Colorado, 17 other states and the District of Columbia are the finalists in the second round of the federal Race to the Top competition, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Tuesday.

The list also includes Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina. A total of 36 states applied for round two.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke about education reform and Race to the Top at the National Press Club on July 27, 2010.

Delaware and Tennessee were the only two round one winners; the other 14 finalists in that round made the cut in round two. Colorado ranked 14th of the 16 round one finalists with a score of 409.6 out of a possible 500 points.

Duncan, speaking at the National Press Club, said all 19 finalists scored above 400 in the 500-point rating system, and that average scores rose 26 points over round one. Duncan called that “absolutely inspiring.”

He said individual state scores aren’t being released at this time because they likely will change after states have their in-person interviews next month.

“It’s so important for peer reviewers to look these teams in the eye,” Duncan said, explaining how scores can change after the interviews.

He praised all 19 applications as “absolutely extraordinary, courageous plans” but explained that a key purpose of the interviews is “to determine which states have the best ability to implement. … It’s much more looking at states’ capacity to deliver on their plans” and the strength of each state’s management team.

Duncan was asked by reporters if single factors like union participation or the strength of teacher accountability systems will make or break applications. “There’s never one right or wrong answer that helps you win or not win. We’re looking at this in aggregate.”

Nina Lopez, coordinator of stimulus programs from the Colorado Department of Education, said Colorado’s interview is scheduled for Aug. 10.

She said education Commissioner Dwight Jones and Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien (who’s leaving office in January), will again lead the state’s team, with the other three members still to be decided.

The round one interview team included Jones, O’Brien, Lopez, Associate Commissioner Rich Wenning and Linda Barker, director of teaching and learning for the Colorado Education Association.

Lopez said the interview team will focus on learning all the details of the state’s application, trying to anticipate questions, and will do some practice interview sessions, starting as early as next week.

Talking about money, the secretary said there “should be enough to fund 10 to 15 states, depending on the size of the awards.”

Duncan told reporters later that the 19 applications total $6.2 billion, far above the $3.4 billion available.

The secretary was asked if the department might make smaller grants than requested in order to give money to more states. “We’ll get to that as we get further down the road. … We really don’t make those decisions until we see how each of those 19 … have scored.”

He added, “My goal is to fund very strong states. … The money is going to be there for the finalists.”

There are different tiers of possible award amounts based on state populations.

• Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania are in the $200-$400 million range.
• Arizona, Maryland and Massachusetts are in the $150-$250 million range.
• Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana and South Carolina are in the $60-$175 million range.
• The District of Columbia, Hawaii and Rhode Island are in the $20-$75 million range.

Colorado asked for $377 million in the first round, during which the tier limitations did not apply.

“We are extremely pleased to make the final round of the Race to the Top contest,” said Gov. Bill Ritter, reacting to Tuesday’s announcement. “We are working hard to win this competition because we want to bring every dollar we can to Colorado to provide a world-class education system for our children so they have the tools to succeed in the 21st century workforce.”

Jones said, “While we were disappointed not to win in Phase 1, we have taken the opportunity to sharpen our focus on the more critical elements of our reform agenda. We are eager to partner with school districts that have committed to this important work. Colorado’s plan is about improving achievement for all students and closing gaps in achievement.”

State Board of Education Chair Bob Schaffer, R-4th District, said, “The board stands strongly behind Commissioner Jones and department staff on these reforms. These are the right action steps to make substantive improvements that our students deserve and all parents expect.”

“Our selection as a finalist is a testament to Colorado regaining its place as a national leader on education reform,” said Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver and author of the state’s new educator evaluation and tenure law.  “At a time when we’re forced to cut education budgets at the state level, it’s exciting to have the opportunity to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars that can help support classrooms and districts across the state.”

A look inside Colorado’s application

The state’s 193-page application for $175 million pitched the state’s history of education reform measures, including the new educator effectiveness law, and it primarily requests money to implement those reforms.

The bulk of the funds, if Colorado wins a grant, would be used for implementing new content standards and tests at the district level, creation of new educator evaluation systems, encouraging effective principals and teachers to work in low-performing schools and providing turnaround help for the state’s most struggling schools.

The application retained many of the elements of the state’s unsuccessful first-round application and added requests to help implement the educator effectiveness law (Senate Bill 10-191), which was passed late in the legislature session after Colorado lost its first bid.

About $90 million of the $175 million would go directly to participating districts, as the program requires at least half the funds go to local education agencies.

The department has signed memoranda of understanding (formal agreements to participate) with 114 districts and other education agencies, 64 percent of the 180 in the state. Those districts include 89.9 percent of the state’s students, 84 percent of schools and 91 percent of poor students. For the first round application the state had agreements with districts including about 95 percent of the state’s students. The only two notable non-participants in round two are the Pueblo County and St. Vrain districts.

O’Brien said Tuesday, “Our application also represents teamwork and participation from the Colorado Association of School Boards, Colorado Association of School Executives and the business community. We fully expect the grant reviewers to see that Coloradans are in this together and determined to tackle the hard work ahead.”

The Colorado Education Association participated in round one but boycotted round two because of SB 10-191. The Colorado unit of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents primarily the Douglas County Schools, signed on to round two.

CEA President Beverly Ingle

CEA President Beverly Ingle said Tuesday, “We will continue to work with CDE on the scope and implementation of the priorities outlined in the state’s Race to the Top application, whether Colorado receives funding or not. CEA is committed to improving student achievement and our public schools. Our 40,000 members are most concerned about the implementation of new standards, assessments, and programs affecting teacher and principal effectiveness.  If we receive Race to the Top money, the implementation process will occur more quickly.”

In broad terms, the state’s application focuses on these goals, as required by the federal government:

• Increase student learning through teacher mastery and delivery of common standards and assessments.
• Use, learn, and leverage high quality information to drive increased student performance.
• Ensure all students have access to effective teachers and principals.
• Turn around persistently lowest-achieving schools.

A state also is required to demonstrate how it will build a statewide system of accountability and support to accomplish and sustain those goals.

Colorado’s application promises, over time, to increase:

• College enrollment from 62.9 to 70 percent
• College retention from 66.3 to 75 percent
• 4^th grade National Assessment of Education Progress math proficiency from 45 to 55 percent
• Higher school graduation rate from 74.6 percent to 90 percent
• 4^th grade NAEP reading proficiency from 40 to 60 percent
• 8^th grade math NAEP proficiency from 40 to 60 percent
• 8^th grade reading NAEP proficiency from 32 to 52 percent
• Overall CSAP math proficiency from 54.5 to 85 percent
• Overall CSAP reading proficiency from 68.3 to 85 percent
• Reduce the achievement gap among all subgroups from 30 to 10 percent

Those goals have raised skepticism in some quarters, but state education leaders argue that Colorado has the infrastructure for reform in place but needs the funds to implement those programs.

Here’s a breakdown of how the state proposes to spend the $175 million if Colorado wins that amount:

• $13.6 million – Statewide implementation and administrative costs, primarily at the state Department of Education.
• $13 million – Funding the Content Collaboratives and Regional Support Teams that will roll out new content standards and assessments to school districts, creation of an instructional improvement system on the department’s SchoolView website and extra support for small and rural districts.
• $5.8 million – Subsidies and incentives for districts to create and share curricula, for purchase of formative and interim tests and state review of available interim tests.
• $15.2 million – Build out and support of an expanded SchoolView system, including teacher, principal and administrator portals; expansion of Colorado Growth Model data; and incentives for effective educators to provide instructional materials.
• $8 million – Money for state personnel and outside consultants to help districts develop and implement new educator evaluations systems and to identify measures of educator effectiveness, especially in currently untested grades and subjects.
• $5.1 million – Funding for the State Council for Educator Effectiveness and for districts to implement evaluation systems.
• $4.1 million – Development of effective teachers and principals with a focus on low-performing schools, including residency programs, increased national board certification and hiring of Teach for America members.
• $4.3 million – Expansion of the department’s School Leadership Academy, which will include a Turnaround Leaders Academy.
• $3.2 million – Expansion of the number of students who take Advanced Placement and of the number of under-represented students who take college-prep classes.
• $884,000 – Funding for the department’s existing dropout prevention and student re-engagement program.
• $11 million – Creation of a school Turnaround and Intervention Unit within CDE to help districts conduct successful turnarounds of low-performing schools.
• $90.3 million – The funds that will go directly to participating schools districts and other local education agencies.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan

In a half-hour speech Tuesday at the National Press Club, Duncan argued that “a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and our classrooms,” with teachers, parents and public officials working locally to reform schools.

Scroll down to read national reactions.

Duncan said the Obama administration “is playing a modest role in this quiet revolution.”

“I’ve learned a lot about the proper federal role in education,” Duncan said, listing the “bully pulpit,” ensuring transparency and “incentives like Race to the Top” as the three things Washington can do in education.

He said, “We need to stop labeling so many schools as failures” and instead give recognition to high-performing schools and give middling schools “much more flexibility to improve.”

“The only place where we are explicitly proscriptive is with the bottom 5 percent of schools. … If we don’t mandate real consequences … nothing will change.”

He noted that R2T funding equals less than 1 percent of national K-12 annual spending and said the reform impetus created by the program is perhaps more important than the actual grants:

“As we look at the 18 months, it is absolutely stunning to see how much change has happened … because of these incentive programs.”

Duncan added, “It’s really not about the money [but about] willingness to drive reform at the local level. … We really unleashed this huge amount of innovation and reform around the country.”

He noted that 13 states have liberalized their charter-school laws and 17 states have reformed their educator evaluation systems since R2T was announced.

He claimed that the total package of federal stimulus money for education should be credited for “literally staving off an education catastrophe in our nation’s classrooms.”

Here are some other remarks from Duncan’s speech, several of which quickly made their way onto Twitter:

“No one thinks test scores should be the only factor in teacher evaluation.”

“I also challenge reformers to stop blaming unions for all the problems of education.”

Asked about the recent firings of nearly 200 teachers in the Washington, D.C., schools – “I don’t think anyone’s going to fire their way to the top.”

Duncan also mentioned Denver in a list of cities where “district and union leaders are moving beyond the battles of the past.”

The secretary took another half hour of questions before naming the R2T finalists.

Questions ranged from the civil rights aspects of a quality education to career and technical issues to whether basketball superstar LeBron James should have gone to college. Duncan passed on answering the last one.

Related: Colorado make R2T finalist list

By Caralee Adams, Education Week

Ever since elementary school, Bonnie Slocum knew that if she kept her grades up, her home state of Nevada would reward her by paying $10,000 toward college tuition.

As a low-income, first-generation college student, Ms. Slocum relied on $960 this year from the Gov. Guinn Millennium Scholarship, along with a federal Pell Grant, to pay for her freshman year at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. She’s anticipating $1,920 this fall from the state toward her studies in English and linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno.

But Ms. Slocum is not sure what she can count on after that.

The state merit-based scholarship program was teetering on the edge this year, largely as a result of the legislature diverting nearly $33 million over the past three years toward other programs. To save it for next year, a legislative interim finance committee decided this month to transfer money within the state treasurer’s office to fill the $4 million gap for fiscal 2011. Only the legislature, which convenes in February, can decide if the funding mechanism for the fund will be restored.

“It would be very reassuring if the treasurer and members of the legislature would outline viable solutions for the future rather than continually leaving us guessing about their next move,” Ms. Slocum said. “I expected this was more of a promise from our state government than just a luxury that might or might not be there.”

In Nevada and across the country, the weak economy is forcing many states to cut back their merit-based scholarship programs. The combination of rising tuition and decreasing tax revenues has put many lawmakers at a crossroads. To keep programs from going under, some states are raising the minimum grade point average or testing criteria to reduce the number of awards. Others are offering a set amount rather than total tuition coverage. Some states, such as Michigan, have ceased financing merit-based scholarship programs altogether.

When states were flush in the 1990s, large-scale, merit-based programs popped up across the country, but now limited resources need to be used with more sophistication, said Paul E. Lingenfelter, the president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers in Boulder, Colo.

“In this economic climate, and given the educational needs of the country, making it very cheap for some students with ample financial resources to go to college, while others are denied the opportunity to enroll and complete in a timely fashion, doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It’s a matter of balance and a matter of priorities.”

Political Considerations

Of the money that states spent on grants helping undergraduates in 2008-09, 72 percent was need-based and 28 percent non-need based, according to a recent survey by the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs. Overall, states spent about 5.6 percent more this year on all college grants. Even with the increase, though, state financial aid didn’t keep up with inflation as in-state tuition rates rose by 6.4 percent in 2008-09, the College Board reports.

States have learned lessons from merit-based programs that will affect future policy. Too often, programs spent money on students who would have gone to college with or without the state’s help, said Mr. Lingenfelter. Also, using grades as the single criteria wasn’t the smartest approach for motivating students. Some avoided challenging courses or reduced their course load to maintain a B, he said.

And now, states are realizing that when times get tough, large programs are not designed in ways that can be sustained. Still, it’s difficult for politicians to cut popular education programs, especially those that help the middle class.

Look at the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship. It’s facing some financial challenges in light of the economy, but this is an election year. The study committee scheduled to meet over the summer to come up with recommendations to change eligibility requirements or aid has yet to convene, said Tim Phelps, the associate executive director for grants and scholarships at the Tennessee Student Assistance Corp., the agency that administers college loan programs and scholarships.

In Michigan, lawmakers failed to renew funding last year for the Michigan Promise Scholarship, which would have provided $140 million in grants to about 35,000 Michigan college students.

“Everyone is saying this is a terrible thing, but there wasn’t the will or the money,” said Val Meyers, the associate director of the office of financial aid at Michigan State University.

The decision was made so late last year that it left 10,000 students at MSU who were expecting $1,000 to $2,000 awards in the lurch. The university used $8 million in federal economic-stimulus funds to cover the shortfall. Ms. Meyers does not expect the Promise Scholarship will be revived, although all the candidates for governor say they want to restore it.

In 1993, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller championed the HOPE Scholarship program, promising free college for students graduating from the state’s high schools with a B or higher average. Funded by a lottery, it was the first statewide merit-based program in the country with a goal of increasing high school achievement and college participation. The program has resulted in more students attending college, but whether it has helped increase completion or high school performance is hazier, said David Lee, the director of strategic research and analysis for the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which administers the program.

In its first year, the HOPE program spent $21 million helping about 43,000 students. By 2009, its costs had soared to $639 million to cover college expenses for 248,000 students. If the sheer growth weren’t enough, program costs have increased at double-digit rates, while lottery proceeds have been flat.

To shore up the program, changes were made in 2004 to keep it safe until this year. Beginning in 2007, the state standardized the method of computing who indeed had a 3.0 grade point average rather than leaving that to districts to determine. The result: a one-third reduction in the number of freshmen eligible in the first year, Mr. Lee said. Also, triggers were put in place so if the unrestricted reserve falls below a certain point, money for books and mandatory fee payments are cut.

This year, the HOPE program will spend more than it earns and likely remove about $150 million from its $600 million unrestricted reserve fund. Legislative committees are meeting in August to look at options.

“There are only two ways to go, unfortunately,” Mr. Lee said. “You either have to reduce the number who qualify or reduce the amount they get. So, we are looking at both sides.”

A flat award may be considered rather than covering total tuition, which fluctuates and makes it difficult to budget.

“The state will have to make some tough decisions,” he said. “HOPE is the most popular program, probably, in the state. But that doesn’t mean it can go on as it is now. Revenues won’t permit it.”

Shifting Criteria

West Virginia faced a similar plight with its Promise Scholarship Program, but the state has upped eligibility criteria and cut awards to keep it going. Started in 2001 and financed with video lottery-machine revenues and general funds, the program originally covered students who had a 3.0 GPA with full tuition and fees at in-state schools.

In 2008, the legislature capped the award at $4,750 a year—about 80 percent of tuition and fees. It also incrementally increased ACT score requirements.

“Those were difficult decisions. Each time you raise standards, there are students that statistically will not qualify for the program,” said Brian Noland, the chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission.

Those changes will take effect this fall, and he anticipates that the program will be viable as is for the remainder of the next decade.

The state has more than doubled spending on need-based aid in the past six years, and the number of students receiving scholarships has increased markedly, added Mr. Noland.

Florida also changed its merit-based scholarship program last year to provide flat awards. The Florida Bright Future Program, which is underwritten by a lottery, originally paid a percentage of tuition (on average $3,000 a year), but now offers a flat award per credit hour enrolled, which last year amounted to about a 5 percent reduction in awards overall.

“Having a flat award may not equal exactly your tuition and fees, but it’s very predictable. Students and families can count on an exact amount to help with their funding exercise and planning,” said Theresa Antworth, the director of state scholarship and grant programs in Florida.

This year, the legislature decided that future graduating high school classes will have to earn higher test scores to qualify for the program. Still, the state isn’t necessarily expecting fewer awards. “Sometimes student behavior meets the challenge,” Ms. Antworth said.

New Jersey’s Student Tuition Assistance Reward Program, or NJ STARS used to cover community college tuition for students in the top 20 percent of their high school graduating class; now, it’s for the top 15 percent. After two years in a community college earning at 3.0 GPA, students could get a second scholarship for two years at a state university. Now, they need a 3.25 GPA, and the award is limited to $7,000 all told. As of this fall, only tuition is covered—not fees.

“Everybody realizes we’re biting the bullet. Everyone has to absorb some,” said AnnMarie Bouse, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, the state agency that oversees the STARS program. “We’re pushing to have complete funding restored, but we’re happy to have tuition restored.”

Merit-based programs have put the spotlight on higher education and meant more students often studied in their home states. But Mr. Lingenfelter of the State Higher Education Executive Officers group maintains that the objective in the future should be to get as many people into college as can benefit from it and help them all succeed.

One model approach, he suggests, is the Oklahoma Promise Scholarship Program. It requires high school students to take rigorous courses, keep up their grades, and have a family income under $50,000 to be eligible for full tuition coverage at an in-state school. Immune from a slipping economy, since its inception in 1992, the program is the first item funded by the state legislature with a dedicated source of general revenue.

Ms. Slocum is hoping she can persuade the Nevada legislature to guarantee funding as well. The rising college sophomore started a Facebook page to encourage students to speak up about the changes, and about 3,400 have joined so far. Still, she says it’s hard to be hopeful considering the condition of the state’s economy.

“Even though I’m a National Merit scholar finalist, graduated at the top of my class, with a 4.0 GPA, I’m still struggling to find a way to get through college even in a state college,” she said. “I think that’s ridiculous.”

Republished with permission from edweek.org. Copyright © 2010 Editorial Projects in Education, Inc. For more information, visit www.edweek.org.

Please contact EdNews’ news editor Nancy Mitchell if you have comments or questions about this article or the EdNews’ partnership with Education Week.

The council held its fifth meeting Wednesday, but the panel is still struggling with organizational issues.

Members did agree to an “initial draft” of a teacher effectiveness definition and began discussion of more-detailed quality standards for teachers.

And, education Commissioner Dwight Jones dropped by to give the group a brief pep talk.

“Thank you for doing this important work,” Jones said. “I sure plan to get more engaged … just to listen and offer any support where you think it might be helpful.”

Jones noted that the council’s duties expanded when Senate Bill 10-191 was passed after the council was created. He encouraged members to challenge their “core beliefs” as they do their work.

“The governor’s very interested in what ultimately is going to come out of this council,” Jones also said. (Gov. Bill Ritter, who originally created the council and appointed its members, will be out of office by the time the group makes its recommendations to the State Board of Education next March.)

A significant part of the discussion Wednesday focused on organizational issues.

Members recently filled out a survey about the council’s work, and co-chair Matt Smith noted the survey found “a frustration that the council’s work wasn’t moving as rapidly as some would like.” Smith is an executive with United Launch Alliance.

Smith also noted members have varying opinions about how much of the group’s work should be done by the whole council and how much should be done in small groups.

“I’m not sure the meeting structure we have … is going to get us where we want to go,” said Tracy Dorland, director of teacher effectiveness for the Denver Public Schools.

The group discussed whether to meet more often than once a month and whether to hold a multi-day meeting in the fall.

“The more time we spend in one shot, the more we’re going to get accomplished,” said Margaret Crespo, principal of John Evans Middle School in Weld County.

Eduation Commissioner Dwight Jones (left) gave a pep talk to the State Council for Educator Effectiveness on July 21. Co-chair Matt Smith (right) led the discussion about the body's pending organizational issues.

Smith finally suggested having small groups do preparatory work for full-group sessions, meeting twice in September and twice in October and holding a retreat sometime in the fall. The details are to put in writing and circulated among members for approval.

Nine of the council’s 15 members attended the monthly session. One of the council’s four teacher members was present, and the council’s two school board members and one superintendent were absent. (Council members were appointed from various segments of the education community.)

The council also spent considerable time discussing an initial definition of teacher effectiveness, with members going back and forth on elements that should be included and the level of detail a definition should include.

As a starting point, members finally settled on five core elements used by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Those are:

• Teachers are committed to students and their learning.
• Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.
• Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.
• Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.
• Teachers are members of learning communities.

Under the requirements of SB 10-191, the council has until March 1 to make recommendations to SBE on definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness, different levels of effectiveness, permitted differentiation of evaluations, testing and implementation of new evaluation systems, appeals processes, parent involvement and on costs of the new system.

The council is being advised by a 22-member volunteer Technical Advisory Group, which reviews education research and prepares documents for the council. Co-chair Nina Lopez, a CDE executive, noted Wednesday that the exact details of the working relationship between the two groups still are being ironed out.

The state board will have until Sept. 1, 2011, to adopt regulations and also is allowed to make decisions on any issues on which the council doesn’t act. And those SBE regulations will be subject to legislative review.

If the whole process plays out as planned, the law won’t be fully implemented until the 2014-14 school year (detailed background on SB 10-191).

• Council webpage with minutes, current meeting schedule and full list of minutes

And, adopting the common core may be as simple as adding parts of those documents to state standards, a consultant and Department of Education officials said.

The board was briefed by education Commissioner Dwight Jones and other CDE staff about line-by-line comparisons of the common core and the state standards, which were adopted only last December. Reviews were done by an outside consultant and state content subcommittees.

The core standards were developed under the leadership of the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But, the U.S. Department of Education has made adoption of the standards an eligibility requirement for the second round of Race to the Top grants.

Board members asked how the two sets of standards compared in their rigor. “On the whole … it’s almost a wash,” said Stanley Rabinowitz, a consultant for the education research agency WestEd. While there’s variation in some individual standards, “I’d say there’s equal rigor across the two documents,” he added.

Jo O’Brien, CDE assistant commissioner of standards and assessment, said, “It’s almost a draw.”

The board met on the same day that the Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued its comparison of the common core with individual standards in all 50 states. Fordham judged Colorado’s language arts standards as equal to the common core but ranked state math standards as considerably less rigorous than the proposed national set.

Board members also asked what exactly adopting the common standards would mean.

Elaine Gantz Berman, D-1st District, asked if adoption would mean the state would “in no way … be watering down the Colorado standards.”

Rabinowitz said that if parts of the common standards were added to state documents, “You’re probably making the standards more rigorous in some cases.”

Berman wanted reassurance that merely adding sections of the national standards to Colorado’s would constitute adoption. “That is correct,” said O’Brien, an answer affirmed by Jones.

Rabinowitz said, “No one has fully defined what adoption means or what 15 percent means.” (The 15 percent reference is to the federal requirement that a state’s standards can’t deviate more than 15 percent from the common core.) O’Brien said there’s about 90 percent overlap between the two sets of standards.

Rabinowitz explained to the board that the comparison “was a very difficult study to do” because in many places the common standards are much more detailed than Colorado’s. “There are parts of the common core standards that read much more like curriculum than standards.”

O’Brien noted that Colorado’s “standards are an expectation of what students should know and be able to do at the end of good curriculum,” not a detailed list of what students should be taught throughout a school year.

The Fordham study judged the common standards, which were released in final form last month, to be “clearer and more rigorous than today’s [language arts] standards in 37 states and today’s math standards in 39 states. … In 33 of those states, the Common Core bests both ELA and math standards.”

In Fordham’s rating system, the language arts common core got a B+, 6 out of 7 points for rigor and content and 2 out of 3 points for clarity and specificity. Colorado’s marks were identical. (California topped the charts with an A, a 7 and a 3.)

“In sum, these standards represent a very thorough and rigorous set of expectations for the students in Colorado. Some streamlining and editing to exclude nonacademic and unrealistic goals would improve them tremendously, but as written, they earn a solid six points out of seven for Content and Rigor,” the Fordham report said the Colorado’s language arts standards.

In math, the common core scored an A-, a 7 and a 2, but Colorado was graded as only a C, a 3 and a 2. (California was the top scorer again.)

“With their grade of C, Colorado’s mathematics standards are mediocre, while those developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative earn an impressive A-minus. The CCSS math standards are significantly superior to what the Centennial State has in place today,” the Fordham report argued.

O’Brien attributed Fordham’s math critique to a particular “point of view” that prefers a more detailed, curricular style of math standards than Colorado’s document, which emphasizes student end-of-year competencies. A memo prepared by CDE math content specialist Melissa Colsman concluded that Fordham “overlooked” or “misunderstood” elements of Colorado’s math standards.

(See the Fordham study’s contents page, executive summary and Colorado analysis, plus links to articles about common standards issues.)

Just over half the states have adopted the common standards. Massachusetts’ state board approved them Wednesday, despite an opposition campaign by some conservative think tanks.

The SBE meets on Aug. 2 to hear Jones’ recommendation and to vote on adoption. The commissioner seemed to make a point of reminding the board that Colorado has had a very open process for reviewing the common standards and the final decision hasn’t been made.

However, Colorado officials have been heavily involved in the common standards development process, including review of earlier drafts, something Jones and O’Brien also brought up at Wednesday’s meeting.

The department is accepting public comment on the proposed standards until July 28. (Go here to send an e-mail.) About 420 comments have been received so far.

Education Commissioner Dwight Jones is scheduled to give the board a telephone briefing Wednesday on differences between the common standards and recently adopted state standards in those subjects.

The board is scheduled to meet again by telephone on Aug. 2 to vote on adoption. That’s the deadline for states to adopt the standards if they wish to remain eligible for the second round of Race to the Top funding, for which Colorado has applied.

The core standards were not created by the federal government but rather were developed under the leadership of the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But, the U.S. Department of Education has made it clear it supports the effort.

While many in the education world are backing the common standards, some conservative and libertarian groups oppose them, arguing that they would lead to an unwise federalization of K-12 education and that the proposed standards aren’t sufficiently rigorous.

State board member Peggy Littleton, R-5^th District, has publicly criticized the common standards for those reasons. Some groups are trying to make a test case on the issue in Massachusetts, where the state board is scheduled to vote Wednesday.

Colorado’s reading and math content standards are about 90 percent aligned with the proposed national standards in those subjects, according to an analysis prepared for the Colorado Department of Education.

The final draft of the standards was released June 2, and CDE contracted with WestEd to do a line-by-line comparison of Colorado’s math and language standards with the common core. (WestEd is a California-based non-profit education research and consulting organization that has worked with CDE on a number of reform projects, including creation of the new Colorado standards.)

The WestEd analysis also was reviewed by subcommittees of experts that helped develop the Colorado standards. The documents were released late last week.

Jo O’Brian, CDE assistant commissioner, said, “The bottom line is that 90 percent of the two standards align. … There is extreme similarity.”

The primary differences are “only in two or three grades in mathematics,” O’Brien said. She noted that in some areas the common standards are more detailed and more like curriculum than are the Colorado standards. In some cases the two sets of standards differ on what things students should learn in which grades.

“The state board is going to have to talk that one through,” she added.

The federal R2T requirement for the common standards allows a 15 percent variation between a state’s standards and the common ones. Given that, O’Brien said, “We already are adoption-ready.”

Half the states have adopted the common standards, and advocates hope another 15 or so will do so by Aug. 2. The only other Western states to adopt so far are Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming. In California an advisory panel has recommended adoption.

Supporters of the common core envision that the standards will be the foundation for multi-state achievement tests that may roll out in 2014. Colorado has been a participant in both common standards development and in groups that are working on the multi-state tests.

That sort of multi-state standardization is what worries critics of the common standards. In a May 27 audio interview with Ben DeGrow of the Independence Institute, Littleton said, “Education should be taken care of by parents and states” and that the common standards push “flies in the face of choice in education and local control.”

Littleton also debated common standards with state Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, in a June 4 Independence Institute video.

Last December the state board unanimously adopted new standards in 11 content areas, dance; comprehensive health and physical education; math; music; reading, writing and communicating; science; social studies; drama and theatre arts; visual arts; world languages; and English language proficiency.

Why? College leaders say they won’t know how much they may need to hike tuition until they get a better idea about how much state support will be available in 2011-12 and how that money will be split among institutions.

How to divide the money is the focus of ongoing work by the Department of Higher Education and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. Whatever allocation system they come up with is bound to be contentious and to make some – or perhaps all – institutions unhappy.

Higher ed leaders are being forced to confront the issue because of a complicated and interlocking set of events and circumstances, including:

• The continuing state revenue crisis, which was highlighted in June revenue forecasts that warned the state may have to cut up to $1 billion from the 2011-12 state budget (see story). There’s no question that higher ed will receive less direct state support than the $620.8 million in the current budget, much of which is the last installment of federal stimulus funds.

• The hard truth that state colleges and universities have differing abilities to raise revenues from tuition and grants. It’s seen as easier for CU’s Boulder campus, CSU-Fort Collins and the Colorado School of Mines to raise tuition and still maintain enrollment than it is for some of the state’s four-year colleges, which have smaller pools of potential applicants and more lower-income students.

• A new state law (Senate Bill 10-003) that gives colleges greater freedom in managing their budgets and the right to ask for tuition increases higher than the 9 percent hikes that now are allowed annually through 2015-16. Another key piece of that law gives the CCHE more clout than it’s had in recent years, including review over those tuition authority requests.

At its July 8 meeting the commission adopted a deadline schedule and an application form for institutions that want tuition flexibility. Applications will be accepted between Aug. 2 and Oct. 1, review and negotiations with institutions is be finished by Oct. 29, CCHE decisions will be made by Nov. 4 and recommendations to the Joint Budget Committee will be made by Dec. 10. (See the template for college financial accountability plans.)

The deadline schedule was a compromise between CCHE and the institutions, but some college leaders are still uncomfortable with it. And, it doesn’t look like colleges will be rushing to file applications in early August.

Education News Colorado last week surveyed all 10 state colleges and systems. No institution is definitely planning to apply, and only Adams State College has no plans to apply. Representatives of the Colorado and Colorado State university systems, the community colleges, the School of Mines and the University of Northern Colorado plus Metro, Fort Lewis, Mesa and Western State colleges said they were still studying the issue or haven’t yet taken it up.

Metro State President Steve Jordan discussed the unknowns that colleges face. “We are doing some modeling that makes the presumption that general fund [state support] will be cut.” So, Metro will prepare an initial document that suggests different levels of tuition for different amounts of state cuts. “We intend to put in some markers … and then we will revise those once we know the reality” of state funding, Jordan said.

Metro State President Steve Jordan

Other colleges also are expected to prepare similar “what if” proposals.

Mesa President Tim Foster said, “We will probably hedge and ask for some nominal increase above 9 percent.  In that way we can keep an eye on what the legislature does with respect to higher education budgets and react accordingly with a possible amendment.”

Brad Baca, Western State vice president for finance and administration, said, “Most likely, the plan and the amount of tuition flexibility proposed will be indexed against varying scenarios of state support.”

The commission is scheduled to return to the allocation issue at its next meeting, scheduled for Aug. 5 at Front Range Community College in Westminster.

At a June 17 meeting, commissioners discussed guiding principles for proposed allocation of state funds. The key elements of that document were based on whether state support in 2011-12 is below or above $500 million.

If state funds are less than $500 million, DHE staff propose using a “total revenue” model that would “allow institutions better positioned to utilize tuition flexibility to do so while protecting core functions at community colleges and institutions less able to leverage tuition flexibility.”

If state funding is above $500 million, DHE staff propose using a blended model for allocating funds to individual colleges, taking into consideration prior year funding, ability to raise tuition and enrollment changes. (Read document.)

At a lightly attended meeting on July 8, DHE Chief Financial Officer Mark Cavanaugh presented the commission with more detailed scenarios.

In a worst-case scenario of $450 million in state support for 2011-12, a proportional cut would mean each school would lose 30.2 percent of the state and stimulus funding it’s receiving this year.

The cuts would vary if more state money is channeled to institutions with less ability to raise tuition. Under that model, cuts would range from about 41 percent for the School of Mines and the CU system to a low of 17.2 percent at Western State College. In theory, institutions that received less state support would raise tuition to make up the difference.

Cavanaugh also presented options for $550 million, which still is less than this year’s budget for higher ed. “Fiscal year 11-12 is going to be rough year,” Cavanaugh told the commission. “It’s a very difficult thing to know what that number [state support] is going to be.” (See the full document here. EdNews summary is below, and the story continues after the chart.)

Allocation of state support among colleges is an issue fraught with contention, because every institution and system zealously protects its own financial interests and is quick to see harm in proposals that shift support among campuses.

Leaders of community colleges and Metro, for instance, point out that they draw historically under-served groups of students and have had the largest enrollment growth. They believe funding allocations in recent budgets haven’t accounted for that growth.

Jordan told EdNews, “It seems to make more sense” to use the tuition-adjustment model and funnel more state support to institutions like his that “don’t have the ability to do that cost shift” – raising tuition and then using revenue from wealthier students to subsidize financial aid for poorer students.

Research institutions, particularly the CU system, argue that their ability to raise tuition much more is limited, that they’re key drivers of the state’s economy and need support for high-cost professional programs such as those on the Anschutz Medical Campus.

CU President Bruce Benson

CU President Bruce Benson said in an interview that proposed allocation formulas often slight the needs of high-cost programs like Anschutz and the CSE veterinary medicine program. “People keep disregarding the major assets of this state … in their formulas.”

Smaller outstate institutions like Adams State, Western State, Mesa State and Fort Lewis colleges point to the services they provide to their regions and their inability to significantly raise tuition, given the kinds and numbers of applicants they attract.

Community college leader also are reluctant to raise tuition because of their open-access mission and the large numbers of low-income students they serve.

“They [CCHE] ought to look at tuition-raising ability,” Benson said, but he suggested that more institutions than CU, CSU and Mines could afford to raise tuition rates, which he said in some cases lag behind costs at similar institutions in other states. “There is a capacity to raise tuition.”

The window for making budget recommendations is a relatively narrow one. The executive branch must make its 2011-12 budget recommendations to the JBC by Nov. 1, and the panel begins hearings on the 2011-12 budget shortly after that.

In the meantime, there’s going to be lots of rhetorical jostling in the higher ed community.

“Yes,” Benson said with a chuckle, “we’re going to have some serious discussions.”

While they’re debating allocations, institutions and CCHE also face an even grimmer financial assignment. SB 10-003 requires them to prepare plans for what they’d do if state support is cut by 50 percent in 2011-12. Those reports, to be coordinated by CCHE, are due Nov. 10.

Do your homework

• Archive of higher education stories

A tray of homemade cinnamon rolls was one of the class projects in the DPS scratch cooking boot camp.

Chef Safa Hamze watched with consternation as a Denver Public Schools food service worker squeezed a wad of whole wheat dough in her fists, then pinched off the tops that oozed out between her thumb and forefinger, setting each tan globule on a scale to make sure it weighed the requisite 1.5 ounces.

One by one, the little dough balls filled up a baking sheet, eventually to become dinner rolls. Soon, they would go in the oven at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval in northwest Denver.

“Do the dinner rolls have to be round?” he asked. “Because, you know, you can do it a lot faster if you make them square.”

Then Hamze, a one-time middle school math teacher who is now head baker at Whole Foods Rocky Mountain Bake House, did a little calculation aloud.

“You put 70 rolls on a pan at 1.5 ounces each. But instead, you could just roll out 7.5 pounds of dough and put on the pan, then slice it in squares and make the rolls pull-aparts,” he said. “They’ll bake together in such a way that you can just pull a roll off.”

Around the kitchen, heads nodded as mental light bulbs went on. The others could immediately see how much faster Hamze’s way would be over the traditional method, dubbed the “kill-the-chicken” technique.

Later that morning, Annette Martinez, who has been cooking for Denver schoolchildren for the past 23 years, was ecstatic with this newfound knowledge.

“Oh, slicing is soooo much better than pinching,” said Martinez, a food service worker at South High School. “He’s teaching us some real time savers. And that leaves us more time to focus on what we need to do.”

Back to school early for food workers

Last week, 120 workers – about a third of total DPS lunchroom staff – started a three-week “boot camp” in which they’ll learn lots more tips and techniques about scratch cooking, a skill many of them have never developed.

Safa Hamze, head baker at Whole Foods Rocky Mountain Bakehouse, shares some tips on time-saving ways to prepare cinnamon rolls.

They’re being tutored by local professional chefs such as Hamza.

When school starts in August, 29 DPS kitchens will have abandoned most processed foods and will be regularly be turning out homemade baked goods, meats and vegetable dishes. Within three years, all DPS school lunchrooms will follow suit.

It’s the largest commitment to returning to scratch cooking in schools in the state, if not the country, said Leo Lesh, director of food and nutrition services for the district.

“I think we’re ahead of the pack,” Lesh said.

“A few districts may try this in one or two schools, but we’re taking off a pretty big chunk at one go. And I’ve not heard of  anyone having a three-week training program like this.”

Back-to-scratch a national trend

The DPS effort parallels efforts in many smaller school districts to return to scratch cooking.

LiveWell Colorado is sponsoring week-long “culinary boot camps” for school food service personnel across the state. Nationwide, a movement for schools to abandon heat-and-serve processed foods and return to the homemade meals Baby Boomers remember is gathering steam.

“I’m surprised at how quickly this movement has taken root,” said Lesh. “It seems like overnight everyone has gotten concerned about the processed foods served in schools. Before, only food service directors were concerned.”

Most school lunchroom fare was made from scratch 30 years ago, he said. Then things changed.

“Food safety standards became more prevalent, and it was just easier to buy pre-packaged stuff,” he said. “The liability was less. And in the early ’80s everybody was running to fast food restaurants, and that’s what the kids wanted. We got into a lot of branded products like Subway pizza and Taco Bell burritos.”

Some new schools were built without real kitchens, since processed foods could simply be reheated. Of 140 DPS schools, 42 have no kitchens so food must be made elsewhere and transported to them.

Concern about childhood obesity sparks change

But about five years ago, things began to change again as rumblings of concern grew about widespread childhood obesity.

DPS responded by removing all its fryers, and began baking French fries. The district started bringing in more fresh fruits and vegetables, opening more salad bars.

Sandy Grady, area supervisor for DPS Food and Nutrition Services, instructs boot camp students on how to make homemade hamburger buns of the proper weight and shape.

The district also embraced a policy of including at least one vegetarian selection daily, and of using produce from school gardens whenever possible.

“It was clear that we really wanted to go back to scratch cooking again,” Lesh said. “But then we faced the talent issue. Who could do those kind of things? People don’t cook at home anymore, and they haven’t taught their kids to cook. And there are no more home ec classes.

“We decided if we wanted to do this, we would have to develop our own training classes because we just can’t find the people who already have these skills who want to work for us.”

Back in the kitchen at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, Katherine Culpepper is one of those people. She’s brand new to the district – doesn’t yet even know which school she’ll be assigned to in the fall.

But she’s the mother of six children and has raised seven more in addition to her own, and she knows a thing or two about cooking. “I know you can still have good quality food, made fast, if you work hard,” she said.

Martinez, the veteran with 23 years experience, remembers what school kitchens used to be like, and she’s glad to see a return to that.

“It’s back to the basic again, like we used to do,” she said. “It’ll be hard to go back to cooking again, but it’s good. It’s so much better for the children, and the food will be so much better.”

Regina Sams, who as been in the lunchroom at Denver’s Career Education Center for three years, said she used to work in a deli before getting hired by DPS. So she knows about scratch cooking.

“It’s more work but it’s better for the kids,” she said. “And DPS knows it will be more work, so they’re hiring more help. I don’t think there will be many complaints about it.”

Higher price tag for almost-home cooking

But that part about hiring more help does worry Lesh, whose job it is to make sure DPS meals are not only healthful but cost-efficient.

“I get $2.68 per child,” he said. Out of that, he pays salaries and benefits and covers utilities and equipment. The cost of the food itself accounts for less than half the costs associated with running the DPS food service program.

“It depends on the meal but we generally keep it around 42%. Roughly, our food costs are $1.12, on the high side, and we try to keep it around 90 cents,” Lesh said. “But I have to offer milk to every child and that’s 20 cents right there. So it’s a challenging business to try and make the meals for that amount of money.”

Lesh cautioned that the coming school year will be a transition year, and that not everything will be made from scratch.

“We won’t be taking feathers off of chickens,” he said. “We won’t make our own tortillas. This year will just let us know what’s possible, given the fact that it’s still a school lunch program, and we still have only 25 minutes to serve 300 kids. What CAN we get done, and more importantly, will the kids react positively?

“We think parents will,” Lesh added, “but parents aren’t in the lunchroom eating lunch every day. The kids have to like the food to bring them back every day for 173 days. I don’t know of anybody who goes to the same lunchroom for 173 straight days except  students. So we have to mix up the menus.”

Plus, he said, DPS sometimes buys products almost a year in advance, so there’s still quite a bit of processed products that must be used up — “We won’t just throw stuff away.”

Rebecca Jones can be reached at rjones@ednewscolorado.org.

While the data doesn’t provide a complete picture of school district budget cuts, it seems to give a reasonable overview of how the current fiscal situation has affected districts.

The project, a non-profit organization that studies school finance data and trends, compiled the data from media reports in communities around the state and updated its list earlier this month. Many school districts adopted their final budgets in June, before the July 1 start of the 2010-11 fiscal year.

Tracie Rainey, director of the project, noted there are limitations in relying on media reports, but she said the list “gives a flavor” of what’s happened around the state.

The survey covered only 75 of the state’s 178 school districts. But those districts enroll about 745,000 students, just under 90 percent of total statewide enrollment. The information covered all but two of the state’s 25 largest districts.

The project also sent a questionnaire to all school districts, but as of last week only 23 districts had responded, including only six of the top 25 districts. Rainey said Thursday that responses are continuing to come in and that the project expects to make an “updated round” of that report, perhaps as early as next week.

School districts, which overall receive 65 percent of their funding from the state, have been hammered by the state’s revenue and budget woes. The 2010-11 school finance act and the main state budget bill set state and local total program funding at about $5.4 billion for the budget year that started July 1. That compares to a little less than $5.6 billion for 2009-10 and is about the same as 2008-09 funding.

This year marks the first time that the legislature didn’t apply the full Amendment 23 formula to school spending, an historic change. It’s estimated full 2010-11 funding under A23 would have been about $5.8 billion.

The project’s compilation also reported some information about how districts made their cuts. (Note that totals may be incomplete because of what was or wasn’t reported in local media.) Here are some highlights:

• Staff reductions: 58 districts used cuts, attrition and/or hiring freezes.
• Salary and benefits: 32 districts made reductions or freezes in salaries and/or benefits.
• Furlough days: 19 districts
• Larger class sizes: 15 districts
• Reductions in programs, electives: 23 districts
• Cuts in transportation services: 22 districts
• Freezes in book and technology purchases; deferred maintenance: 19 districts
• Increased fees: 38 districts
• Use of reserves: 21 districts
• Reduction in instructional hours: 4 districts
• Four-day school weeks: 7 districts

Do your homework

• District-by-district spreadsheet from Colorado School Finance Project (from media reports)
• Cuts reported in response to project questionnaire
• Budget woes loom again for 2011-12
• Archive of additional stories about the state’s financial situation

Ronald Blan, 12, shows the roller coaster he designed in robotics class at Adams County Camp.

The contraption Ronald Blan designed and was proudly displaying seemed more ferris wheel than roller coaster – but when the designer is a 12-year-old from one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, such quibbles seem insignificant.

The point is, the 2-foot tall kinetic structure, set up in a classroom at Scott Carpenter Middle School in unincorporated Adams County, works.

“I’ve learned how to build a structure and make it spin,” said Blan. “I’ve had a lot of fun. I like technology. And I like roller coasters.”

Elsewhere in the school, youngsters were dabbling in computer technology to create a podcast. Others were working on their “downward-facing dog” stretch in yoga class. And others were preparing for that greatest of all childhood summertime joys, a trip to Water World.

Fighting summer learning loss

Adams County Camp is summer camp, with a twist. It’s all fun, yes, but camp organizers believe that what happens here this summer will impact these children and this community in profound ways for years to come.

Studies indicate that about two-thirds of the “achievement gap” between disadvantaged ninth-graders and their more financially well-off classmates can be explained by what happens – or fails to happen – over summer during their elementary school years.

First-graders at Adams County Camp sing a song while they prepare to go swimming.

Educators call this “summer slide” or “summer learning loss.”

“Research shows that poor kids may outlearn rich kids during the school year,” said Beverly Kingston, director of the Adams County Youth Initiative, which sponsors the camp. “But during the summer, it disappears.”

Now in its second year, the six-week Adams County Camp is serving 550 disadvantaged children in grades one through eight at three school-based locations.

Funded in part with a five-year, $8 million federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant, the camp is a collaboration among three Adams County school districts, the Hyland Hills Park and Recreation District, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and Growing Home, a local care provider for the homeless.

Cost of camp minimal for families

The cost to campers is minimal: $15, viewed as a “commitment fee” after some of the campers in last year’s smaller but free pilot program attended only sporadically.

For that small investment, campers get academic enrichment activities and adventure outings unlike anything they’re likely to experience at home. Actual cost to run the camp is approximately $530 per camper.

Campers stretch as they learn yoga poses at Adams County Camp.

Youth program providers such as Mad Science, Kids Tek and Colorado Fusion Soccer Club bring their programs to the camp sites: Westminster School District’s Carpenter and Shaw Heights middle schools, and Adams City Middle School in Commerce City.

Because the camps are located at schools with summer feeding programs, free breakfast and lunch is available to all campers and most take advantage of that perk.

Counselors, mostly college students, supervise, mentor and lead activities in the four areas the camp emphasizes: sports, arts, technology and service.

Field trips to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, Colorado School of Mines, the Denver Zoo, Adventure Golf and a Colorado Rockies game round out the program.

“A lot of our kids never get more than four blocks away from home,” said Kingston.

Of the 550 campers this year, 78 percent are minority and 77 percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, a typical measurement of poverty. Half the campers come from homes where their parents have a high school diploma or less.

Impact seen from first year

Last year, in its first year, the camp served some 185 children at Carpenter Middle School. The campers came from 26 different Adams County schools. While school officials did not evaluate campers’ later test scores, other measures seem to indicate the camp had a positive impact.

“We definitely started school on a much more positive note last year,” said Carpenter Principal Kelly Williams. “It was a very successful school year. A lot of different factors went into that, but I know the camp had something to do with it. Discipline problems were cut in half last year.”

Indeed, juvenile crime reports within a 2-mile radius of the school were down dramatically last summer — from 1,178 during the summer of 2008 to 876 in the summer of 2009.

Kingston said this year, schools will look at student test scores to see what sort of impact the summer camp experiences has had on summer learning loss.

“This is a great gem that’s happening in Adams County,” said Becky Hoffman, manager of community initiatives for ACYI.

Hoffman hopes that publicizing the camp will lead to more community backing. The camp needs books. It needs more recreational equipment. It needs donated snacks for the children. It needs donors to sponsor individual campers.

Come fall, ACYI will organize an Adams Camp Community Board to begin oversight of the camp and increase community participation, she said.

Rebecca Jones can be reached at rjones@ednewscolorado.org.