV ads about why reform is good.  They are probably giving some direct to those 3 races yes.

I've heard RBI essentially helped place the campaign managers, get some initial money, but otherwise isn't in direct control -- they will probably take their cut in polling in direct mail (which if there is as much money as it sounds like, should be a nice chunk of change).  RBI probably doesn't want to see too well connected with this crowd -- it might make actual democrats squeamish about working with them in the future (rightfully so -- hopefully they lose business for working with these assholes).

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by: Obvious Alias @ Sun Aug 14, 2011 at 21:51:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Parents won't be fooled

What the DFER slate doesn't quite understand is that public sentiment is with neighborhood schools...overwhelmingly.  I say, let them spend the money.  They aren't winning hearts and minds.

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by: Andrea Merida @ Sun Aug 14, 2011 at 22:49:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Public Sentiment...

Has always been with neighborhood public schools, and one of the prime motivators for parents triggering school reform with public charters/magnets; providing autonomous school centered opportunities beyond school board/Superintendent 'one size fits some' strategies. I've been in school "reform" since 1992.

The agitation isn't coming from parents. It's coming from School Board members and politicos having a difficult time accepting ideologies that have contributed to a system that promotes academic failure.

What's not being addressed in your post is the motivation behind parents triggering reform to neighborhood schools.  You make a lot of statements that try to qualify what people understand, and what they don't understand. Unfortunately, none of your points qualify the reason for education reform in the first place.

Simply put, parents like public neighborhood schools and choice. Parents don't like bureacratic school boards. They may like individual members. But, taken as a collective, parents don't like school boards. No different than the public - collectively - not liking their elected officials.

Statewide, nationally, and globally our schools are not performing. Funding - AKA support - is a prime reason for the failure, but not the only reason. Many public schools  doing well under reforms have more autonomy and less money. Sadly, their academic success isn't always received with a warm 'pat on the back' by school boards and politicos fighting for more money in their districts. Parents - paying the taxes - want performance, not politics. And so, the battle lines are drawn.

Demonizing reform will not change the course of academic failure, nor will it change the fundamentalist push to turn our public schools into private religious institutions. Addressing what we don't want in reform is a better strategy.

I don't want school vouchers for private schools. The only exception being schools that operate to address specific developmental needs, like autism, until more public options are available to help families in need. As the number of public charter/magnet opportunities increase - retaining money in the district - the need to couple with "private" institutions is reduced. This may not be an immediate concern in urban areas - Houston, Philadelphia, and DC as exceptions - but it is a concern in rural districts.

Douglas County is a perfect example of having "ample" opportunities to serve it's district with choice and options. The voucher program failed miserably, since it was clear a bunch of white flight religious zealots - looking to have the taxpayer fund private religious schools - was behind the voucher push. If Douglas didn't have the large number of charters/magnets operating within their District, the ruling would have gone in a different direction. How many rural schools have the kind of charter/magnet oppportunities - or money - Douglas has? The answer: Not many!

Progressives have to start thinking outside the metro-centric box. Anti-charter attacks fuel pro-voucher revolts. Since rural areas are predominently righwing Christian fundamentalist NeoCons, how does removing "progressive public school opportunities" help rural districts? Think Supreme Court. Rulings on all levels create precedent. The right uses the court - period.

While metro area anti-charter sentiment rails on from Progressive leaders, rural "Progressives" are stuck with metro-centric ideologies that are hurting our opportunities to stop the religious assaults on our public schools. Garfield, Pitikin, Eagle, Douglas, LaPlata have financial resources to keep the assaults to a minimum, but what about Kiowa, Baca, Archuleta, Crowley, Washington, and other rural counties? You're fighting the wrong enemy.

Andrea, I have no doubts you care about neighborhood schools, the kids, and promoting academic success regardless of socio-economic station. You're a dynamic leader with passion. You and I will never disagree on those points. However, you are actively making reform the enemy, when reform is simply a shift in curricula controls providing more school autonomy outside of the politically charged School Board/Superintendent/union fray.

Progressive districts, unions, and leaders understand this changing dynamic, nationally. However, taken on a state-to-state, district level, some of our metro-Progressives are still clinging to old ideologies that are hurting our kids and public schools in the bigger picture. The anti-charter sentiment is actually fueling privatized madrassas in the rural US.

Parents want public schools - right, left, and everything in between. What they're tired of is the political posturing from all sides of the aisle; leaving them - the taxpayer - with little control of the situation. Public charters/magnets provide many with reason to be engaged in their childrens' academic success. This is counter to CASBE - and every other state/national program that educates school board members - which promotes district control over every aspect of public education. Lucky day if you have a bunch of Progressive school board candidates in your district to elect. If you don't, like rural districts, the kids are hosed; continuing the "one size fits some" formula to failure.

You call yourself an open minded progressive, start opening your mind. Denver is a small fish in a bigger pond. In the meantime you know how to get in touch with me, when you're ready to have a serious discussion on how Progressives can support public education in urban and rural districts.

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by: Just Anita @ Thu Aug 18, 2011 at 14:26:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Keep up the great work, Andrea!

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Sun Aug 14, 2011 at 21:29:41 PM UTC

Thank you

The real good work is being done in our classrooms every day.  But if we all pull together, we can do right by our kids.

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by: Andrea Merida @ Sun Aug 14, 2011 at 22:47:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed...

So please explain the continued dissing of my progressive efforts in rural Colorado, or acknowledge support for my children's public charter school, which has become a bastion of progressive liberalism for the Latino/Hispanic community within a violently anti-immigrant district. We serve 4 counties without zip code boundaries.

Where's your support for parents/teachers/principal centered curriculums - not a one size fits some school board/CASBE approved program - that has helped our public charter school achieve being ranked 175th out of 878 qualifying schools in less than 5 years. We don't receive district support, because we have anti-charter school board members, who prefer to keep academic controls of their bottom of the barrel district. A school board that forced our progressive public school to seek being chartered outside the district.

Where's your support for parents like me in rural communities experiencing a rightwing push to turn our public schools into "voucher" programs for private religious schools, because our school board can't see it's way through the anti-charter rhetoric that prevents keeping choice and money within the public school district.

Where's your support for parents like me creating a public school that has increased it's staff, including aides for all of our teachers with a class size that is less than 25 students from Pre-K through 8th grade, and moving toward a bi-lingual curriculum despite funding cuts? Isn't this the recipe you preach for success? If children are confined to zip codes - they're confined to socio-economic barriers limited to the location they're in. Money is energy, but more money into fundamentally flawed schools isn't the answer.

DPS is a large district. If you're advocating neighborhood schools, why no mention of neighborhood parent/teacher/student centered charters/magnets that retain money within the district, as opposed to private vouchers and homeschooling?

You and I have had this discussion before. You refuse to recognize public charters/magnets as having any value in the smaller neighborhood schools you support. There's a continued metrocentric view that Public Charters/Magnets = bad for public schools, when the stats completely dismiss that logic. Prevaricate? I find this an interesting word to use by someone who continues to compare apples to oranges. Vouchers and privatization are the result of school board dynamics that dismiss parental choice in public education. It's a connection you have a difficult time making in the DPS metro-centric CASBE view of education.

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by: Just Anita @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 17:25:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"As adults, some of the best ways to teach kids is to model good behavior."

Modeling literate grammar also is good.

It's so sad you're so ignorant you don't know to be embarassed you write like a dropout.

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by: raymond1 @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 02:37:47 AM UTC

Raymond1! So glad to see you again. I've missed you. Truly.

Thanks for showing us the error! Literally.

 Do or do not, there is no try.  

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by: Yoda69 @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 05:01:15 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm not a tough guy, but I'm not an illiterate like Merida

Yeah, you definitely should defend a DPS member who's an illiterate -- that really gives you credibility.

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by: raymond1 @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 14:24:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Let's see:

"As adults, some of the best ways to teach kids is to model good behavior."

Modeling literate grammar also is good.

It's so sad you're so ignorant you don't know to be embarassed you write like a dropout.

First, Raymond the Grammarian, in your haste to dickishly assert that Andrea should be embarrassed about what you see as a stylistic error, you misspelled "embarrassed."

Second, your sentence as a whole reads like gibberish: "It's so sad you're so ignorant you don't know to be embarassed you write like a dropout." The most likely explanation for the poor writing skills you've exhibited here is that you're following a misguided "rule" (frequently the practice of low-skill writers who fancy themselves as latter-day Shakespeares) whereby it is supposed that relative pronouns should be rendered implicit as often as possible (for some reason).  

Hey, Raymond: It's so sad that you're so ignorant that you don't know to be embarrassed that you write like a dropout.  

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 23:23:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

To clarify slightly:

The "rule" followed by prescriptive pedants such as Raymond pertains not just to relative pronouns, but to all conjunctive instances of that and who/whom.  For some reason, they've got it in their heads that the more they are able to delete those words, the better their writing will be. But quite often, as Raymond has shown, this poor writing habit often destroys clarity for no reason.  

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Thu Aug 18, 2011 at 00:00:15 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Merida = Bush ("is our children learning"), but dumber

When Bush said "is our children learning," we all laughed at how dumb it showed him to be. But at least he made that statement orally; it's easier to slip up with oral grammar than written grammar. Merida's illiterate sentence made the exactly same grammatical error, but in a writing she clearly spent a lot of time drafting. And she packed a second grammatical error into just that one sentence; that's quite a feat of illiteracy.

Yes, Ms. Merida, please tell us all about how schools should be run. Better yet, can you teach AP English?

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by: raymond1 @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 16:25:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

So what's this:

It's so sad you're so ignorant you don't know to be embarassed you write like a dropout.

A. Satisfying.

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by: Fong @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 21:55:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Raymond = troll with the emotional development of a 4-year-old child.

Hey, self-appointed grammar guru, ever study the distinction between adverbs and adjectives?

... made the exactly same grammatical error, ...

What you wanted there was either "the exact same" or "exactly the same," but "the exactly same" is not grammatical Standard English.  Personally, I think it's generally stupid to point out insignificant stylistic errors in people's online posts, but since you're doing it to someone for no reason other than to be an obnoxious asshole and draw negative attention to yourself, you deserve to have your sniveling little face rubbed in your own stylistic error to underscore what a petty little dickhead you are, Raymond.

Free advice to Raymond:

1. Andrea Merida has 10 to 15 IQ points on you at a minimum, so you probably shouldn't be trying to draw and comparisons in that department.

2. When you have nothing worthwhile to add to a discussion, it's usually best to just shut the fuck up.

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 22:51:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

and = any

Oh gee, Raymond will now proclaim that he's smarter than me because there was a typo in my online comment.  

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 23:01:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

10 to 15?

Try 50-65.

Raymond is a strong 100. Merida's minimum 150.

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by: Fong @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 23:27:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Agreed.

That's why I said "at a minimum."  I was being generous to little Ray-Ray.

And if we tried to measure the difference in emotional intelligence between the two of them, the answer would approach infinity.

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 23:34:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Quick questions, Andrea...

Do you include public charters in this mandate? Why so much focus on metro-district schools when the bulk of the distressed schools are in rural CO districts? Since funding is allocated through CDE to districts throughout CO, how does metro-centric policy translate to rural school success?

I agree with your "keys to academic success", but didn't see any discussion about "public charters" in this post. Do you, as a board member, view public charters/magnets as being inconsistent with creating smaller classrooms, more parent involvement, and teacher centered curricula?

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by: Just Anita @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 13:01:56 PM UTC

Merida's likely response: "Like schools, I is supporter."

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by: raymond1 @ Wed Aug 17, 2011 at 14:24:44 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This Raymond person

appears to be some sort of false-flag shill. In his postings on CorporatePols, he frequently claims to support various progressive principles, yet he virulently attacks anyone such as Andrea who attempts to implement progressive principles as a matter of actual public policy. That suggests either intentional duplicity or some sort of emotional disturbance.  

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by: Mucius Scaevola @ Thu Aug 18, 2011 at 00:22:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]