EdNews Lobato case primer | EdNewsColorado

EdNews Lobato case primer | EdNewsColorado

EdNews Lobato case primer

by Todd Engdahl

Is the system Colorado uses to pay for its schools constitutional?

That short but infinitely complex question is the focus of the five-week trial in the case of Lobato v. State.

The outcome of the trial could have far-reaching but hard-to-predict impacts on school districts, classrooms, the state budget and the taxes that Colorado citizens and businesses pay.

Studies done for the plaintiffs estimate that “full funding” of Colorado schools could cost $2 to $4 billion more a year than the state spends now. Such increases would wreck the state budget and decimate other programs say Gov. John Hickenlooper, a defendant, and Attorney General John Suthers, who’s leading the state’s

Thursday Churn: Pilot districts named

by EdNews staff

What’s churning:

The Department of Education announced today there will be eight pilot evaluation sites to test new educator evaluation methods. The projects will involve 15 school districts (list at bottom of this item).

The 2010 educator effectiveness law requires new evaluation methods be tested in pilot projects before being used statewide in 2014-15. (Evaluations won’t impact teachers’ non-probationary status until 2016.) The 2011-12