Education Rollback ; State Democrats Still Trying to Undo Reforms

Summary

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Accountability has become a bit of a buzzword in public education these days. Everybody, of just about every political stripe, can be counted on to express support for it -- even if some of them really are trying to undermine it. Hence, Senate Bill 214, the latest and we hope last effort by Democrats in the Legislature to roll back Republican-enacted public education reforms. The bill, introduced just last week, in these waning days of the session, masquerades as a wideeyed attempt at "simplifying and aligning" the state's public school accountability measures. Those measures are used to certify schools for federal No Child Left Behind Act funding as well as to accredit school districts and to develop School Accountability Reports -- the popular report cards on each school's performance.

However, a closer look suggests a more insidious intent. First off, its authors are Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada, and Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs. Neither has encountered a Republican- inspired education reform they didn't want to dismantle.

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Education Rollback ; State Democrats Still Trying to Undo Reforms

And one seemingly cosmetic clause in the bill gives it away. That provision scraps the current use of "excellent" through "unsatisfactory" grades assigned to schools (as determined by student performance) in favor of "excellen...

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