August 23, 2009 10:54 PM UTC

Denver Teacher Quality: Decided in Seattle?

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• by: Great Education Colorado

On Wednesday, DPS got the bittersweet news that the district is likely to receive a $10 million over three years grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for reforms designed to improve teacher quality.  The only bitter part — that Denver was not selected as one of five districts to receive considerably larger grants.

The $10 million grant for Denver is tremendous news for DPS kids; teacher quality is a fundamental factor in academic achievement (not to mention other critical and desirable outcomes such as creativity, civic-mindedness, and passion for learning).

That grant — as well as the impressive effort put into to obtaining the larger Gates grant — demonstrates again that increased funding is a necessary (though surely not sufficient) condition of successful reform.  

But the grant also raises a critical question: Are we comfortable that DPS’ ability to attract, mentor, develop and retain teachers depends so heavily on a decision made in Seattle (by the Gates Foundation) — in light of Colorado’s failure to provide any funding for professional development, mentoring and induction?  

Thankfully, Denver kids will benefit from three years of substantial and well-planned investment (as they have from a previous Janus grant), but what about the kids in Jeffco, Aurora, Brighton, and Holly?  And what about three, five and ten years from now?

In other states, such as Maryland and Kentucky, state policymakers have decided to target significant increases in school funding to proven reforms, with great success.  But here in TABOR-starved Colorado, we have been forced to cede such decisions to others — to private foundations, to philanthropists, and now to employees of the US Department of Education through the Race to the Top program.

Thank goodness for those entities, that have enhanced — and, we hope, will continue to enhance — the lives and education of thousands of children, at a time when stagnating state/local funding has districts struggling to prevent teacher layoffs and cuts in academic programs.  

Philanthropy plays a pivotal role in the evolution of policy and the provision of services — in good times and bad.  But isn’t it time that we, as a state, provided sustained, well-targeted public investment in teacher quality programs and other education improvements? (Want to speed the arrival of that day?  Sign the Great Futures pledge.)

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Crossposted at the Great Education Colorado Blog

http://www.greateducation.org