CDE calling for educator feedback on their strategic plan. Administrative Growth in Colorado Schools. Saving money on wolf reintroduction (either cutting wolves or depredation payouts)?

CDE calling for educator feedback on their strategic plan.

A reader sent me a survey he received in an email. It was a survey asking for feedback on the Colorado Department of Education's Strategic Plan (plan linked first below).

I gave the plan a look and then did the survey myself. I'll touch on some of my thoughts on the plan soon, but if you are (were) an educator or know someone who is (was), I thought I'd share the survey link too. Please forward along the plan and link if you know someone who is (or was) an educator.

My thoughts on the plan? Mixed bag.

Right off the bat, I'm glad to see the strategic plan has at as a focus school attendance. Students that don't attend school regularly and for the full day do not succeed. Period. End of story. When it came time for me to do any ranking in the survey, this was A#1 on my list.

What is CDE proposing? I attached their proposed actions as screenshot 1.

These seem like reasonable ideas to me. In particular, I liked the sense that CDE is going to reach out to the local communities and get involved at that level (I see the statewide campaign as bullet point #1 and give it a tepid "okay" with a shrug). People are involved in things that they see as valuable, and this necessarily varies.

Getting with local schools/districts to see what has worked, to see how people view their local schools will, I hope, give an idea of how to best target statewide resources to help solve this vital problem.

In contrast, looking at the second priority, "Accelerating Student Outcomes", I find I'm not as impressed. Not that I think anything here is wrong per se, but this whole thing strikes me as a lot of nothing. Well, I mean nothing besides the buzzwords and bureaucratic speak.

I realize the state is constrained in the role it can play in local district affairs, but (outside of the two things I highlight in the activities from this priority as screenshot 2), I don't see a lot here that strikes me as more than just "inservice fodder" for the endless meetings you sit through as an educator.

Last things I will touch on is some general feedback about the strategic plan and CDE's efforts in general. This is something I included in my response when I did the survey.

I hope that CDE expands their pool of who they observe and who they learn from to include successful private and charter schools. That is, I hope that they don't just focus on public schools when seeking success stories to share. There are a lot of good ideas out there and they aren't all in regular public schools.

What do you think? Does anything in the strategic plan jump out at you? Add your thoughts to the comments if you'd like.

https://go.boarddocs.com/co/cde/Board.nsf/files/DAYND75F3713/$file/11.13.24%20Strategic%20Plan.pdf

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScME03k8s058qyLLl1eHF1Z0xr3zazlLkTwkbCcRPWjHq009w/viewform

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Administrative Growth in Colorado Schools

One of the big reasons I am not a huge fan of simply dumping money into education as a fix for its ills is spelled out in the study linked below.

The conservative leaning Common Sense Institute put out a report about the growth of administration in Colorado schools, while teacher jobs (and pay) along with student numbers either flatten or fall off (see, for example, screenshot 1 from the report).

Oh, and also while student scores are falling.

More details in the report linked below.

This is why I am more than skeptical about how thoughtlessly firehosing money into schools is going to get us anywhere. It is the politically expedient thing to do, of course, but all too often that money doesn't go directly into things that make students more successful and better educated, which ought to be the ultimate goal of anything we do with regard to schools.

School administration is important. There has to be someone to handle the "business" of education so that teachers can focus on teaching. The trends noted in this report--increase in administrative spending while student numbers and achievement fall coupled with educators getting less and less money as measured by the teacher salary share of educational spending--show that our state is WAY overspending on administration, however.

Colorado spends more and more on education and we are getting less and less for our money. I can't help but think that things like increasing administrative spending play a part.

I want you to keep this in mind when you read about spending more on education in this state. If we do continue to ante up, what will we be buying?

Will that be of benefit to our students?

Get in the habit of asking yourself (and the ones making the policy proposals), where and on what the extra money will be spent.

https://www.commonsenseinstituteus.org/colorado/research/education/administrative-growth-in-colorados-public-school-system?mc_cid=aafde56ad1&mc_eid=b9a9d08951

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Saving money on wolf reintroduction? Saving it by lowering depredation payouts?

Our state is facing down a shortfall in its budget (see the first link below for an earlier newsletter on the topic) and ideas for closing the hole abound.

We could privatize Workers Comp. We could cut funding to state agencies. We could short highway repairs (keep your eyes open for Friday's newsletter).

Or, according to the Colorado Politics article linked second below, the Joint Budget Committee could help ease the budget shortfall by taking some money from wolves--either by delaying the reintroduction or by shorting the funds for depredation.

Quoting the article:

"According to the Joint Budget Committee staff, one option is to delay introducing wolves on the Western Slope in 2025-26, which could save about $2.1 million in general fund dollars. The analysis noted that in 2023-24, the second most significant increase in general funds for the Department of Natural Resources, which houses the Colorado Parks and Wildlife division, was for more funding to assist with wolf reintroduction."


"The analysis also suggested that the committee look at a 50% cut in the compensation paid to ranchers who lose livestock to wolves, from $350,000 to $175,000, as well as in general fund dollars. It noted the agency didn't spend the full amount of the appropriation in the last fiscal year. The analysis noted the agency didn't spend all the money it was appropriated for the reintroduction program in both 2022-23 and 2023-24, underspending by $528,000 in the past fiscal year. Within its 2024-25 appropriation, CPW has already spent almost $600,000 of its $2.1 million in annual funding for the wolf program."

Boy, stack that second quote up against the fight over bringing in Canadian wolves and a move to lower the amount in the depredation fund would result in yet more fighting. Even if the entirety of the money weren't needed, imagine the signal that would send.

If you want to weigh in on this topic, I included the page for the Joint Budget Committee as the third link below. An email and/or phone call to the legislators on the committee would not be untoward.

They, not CPW will be deciding the funding in the coming legislative session.

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/budget-troubles-exacerbated-by-an?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/colorado-budget-wolf-reintroduction/article_36f9e43c-b1b1-11ef-8e29-9f8719f9e2e4.htmlhttps://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/colorado-budget-wolf-reintroduction/article_36f9e43c-b1b1-11ef-8e29-9f8719f9e2e4.html

https://leg.colorado.gov/committees/joint-budget-committee/2024-regular-session