Buechner Institute for Governance

The United States is in the midst of an extraordinary oil and natural gas development boom. The use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling (fracking) has opened numerous shale and other porous formations to oil and gas development in nearly every region of the continent. Given the potential positive and negative impacts of oil and gas resource extraction on local communities, the purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding...

ProComp is an ambitious alternative teacher compensation system developed by Denver Public Schools (DPS) in cooperation with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. This report summarizes a summative evaluation of ProComp conducted collaboratively by The Evaluation Center and the Buechner Institute for Governance at the University of Colorado Denver and the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington. This report describes...

Domestic violence (DV) is the manipulative attempt by one person to obtain power and control over his or her intimate partner through a coercive, systematic pattern of abusive behavior. The intense emotional involvement between the victim, offender, and oftentimes children, distinguishes DV from other types of crime. The purpose of DV offender treatment in Colorado is to increase victim and community safety by reducing offender risk of recidivism....

The goal of Colorados education system is to ensure that all children have access to a high quality school and the opportunity to receive an excellent education. But for too many students--urban, suburban and rural schools--that expectation is not being met. It is widely held in the education profession that turning a chronically low-performing school into a high-performing school is the most difficult of all tasks. Many strategies have been tried;...

The Denver Region has received national recognition for its ambitious FasTracks program, which will provide a network of eight rail corridors, along with a freeway bus rapid transit corridor, throughout the urbanized area. A key focus of the project was an evaluation of the current state of planning and development along four existing rail transit corridors operated by the Regional Transportation District -- Central, Southwest, Southeast, and West....