March 30, 2010 05:53 AM UTC

Colorado loses race to the top, Polsters yawn

•  
• by: DavidThi808

America is now competing on a pretty level playing field with the rest of the world. I see this every day at my company. And the most critical part of remaining competitive is our educational system. While quality K-12 education alone will not make us competitive, piss-poor K-12 will insure we fall to the wayside.

In today’s Denver Post we have:

Colorado did not win in the first round of the federal education grant competition known as Race to the Top, the U.S. Department of Education announced this morning.

That we lost is not surprising. That no one on Pols found this loss worth mentioning however is very scary. Republican lesbian bondage shows may be more interesting. Payday loans may be more immediate. But this is our long term future.

So my big question is why? Why no mention of this? Have we already given up? Have we decided screw the long-term prospects of the poor? Or is it that the teacher’s unions are like the mortgage industry in this state – none dare cross them regardless of the cost to the citizens?

As to why we didn’t get it – gee big surprise:

most education experts placed Colorado’s chances as being slim to win in the first round because the state had not tackled tough issues such as teacher tenure, improving evaluation systems and removal of ineffective teachers.

Look legislators, to improve K-12 it’s going to be a bloody bruising fight. Teachers will not voluntarily give up a sinecure – the same as anyone else will fight to hang on to a sweet deal. Especially as this is all they’ve known their entire career, so they’ve convinced themselves that it’s a right.

And it’s not just teachers. You’re going to have to take on the entire educational system from administrators (who are a different but equally large problem) to everyone else connected to the schools. And you need to do it in a thoughtful way and not get mad at those fighting you each step of the way.

With that said, this is probably the ultimate bi-partisan issue. Voters on both sides want a working system and are open to significant change. And legislators from both sides have useful policy ideas to bring to this issue.

We also have one other major issue to worry about here. The Colorado request is for:

Colorado applied for $377 million to augment its reform efforts, specifically to develop a cross-state data system.

Now that idea is a good start. But can you say CBMS? If the Colorado plan is to have OIT run a 400M IT project, they are probably better off just flushing the money down the toilet – that way they immediately know they will never get the software.

If we get this funded, all that will happen is we will spend 10 years asking is it done yet while continuing to throw more and more money at it. Step 1, before requesting the funding, has to be staffing OIT with people who are competent.

Maybe that answers why this was all met with a yawn. Our state so far has been unwilling to make the hard decisions required to improve the schools. And if we received the money, we would have pissed it all away on Dumb & Dumber over at OIT.

But this is too important an issue to quit on. Yes those of us well off get our kids a strong education. But we’re still bequeathing them a state that is falling behind the world. I like the people I work with in China & India – a lot. But I don’t want my grand-kids only job prospect to be running a ski resort that their grand-kids vacation at.