These posts are the opinions of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of A+ Colorado.


Caldwell: Two new school boards’ mysterious agendas

Originally Posted by The Denver Post on January 25, 2014. Copyright © denverpost.com. Written by Alicia Caldwell. Read here.

So many people showed up for a school board meeting in Loveland last month they had to sit on the floor and stand along the walls. Many of the roughly 400 people in attendance were angry, upset and wanted answers.

For most local government meetings, 20 people showing up can be considered a crowd. Four hundred is all but unheard of. The driving force behind the big turnout was concern about the agenda of the new majority controlling the Thompson School District’s Board of Education.

What kind of “reform” did this new group of conservatives have in mind? And who was the guy from Colorado Springs the new majority thought they could bring in, with little public discussion, to do legal work?

These concerns are not confined just to Loveland. In Jefferson County, there is much of the same.

Now, the generalization I’m about to make comes with a big asterisk, but the “reforms” these new majorities have been talking about publicly, to this point, are hardly revolutionary. They are the kinds of things Denver has been doing for quite some time. Expansion of charter and innovation schools seems to top the to-do lists, which partly explains the fixation by Jeffco and Loveland board members with hiring Brad Miller (that guy from Colorado Springs), who works with charter schools.

The problem, it strikes me, isn’t so much the agenda as we know it, but the brash way in which the boards in Jeffco and Loveland seem to be bulldozing it through, as if they’re unsure of their power and fighting like they’re still on the outside.

The reality is they are the institution and it’s time to own it, which includes everything from being polite to the public, talking about their intentions, and honoring Colorado’s Sunshine Law, both in letter and spirit.

A woman in a cardigan who took the microphone during Loveland’s most recent board meeting last week (another full house, by the way) put it best: “I would like to speak a little bit about trust, and apparently this board doesn’t have it in the community,” said Marcia Venzke, a former Thompson school board member. “It’s obvious from the kind of attendance we’ve had tonight and in the past … . With every action there is a reaction, and you’re getting the reaction.”

She is right on. And there is likely more where this came from.

One of the interesting dynamics in education reform is the overlap between Republicans and Democrats in supporting policies such as changing the ways in which teachers are evaluated and retained, pay-for-performance, and charter and innovation schools.

The common ground is large enough to accommodate significant factions of both parties.

The unanswered question after these elections centers on what these new majorities stand for. Are they going to pursue a yet-to-be defined conservative reform agenda?

Manipulation feared

One of the things people in Jeffco and Loveland seem suspicious about is a perception the school board is being manipulated by an unseen hand. On that count, the almost simultaneous proposals by new majorities in Jeffco and Loveland to hire Miller, the Colorado Springs attorney known for his work on charter schools, was fuel for speculation.

And the $200,000 that conservatives Ed McVaney, Ralph Nagel and Alex Cranberg pumped into school board races (including Loveland and Jeffco) during the last election cycle, according to a Denver Post story, was another eyebrow-raiser.

Why would they get involved? Is there a push for approaches upon which there is far less consensus, such as vouchers and the injection of religion into public schools?

I reached out to each of the members of the new conservative majorities on both boards, but got little in the way of response. Bob Kerrigan, chair of the Thompson school board, declined to talk to me, as did one other Thompson board member. Most just didn’t respond.

The lone member of the new majorities who did respond, John Newkirk of Jeffco, asked for my questions in writing and responded via e-mail.

Newkirk attributes anxiety in Jeffco to rumors based on misinformation circulating among teachers, staff and administrators. “They include endless comparisons to Douglas County, a patently false rumor that former (school) board member Laura Boggs is a contender for the superintendent position, salary cuts, outsourcing, etc., ad nauseum.”

Well, how about vouchers? “I have no plans to initiate any voucher program.”

Charters? Newkirk said they should be fairly evaluated and that charters ought to be “an effective and important part” of the district’s options.

This is in keeping with public discussion in both districts that has been all about what I’d call a mainstream reform agenda.

Miller spoke to the Thompson school board in Loveland last week about charters and innovation schools. The first thing he did was to try to dispel rumors, including one that he would suggest Thompson go all charter.

He said charters and innovation schools are laboratories for experimentation that districts can use to guide improvements to neighborhood schools.

As he spoke, the horns that others had painted on him receded, at least in my mind. This was all standard stuff.

It is, however, important to keep in mind his hiring is set to be taken up by the board next month, and that his presentation was not a prediction of policy decisions the board will make in the coming four years.

Both the Jeffco and Thompson boards, for instance, could go the way of Douglas County and push for vouchers. Or they could set what many in the mainstream reform movement would characterize as unacceptable parameters for charter schools.

For instance, Denver has rigorous academic quality standards when it comes to authorizing and deauthorizing charters.

A school has to have a sound academic plan, and if a charter isn’t making the grade, it won’t be authorized to continue.

The new boards could emphasize other elements over quality, such as parental support for the school despite lackluster academics. Those details matter, and probably won’t become apparent for some time.

I asked Jeff Lamontagne, who unsuccessfully ran for the Jeffco school board against Newkirk, about his observations of the three — Newkirk, Julie Williams and Ken Witt — derived from the many campaign forums they attended together.

Lamontagne said there appeared to be a consensus among them about expanding school choice and charter schools, adding he favored that as well.

And vouchers? The “center of gravity” of their responses, Lamontagne said, was to not foreclose it. This is one assessment of many public appearances over a period of months so it’s not dispositive, but it is interesting.

I also asked Denise Montagu, a Thompson board member who carefully watched elections that brought a conservative majority to power, about what is fueling the idea there is a hidden agenda in Loveland.

“They ran on the idea of transparency, but for the first couple of months things are only transparent to four of the members,” said Montagu, who is not one of the four who hold the majority.

The issues included small matters, such as being put on the spot in a public meeting to express her vision for the district when those in the majority clearly had advance notice that they would be asked to do so. Among her larger concerns: the initial short notice in deciding whether to hire Miller to provide legal services to the board.

Public reaction welcome

Jeffco has hired Miller, and Loveland is considering it. Van Schoales, chief executive officer of A+ Denver, said he knows Miller through having served with him on the Colorado League of Charter Schools board. Schoales had positive things to say about Miller, and put him on the conservative side of the spectrum.

“I would say most of the time we agreed on things,” Schoales said. “The places where we disagreed were the degree to which regulations should surround who should get a charter and who should keep a charter.”

So there you have it: a whole lot of concern and not much in the way of stated agendas.

The heartening part of all of this, in my mind, is the public reaction. Though some who support the new majorities have tried to paint the attention as having been orchestrated by the teachers unions, that is not my impression at all.

This is a healthy exercise of democracy combined with deep-seated concerns about public education. All local governments should be so lucky as to have 400 people turn out for their meetings. I guarantee you that better policy would be the result.

E-mail Denver Post editorial writer Alicia Caldwell at acaldwell@ denverpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AliciaMCaldwell