Category Archives: Courts

Update, 8/3: Further highlighting how the attempt to enjoin the Douglas County voucher program would disrupt families’ lives, Denver 7 News has a great story — including an interview with Diana Oakley, who was featured in the recent Independence Institute video on Douglas County vouchers. In fact, if you watch the video of the 7 News report, you might even see a little unattributed footage from that video…. Yesterday I pointed out that hearings for the Lobato school funding lawsuit were officially underway. And yesterday, the team at AM 850 KOA’s Colorado Morning News released the first of their two-part dive into Douglas County’s voucher debate. Why? Because Colorado’s second big “edu-trial” of the week starts today, with a Denver District Court judge set to consider a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Douglas County voucher program. I’m still wondering what took so long to try and disrupt families’ lives with the threat of an injunction if it was so urgent for the ACLU & Company. Being young and all, nor do I get why so many groups and people want to take educational choices and opportunities away from kids and families. I’d like to think they have a […]

Update: In today’s post on Lobato, the Colorado Education Association blogging team writes: “In 2008-09, before the current recession began, Colorado spent $1,809 less per pupil than the national average of all states.” However, the National Education Association’s latest data (see page 55, table H-11) show Colorado spent $9,574 per student in 2008-09, only $616 below the national average. Someone in Denver needs to contact the D.C. mother ship. August is here, can you believe it? For a few students, it means school is starting. But the big news is the first of two major education-related court case hearings gets underway today. Reporter Carol McGraw lays the groundwork of the six-year-old Lobato v State school funding lawsuit with a substantial article in the Sunday edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette: “Where would the $3 billion come from?” asks Ben DeGrow, senior education policy analyst for Boulder-based [sic] Independence Institute. He said the court has no business ordering the legislature what to do. “What makes a judge in a courtroom more qualified? This is throwing the state Constitution out the window.“ Under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, state and local governments cannot raise tax rates without voter approval and cannot spend […]

Some groups like the ACLU have their reasons for wanting to shut down the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program and take educational opportunities away from about 500 kids. Some people can’t help but be offended by other people’s choices, I guess. Here we stand one week away from the start of a legal hearing to determine whether the legal request to enjoin the choice program should be granted. But if it’s such a big deal for the ACLU and its pals to stop families from receiving Douglas County vouchers, why did they wait so long? That’s part of the strong argument raised by the Dougco legal team in their response to the motion for a preliminary injunction:

Today I’m going to step back and let someone else do the talking. You’ve probably been following the developments surrounding Colorado’s groundbreaking Douglas County Pilot Choice Scholarship Program. I’ve covered it a lot here. Since the promising program was approved in March, 500 students have won vouchers worth about $4,600 to help cover the cost of tuition at a private school families have chosen to best suit their needs. In this new video produced by my friends in the Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center, it’s a story like 13-year-old Nate Oakley’s that brings to life the need for Douglas County vouchers, and the real threat created by lawsuits filed by the ACLU and other groups: After that, what more can I say? For many kids and many parents, school choice really matters. Don’t take it away.

This hasn’t been one of the big issues on my education transformer radar, nor is it one I’ve covered before. But it does bring out an interesting point of clarity for those who are interested in our K-12 schools and the politics that surround them. The Coloradoan in Fort Collins reported yesterday that the state’s largest teachers union has filed a legal challenge against a new public school reporting requirement: The statewide teachers union has sued the Colorado Board of Education over new rules requiring the public disclosure of teacher arrests. The board passed the new rules this spring at the prompting of Fort Collins resident and board chairman Bob Schaffer. The first attempt to establish the rule was shot down by a 4-3 vote in May 2010. The State Board went back to the drawing table to address concerns and complications, but the teachers union remained fundamentally opposed:

A couple weeks ago I filled you in on how there are two separate groups that have filed their legal complaints against the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program. Well, as Ed News Colorado reports, now they’ve taken the next official step: Plaintiffs in two lawsuits challenging the Douglas County voucher pilot are asking for an immediate halt to the plan, arguing it must be stopped before any public dollars flow to private schools. “Once the money is illegally diverted away from public schools, the bell can’t be unrung,” said Gregory M. Lipper, attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, one of the plaintiffs.

Update, 6/28: Coverage also available from Nancy Mitchell at Ed News Colorado, including a 3-minute video clip of Tuesday’s press conference. Very, very good news today! Both the Denver Post and Associated Press report that the Institute for Justice (IJ) has intervened to defend four Douglas County families who face potential harm from lawsuits filed by the ACLU and other groups to try to shut down the Choice Scholarship program. But then again I already knew that, since some of my Education Policy Center friends were at this morning’s press conference at the State Capitol. IJ senior attorney Michael Bindas laid out the case and explained why the defense of the program would prevail. “The program is neutral with respect to religion, allowing both religious and non-religious schools to participate, and ensuring that it is by the private and independent choice of families where any of the scholarship funds are directed,” he said.

Has it only been two days since reactionary forces — the forces of WE know what’s best for you — dropped a lawsuit bomb to try to stop 500 Douglas County students from getting better educational opportunity? Colorado Peak Politics highlighted problems facing a couple of the plaintiffs’ relation to the legal action. And now, as the Denver Post reports, a local “me too” group known as Taxpayers for Public Education has piled on with a lawsuit of its own. I mean, it’s their right and prerogative to do so if they please. But maybe they’d like to explain the justification and reasoning for the pair of lawsuits to parents who showed up yesterday for a lottery to try to get one of the last 25 of 500 vouchers. Take Becky Barnes, whose 7th-grade son with Aspergers syndrome secured a Choice Scholarship: “We pulled him out last year because he was having so many problems,” she said.

It’s the first day of summer, “longest day of the year” — which may have something to do with trying to get as much attention as possible for a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and friends to try to stop Douglas County’s choice scholarship (voucher) program. Ed News Colorado was among the first to report today: Some Douglas County parents and three civil liberties groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Douglas County’s pilot voucher program, set to launch this fall. The suit, filed this morning in Denver District Court by groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, seeks a preliminary injunction to immediately halt the plan. Douglas County school district officials did not quickly respond to a request for comment. They have scheduled a 3:30 p.m. press conference today at Castle View High School in Castle Rock to discuss the suit. [emphasis added] Civil liberties? Is the irony lost on anyone that they are fighting to take away educational freedoms from parents and families? Maybe only certain kinds of choice are “civil liberties.” Guess I might just be too young to grasp all the nuance. But I will […]

Matthew Ladner is right when he says: “This has been quite the week for parental choice in Arizona.” Of course, as my GoBash blogging friend noted, on Monday a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the state’s private school tax credit program — an important precedent. But Ladner’s statement comes from a posting primarily about an innovative proposal making its way through The Grand Canyon State’s legislature: Yesterday the Arizona Senate gave the final passage for SB 1553, Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the nation’s first system of public contributions to education savings accounts as a choice mechanism, 21 to 7. Designed to replace Arizona’s special needs voucher program lost to our Blaine amendment, the ESA program will allow the parents of a child with a disability to withdraw their child from a public district or charter school, and receive a payment into an education savings account with restricted but multiple uses. Parents can then use their funds to pay for private school tuition, virtual education programs, private tutoring or saving for future college expenses. Could it really be “the way of the future” for school choice? If so, the future may be now. I have to give more thought to […]