By Julia Cummings
School of Education and Human Development

(Sept. 25, 2009) It was a packed house in Lawrence Street Center’s second floor atrium last Tuesday for the inaugural lecture in University of Colorado Denver’s P-20 Education Lecture Series. The event was organized by Janet Lopez, PhD, director for P-20 education initiatives at UC Denver.

Lecturer Mike Miles, superintendent of Harrison School District in Colorado Springs, is gaining statewide and national attention for his stance on improving the teacher evaluation process. Miles spoke about a nationwide need for an education “transformation.” Reform at the K-12 level, he says, is needed urgently. And, quality instruction by teachers is a must to get us out of our “education epicycle.”

Miles contends that we must develop a better educational culture of instructional feedback for teachers. Nothing else will improve, if we don’t fix this; because, when teachers get honest, constructive feedback about instruction in the classroom, things change for the better. This is why Miles mandates open doors in all of his classrooms, as well as 8 yearly formal classroom observations for teachers on probation, and 4 for non-probationary teachers. And, his district is not afraid to remove teachers who don’t demonstrate good instruction or principals who are not good instructional leaders. To achieve this goal, Miles has been engaged in approving new instructionally centered HR forms, training administrators, and approving additional staff training.

Miles is also in the process of transforming the compensation system for his teachers. His district is moving toward a model with differentiated pay, where those teachers who are performing well move up the pay scale faster. “We also need to change our recruitment and retention paradigm,” said Miles. “We need to select the best and brightest, and then train them.” His school district partners with University of Colorado Colorado Springs in early recruitment efforts, to hand pick some of the brightest students who want to become teachers. The district then pays those students’ tuition in exchange for promises to teach after graduation.

“We want to thank Mike Miles for all the positive efforts he is making to deepen the positive ripple effects in P-20 education” said Janet Lopez. To register for future P-20 events, please RSVP at www.ucdenver.edu/education. The next lecture on October 20 promises to be an interesting one on a new way to measure student growth─the Colorado Growth Model.

Photo: Lecturer Mike Miles, left, talks with event organizer Janet Lopez.