Van Schoales is part of the corporate reformer group that has controlled public education in Colorado for most of the past decade. When I visited Denver in 2010 to talk about my recently published book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,” Van was running Education Reform Now on behalf of Democrats for Education Reform, the hedge-fund managers organization that lobbies for charters and high-stakes testing. I recall what a very nice guy he was and how generous he was in introducing me, even though we disagreed.
At the very time I arrived in Denver, the state legislature was nearing a vote on a teacher and principal evaluation plan devised by a young state senator named Michael Johnston, whose background was in Teach for America and New Leaders for New Schools. Several members of the legislature, who were former teachers…
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