Author Archives: Pam Benigno

Until a little over a year ago, public sector unions across the United States frequently employed the practice of collecting “fair share provisions” or “agency fees” from employees who had opted out of full union membership.  These payments amounted to a prearranged sum of money designed to correspond solely to the costs of the union’s non-political activity (i.e. contract bargaining and administration or grievance resolution). The practice was struck down as unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in its Janus v. AFSCME ruling in June of 2018, but as The Complete Colorado’s Scott Weiser reported on September 8, one Colorado school district seems to be running afoul of the decision. Alamosa’s School District RE-11J was, until a year ago, one of a handful of Colorado school districts that collected agency fees, and although it and all other such districts did revise its contract in response to Janus, Alamosa’s new collective bargaining agreement adopted this summer appears to contain provisions that make it questionable at best. In perhaps its most egregious provision, the agreement currently in force in Alamosa seems to assume that all employees who are members of the union’s bargaining unit (i.e. all teachers in the district) are members […]

Physical attacks on teachers are in fact a problem that needs to be addressed, and in order to develop a solution to this issue Colorado’s public and lawmakers ought to have access to reliable statistics that could allow them to truly understand the scope and nature of the problem at hand

Overall, students within the city of Denver compare rather positively to their peers across the state and have posted greater learning gains in both reading and math assessments in the academic years 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17. When growth performance is broken down by school category, charter and innovation schools outperform traditional public schools when it comes to reading growth results, though in the latest year for which data is available the gap was lesser than in prior years.

A recent Bellwether Education Partners study examined private school affordability and profiled several approaches aiming to make private education more accessible to low- and middle-income Americans.

Since the Trinity Lutheran ruling the Institute for Justice has taken a very active role in helping bring down state Blaine amendments, as they constitute a major barrier to school choice.

It is worthwhile to look at the Education Freedom Scholarship proposal beyond the context of groups chanting “down, down with corporations.”

The United States Supreme Court will hear Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a case that stands to further clarify the constitutionality of state Blaine clauses.

Among the study’s most crucial findings is that only one in four teachers surveyed had even heard of the Janus v. AFSCME decision at all.

Both of Colorado’s major urban areas of Denver and Colorado Springs are highlighted among cities where the charter sector produced greater learning gains than did district schools.

Over the years, a number of home schooling associations including co-ops and support groups have emerged in our state. One such group, the Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC), is currently hosting the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference.