2010

State “reforms” ruinous to education Here’s a variation on an old maxim: With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? The just-ended Democratic-controlled legislative session and the Democratic soon-to-be ex-governor just performed…

A bad bill from Gibbs and Scanlan The ballyhooed drive for school reform got car-jacked by an upstart senator who, in his short tenure as educator and even shorter tenure as…

Teaching to the test is not education “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” — Albert Einstein I have written about Greg Mortensen’s heroic attempt…

Senate Bill 191 doesn’t make sense Both locally and at the state level, teacher evaluation and dismissal have been front-page news. As such, they provide us a teachable moment. First, Colorado…

Levy schools challengers on the big issues Despite my passion for tea, I had never been to a tea party, a real one or a so-called one. I drink easily four…

Pat Tillman lived with passion and reason Initially, I wrote him off as a cocky jock seeking glory on a real battlefield, so I had mixed emotions about the death of…

Preservation not all it’s cracked up to be In his column about a new biography of President Obama, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson: “There is properly no history,…

It’s preservationists vs. development One of my favorite places, Chaco Canyon, is in a high, stark and sparse desert, hostile to life except for the most arduous. Chaco is a national…

Ode to passage of health care reform Listen, my readers, and you shall hear of a Tea Party activist most revered. His name was Saul, broad and tall, round in the…

Catholic Church should practice what Jesus teaches “And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called…

Romanoff’s campaign: where reality and unreality converge There’s a reason writers such as myself ought not to read Garrison Keillor before writing a column. I read Keillor for several reasons and…

Representatives owe constituents their judgment “This is what the American people/people of Colorado want.” Really? I’m happy to see we’re not only of one voice but of one mind. Thank you,…

What’s at stake in the Clear Creek Schools? Commissioner Kevin O’Malley’s comment that the county is weathering the financial storm struck me given both the county and the Clear Creek School…

Time to bring graduation requirements into the 21st century When schools Superintendent Bill Patterson told me of the committee looking at graduation requirements, I quipped it was good he didn’t ask…

Days of business as usual are past It’s Thursday, and the Friday morning deadline looms. The writer’s block is certainly not about a dearth of topics — my list of pressing…