Schools for Tomorrow Blog

The Denver Post celebrates the recent "moment of unanimity" occasioned by the new Zone of Innovation bill:

Democrats and Republicans found a rare moment of unanimity Wednesday on the Senate floor over a major education bill that would let clusters of schools break free from district rules and state laws to form "innovation zones" and try new educating techniques.

"I think people understand that we can’t continue to educate our children the same way," said Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, who is sponsoring the bill along with Republican Sen. Nancy Spence of Centennial.

Senators lauded Senate Bill 130’s sponsors for working to smooth over areas of opposition. The most contentious part of the bill allows schools to break from teachers-union bargaining agreements, but the section was modified to win union support. The bill passed with a unanimous voice vote. It faces one more Senate vote before moving to the House.

This concept has been out there for a while, but it’s good to see that the legislature finally "gets it&quot,  It’s certainly not clear that the schools within the Zone of Innovation will fare better than regular district schools, especially if judged in the context of Colorado’s spotty experience with charter schools.

But the only way to determine which school reform strategies work is to try them in the real world, and then evaluate them rigorously and objectively.  In the end, it’s hard to see too much of a downside for kids here, which ought to be the final criterion for any school reform plan.

The Zone of Innovation represents a relatively painless middle ground that free-marketeers and protectionist educrats should — and do — agree on.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 6:42 am and is filed under Legislature 2008, Reform, School choice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.