This Week @DonnellKay: School Finance Partnership Starts Up

Big first meeting this week for the School Finance Partnership. Nearly 50 people attended at OfficeScapes’ space in northeast Denver. It’s no surprise to Donnell-Kay, but turns out a lot of people want to talk about how to update the School Finance Act. The Colorado Children’s Campaign is convening the group, so the day opened with Chris Watney’s introduction. You can peruse subsequent presentations here:

School Finance Partnership project leader Mary Wickersham outlined why the School Finance Act needs to change.

If you click on anything, click here: Carolyn Kampman of the Joint Budget Committee explained what school finance looks like today, with some very interesting charts showing cutbacks this past legislative session.

The Architecture of a New School Finance Act considers options as Colorado moves forward, by experts on the topic Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, also Michael Griffith of Education Commission of the States.

The next partnership meeting happens July 12.

We’re always talking about…Blended Learning:

Are digital textbooks practical? A couple articles consider the topic:

Bloomberg BusinessWeek looks at a new startup putting textbooks on iPads.

But a new study by the Pearson Foundation shows digital textbooks are slow to catch on, via the New York Times.

If you follow Sal Khan, like we do, you might want to read this critical blog post by Rick Hess about “the most overhyped ed entrepreneur of the moment.”

We’re reading this week…

DKF friend and CU Denver School of Public Affairs Dean Paul Teske blogs about multiple measures for evaluating schools.

Thought-provoking piece on the PBS NewsHour about test scores and school effectiveness.

Follow that up by reading this opinion on school performance — are bad schools just a result of poverty?

Favorite Twitter follow…

John Bailey: Former White House domestic policy aide. Current Director of Whiteboard Advisors working on philanthropy, investor research, and issue advisory.

& curator of a great ed twitter feed: @john_bailey