Part 1
Though seldom a high-profile
campaign, the election of new members to the Colorado State Board of Education
deserves greater attention than it receives. I will offer two short newsletters
which might encourage others to take a closer look at two candidates: Karla
Esser and Lisa Escarcega. I hope it will lead to a better understanding of
where these candidates stand. Both are likely to win their respective races;
nothing I write will alter that. And yet, given the critical role the State
Board of Education plays in determining education policy, there is still time for
voters to ask about key points they have made.
Neither has responded to questions
I have emailed to them. I trust others will find ways to ask them to address questions
and concerns raised here.
This week, two
points taken from the website for Karla Esser, who is running in the 7th
Congressional District, Denver’s “northwest suburbs,” as Chalkbeat Colorado
puts it—from Lakewood to Commerce City.
1.)
Open to Esser’s website and we see an error in
the first full sentences under this heading:
REAL CHALLENGES CALL FOR BOLD LEADERSHIP.
Colorado, we have a lot to do.
Colorado’s teacher pay ranks 51st in the nation including
Washington D.C.
https://www.karlaesser.com/karla-esser-priorities/
Dr. Karla
Esser recently retired from her role as the Director of Graduate Programs for
Licensed Teachers at Regis University, so I expect she followed the recent discussion
to get beyond exaggerated claims and establish the facts about Colorado’s
teacher pay. (See Chalkbeat Colorado, “Colorado was
never ranked 46th for teacher pay. Does this change the debate?” Opening paragraphs quoted in Addendum A.)
It is surprising, then, that she would say we are dead last.
Although the Colorado Education Association has endorsed her candidacy, the National
Education Association’s own annual reports— its figures nearly match those
produced each year by the Colorado Department of Education—say nothing of the
kind about Colorado’s teacher pay ranking 51st. (For details, see Addendum
B)
|
Year |
From
National Education Association |
From
Colorado Department of Education |
|
|
|
National
Rank |
Average
Salary |
Average
Salary |
|
2015-15 |
30 |
$51,223 |
$51,204 |
|
2016-17 |
30 |
$51,808 |
$51,810 |
|
2017-18 |
32 |
$53,301 |
$52,728 |
|
2018-19 |
26 |
$54,935 |
$54,950 |
|
2019-20 |
|
|
$57,746 |
2) At Esser’s website, under Karla’s Priorities for Colorado, we see this statement. (Bold mine.)
Accountable
Education - It is important that we have rational metrics for
success to ensure that our schools are performing well and
giving our kids the tools they need to succeed, but the current system of
pitting school against school and child against child for limited resources is
unfair and wrong. It propagates unequal education and simply doesn’t work. With more and more parents opting their students out of
CMAS testing, it is time to bring stakeholders together to determine a
better form of accountability. The sole purpose of accountability should be
collecting data so students, parents, and educators can determine what next
steps are needed to further student success. Today, CMAS is used as a tool to
compare, praise, and punish disparate schools.
In fact, as the Colorado Department of Education has shown,
opt out rates are declining and participation rates have improved steadily the
last few years.
From CDE’s New
Release – Colorado’s 2019 State Assessment Score/Growth Release (Aug.
15, 2019)
Participation improves
Participation in the 2019 CMAS assessments
continues to show improvement with grades three through five all above 95%
participation. There was relatively no change in participation in the middle
school years of six, seven and eight grades compared with 2018. But all grades
have shown increases in participation from 2015, ranging from 1.6 percentage
points in grade five English language arts to 4.3 percentage points in grade
seven math. http://www.cde.state.co.us/communications/20190815assessmentrelease
Below you see the increasing percentage of students
participating in CMAS, more specifically, from participation on the English
Language Arts/Literacy portion of the test. The rates were nearly identical on
the Math portion for each grade, each year. This data, covering 2015-16 to
2018-19, is taken from CDE’s annual summaries of CMAS results.
|
Grade |
2015-16 |
2016-17 |
2017-18 |
2018-19 |
Change from 15-16 to 18-19 |
|
3 |
95.6 |
96.4 |
97.2 |
96.9 |
+1.3 |
|
4 |
95.0 |
95.7 |
96.7 |
96.7 |
+1.7 |
|
s |
94.2 |
94.3 |
95.9 |
96.2 |
+2.0 |
|
6 |
91.6 |
92.3 |
94.2 |
94.7 |
+3.1 |
|
7 |
88.0 |
89.1 |
92.0 |
92.4 |
+4.4 |
|
8 |
83.5 |
85.2 |
88.7 |
88.7 |
+5.2 |
http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/cmasparccstatesummary2016
http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/2017cmasstatesummarymathela
http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/2018_cmas_ela_math_state_summary_achievement_results
http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/2019_cmas_ela_math_statesummaryachievementresults
This is not to say parents—or
teachers—believe our accountability system is perfect. The State Board of
Education can and should work to make it better. Many of us share this goal. But
let’s be accurate: the opt out movement has not grown. On the contrary,
we see a greater acceptance of CMAS as a key component of accountability for
K-8 schools. And at the high school level, after switching to PSAT/SAT
assessments, we also see more buy-in: in 2019, the participation rate for grades
9, 10, and 11 exceeded 92% (http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/2019_psat_sat_statesummaryachievementresults).
Addendum A – Not 51st, or
46th - not even close
“Colorado was never ranked 46th for teacher pay. Does
this change the debate?
A series of unfortunate events led to an inaccurate statistic
being spread far and wide.”
By Melanie Asmar,
Chalkbeat Colorado, May 2, 2018
As a rallying cry, “We’re 30th in the nation for
teacher pay!” doesn’t quite inspire outrage.
But that is, in fact, where Colorado ranked in 2016,
despite reports to the contrary.
A series of unfortunate events led to an inaccurate
statistic being spread far and wide — that Colorado ranked 46th in the U.S. in
teacher pay.
The eye-popping number in a state with a booming
economy found its way onto social media posts and signs at last week’s massive
teacher rallies in Colorado, as well as into stories in Chalkbeat and many, many other
media outlets. But it was wrong.
Here’s how the mistake happened — and how groups with
different agendas have seized on the snafu to score points:
The Colorado Department of Education changed its data
collection system during the 2014-15 school year and built a new data query
system from scratch, officials said. Some teachers were left out of the system,
resulting in artificially lower average salaries for the 2014-15 and 2015-16
school years.
When the nation’s largest teachers union was
preparing its 2017 state rankings, it used the 2016 average teacher salary
provided by the Colorado Department of Education. That was $46,155.
Officials in Colorado later realized the actual
average salary for the year in question was $51,204. They informed the
National Education Association in May 2017, but the report had already been
published. The union didn’t update the number until it released its 2018 state
rankings, which came out shortly before thousands of teachers rallied at the
Colorado State Capitol.
The revised figure meant Colorado ranked 30th in 2016,
not 46th, and 31st in 2017.
The average annual salary for last year was $51,810,
according to the state education department, and the average annual salary for
this year is $52,728. Colorado teacher salaries were 15 percent below
the national average of $59,660 in 2017.
Addendum B - Figures on Teacher Pay in
Colorado from CDE and NEA
A. Figures
from the Colorado Department of Education
The above
article provided updates on these three years (in bold):
2015-16 - $51,204
2016-17 - $51,810
2017-18 - $52,728
Those
figures are supported at CDE’s website – “Historic data for average teacher
salary corrected in May 2017” -http://www.cde.state.co.us/communications/20180427datacorrexrelease
Here are the figures from CDE for 2018-19 and 2019-20
2018-19 - $54,950 –
http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/2018-2019averagesalariesforteacherspdf
2019-20 -
$57,746 - Charter schools- $44,172
-
Non-charter schools - $59,889
http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/2019-20averagesalariesforteacherspdf
B. Figures from the National Education Association
Education Week releases
the NEA results each year. The 2015-16 to 2016-17 figures, below, come from
these same Education Week reports on the NEA results. The 2019 report for
all 50 states, and the District of Columbia (website below), had the final
numbers for 2017-18.
COLORADO
2015-16 -
$51,223 - ranked #30
2016-17 -
$51,808 - ranked #30
2017-18 -
$53,301 - ranked #32
2018-19 - $54,935 - ranked #26
From the National Education
Association - EDUCATOR PAY AND STATE SPENDING - https://redforedmap.nea.org/?_ga=2.52225961.1866930269.1599755598-1831559579.1594660938
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