Category Archives: School Finance

Update, 10:30 AM: And surprise of surprises, more evidence emerges that the figures of teaching jobs lost — used to promote the Edujobs bailout — was wildly overblown (H/T Education Intelligence Agency). A couple weeks ago I told you about how the ill-advised Edujobs bailout discriminates against charter schools. So you’d think the national news service wanting to do a story on this would give little Eddie a call, right? Okay, not exactly. Last week Family News in Focus talked to my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow about this issue. You can listen to the brief news story with select interview clips, or read the story on Citizen Link: Ben DeGrow, education policy analyst for the Independence Institute, said that charter schools should not be discriminated against by public schools. “The education jobs bailout is reckless and fiscally irresponsible policy,” DeGrow said. “But, if the money is going to be spent, it should be given to public schools and public school teachers on a even playing field.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ben did write that op-ed on the Edujobs bailout in the Denver Post last month, so I guess he’s qualified and smart enough to make the comment. Maybe even […]

Back in March I pointed out how school teachers and other union members who belong to the National Education Association (NEA) have financially supported Obama Care whether they like it or not. This week brings an important update to the story. The NEA donated $50,000 to the committee opposing Colorado’s Amendment 63 “Right to Health Care Choice” Initiative, which would: Write into the Colorado Constitution that the State of Colorado cannot force its citizens to purchase a public or private health insurance product, either on its own, or on behalf of the federal government. In other words, Colorado would not be able to implement a Massachusetts-style insurance mandate (otherwise know as Romney Care). Interesting. Especially when the same kind of mandates in the federal health care legislation have had this sort of impact:

Monday has rolled around, and some of you are still dragging from the weekend. Well, let me tell you, it’s time to wake up. What will do it? Watch this clip of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie schooling a teacher on the big picture of his state’s budget, and unraveling some of the myths and propaganda laid out by the state’s teachers union (H/T This Week in Education): Why do I feature this video? To make sure readers have the chance to witness a startling example of bold, direct and effective education leadership in action. Sometimes the truth hurts, and this kind of blunt talk is very rare in a world too often dominated by politically correct platitudes. New Jersey may be an especially extreme case, but Colorado has plenty of its own examples of teachers union obstruction and abuses. When union leadership is to blame, they need to be called on it — plain and simple. By the way, did that teacher lady say lamb basted? Color me confused what that had to do with anything they were talking about at the public meeting. Sounds like something my parents would like to eat. As for me, I’ll stick with […]

Hey, remember Edujobs? The $10 billion chunk of federal taxpayer change doled out to states for the express purpose of hiring and re-hiring teachers and other employees affected by a nationwide trend of crippling layoffs. What could be wrong with that? (Besides being fiscally irresponsible?) Yesterday, the inimitable Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency highlighted even more evidence — including data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — to undercut Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s claims that the money was needed to save 161,000 jobs:

My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow made the case against the education jobs bailout two weeks ago in the Denver Post. The problem? It’s “excessive, shortsighted and fiscally irresponsible.” In that spirit, a new blog post from Education Week‘s Alyson Klein brings attention to the planned use of Edujobs funds in Rhode Island. She cites a Providence Journal story that shows another element of the fiscal irresponsibility: A new law aimed at saving millions of teaching jobs and protecting school programs across the country may not accomplish either goal here in Rhode Island. Instead, Governor Carcieri intends to use the $32.9 million Rhode Island is eligible to receive to plug an estimated $38-million deficit in this year’s budget. Now, let me be clear: I don’t necessarily see this same sort of scenario happening in Colorado. But how many other states will use the federal printing presses and the public sympathies “for the children” to take some of the education jobs money in order to cover general shortages in their budgets? Because we still don’t know the extent of how many teacher and other school employee positions actually have been cut, much less how many of those cuts are needful […]

I know that political campaigns are going on. Election season is upon us. When I ask my mom or dad what’s happening in the race for governor, they usually roll their eyes, take a deep sigh, and pat me on the head: “You’ll understand when you’re older,” they say. That may be true, but I do like to understand where the people running for office stand on education issues, so I was glad to see today’s story by Todd Engdahl in Ed News Colorado on Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper’s education agenda — which breaks down the campaign’s official issue brief: Education needs to be about what is best for our kids and that means raising the level of their achievement in knowledge and skills necessary to be successful adults. We must continue our investment in building a 21st Century education system in Colorado. Without a strong education system, job creation and economic development cannot be sustained. Making Colorado synonomous [sic] with innovation has to include supporting great teachers, and engaging parents and local communities as partners to improve our schools.

The new school year is underway, and I’m just trying to keep my head above water while this giant wave of reaction to the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top grant announcements keeps rolling in. Seriously, one of these days my mom or dad is going to have to teach me how to swim. But since I can’t get my mind off being aghast that Colorado missed out on its chance at $175 million, you just really need to check out some of these reactions. First, a trifecta from our friends over at EdNews Colorado: Alexander Ooms reminds us not to overreact, that outcomes are important and we can effect positive change without the $175 million Robert Reichardt points out that Colorado and other Western states can’t win until we effectively explain how local control really works Ben DeGrow from our own Education Policy Center notes how Colorado’s RTTT loss could open the door for the unions’ “politics of blocking”

Update, 3 PM: State Board member Randy DeHoff also added some comments. Scroll to the end of the post to read them. At my age, I figured I knew pretty well how the world works. I told you that Colorado’s green light from the National Council on Teacher Quality made them practically a sure thing to win a share of Race to the Top round two federal dollars. Was I wrong or what? Instead of Colorado becoming one of the 10 winners, our state finished 17th out of 19! Let me tell you what: I can’t wait to see the explanation for this one. It’s not just me. Education policy guru Rick Hess says it’s ludicrous that Colorado and Louisiana were “left out in the cold.” Curious themselves, my Education Policy Center friends asked some Colorado State Board of Education members for their reactions to the surprising news. “It’s a shame funds purloined from Colorado taxpayers will now head to other states, in greater quantities, for the education of other people’s children,” said State Board chair Bob Schaffer, R-Fort Collins. “Nonetheless, accepting cash from the federal bureaucracy always comes at a competing price. In this case, the attached strings and […]

So this morning I ran across an interesting posting from Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner, based on a little research “to see which states have the public school districts with the most top-heavy bureaucracies.” As Tapscott explains, he took U.S. Census Bureau data to build a table and find out which states have the most “non-instructional employees” as a share of the state’s population. Who qualifies as a “non-instructional employee”? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, anyone who works for a K-12 public school but does NOT have one of the following positions: [C]lassroom teachers, principals, supervisors of instruction, librarians, teacher aides, library aides, and guidance and psychological personnel. Anyway, here are the top 10 states with the highest per capita ratios of “non-instructional employees”:

I’m pleased to report that my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow’s guest column in the Denver Post taking on the edujobs bailout has garnered some attention — you know, the one I told you about a couple days ago. Without further ado, here they are: Reason’s Nick Gillespie quotes the op-ed, observing that Congress is “hot for teachers’ votes (by giving away our money)” National Review Colorado reporter Michael Sandoval links back to Ben’s piece with a note that Congresswoman Betsy Markey voted for the Edujobs bill while saying she’s opposed to bailouts Writing at Education News Colorado, local teacher Mark Sass takes exception to Ben’s piece with “a view from the ground” (and Ben already has responded with a comment) Marc Kilmer from the Maryland Policy Institute — who is rumored to have known Ben in a past life — cites the op-ed and points out that the small amount of teacher layoffs don’t amount to the tragedy some have claimed Finally, although he doesn’t link to the Denver Post op-ed (looks like they were posted online about the same time), education policy guru Rick Hess elaborates with some excellent points about why he sees the Edujobs bailout […]