Educators tentatively back Ritter plan, but await details

Readiness would be defined for life after high school

By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Monday, March 3, 2008

Ritter has goal of reducing public schools' dropout rate.

Gov. Bill Ritter's proposal to overhaul the public school system is meeting with cautious support among education groups.

But education leaders said the hard part will be filling in details of the sketchy plan, which Ritter and Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, have termed "revolutionary."

"There's not a lot of clarity about what teachers need, what principals need in terms of training and professional development and resources to complete the revolution," said Bruce Caughey, deputy director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, which represents superintendents and other top school administrators.

Ritter's proposal is contained in a bill circulating among educators and lawmakers in draft form. The measure probably will be introduced this week, with Romer and Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, as the bipartisan sponsors.

Under the bill, an 11-member "preschool to postsecondary alignment council" will devise a definition of readiness for either college or the work force.

The Colorado Board of Education and Colorado Commission on Higher Education would jointly adopt that definition to guide high school graduation and college entrance requirements.

The new council would also recommend to the state academic standards to guide public school curriculum and prepare students to meet the definition of readiness.

Students who meet the standards would receive a diploma endorsed by the state Board of Education, as well as the local school board. Endorsement would entitle the student to enter a state college, although not necessarily the most selective four- year schools.

The state's 176 school districts would revise their curriculums to reflect the new standards.

Seniors would take CSAP

Tests administered under the Colorado Student Assessment Program would be overhauled to reflect the new standards. The tests, which now end in 10th grade, would extend to the senior year.

School districts, in judging whether students have achieved readiness, would no longer be required to use the traditional measures, such as course completion with a passing grade. They could adopt some other method, such as the use of a carpentry project to get across concepts of geometry.

The program would take effect for students entering high school in fall 2011. Still under discussion are important provisions that would affect the earliest grades, said Matt Gianneschi, Ritter's education adviser.

Groups representing educators are still digesting the draft bill, but leaders say the ideas are good in general. None, however, has issued an endorsement.

"I don't think we're ready to do that yet," said Jeanne Beyer, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association.

Success of the entire effort hangs on who is named to the new council that will initiate most of the changes, several people pointed out.

The panel would be co-chaired by the Department of Education Commissioner Dwight Jones and Colorado Department of Higher Education Executive Director David Skaggs. The rest of the members would be selected by Ritter and the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate.

Beyer said teachers will want to know how their voices would be heard in the council's proceedings. The bill directs the council to hear from educators, but does not specify a process.

The rapid pace set for the council could preclude public comment, Beyer said. By Jan. 5, 2009, the panel must come up with both a definition of college/work force readiness and proposed revisions to the state's public school academic standards.

Not all are college-bound

Jane Urschel, associate director of the Colorado Association of School Boards, said a major challenge lies in meeting the needs of students who are not going to college. Students headed for technical education should not be made to "feel they're taking some sort of second-class path," Urschel said.

"This is the old (issue of) vocational education, which has always been the stepchild of public education," Urschel said.

Unless the needs of noncollege-bound students are addressed, Ritter won't meet another of his main goals - reducing the dropout rate, Urschel warned.

Rona Wilensky, principal of Boulder's New Vista High School, said the council should talk to business leaders, not just academics.

"When you ask people who work in schools what kids need to know, you get school kinds of answers," Wilensky said.

"That's not what we want to make as the universal standard for everybody, because most people aren't going to work in schools. So what is it you need to know in real life?" Wilensky said.

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303 954-5209

• March 3, 2008

  8:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  kirbysfriend22 writes:

  Choice? you mean all schools get the choice of which kids they work with (and their parents)? that's what i hear. private schools - they choose. charter schools - they choose. public schools - they take what they get and they teach them as best they can.

  Every time I hear these rants about choice what it translates to, for me, is "I want to create more division and segregation among our kids".

  Fix that.

• March 4, 2008

  5:45 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  jane writes:

  Rock on, Kirby's friend!

  I don't know about this plan. I think it will create a second class and although that class exists de facto, it currently defines itself. I'm not comfortable with determining early on that some children aren't "college material." Without an advocate, many kids will be shuttered into watered down classes. God help the counselor that tries to put my child into a "work-force ready" path, but many kids don't have parents like me fighting for them. I think the better path is to require all students to be college ready and provide the support for them to get there - with extended days, strong behavior standards, extended school years, and rigorous academic counseling for kids without the support system at home.

• March 4, 2008

  11:36 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  edlyell writes:

  I hope that the standards commission contains several people who understand and will advocate world class standards. Our children compete in a global marketplace and few today are educated to the level of other developed countries.
  If we stay with the majority standards of most school districts we will continue our descent into third world status, educationally and economically.
  
  I was elected to the State Board of Education in the 1980's after visiting schools in over a dozen countries. Being a business and economics professor I saw the high standards other countries expected of students, and achieved with their public schools, with less money per student.

  After decades of talk we have become worse rather than better in all but a few 'excellent' schools.

• March 6, 2008

  5:58 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  vudumom writes:

  Does anyone know where I can go to get the rules on administering the CSAP tests?How they are supposed to be administered?If all kids are supposed to take the same test if their in the same class?
  I need some information ,before I expose what I think is widespread cheating on CSAP's at my children's school.