Lindsay Neil, of Stand for Children’s Colorado branch, gives remarks on the important passage of a landmark teacher tenure bill in Colorado.  Read below about how the bill helps all Colorado children learn:

 

Lindsay Neil, Executive Director, Colorado affiliate of Stand for Children

New Schools Venture Fund Remarks, May 12, 2010

Good morning everyone! 

My name is Lindsay Neil.  I got my start in education as a teenager when I founded a high school in rural Nicaragua – a school that went on to became one of the country’s best.  Upon returning to Colorado, I moved into the policy arena and now I am proud to serve as the Executive Director of Stand for Children Colorado. 

 Over the last six weeks, Stand and our partners have taken advantage of an opportunity to dramatically change public education in Colorado.  Tinkering around the edges is no longer sufficient to achieve the outcomes that children desperately need.  Stand led a broad coalition of stakeholders that worked hand in hand with a group of bipartisan legislators on a high stakes, hard fought campaign to pass Senate Bill 191, the Great Teachers and Leaders bill.

Today, the last day of Colorado’s legislative session, the Colorado legislature will pass Senate Bill 191.  It will be one of the boldest pieces of education legislation in the country and may be the boldest to ever pass in a state with a Democrat-controlled legislature.

The bill does four fundamentally important things to help Colorado students:

1.  It restructures tenure so that it will be earned and kept based on effectiveness.  No more virtually automatic, lifetime employment for teachers after three years. 
2. It requires annual teacher and principal evaluations that measure their effectiveness, 50 percent of which is based on student academic growth.
3. It allows Colorado school districts to use effectiveness as a guide for laying off teachers, not just seniority.  No more last in – first out and no more laying off teachers of the year while keeping mediocre ones.
4. Finally, it ends the practice of direct or forced teacher placement, making the so-called dance of the lemons a thing of the past in urban school districts across Colorado.

Pretty great, right?

So why is Senate Bill 191 about to pass despite staunch opposition from the Democratic Senate President and the Colorado and National Education Associations?  Three reasons:

First, the decision by Governor Bill Ritter and the Commissioner of Education Dwight Jones to apply for round two of Race to the Top funds.  Had that not happened, Colorado Democrats would have lacked the political will to go up against CEA and the bill would not have made it through its first committee.

Second, a strong, bipartisan group of legislative champions. State Senators Michael Johnston and Nancy Spence, and Representatives Christine Scanlan and Carole Murray, did an outstanding job in a very high pressure environment of making sensible compromises to get key Democrats on board while maintaining Republican support.  And House Speaker Terrance Carroll held his ground despite tremendous division within his Democratic caucus and a relentless effort by the CEA and NEA to water down the bill.

Third, Stand for Children’s bold and sophisticated Great Teachers and Leaders lobbying campaign that backed up legislative sponsors at every turn, gave Democratic supporters critical cover to vote their conscience, and helped win over key Democrats in the final days of the campaign. 

Here are some highlights from the campaign for you:

1. More than 50 education, community and business organizations signed on in support
2. Personal endorsements from more than 20 civic leaders including 4 Colorado Governors and the Commissioner of Education. 
3. School board members, superintendents, principals and teachers – including the American Federation of Teachers Colorado on board
4. Polling showing overwhelming public support for the key tenants of the bill
5. More than 10 supportive Denver Post editorials and columns
6. Over 3,000 calls and emails [to targeted legislators]
7. At least 150 positive news stories and letters to the editor from parents, teachers and business leaders across the state
8. 200 people at the capitol meeting with legislators. 
9. Testimony by Tim Daly from the New Teacher Project and the behind the scenes support of key national leaders, many of whom are in the room today

All of this was critical to counter CEA’s threats to withdraw campaign contributions to Democrats in the fall elections, their six figure radio ad buys, and the scores of CEA teachers who were at the capitol telling legislators, “Poor and minority children have too many challenges to overcome – they can’t learn, and I can’t be held accountable for teaching them.”

 

The bottom line is that Colorado Education Association was completely alone in their opposition of the bill, which we illustrated in a full page Denver Post ad listing supporters on the same day as a key committee vote.

One of the most inspiring aspects of this campaign was the courageous stand by great teachers, including 4 CEA members who testified in front of the House Education Committee on the same day that NEA President Dennis Van Roekel testified in opposition.

Denver Public School teacher and Stand for Children member, Ben Jackson said it best: “We need teachers in our workforce who advance not because they grown older, but because they get better.”

Colleagues, as a great educator once told me, “This is not about teaching kids. This is about saving lives.”

Through your important work – you are saving lives every day.  But we all know we’re not saving nearly enough.  By coming together as an education community and embracing policy and politics in addition to running great schools you can save so many more lives.

I and my colleagues at Stand for Children look forward to working with many more of you to achieve breakthroughs like the Great Teachers and Leaders bill across the country.

Thank you very much.