Alan Gottlieb

“Pandemic pods” have the potential to widen already gaping opportunity gaps. But there are ways to minimize the negative collective impacts.

Mike Miles, CEO of First Future Schools, has deftly threaded the needle in a letter to his staff about reopening school next month. Read the full letter here.

Yes, education needs to change fundamentally. For now, though, we need to set aside our differences to get through the next year.

A deal cut last week between Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association blew a big hole through the plan to give the biggest raises to the lowest-paid workers.

Let’s, for argument’s sake, give these individuals and groups that want to eliminate accountability and measurement their way. Let’s stop measuring anything and just trust that teachers will get it right. Then let’s come back together in five years and see what our graduation, dropout, and remediation rates look like, not to mention our achievement gaps.

DPS employee associations are pushing for budget cuts that don’t touch negotiated teacher pay raises. That’s a tough case to make, given the $61 million in cuts that are looming.

I implore you to watch the first 15 minutes of last night’s school board meeting, and to hear the words of the board’s two African American directors.

Note: This post has been updated with more detail about when the threshold for school board approval for purchases was raised to $1 million. It also puts into perspective how far below past limits the current proposal to lower the threshold to $100,000 would be.

Are CEA and DCTA are trying to do away with all school performance frameworks?