Colorado education law may mark a national shift

By Eliza Krigman
May 23, 2010


A landmark Colorado law that ties teacher evaluations to the progress of their students on achievement tests could help build momentum for a national movement that seeks to overhaul how instructors' tenure and pay is earned, education leaders say.

Colorado's law will hold teachers accountable for whether their students are learning, with 50% of a teacher's evaluation based on students' academic growth as measured partially by test scores. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing legislation that will change the way teachers are evaluated, but its prospects are less certain; the state's teachers union strongly opposes it.

Colorado's action comes amid a national debate over how to get the best teachers into the classroom and remove the ones who aren't doing a good job.

Similar legislation emphasizing teacher performance over job security is pending in Louisiana and Minnesota, and bills overhauling tenure protections and/or evaluation systems have already passed in Maryland, Connecticut, Washington, Tennessee and Michigan.

"It's impossible to overstate just how significant this bill is," said Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a national nonprofit that released a report last year revealing how the vast majority of teacher evaluation systems fail to distinguish effective teachers from ineffective ones.

Under Colorado's law, passed with bipartisan support and signed by Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. on Thursday, even tenured teachers who are found to be "ineffective" for two consecutive years could lose job protections, and possibly their jobs.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-colorado-20100523,0,5945475.story

So the goal of the law is to absolutly ensure that teachers "teach to the test" if I'm not mistaken.

Makes you wonder just how ignorant and uneducated they want future generations. Because it is shit like this that is driving quality teachers out of the profession, leaving the field open to the TFA idiots who can't even tie their own shoes.

We're heading towards a tiered education system. The top tier, elite private academies for the sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful, middling charter schools or private religious schools for middle class that will provide a modicum of education, enough to get into low level college or trade schools, and a decimated public education system for all the rest, with just enough eduction available to students so that they can have the necessary, yet basic skills to work in the service sector.

And the way it is going, we're also looking to raise a future electorate that have no clue about politics works, and worse, don't care. All the better for the elite few to rule us without having to bother with that whole pesky democracy thing.

where they aren't treated as scapegoats for the failures of parents and the culture at large.

This is a nightmare; results will be slow to arrive but dramatic when they peak.

For the last forty years teaching has been losing the best and brightest of its profession to other jobs. It used to be, since teaching was considered "women's work", that education was one of the few professional outlets for women. As those sort of restrictions were lifted in the latter part of the 20th century, the best and brightest fled education, and still are. After all, why take on tens of thousands of dollars in school debt only to take on a job with a starting pay of thirty thousand:shrug:

I decided to go into teaching because I saw the need for good teachers years ago due to this very trend. Being older, and being able to get free tuition, I could afford to go into the profession. I thought that four years ago, "they'll always need teachers." Wrong, they still need teachers, but instead they're clearing away what they consider deadwood, and the real victims here are the kids. I'm unable to find a job in education right now, and neither can most of my fellow graduates. Meanwhile, they're going to make up the slack with TFA grads, who they pay real cheap wages.

If we want a good education system in this country, we need to pay for it, and that includes paying teachers like they were doctors instead of store clerks. If you notice, this is what is done in the countries with the best education systems because such high pay and prestige brings in the best education candidates.

But instead, we're going to allow corporate America gut public education and cheat generations of students out of a hopeful future.

of the mountain/pyramid. The rest will make up the base.

.............The governor's push for the bill comes as the cash-strapped state is also making a second attempt to win Race to the Top dollars. In the hopes of making the state more competitive, Reiss has sent a letter urging all county and district superintendents as well as charter school administrators to adopt specific reforms, including linking teacher evaluation to student growth; the unions are urging local affiliates not to sign on.

President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are actively encouraging teacher evaluation and tenure reform by tying them to federal funds, another sign of the changing politics of education reform.

In Colorado, the law attracted national attention in part because it bucked a trend of Republicans leading statewide efforts to implement merit pay and tenure reform. Democrats have largely sided with unions in opposition to these changes.