According to Education Week, “a select group of states— Colorado, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Tennessee are among them—have been invited by the nonprofit Aspen Institute to do a dry run of their presentations.” Institute officials wouldn’t confirm the list, but a state official told EdNews that Colorado is participating.

The real oral exam comes Tuesday afternoon, when the delegation will have a 90-minute session with the examiners who scored Colorado’s written application. And, following that, the 16 R2T finalists will have budget meetings with U.S. Department of Education officials.

The format of those meetings isn’t clear, but one report suggested state delegations might be asked to talk about what they’d cut if they don’t receive their full requests. Colorado has asked for $377 million. Previous federal guidance suggested that states of Colorado’s size might receive only $60 to $175 million.

Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien is leading the state's Race to the Top effort.

State presentation teams are limited to five people. Colorado’s will include Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, education Commissioner Dwight Jones, Associate Commissioner Rich Wenning, Assistant to the Commissioner Nina Lopez and Linda Barker, director of teaching and learning for the Colorado Education Association.

O’Brien, who will leave office in January, was president of the Colorado Children’s Campaign for 16 years before her election in 2006.

Jones, named commissioner is June 2007, previously was superintendent of the Fountain-Fort Carson schools and a vice president of Edison Schools.

Wenning has been a key figure in crafting the state’s R2T application and also in building the state’s SchoolView.org online data system and developing Colorado’s new district accountability system. He’s a former executive of the Colorado League of Charter schools, a consultant to the Denver Public Schools and a senior vice president at New American Schools.

Lopez, who has coordinated American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs at CDE since last May, was also a key figure in the state’s application and is vice chair of the new Educator Effectiveness Council. She formerly was a vice president at the Children’s Campaign and worked at the League of Charter Schools and the Donnell-Kay Foundation. She co-chaired the education committee for Gov. Bill Ritter’s transition team. Lopez is on the board of KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy.

Barker, a former Montana teacher of the year, works on teaching and learning policy issues for the CEA, the state’s largest teachers union. She has served on a number of education committees and is a liaison to various education groups and state agencies.

Ritter, Jones and O’Brien repeatedly have stressed the importance of collaboration among education groups, including CEA, in developing the state’s R2T application. They argue that lasting and effective reform can’t be achieved without the participation of a wide range of interests.

Federal officials are expected to announce the R2T winners early next month.

Related: States prep for R2T “oral exams”

Do your homework

• Archive of EdNews stories about R2T
• Colorado Department of Education R2T information page
• U.S. Department of Education R2T information page

Some tidbits from his “Feet, Forks and the Fate of Our Children” presentation Wednesday night at Rock Creek High School:

Type II Diabetes – once commonly known as “adult-onset diabetes” – is now being routinely diagnosed in children as young as 8. Teen-agers are needing coronary bypass operations. Chronic diseases of mid-life are being transformed into juvenile scourges. And if current trends continue, the percentage of overweight or obese Americans will hit 100% within 40 years. As a nation, we are projected to spend $340 billion annually on obesity-related ailments by 2018.

“The peril with regard to the epidemic of obesity in children and the related chronic disease is quite dire,” Katz told a group of parents and students who turned out for the presentation. “The effect of eating badly and lack of physical activity will cost our children more years of life than the combination of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use. Some say our children will have shorter life spans than their parents.”

“But as with all clouds, there’s a silver lining,” he said. “We don’t need to have a great biomedical advance or the next Nobel Prize to fix this problem. We simply have to apply knowledge we already have. Using what we already know about a short list of behaviors we can control, we can reduce the chronic disease burden by 80 to 90 percent…The levers are in our hands. They’re in our feet and our forks and our fingers.”

Katz is president and founder of the Turn the Tide Foundation, a Connecticut-based organization that is developing multiple strategies for schools and families trying to reverse the unhealthy trend toward obesity in children and teenagers. The foundation is trying to figure out just how to get kids to eat right and exercise more, and how to get parents – who often are struggling with weight problems of their own – to take the situation more seriously.

“People say where there’s a will there’s a way,” said Katz. “I don’t believe that’s true. We have to both cultivate the will and pave the way. And one way to cultivate will is for people to realize that they’re endangering their children.”

Katz, a physician, professor and director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at Yale University, is a nationally renowned columnist who regularly writes about nutrition for everyone from The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to Oprah’s ‘O’ magazine and Men’s Health. He’s a heavy hitter who normally commands a $25,000 speaking fee.

But Susan Beane, the outgoing chairwoman of the Health Advisory Council for Douglas County Schools, is nothing if not persuasive. After hearing Katz speak last year in Denver, she cajoled him into coming back to Colorado and speaking in Douglas County for free.

“He’s like the Springsteen of nutrition,” said Beane, who has chaired the council for the past three years. “He’s constantly doing research, and he really has a wonderful plan to turn around the situation we find ourselves in.”

Douglas County School District is serious about improving the health of its students and staff. “We intend to be the healthiest school district in the country by 2015,” said interim superintendent Steve Herzog.

This week, the district kicked off a  healthy schools competition that includes a pedometer challenge to reward teams who log the most daily steps, a “food environment” challenge to reward schools who make it easier to make healthy food choices and harder to make bad ones, and a “Challenge of the Day” activity.

Beane says more innovative proposals will soon be rolled out by the Health Advisory Council. “One of our members is focused on sleep,” she said. “There’s been a lot of study on rolling back school start times. It may be easier for some people to have the kids start school earlier in the morning, but it’s not in the best interests of the kids.”

Katz promotes three strategies developed by Turn the Tide Foundation: the school-based Nutrition Detectives that teaches elementary children how to make smart food choices; the ABC for Fitness program, which includes ways to build in brief physical activity bursts into every classroom throughout the day without using up instructional time; and Nu-val Nutrition Quality Labeling, a supermarket-based food ranking system that gives a nutrition score from 1 to 100 to more than 45,000 food products.

He also praised LiveWell Colorado, a nonprofit organization committed to reducing obesity in Colorado by promoting healthy eating and active living. Just this week, Live Well Colorado released a Food Policy Blueprint that identifies the most pressing needs and opportunities to strengthen access to healthy foods in the state.

These and other programs are among the “sandbags” that Katz says America needs to hold back the flood of obesity-related health problems. “If we do enough things right, and build them one on top of another, then the levee will hold,” he said.

Katz preaches a no-guilt gospel about the path to health. “If you are struggling with your weight, it is not your fault,” he says. “The environment is not of your devising. Don’t tell me there’s some epidemic lack of willpower.”

He took the nation’s food industry to task for misleading labeling and for its aggressive promotion – especially toward children – of high-calorie nutrient-poor foods. “The food industry needs to be regulated,” he said.

But equally important is a sea-change in society’s approach to food, he said. Cultural values need to shift.

“Plate cleaning is a cultural anachronism,” he said. “If a child has the good sense to stop eating when he’s full, pat him on the back!”  Likewise, all-you-can-eat buffets need to disappear, along with bake sales.

He says efforts to find a “cure” for obesity – a pill to keep us slim – seem doomed to failure because putting on weight in the midst of plenty is what humans are genetically designed to do. For most of human history, that’s been a survival mechanism.

“For most of history, calories were hard to get and physical activity was unavoidable,” Katz said. “Now, physical activity is hard to get and calories are unavoidable.”

The measure was sparked by a Nov. 11, 2008, incident at Montrose High School during which a troubled 14-year-old boy slashed the throat of a 16-year-old student. The victim survived and the attacker went to prison.

Attempts to pass legislation last year stalled, and a study committee worked on the issue over the summer. But, testimony during a House Ed hearing on Monday indicated there still was lots of disagreement over the bill and opposition from some juvenile justice advocates concerned that it would discriminate against foster children.

Amendments were developed over the last few days and approved unanimously by the committee Thursday. Those included removing references in the bill to language that was interpreted as applying only to foster children and adding language about children who are a risk to themselves or others, replacing wording that listed specific acts.

The amended bill also reduces to 10 from 30 the number of days notice that welfare authorities must give school districts about a student’s move.

Rep. Cherilyn Peniston, D-Westminster, asked sponsor Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge. “Are you satisfied that schools are still going to get the information they need?” under the amended bill.

Schafer was nuanced in her answer, saying, “It’s my hope that this will be another tool for better communication. … I can’t guarantee that it will be 100 percent perfect.”

House Ed also was scheduled to consider three bills that proposed tightened regulation of charter schools, but those  were again laid over.

The Senate Education Committee Thursday unanimously passed out three bills:

• House Bill 10-1208, which puts into law and establishes a timetable for completion of statewide higher education credit transfer agreements, several of which already are in place. This bill is designed to ease the transition from community to four-year colleges.
• House Bill 10-1036, which requires school districts to post budget, spending and other financial information online, to be phased in over a three-year period.
• House Bill 10-1034, which changes some required qualifications for school speech-language pathology assistants in an effort to ease a shortage of such workers.

The committee also approved the nominations of Regina Rodriguez and David Edwards to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education; of Stuart Bliss and Mohan Misra to School of Mines board, and those of Patricia Hayes, Amy Anderson, John Schlichting and Cecelia Sanchez de Ortiz to Charter School Institute board.

Use the Education Bill Tracker for links to bill texts and status information.

The council, created by Gov. Bill Ritter as part of the state’s Race to the Top application, is based on the premise that more effective and durable reforms can be achieved through a process representing a broad array of education interests, from the Colorado Education Association to administrators and from school board members to one lone student.

That approach stands in contrast to the more top-down way some other states have approached both the quest for federal education stimulus funds and the broader national push to improve teaching.

Thursday’s session, held at the Lowry headquarters of the state Community College System, was the usual first-meeting mix of introductions, setting expectations and deciding on a future meeting schedule.

The introductions gave some hints of how individual members are approaching the 18-month assignment.

Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien opened the first meeting of the Educator Effectiveness Council March 11, 2010.

“It’s always the adults who find it hardest to change.” – Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, who welcomed the group but isn’t a member

“We shouldn’t be constrained by the past. … We’re not looking for a little tweak.” – chair Matt Smith

“My expectation is that we will be brave but cautious.” – CU education dean Lorrie Shepard

“My hope is to make a great system that is fair and equitable.” – Brighton teacher and union official Shelley Genereax

“Every time I think about this work I feel a weight upon my shoulders.” – vice chair Nina Lopez

The governor’s charge to the council is to develop a proposal under which teachers are:

• “Evaluated using multiple fair, transparent, timely, rigorous, and valid methods, at least 50 percent of which is determined by the academic growth of their students.
• “Afforded a meaningful opportunity to improve their effectiveness.
• “Provided the means to share effective practices with other educators statewide.”

The council has a Dec. 31 deadline to draft definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness and to “develop and recommend guidelines for adequate implementation of a high-quality educator evaluation system,” in the words of the executive order.

The order also sets a Sept. 30, 2011, deadline to make recommendations to the governor, legislature and State Board of Education on policy changes to:

• “Support districts’ use of evaluation data for decisions in areas such as compensation, promotion, retention, and removal, as well as the criteria for earning and retaining non-probationary status.
• “Ensure that the standards and criteria applicable to teacher and principal licensure and the accreditation of preparation programs are directly aligned with and support the preparation and licensure of effective educators.”

State education leaders have repeatedly acknowledged that despite a series of recent education reforms, Colorado is weakest in the area of educator effectiveness. The 2008 and 2009 legislative sessions passed important education reforms in the areas of standards, testing, P-20 alignment and school and district accountability. Last year lawmakers also approved creation of an educator identifier system that ultimately can be used to link teachers and principals with student achievement data.

There’s been debate in education circles about why Ritter chose to use an executive order rather than pursuing legislation this year. When he announced the council, Ritter pointed to some other states, which have been busy in recent months passing new laws to burnish their R2T applications. “That’s simply not how we go about school reform in this state. … Collaboration is essential to this process,” the governor said.

Colorado is one of 16 finalists for the first round of R2T grants, and the state’s application asks $605,000 to fund the work of the council, primarily for staffing.

Members of the state Educator Effectiveness Council met for the first time on March 11, 2010.

Council member Kerrie Dallman asked, “Who’s going to pick up the slack?” if Colorado doesn’t win. Lopez said, “This work should be done regardless of the funding.” Ritter education advisor Liz Aybar said, “We’re in conversation with some other folks” about support. “Just rest assured that what you guys need will be taken care of.”

The group will meet again in April. The executive order expressly says that the council’s decisions are to be reached by consensus.

Council members

• Chair and at-large member: Matt Smith, vice-president of engineering, United Launch Alliance
• Vice chair and Department of Education representative: Nina Lopez, special assistant to the education commissioner
• Department of Higher Education: Lorrie Shepard, dean, School of Education, University of Colorado – Boulder
• Teachers: Shelly Genereax of Brighton School District 27J (also president of Brighton Education Association), Kerrie Dallman of Jefferson County Public Schools (also president of Jefferson County Education Association), Amie Baca-Oehlert of Adams District 12 (also an at-large Colorado Education Association director and union chief negotiator in his district), Nikkie Felix of Aurora Public Schools
• Public school administrators: Margaret Crespo, principal of John Evans Middle School in Weld County, Tracy Dorland, executive director of teacher effectiveness in Denver Public Schools
• Public school superintendent: Sandra Smyser, superintendent of Eagle County Schools, which has a pay-for-performance system and an evaluation system that includes student achievement
• School board members: Bill Bregar of Pueblo District 70, Jo Ann Baxter of Moffat County
• Charter schools: Colin Mullaney, principal of Cheyenne Mountain Charter in Colorado Springs
• Public school parent: Towanna Henderson of Denver Public Schools
• Student: Shelby Gonzales-Parker of Justice High School in Denver Public Schools, and a member of the student group Project VOYCE, which participated in drafting the state’s Race to the Top application

The council follows the classic Colorado “one-of-each” model for creating balanced commissions. Various members were selected with the advice of the following interest groups:

• Teachers – Colorado Education Association
• Administrators and superintendent – Colorado Association of School Executives
• School board members – Colorado Association of Schools Boards
• Charter representatives – Colorado League of Charter Schools
• Parent – Colorado PTA

Do your homework

• Archive of EdNews stories about R2T
• Text of executive order creating the council
• Colorado Department of Education R2T information page
• U.S. Department of Education R2T information page

Things like getting 100 percent of his students performing at grade level within five years of enrollment; revising graduation requirements so that members of the Class of 2015 must already be earning college credit before they graduate from high school; creating a first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation campus to meet the educational needs of everyone from pre-schoolers to college underclassmen; and implementing a school-wide bonus pay program based on student achievement.

But the superintendent of Aurora Public Schools likes to point out that 3 ½ years into his current 5-year-year plan for the district, Vista 2010, he’s already been able to cross off – or at least make substantial progress on – 93 percent of those goals.

“Any time you’re over 90 percent done, it’s time to start thinking about your next strategic plan,” he says.

So back in the fall, Barry kicked off  a 180-day “listening tour” to promote and get feedback on his latest  vision of what the school district could be five years from now.

Aurora Superintendent John Barry

One hundred and four meetings later, Barry has taken his Vista 2015 spiel to PTAs, to civic clubs, to the city council, to university regents, to neighborhood associations, to APS faculty and staff, to churches. In short, if it’s a group, and it meets in Aurora, chances are good Barry or another school district official has come calling.

With the final such group presentation now behind them, district officials will take the rest of this month to process and analyze all the comments they’ve heard, and they’ll spend April tweaking Vista 2015 to reflect that feedback. They’ll put out a final draft by May, then host a few more town hall meetings and online surveys to give folks a final shot at providing input. Barry figures he’ll have something ready to present to the school board by its first meeting in August.

Talking and listening

Certainly no one can accuse the superintendent of operating in a vacuum, even if some do accuse him of doing more talking than listening on the listening tour. Teachers’ union leaders, in particular, complain their concerns about parts of the plan are being heard. Barry insists that’s not true.

“When you look at all we’ve done under Vista 2010, those ideas weren’t generated from the top, but from the collaborative input of hundreds of people,” Barry insists. “In 2006, we did a 90-day listening tour before we launched Vista 2010. Because we have more time this go-round, we’ve extended it to 180 days.”

Indeed there was a greater sense of urgency in Aurora schools back in 2006. The district, with an ever-increasing number of English-language learners and students living in poverty, was performing abominably on standardized tests, and things seemed headed in the wrong direction. Barry, a retired Air Force general, was hired as superintendent that year, in hopes his non-traditional background could turn things around for the struggling district.

Within a few months, he’d created the Vista 2010 plan, which identified 13 goals, 34 objectives and 97 specific tasks he hoped to accomplish. After a couple of revisions, that was edited down to 12 goals, 30 objectives and 65 specific tasks.

Among them: Adopting a new K-12 literacy curriculum; developing pacing guides to help teachers know what to cover and when; adding a “fifth block” of 23 more days of instruction for students during the summer; the creation of pilot schools; the development of a more comprehensive anti-truancy program.

Today, district officials judge 56 percent of those tasks to have been completed, and another 37 percent to be nearly so. They count just 7 percent on which they’ve made little or no progress.

District earns a “B+”

Barry gives the district a B+ for its efforts. And CSAP scores – often the most public measurement of how a school district is doing – have improved dramatically. In 2009, APS outperformed the state and most other large school districts in overall growth in reading, writing and math, and showed especially heartening improvements among its students living in poverty.

As for the tasks still unaccomplished, Barry says to be patient. “There are trailing indicators and leading indicators in any strategic plan,” he says. “The leading indicators, we’ve made success on.”

Some of the “trailing indicators” –ACT scores, graduation rates. the number of students enrolling in college – haven’t shown much improvement. But Barry says that will change as older students move on and younger students – the ones who will have had more years in the new-and-improved Aurora Public School system  – move up and start taking those tests and start planning their post-high school lives.

Those items that haven’t yet been successfully addressed are among the carryover items included among the 10 goals, 27 objectives, and 89 specific actions that are outlined in the working draft of Vista 2015.

Barry says the one thing in the draft plan that excites him most is the P-20 campus the district is building, and the career pathways programs that will be available to students there – and eventually be available to students throughout the district.

“We’re developing a pathways plan in our schools – elementary, middle and high schools – that’s unique in the nation,” he says. “It will manifest itself first in the P-20 campus.”

A P-20 campus

The Vista Peak Campus, at 24551 E. 1^st Ave., is currently under construction. A school housing pre-school (that’s the “P” in P-20) through eighth grade will open this fall, and a high school will open in 2011, starting with a freshman class. By the time those high schoolers are seniors, the district expects to be able to offer them the chance to enroll in college classes, taught on-site, and even the opportunity to earn both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. Barry doesn’t think it’s out of the question to plan for the day that adjunct faculty and higher education professors could teach upper-level college-level and even graduate-level classes on the campus. (That’s the 13-20 part of p-20.)

In the meantime, students at the school would choose one of four “pathways” based on their career and academic plans. Those pathways: health sciences; STEM (science, technology, engineering and math); business and marketing; and fine arts, humanities and design.

“We’re not hiring principals at the P-20 campus,” Barry says. “We’ll have pathway directors responsible for each pathway. It will be a unique campus. And we will export what we learn from our P-20 campus to every one of our schools. All middle and high schools will have all four pathways eventually.”

Linda Bowman, president of the Community College of Aurora and a member of Barry’s advisory board, says she shares his enthusiasm about linking the school district to post-secondary institutions.  “We are partners in making that happen,” she said. “We believe that for so many of our students, if we don’t identify them early and give them opportunities early, they probably will not have the chance to go on to college at all. But we know from national research, if someone starts to think of himself or herself as college material, and the family starts to think that way too, then remarkable things can happen.”

Bowman says she’s seen the Vista 2015 presentation so many times now, she figures she could probably go on tour herself with it. She judges the community response to it as positive. “People are eager to acknowledge the kind of progress the district has made over past three to four years, and they’re very vocal that we not lose our momentum,” Bowman says. “I think some people are almost surprised at the total commitment. The district is asking all the right questions, and asking the community what we want and what we’re willing to commit to.”

Teachers’ union balks

Aurora Education Association President Brenna Isaacs

But another important player isn’t nearly as positive. Brenna Isaacs, president of the Aurora Education Association, says teachers have two huge concerns: the bonus pay proposal, and the proposal to link teacher job evaluations to student performance.

“We have a negotiated agreement and salary schedule,” says Isaacs. “Given the current fiscal situation, teachers really question why we would be looking at using resources (to fund bonus pay) instead of trying to use those resources to enhance and create a better salary schedule for everyone so we could recruit better teachers to Aurora.”

Isaacs said surveys of district teachers have repeatedly shown the majority to be averse to such a plan, so she was surprised to see it included in the draft of Vista 2015.

“It’s something the superintendent wants, and for whatever reason he thinks it will incent and encourage teachers to work more collaboratively,” she says. “But our belief is that doesn’t work. And teachers see a lot of potential for favoritism to work its way into those structures. And it will be based on student performance, so you’re trying to incent individuals to work harder, run faster, leap over tall buildings in a single bound, as though they’re not doing that right now!

“Teachers want good working conditions, good resources and time and to work with the students they’re charged to work with. That’s more incentive than any bonus pay plan.”

The decision came during committee figure setting for CDE’s administrative and special-programs budgets. The committee did figure setting last week for the bulk of CDE’s budget – aid to school districts (see story “K-12 cuts could top $500 million”).

Both the academy and the corps programs were created by legislative action in the more optimistic spring of 2008, when the state still had spare revenue to devote to extra education programs.

The leadership academy, a Project of Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, is intended to provide principal training. In 2009-10 the program has a budget of $25,000 in federal stimulus funds, provided by Gov. Bill Ritter because the legislature had no state money to fund it. The CDE proposed a 2010-11 budget of $75,000 and part-time staffing, paid from the SEF.

The push for the counselor corps was led by Rep. Karen Middleton, D-Aurora. School districts can apply for state funds to hire extra counselors. The program is designed for schools with dropout and graduation rate challenges. The program got an initial $5 million from the SEF, and the department wants another $5 million from the same source in 2010-11.

The SEF is a separate pot of money that is funded by a small portion of state income tax collections and by whatever transfers legislators choose to make from the state’s main general fund. The SEF used both for special programs and to help top off state aid to school districts. The fund is dwindling, but lawmakers may need to tap it for school aid to relieve some of the pressure on the general fund. So, programs like the leadership academy and counselor corps are vulnerable in this tight budget yet.

Other special CDE programs dear to hearts of some legislators probably won’t be in the 2010-11 budget because the department did its own cutting and didn’t request any funding. Those include the Family Literacy Education Fund, state aid to boards of cooperative education services, civic education, financial literacy, Colorado History Day, funding for the Innovation Schools Act, summer school aid, Dropout Prevention Activity Grants and Regional Services Cooperatives.

The committee didn’t specifically discuss analyst Bernie Gallagher’s leadership and counselor recommendations before approving them.

Committee members did raise some questions about the cost of CSAP testing.

Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge (file photo)

“Can we start saving some of the $20 million we spend on CSAPs,” asked Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge and JBC vice chair. “$20 million on testing just bothered me right from the start. That’s a lot of money.”

Under terms of the 2008 Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids law, the state will be moving to a new testing system over the next couple of years.

JBC chair Rep. Jack Pommer. D-Boulder, said testing “is supposed to be shorter and cheaper once we get there” but there will be high costs for implementation.

Gallagher noted the previous – he called it “pie in the sky” – CDE estimate of $80 million for a new system.

Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, wondered if it would be possible for the state to take a one-year testing “holiday” to save money. Similar suggestions have been made in the past by other legislators. CDE officials always patiently explain that federal NCLB requirements make that impractical.

Gallagher also warned that other provisions of CAP4K will require money to implement and “the state will need to strategically prepare for these expenditures.” (An outside consultant is studying those potential costs.) Gallagher, citing his interpretation of media reports, also raised doubts about whether Colorado can count on federal Race to the Top funds to help pay some of those costs. “It sounds like our state is challenged in winning the full $377 million.”

During figure setting for a department, a committee analyst prepares a detailed proposal for the department’s budget, including dollar amounts that will be included in the annual state budget, the long appropriations bill. The committee sometimes has to tweak the numbers before the long bill is introduced late in the session, and the bill is subject to amendment as it moves through the House and Senate.

As part of that process, other CDE programs could be on the chopping block later, depending on the state’s financial situation.

In their figure-setting documents, analysts include what are called “ugly lists,” programs that could be cut if necessary but trims that the analysts aren’t formally recommending.

Gallagher’s CDE ugly list includes 11 programs. The largest seven are:

• Transfer Read to Achieve cash fund to general fund – $6.5 million
• Eliminate the Closing the Achievement Gap program – $1.8 million
• Stop covering school lunch costs for students eligible for reduced prices – $850,000
• Ending a similar cover-the-gap program for school breakfasts – $700,000
• Cutting supplemental online services and funding – $530,000
• Trimming another school breakfast program – $500,000
• Eliminating CDE’s content specialists – $437,392

• Full JBC briefing paper (see pages 65 for the leadership program, 71-72 for the counselor corps and 96-98 for the “ugly list”)

For the record

Tuesday otherwise was a quiet day for education news. The Senate gave unanimous final approval to House Bill 10-1037 (continuation of supplemental online program Senate Bill 10-062 (technical changes in categorical programs).

An analysis by Education News Colorado of direct-placement rates from the state’s six largest districts shows DPS placed 377 teachers over three years while Douglas County, the district with the next-highest rate, placed 97.

Jefferson County, the state’s largest school district, placed 63 teachers over three years while Adams Five-Star placed 42, Aurora Public Schools placed 22 and the Cherry Creek School District placed seven.

Direct placement, also called forced placement or involuntary transfer, occurs when veteran teachers lose their jobs and their school district must find them new positions.

That’s because Colorado law guarantees a job to any teacher with non-probationary status or more than three years of experience.

DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg put a spotlight on the issue when he announced limits on direct-placing teachers in the city’s highest-poverty and lowest-performing schools.

Boasberg pointed out the number of direct-placed teachers in DPS  has dropped in recent years but said he was not surprised that the district’s numbers are higher than those elsewhere.

Other districts consider years of experience in deciding who stays at a school and who goes, he said, which is no longer the case in Denver.

“We believe strongly that to judge a person solely by seniority doesn’t make sense,” Boasberg said. “It ignores the critical factors of what is the need in that school, what is the fit in that school, what is the teacher’s role on the broader team?”

Story continues after graphic.

Others blame poor DPS management for the disparity in direct-placement numbers.

“It seems to me they have a bias toward new teachers,” said Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, which opposes Boasberg’s announced limits.

“There is a great deal of talk about how potentially, potentially direct-placements could be a problem at a school, how they are potentially something negative,” he said. “But the same could be true about new teachers to DPS, period, because the mentoring programs we have in place really are not good.”

Teachers land on the direct-placement list in most large districts because their school enrollment drops or there’s a change in academic program.

DCTA President Henry Roman

Policies in DPS and other districts prohibit the transfer of teachers who are on remediation for performance concerns.

In Cherry Creek, which had the lowest number of direct-placements, “the expectation is the principal will work with a teacher to help them meet expectations,” said spokeswoman Tustin Amole.

Denver, engaged in a reform plan that includes school closings and other dramatic program changes, likely has more movement between its buildings than many other districts.

But DPS also has a history of allegations that teachers are moved for other reasons.

In 2005, the district settled a lawsuit brought by five North High School staff members who claimed they were abruptly transferred because they voiced concerns about a new principal.

And teachers’ union leaders have long suspected some principals find it easier to move unskilled teachers along than to work with them to improve.

“I don’t think principals will acknowledge that,” Roman said. “I think that happens.”

Once a teacher has been direct-placed, he said, the label carries a stigma – justified or not – that can make it difficult to hold onto a job.

The numbers bear that out. Of the 377 teachers direct-placed in DPS over the past three years, the district had to secure a job for 49 of them at least twice after their own attempts were unsuccessful.

Story continues after graphic.

Five teachers have been direct-placed every year for the past three years.

That handful of teachers is experienced, having taught in DPS an average of 18 years each, according to data obtained by Ed News under the state’s open records law. Their average salary is $67,861.

They include a counselor, a high school English teacher, two middle school science teachers and a former high school social studies teacher who is now an intervention teacher at a K-8 school.

Of the five, only two agreed to be interviewed and Ed News is honoring their requests not to use their names.

Both had been teaching at North High School for more than five years when it was picked for redesign because of low test scores and declining enrollment, resulting in a new principal with the ability to choose her staff.

Neither stayed and they began to bounce from school to school.

One teacher was placed at a school an hour from her Littleton home and she volunteered to move after a year there that featured three different principals. She was then sent to a middle school that DPS officials voted to phase out for poor performance.

She’s now at West High School, which carries the district’s lowest school rating of “on probation” and which received three direct-placed teachers this year. She said she hopes to stay.

“It was humiliating,” she said, questioning decisions to place her so far from home and in a middle school when she prefers high school. “If we were a real team … they would want desperately to match us where we’re best suited.”

Her placement at struggling schools is common in Denver.

Of the five teachers direct-placed for three consecutive years, all are now at Title 1 schools – those schools with poverty rates typically topping 60 percent.

In 2009-10, the Ed News analysis found, 79 percent of the 107 direct-placed teachers were sent to Title 1 schools, which make up about 65 percent of DPS campuses.

And 20 percent of direct-placed teachers this year were placed in “red” schools, those listed as “on probation” for failing to meet standards on the district’s School Performance Framework.

Martin Luther King Jr. Early College in far northeast Denver has received the most direct-placed teachers in the past three years – 11 – while nearby Montbello High School has received 10.

Eleven teachers were sent to DPS headquarters at 900 Grant St., where they were assigned to the substitute teacher pool or placed in programs, such as those for gifted and talented students, requiring travel from school to school.

Story continues after graphic. Scroll down in graphic to see full list of DPS schools.

Boasberg has repeatedly said his desire to limit direct-placed teachers at high-poverty and low-performing schools isn’t about whether they’re “good” or “bad” teachers.

Instead, he said, it’s the idea that “buy-in and passion for the mission of the school are critical” so both teacher and principal should approve the fit.

“Are there instances where the principals need to do better?” Boasberg asked of evaluating teachers. “Yes. But it’s also important to state the system as a system does not work.”

He cited a number of recent reports such as an Ed News analysis that found nearly 100 percent of teachers in the state’s largest districts have received satisfactory evaluations in the past three years.

“It is overly simplistic to say this is the fault of individual principals,” he said. “That would imply that virtually every single principal in the Denver metro area is not doing their job properly and I don’t believe that is the case.”

Other superintendents have asked for help with direct-placed teachers.

Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg

In late October, members of the Denver Area School Superintendents Council, sent a letter to state officials requesting changes in state law, including the job guarantee for teachers.

“Districts should have no obligation to force-place those teachers in other schools,” they wrote. “Rather, teachers should be given some fair time period, perhaps up to a full year including one full hiring season, to find a position in another school.”

If a teacher still can’t find a job, they say, “the district should have no further obligation to continue employing that teacher.”

The letter drew an angry response from the Colorado Education Association and, on Monday, CEA spokeswoman Deborah Fallin said the Ed News numbers show direct-placement is a Denver problem.

“It is not a statewide problem, it does not need a statewide solution,” she said. “It needs a Denver solution.”

State Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, has publicly discussed, though not yet filed, a bill that would pay experienced teachers for 18 months while they search for a job. After that time, the pay would end.

“It’s going to really make us hustle so that’s good,” said a DPS teacher who has been direct-placed for three consecutive years. “The downside is there are those of us teachers who don’t interview well.”

He said he didn’t do interviews one year that he was direct-placed because he was busy with school and being his building union representative.  He wishes he had tried harder.

He’s now at Martin Luther King Jr. Early College and, after 23 years of teaching, he’s working with a coach who last week videotaped him in the classroom.

“I just hope I don’t have to go through it again,” he said of the direct-place rounds.

Finding a teaching job is going to get harder as school budgets tighten.

Jefferson County, the state’s largest district, employs about 300 more teachers than DPS – 4,800 to 4,500 – but has far fewer direct-placements each year.

Kerrie Dallman, president of the Jeffco teachers’ union, and Superintendent Cindy Stevenson credit a largely stable student population and the district’s use of “temporary contracts.”

More than 400 probationary teachers are on the one-year contracts, which are used in areas where enrollment is projected to decline or as fill-ins for experienced teachers on annual leave.

The difference between Jeffco’s temporary contracts and the annual contracts for new teachers also used in Jeffco and in other districts is that “temporary” teachers know the job is over in a year.

Such teachers typically are looking for a “continuing” contract – they have to find one in three years or they can’t work in Jeffco again – but they provide a cushion for experienced teachers because the temporaries are the first to go.

Next to go in tough budget times are teachers with less than three years of experience on continuing contracts. Only then are experienced teachers considered for dismissal, based on seniority.

Dallman said that’s fair because Jeffco invests in its teachers – the more time in the district, the bigger the investment. And if principals are doing their jobs and carefully evaluating teachers, she said, those veterans should be effective.

“It has to be hard for a principal to have those tough conversations with teachers who aren’t performing,” she said. “While I have sympathy for them, that’s their job and I have a real difficult time when principals shirk their jobs.”

Jeffco Superintendent Cindy Stevenson

Stevenson, who spent 10 years as a teacher and 10 years as a principal, agrees with the importance of evaluation.

But, “you can do your job evaluating,” she said, “and when you get into the dismissal hearing, it’s really difficult, expensive and time-consuming … and you don’t always win.”

She was among the superintendents supporting changes in state law because teachers can hit their fourth year of teaching by age 25, she said, “and they have a lifetime contract, that just doesn’t make sense.”

Boasberg, whose background is in law and business, said the concept of a guaranteed job after three years is alien to most workplaces.

“I’m not aware of any other sector of the economy where forced placment exists, in the public sector or the private sector,” he said.

“The question ought to be, is forced placement a practice which benefits students? And if it is not, the question ought to be, why should there be forced placement?”

Click here to read the Ed News’ story about parents, principals’ reactions to direct-placement in DPS. And click here to read the opinion of the former Denver teachers’ union president on this issue.

Nancy Mitchell can be reached at nmitchell@ednewscolorado.org or 303-478-4573.

House Bill 10-1274 would require the state Department of Human Services or county departments to give prior notification to schools of students who are re-entering school after being in social services custody (i.e., foster children) and are leaving a day treatment facility, a facility school or the state hospital. Such children also would have to be deemed a risk of harm to themselves or others.

The intent of giving such notice is for human services agencies and schools to work out plans for safely getting such students back into school.

The measure was sparked by a Nov. 11, 2008, incident at Montrose High School during which a 14-year-old boy slashed the throat of a 16-year-old student. The victim survived and the attacker went to prison.

In the wake of that attack, Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, proposed a version of the bill last year but later asked that the measure be killed because of problems with the proposal.

Instead, the issue was studied last summer and autumn by a group of lawmakers, educators, police officials and youth services experts. The work of that group led to HB 10-1274.

But, that measure drew a lot of critical comment during a House Education Committee hearing Monday. Representatives of the state Office of the Child’s Representative, the Colorado Bar Association, the Denver Department of Human Services and the Colorado Juvenile Offenders Association all testified against the bill or raised concerns about it, saying the measure would unfairly stigmatize all foster children and wouldn’t solve the problem it’s intended to fix.

Mainline school interests, including the Colorado Education Association, the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Colorado Association of School Executives all supported the bill, saying it would lead to useful collaboration between welfare departments and schools that would help schools with successful reintegration of potentially dangerous students.

“I’m convinced it would help make schools safer. … The issue is collaboration,” said John Barry, superintendent of the Aurora schools.

After nearly 2 ½ hours of testimony, the committee turned to amendments. First, chair Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, announced that if the bill passed, he would send it to the House Health and Human Services Committee.

Then, Schafer started to offer “conceptual amendments” (legislative lingo for amendments that aren’t in written form). Rep. Debbie Benefield, D-Arvada, asked if lobbyist Tonette Salazar, who’s worked on the bill since last summer, could join Schafer to help with the amendments.

At that point Merrifield laid the bill over to a future committee meeting, saying possible amendments needed to be developed in a more orderly fashion.

Because the bill was taking so much time, earlier in the meeting Merrifield also laid over consideration of House Bills 10-1343, 1344 and 1345, three measures that would tighten up regulation of charter schools.

For the record Monday

• Senate Bill 10-018 – Grant-funded school awards program, passed House 61-1
• House Bill 10-1037 – Continuation of supplemental online program, Senate preliminary approval
• Senate Bill 10-062 – Technical changes in categorical programs, Senate preliminary approval

Use the Education Bill Tracker for links to bill texts and status information.

What's coming to Adams State College

With warnings about additional cuts to higher education and students taking to the streets to protest rising tuition, officials on Colorado campuses are having a hard time explaining all the new buildings popping up.

Thing is, it’s actually a good time to build despite a virtual freeze in construction money from the state. Nice new buildings attract students who, in turn, bring revenue along with their burning desire to gain knowledge. You can thank a friendly bond market, generous donors and even students who voted to pay higher fees. But don’t expect the boom to last.

Chris Cocallas, campus architect
and director of capital planning and construction at the Colorado School of Mines, said construction is going gangbusters on the Golden campus. That’s because the projects are largely cash-funded and not relying on ever-dwindling state dollars. In addition, bond interest rates are historically lower than average – making big projects more affordable for cash-strapped schools.

At Mines, Brown Hall, the main engineering building, is being expanded to include more cutting-edge labs/classrooms and to enhance cross-pollination between engineering disciplines. Brown is also the only project happening now that has any state dollars attached to it. The school is also in the midst of building a 291-bed residence hall.

Then there’s Marquez Hall- a state-of-the-art, $25 million facility for teaching, research and service being paid for by oil and gas companies or those who have made their fortunes on petroleum.

A new health and wellness center is also in the works.

“Jobs already being planned ended up being more attractive because bonding was available for them at a lower rate,” Cocallas said. “We’re busier right now than I think this campus has ever been.”

However, Cocallas said once the projects are completed “it might slow down quite a bit.”

“We’re looking at next year as being a really tough budget year for us.”

Deferred maintenance remains deferred

Then there’s the eternal problem of deferred maintenance. While all these flashy new buildings come on-line, the old ones sink deeper into disrepair and obsolescence.

“We’re trying to plan for it by saving a few dollars to offset that,” Cocallas said. “We keep up with them as best we can.”

The University of Colorado at Boulder has a backlog of $300 million in deferred maintenance at the same time it has 280 large and very small building projects underway worth $530 million, according to Vice Chancellor for Administration Frank Bruno.

In fact, it’s a banner year for construction at CU as well.

Perhaps the most notable thing going up on the main Boulder campus is the sprawling Center for Community building. The $84.4 million, mostly donor-funded structure features 302,000 square feet of dining hall and student center services such as Career Services, Counseling and International Education. The dining center on the lower levels consolidates two older dining operations into one, creating a central campus commissary and bakery that can serve 900 students.

Center for Community building

There will also be a two-story underground parking garage, payments from which are expected to cover the building’s debt service. The building should be almost complete by next fall.

Then there’s the new, $179.9 million systems biotechnology building on the east campus, a building credited with luring Nobel Prize-winning chemistry professor Tom Cech back to CU from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The building will feature flexible lab design supported by state-of-the-art technology built around the concept of interdisciplinary research and collaboration.

CU officials say the building will “add to the growing success that CU-Boulder has seen in grant awards and technology transfer.” The facility also includes an auditorium, seminar rooms, an open meeting area gallery, a café and conference rooms organized around a “main street” theme.

The school is also preparing to break ground on a new basketball and volleyball training facility next to the Coors Events Center.

“(Projects) go forward rather quickly once you have funding assembled,” Bruno said. “If it’s debt financed you can go out and bond for it. We’re getting good rates on our bonds. We’re seeing projects coming in under budget and on time, which is not always something that happens.”

Questions arise: How can you pay for this?

Bruno said he does find himself answering a lot of questions.

“It leaves people scratching their heads. The admissions office sees parents excited we’re doing work and not just languishing but it does create questions for them, ‘How can you do this?’”

“It is a fine line we walk in terms of improving the campus, taking care of what we have, seizing opportunities of the marketplace to get great bids and great prices and bring projects under budget and on schedule.”

However, capital renewal projects – non-sexy things like replacing a heating or cooling system in a dormitory – are on the skids. CU-Boulder had to back off $24 million plans to spruce up aging Eckley sciences and Ketchum arts and sciences building due to a freeze in state funds. Half of CU-Boulder’s buildings were built more than 45 years ago.

Building is also happening at Colorado State University-Pueblo. CSU-Pueblo has built a new residence hall and student recreation center, a football stadium complex and a student recreation field with a combination of student fees, donor contributions and grants, according to the Pueblo Chieftain.

The Chieftain reported the school improved its baseball and softball fields and upgraded its Psychology Building and library with no state money. The newspaper reported that from 2007-2009, CSU-Pueblo has completed more than $107 million in cash-funded projects and just one state-funded project that cost $14 million, that being the renovation of the Health, Physical Education and Recreation building, which includes Massari Arena.

The biggest cash-funded project was the construction of three 250-bed residence halls. CSU-Pueblo plans to pay back loans with money from housing fees.

At CSU’s main Fort Collins campus, $450 million worth of capital construction projects begun in 2006 are in their final phases. Projects include the student-fee funded, $45 million Academic Instruction Building slated to be done by this summer and the $52 million bond-financed Research Innovation Center. CSU is also in the planning stages of getting approvals for $141 million in self-funded projects from fees and auxiliary funds for the 2010-2011 year to pay for 10 projects, the largest of which is a new $65 million engineering facility that will house cutting-edge labs, classrooms and offices.

Nate Haas, spokesman for the University of Northern Colorado, said an $11.5 million renovation of Butler-Hancock Hall sports pavilion is underway. The project includes fixing up the first-floor locker area, creating additional storage space and classrooms and reconfiguring the building’s main entrance. The project is funded by bonds issued by the state through Certificates of Participation. Some dorm rooms are also being improved.

Adams State transforms campus

Bill Mansheim, vice president of finance and administration at Adams State College in Alamosa, credits students willing to take on more fees and the great rates on the municipal bond market with helping to transform the campus.

Two years ago, students agreed to pay $10 extra per credit hour in fees for campus improvements, with the amount climbing 7 percent per year for a decade. There’s about $50 million in construction projects happening now. Some dorms are being remodeled and student apartments are being built around the stadium. There is also a plan to move Stadium Drive because it dissects the main student housing area. There’s a push to purge concrete and grow grass.

“We are trying to make our campus a more pedestrian-friendly, eye-appealing campus,” Mansheim said.

Times are good for all that.

“When things really tanked in the economy, the bond market went much lower,” Mansheim said. “It is even that much more attractive because Build America bonds came out. We were able to secure another $29 million in financing a year head of schedule because of that program.”

Adams is just beginning to design a major remodel of the education building and the music concert hall. Ten percent of the student fee will go toward controlled maintenance, and some of the money also goes to scholarships for those students who can’t afford to pay the fee.

Students seem to like what’s going on. Fall enrollment was up 18 percent bringing the student population to 3,369. Applications for next fall are up 38 percent.

The University of Colorado-Colorado Springs is wrapping up seven years of major building projects totaling $140 million, said Brian Burnett, vice chancellor for administration and finance.

“We’re using alternative sources of funds to build academic buildings,” Burnett said. “Right now we’re finishing a $17 million renovation of a science building built in 1980 when we had 3,000 students. Today, we have 8,500 students.”

Last August, the school completed a $55 million science and engineering building, an academic enterprise that would have once been totally paid for by the state. This time, the state kicked in 40 percent. CU-Colorado Springs had to beg and borrow the rest. The campus’ new $9 million events center was entirely paid for by student fees, alumni gifts, a contribution from the CU president and loans.

“We’re enjoying very much a buyer’s market right now, which is good for our projects,” Burnett said. “It’s a great time to invest in new buildings. But once this wave of investment is used up, there’s not much in the pipeline unless you’re building it yourself.”

Not even for basic classroom maintenance.

Not long ago, CU-Colorado Springs had to sink $400,000 into University Hall because of haywire heating and ventilation and an air conditioner leaking into a classroom. In the past, that sort of thing was covered by the state.

“Four hundred thousand dollars is a big number for our campus,” Burnett said. “It’s a challenge.”

EdNews writer Julie Poppen can be reached at jpoppen@ednewscolorado.org .