by Marcia Darnell

Adams State College in Alamosa recently unveiled plans for a new sports stadium as well as new dormitories in two recent community meetings presented by ASC president, Dr. David Svaldi.

The centerpiece of the plan is the stadium, a larger, more resplendent facility than the open field and tiered seats the school currently uses. Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Education – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

“The first duty imposed on those who now direct society is to educate the democracy.”

THAT WAS ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, author of Democracy in America, 170 years ago. But it is good advice today for “those who now direct society.” I would argue that we never have learned how to “educate the democracy” — which is why, for most of our history, we have lived in a plutocracy (government by, for and of the wealthy) imposed on a politically naive populace through fear and propaganda (“you can all be rich too” ). Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Education – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

LAST MONTH I was looking at the way in which we have gradually transformed what we call “student financial aid” from a program for insuring the education of the coming generation, to yet another form of transfer payments from the still-poor to the already-wealthy. Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0826339859[/amazon-product]Review by Martha Quillen

Education – June 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ravenhill
by Timothy Hillmer
Published in 2007 by University of New Mexico Press
ISBN 0826339859 Read the rest of this article

Essay by George Sibley

Education – June 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine

I’M FINISHING UP a couple of decades in higher education this year. Yes, after 19 years at Western State College in Gunnison, I’m finally graduating. For the most part, this has been an excellent experience. Teaching has been interesting and usually enjoyable; the faculty have been good to work with; and the college gave me a lot of encouragement and freedom in developing programs to build better connections with the larger “headwaters” region. Read the rest of this article

Article by Charlie Green

Education – May 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN I BECAME a member of the Cotopaxi Board of Education, I didn’t know much about how school districts operate. It’s been quite a learning curve! Like any organization, there are budgets, facilities, and personnel. But school districts have some fundamentally different issues concerning things like teaching standards, school trips, and money. This article is mostly about money. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Education – April 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Rivaled only by Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, Vail and the Eagle Valley have a school district with a steadily rising number of students for whom English is a second language.

From the founding of Vail in 1962, many of the resort’s residents didn’t want their kids in the public schools, which were at least 50 percent Hispanic then. From the 1920s through the 1950s, a mine in the area had drawn large numbers of Hispanics from New Mexico and Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – February 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) recently released the 2004- 2005 school accountability reports, which now evaluate schools in two categories: Academic Performance and Academic Growth. Performance scores are: Excellent, High, Average, Low, and Unacceptable. Growth scores are: Significant Improvement, Improvement, Stable, Decline, Significant Decline. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – December 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Every once in a while, we joke that collegiate athletics in Colorado would make more sense if state schools took up Colorado’s only indigenous sport: pack-burro racing.

While we have yet to see stables on any campus, or a donkey derby between Western and Adams State, let alone CU and CSU, we have learned that a California college has introduced mules to higher education. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – May 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It figures. Just a few years after the Salida school district built a new middle school to serve grades 5-8, we encounter this headline: “Middle School Goes Out of Fashion.” Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

Education – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

I’D BEEN MUCKING AROUND in the backwaters of my mind trying to think of something to write this letter about, when Ed and I went on a local radio show.

Then, on the air, Ed said he thought Colorado Central should do something about the regional effects of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Education – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

High school literature classes in Colorado mountain towns were in the news nationally recently for very different reasons. In one case students had read too much, and in another case parents worried that students read too little. Read the rest of this article

Article by Margaret Rush

Education – September 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

SNOW-TOPPED MOUNTAINS peek into my office window. Green pine trees sway gently in the wind. Billowy clouds slowly ease in and out of my view, partly filling the blue sky. When we left the hub-bub of the city many years ago, Salida is where we chose to sink our roots.

But not all has been right for me in paradise. It’s not that I’m tired of the sweet smell of wildflowers, or the damp softness of a hiking trail beneath my feet. Far from it. Crisp sharp air off fresh snow thrills me more than ever. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Nathan Adkisson

Education – March 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT IS A STANDARD CLASSROOM, except for two things. First, it’s Saturday, and second, teenagers in the room don’t look bored or blank: they look elated or dismayed.

They’re clustered in groups of four, each holding contraptions that look like bomb detonators. An adult at the front reads from a sheet of paper: “The category is: subatomic particles.” Noise fills the room. Three lights appear on the box of a college student holding a time-keeping device, each light flares an instant after the other. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Marcia Darnell

Education – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Some day you may do what Ed Quillen did, and idling in Main Street traffic in Alamosa, ask yourself, “Why the hell is there a branch of Trinidad State Junior College here?”

“I’m not sure how we got together,” recalls Tom Scarlett, dean of instruction and student services. The facility used to be the San Luis Valley Area Vocational School, under the control of the Alamosa School District. Read the rest of this article

Article by Ed Quillen

Education – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

IN THE HOPE of finding cheap student labor to exploit, I talk to college journalism and writing classes as often as possible. After those visits, it’s impossible to avoid generalizing about the students, and that led to a surprising observation. Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Martha Quillen

Education – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

If you want to know where American law stands on prayer, it’s probably best not to ask the courts. But in the last sixty years, there have been numerous cases handed down.

In 1962, the Supreme Court heard Engel v. Vitale, and decided it was unconstitutional for government agencies, including schools, to require prayers. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

Education – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

AFTER READING A SUNDAY supplement feature about depression last week, I realized that I’m not particularly prone to depression. The article talked about people who felt hopeless, suicidal, tired, and defeated, and who thought that there was nothing they could do to change anything. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

Amish farmers, with their old-fashioned lifestyle, are associated with Pennsylvania. But they do live in other states — now including Colorado. In July of last year, Amish families from Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin bought land near Monte Vista in the San Luis Valley, and now there are about 65 people. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – March 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Western State College in Gunnison didn’t waste any time in naming a new president after Dr. Harry Peterson, who announced plans to retire effective Feb. 15.

Jay Helman, vice-president for academic affairs at Western, was named president on Feb. 8 by the Board of Trustees. Peterson had been president of Western since 1996. Read the rest of this article

Column by Hal Walter

Education – January 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

LET’S FACE IT. It was only for lack of a real professor that students taking “Feature Writing” this fall at the University of Southern Colorado found me scribbling at the blackboard.

OK, so I’m not a real professor. But I did teach USC’s news-editorial sequence in 1990-’91 when blackboards really were black. And I do have more than 20 years of what academics call “real-world” experience in the newspaper, magazine, book, and online publishing field. So it’s not like I’m completely unqualified. Read the rest of this article

Article by Marcia Darnell

Education – October 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

IMAGINE GOING through high school again. Now stop grimacing and imagine going to class only when you want to, not having to match your learning pace with everyone else’s, and never having to listen to a lecture in a classroom or stand in line in the cafeteria.

That’s the reality of high school at Monte Vista’s On-Line Academy, which is now in its seventh year of educating people who don’t fit the mold. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – April 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Colorado doesn’t have school vouchers, but it does allow for charter schools.

In essence, a group organizes to operate a school, and gets a charter from the local school board, which in turn allows the charter school to get local and state educational funds.

So it happened in Crestone in 1995, and its five-year charter expires this year. Crestone is in the Moffat Consolidated School District — and that board voted 5-0 against renewing the charter. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – April 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

Gunnison School’s Aroma Improves

The great odor mystery in the elementary wing of the new Gunnison Community School may have been solved.

For 18 months, ever since the school opened, a sewage stench has pervaded that wing, even causing illness among some teachers and students. Read the rest of this article

Article by Central Staff

Education – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

Many kids will tell you that “school stinks,” but at the elementary wing of the Gunnison Community School, it’s the literal truth. Ever since the new building opened in the fall of 1997, it has been plagued by foul odors that cause headaches and stomach upsets.

The problem has been reduced over time, so that it no longer affects the middle school. But the elementary portion, especially the first-grade rooms, still suffer. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

On March 6, the trustees of Colorado Mountain College are scheduled to meet in Glenwood Springs and decide on a permanent home for operations in Chaffee County.

The college has offices and classrooms in both Salida and Buena Vista, but the rooms are rented, and over the years, there have been many moves when buildings changed hands. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – March 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

Leadville School Board Recall Succeeds

It was a close vote, but it did change the school board in Leadville on Feb. 2, with Jack Saunders replacing Ernie Kuhns as the result of a recall election.

Turn-out exceeded expectations. Lake County Clerk Patty Berger had anticipated about 600 voters, and instead, the special election attracted more than 1,100 citizens. That represents nearly 30% of the county’s 3,925 registered voters. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Education – January 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

Outstanding, in some ways, anyway

Peg Portscheller, superintendent of schools in Leadville, was honored as Superintendent of the Year by the Colorado Association of School Boards at the group’s annual convention in Colorado Springs in December.

The judges’ panel said she “has set a standard of leadership” and she “exemplifies the qualities which make Colorado’s public schools outstanding.” Read the rest of this article

Article by Gary Norton

Education – September 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

My summer afternoon was disturbed when I got a call from Colorado Central — they had some 45 pages of school statistics, mostly achievement test scores, on seven school districts in Central Colorado.

The data had been collected by the Independence Institute and sent to the magazine, and Ed and Martha, and at least one educator they asked, had difficulty finding rhyme or reason in the numbers. Ed asked me to go over them and try to make some sense out of it all. Read the rest of this article

Poem by Martha Quillen

Education – March 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

I used to read the papers,

I used to watch TV,

But there’s a lot of things now

That I just don’t want to see. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

Education – March 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

It’s that time of the year, when people get seasonal depression disorders, the post-holiday blues, cabin fever…

Well, whatever you want to call those syndromes, it seems like a good month to write about something unabashedly cheerful. Read the rest of this article

Article by Jan Badgley

Education – September 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

Thanks to the Internet, you can attend an accredited public high school without leaving your house. My 16-year-old daughter, Kelsey, did it for a semester last year. Read the rest of this article

Article by Karen Young Rokosz

Education – September 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

September has arrived and with it students everywhere begin once again that love/hate relationship with SCHOOL. For some, summer vacation has been a respite from the daily grind in school. It may have been filled with exciting vacation trips, swimming lessons, work, sporting events and unscheduled hours of time with nothing to do. Read the rest of this article

Article by Clint Driscoll

Education – September 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Darren Patterson Christian Academy has been part of Buena Vista’s education scene since 1982. The beginning of the fifteenth school-year this September is a landmark for the academy since classes will be held in a new schoolhouse. Built almost entirely with volunteer labor, the building — like DPCA itself — has been a labor of love for parents, faculty and members of Buena Vista’s First Baptist Church. Read the rest of this article

Essay by Ed Quillen

Education – September 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

Every fall, we think about devoting the September edition to “back to school,” with a detailed examination of education in Central Colorado, from pre-schools to Colorado Mountain College and Western State College, along with private endeavors in everything from horse-shoeing and dance to oil-painting and computer programming. Read the rest of this article

Column by Hal Walter

Education – February 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

The ’95 election will go down in history as the first time Custer County voters banded together against unchecked real-estate development, by wisely rejecting a proposal for a new $4.3 million elementary school. The new school flunked by a margin as tall as the mountains that shadow the Wet Mountain Valley. Hip, hip, hooray! Read the rest of this article

Letter from Linda K. Spielman

Education – January 1996 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

In response to two articles in your December issue: “Election spin” and “It’s fun to be wired, but where will it lead?” Read the rest of this article

[amazon-product]0963007114[/amazon-product]Review by Ed Quillen

Education – January 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Flame and the Phoenix
by Pierson F. Melcher
Published in 1994 by Windhover Press,P.O. Box 63, Evergreen CO 80439
ISBN: 0963007114
Read the rest of this article