Category Archives: School Finance

A few weeks ago an article by the I-News Network (“an independent, nonprofit journalism project that creates long-form investigative reports, in partnership with major daily newspapers and has recently accepted significant funding from wealthy Democrat activist Tim Gill”) portrayed Colorado minorities as victims of inadequate tax funding of education: Regardless of which way the causal arrow runs, poverty and education are intertwined across the range of societal distress. Several experts said the state’s pullback in funding education over the past two decades has narrowed the path for escaping poverty. Between 1992 and 2010, according to Census data, Colorado plunged from 24th to 40th on overall state spending per student for K-12 education. When compared to per capita personal income, Colorado ranked 45th among the states on K-12 spending. Today The Gazette in Colorado Springs published a powerful response from my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow:

It’s been a whole year since the last Digital Learning Day, and somehow I’m still 5… Go figure! There is so much going on with digital learning innovations in Colorado, but I just wanted to hone in on one of them. In December, my Education Policy Center friends visited Denver’s Rocky Mountain Prep charter school. Because of the school’s innovative use of the blended learning rotation model, I said it “may be at the cutting edge of an important trend in Colorado.” To get a clearer picture of how learning and instruction looks different at Rocky Mountain Prep, listen to school founder James Cryan’s radio interview yesterday on the Amy Oliver Show. Depending on Rocky Mountain Prep’s level of success, families should demand more such options to emerge in the future. For those looking to start an effective new school that combines online instructional delivery, customized student-centered learning, and traditional brick-and-mortar supervision (in Colorado or elsewhere), Digital Learning Now has just released the Blended Learning Implementation Guide.

Back in early December my Education Policy Center friends helped put on a State Capitol event, laying out ideas for dramatic “backpack funding” reforms that need to be at the heart of this year’s keystone school finance debates. We’ve been waiting awhile now to see what Senator Johnston’s “Grand Bargain” legislation might look like. I can get impatient about these things. As Ed News Colorado reports, the time is drawing near, but legislative leaders are proceeding deliberately:

You know how much I have to restrain myself when it comes to using the “it’s for the kids” mantra, so I simply couldn’t resist quickly bringing your attention to some important new insights from local pension system analyst Joshua Sharf. With the tongue-in-cheek title “PERA – It’s All for the Kids,” he paints full-color pictures showing that dollars per student spent on the state retirement system have been growing dramatically, the heaviest burdens borne by taxpayers. Is it any wonder why many school districts might be feeling the pinch? Does it make sense now why I told you a few months back that a better solution than yelling at TABOR is fixing PERA?

A couple days ago I brought to your attention the looming heartburn the Colorado legislative session portends for those who support parental choice, school accountability, and the transparent, effective use of tax dollars in K-12 education. If you want to keep tabs on your needed antacid intake by checking the status of introduced legislation, you ought to join me in bookmarking Ed News Colorado’s bill tracker for the next four months. Anyway, as has been pointed out, the big education issue before the state legislature this year will be changing the School Finance Act with a tax increase referral to voters tied at the hip. From now to May, the drum will continue to bang loudly for “adequate funding.” Before the tears and drama take over, it will be important to remember that Colorado’s K-12 funding debate really could use some important facts. But in the meantime the state’s largest teachers union — its concrete headquarters stationed a good stone’s throw away from the State Capitol — has produced a series of videos calling for greater “economic investment” in education. It’s for the children, of course. Yes, this is the same Colorado Education Association that resists commonsense entitlement reform that […]

Run for cover, and hold onto your wallets! Tomorrow marks the beginning of the first session of the 69th Colorado General Assembly. At first, I thought about just re-posting last year’s pre-session warning. Yet while there may be some similarities between 2012 and 2013, it would end up being a lazy thing to do, and less than accurate to boot. At the risk of being repetitive, though, I first will point readers to the legislative preview by Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl. He notes that: The question of school finance is expected to overshadow all other education issues. Democratic Sens. Mike Johnston of Denver and Rollie Heath of Boulder are crafting a plan that would significantly overhaul the school funding formula – contingent on subsequent voter approval of new revenues for schools. A big looming question then is just how significant the proposed school finance changes will be. If they’re not pushing toward real student-centered backpack funding — as Senator Johnston and others discussed last month at a packed Capitol event — then selling voters on a tax hike will become that much more difficult. While the statehouse shouldn’t be as consumed with K-12 education issues last year, Engdahl does […]

Not too long ago I was telling you about new information out grading Colorado schools’ performance. But how is Colorado doing in applying policies that promote an excellent, equitable and efficient education system? Today the national group Students First released its first-ever State Policy Report Cards. How did Colorado do? Depends how you look at it. When you look at our ranking among the states, it makes you feel pretty good:

I love lists, I love education, and I love to tell people about things. So it should be no surprise that my attention was caught by yesterday’s news release from Stanford: “Hoover Institution Education Experts Identify News Media Hits and Misses in 2012 Education Coverage.” The Koret Task Force on Education named five stories that were well-covered and five that were neglected. First, the hits: Charter schools Teachers’ unions Special education Pre-Kindergarten education No Child Left Behind Next, the misses:

All the big people are talking about these days seems to be the coming “fiscal cliff,” and some tough decisions leaders in Washington, D.C., have to make. For anyone who has common sense, a big part of the solution has to be for Congress to stop spending more money than it takes in. You know, the kind of balanced budget people like my parents have to use? In one of his more provocative pieces (and that’s really saying something), education guru Rick Hess writes that many so-called education advocates are essentially saying: “Let’s push kids off the fiscal cliff!” What does he mean? He does a good job crunching some numbers to show that, in order for politicians to stop racking up bills that kids like me will have to pay someday, our country needs significant reforms to old-age entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare). So you’d expect the education advocates to be pushing for entitlement reform to help spare kids like me a massive debt burden? Not so fast, Hess points out:

A new Cato Institute education blogger, Jason Bedrick, highlights the work of the Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center in a posting today with a message that certainly needs to be repeated: “Public schools cost more than Americans think.” Bedrick cites Ben DeGrow’s recent interview with 9News disputing Colorado school funding figures, and makes a couple salient observations: Bedrick attacks the news report’s underlying notion that “the amount of money spent per child in the public schools is a matter of political opinion to be legitimately debated rather than an empirical fact” — don’t take the dollar figures someone states at face value; check out the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) data! Bedrick also believes reporter Nelson Garcia was asking the wrong question: “He wanted to know the amount of state tax dollars that public school districts receive per pupil. The more relevant question is what is actually spent per pupil, including local and federal sources of funding.”