Category Archives: School Finance

Before they’re scheduled to adjourn the session sometime next week, the legislators at the Colorado State Capitol still have some decisions to make on key education bills. But one bad idea has popped up at the last minute that you ought to know about. Four weeks ago sponsoring Democrat lawmakers included in the original version of the School Finance Act a provision to punish “sore losers” — voters in school districts that opt to restore taxpayer protections usurped by the Colorado Supreme Court. In other words, if approved by the legislature and signed by the governor, the state would stop backfilling funds to districts that opt out of ratcheting increased local school property taxes. The provision was amended out of the School Finance Act to avoid the controversy. But the issue returned as Senate Bill 291 (PDF), passed on a party-line vote out of the Senate Education Committee, and now is being considered by the full senate. It will be interesting to see how the votes shake out. For many, the “local control” doctrine in the state constitution is a convenient mantra selectively used to support certain education policies and not to support others. If anyone in the legislature really […]

Jay Greene’s blog has a humorous – but sad – story of how New York City teachers union operatives were caught red-handed passing out cue cards (including one with a misspelled word) to City Council members. Because we really need school boards and other policy makers to do the thoughtless bidding of adult interest groups rather than stand up for the interests of children and taxpaying citizens, right? I’m obviously being sarcastic there. But seeing that funny post made me wonder whether cue cards recently may have been passed out at the Colorado State Capitol: What cue cards were given to legislative opponents who slapped down school choice twice in the same day? Who wrote the script for the lawmaker who needed help from Grover to distinguish public from private (another legislator raised the same question on another bill at another hearing)? Who authored the cue cards for the education committee chair to ignore critical findings about school employee pensions so he could grandstand with frivolous attacks? What lobbying interest group told the same committee chair to thwart the will of the people and double-super kill school spending transparency? Or perhaps these lawmakers came up with these bad, silly, arrogant, […]

Yesterday, in a Denver Post guest commentary, Colorado’s commissioner of education Dwight Jones weighed in with some thoughts about our “race to the top” for innovative and effective education reform: Innovation is more than just a good idea, it’s about putting that good idea into practice. The Colorado Department of Education is presently pursuing a wide variety of innovative education models, including new approaches to teacher preparation, leadership development, school choice and the way in which education is funded. We are organizing strategies and directing resources in ways to innovate intentionally, and, in so doing, increase capacity to take to scale what improves education for Colorado’s students.

Yesterday, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to town. The good news is he visited two of Denver’s autonomy schools: Bruce Randolph and Montclair. The Education Secretary certainly is saying the right things about how this approach can grow: “The business we should be in is scaling up what works as quickly as possible,” Duncan said. “Let’s take those lessons, let’s replicate them and move on absolutely as fast as we can with a sense of urgency. We have to get dramatically better as a country, and we need to do it as fast as we can.” The $5 billion pot of “Race to the Top” innovation money is supposed to fulfill this purpose. As pointed out by Swifty Charlie and Flypaper’s Mike Petrilli, the reality is that “Race to the Top” is the only part of the federal stimulus funds that has even a legitimate shot at advancing school reform. Colorado may make some modest strides with the innovation dollars, but it very well could be outweighed by the much greater opportunity and resources wasted.

Mostly dead wasn’t good enough for some Colorado lawmakers when it comes to school spending transparency I’m young, and still learning about many different things. Like I’ve learned a lot about the word “transparency” this year – especially as it relates to taxpayer-funded schools making it easy for citizens to see how they spend their money. But I guess I’m still pretty naive, too. It’s hard to believe the lengths the chairman of Colorado’s House Education Committee was willing to go to make sure that Senate Bill 57 was not only mostly dead but double-super-killed, all-the-way dead. You have to read what the investigators at Face The State found out to believe it: Also known as Senate Bill 57, the bill was postponed indefinitely after four hours of committee debate that lasted late into the evening. Speaker Terrance Carroll and House Minority Leader Mike May arrived to work the next morning ready to revive it. But they were too late. When legislation is postponed indefinitely it is technically not dead until the committee report is officially filed with the House clerk. This process usually takes about a day, or at least 24 hours. If the bill is intercepted before it […]

This morning brings an important committee hearing at the State Capitol, as the Democrats in charge try to speed through some serious changes to the School Finance Act: Legislators and lobbyists Tuesday were hurriedly conferring about and drafting possible amendments to Senate Bill 09-256, the 2008-09 school finance bill that was introduced Monday. The bill currently is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, considered on the Senate floor Thursday and is set for final passage on Friday. That leaves little time for crafting language for a complex bill that takes several new directions with the overall goal of funneling more money to at-risk students and polishing up Colorado’s chances to win competitive federal stimulus grants for education innovation. [Link to bill PDF added] Very little time has been given to analysis of this proposal thus far, so I can’t comment much yet. It does look like some innovative proposals may be included, but then as the Denver Post‘s Jessica Fender reports, something bad could be in store for certain school districts that want to honor taxpayer protections — if House Democrats get their way:

Yesterday morning some of my Education Policy Center friends were down at the State Capitol (now, like me, they can hardly get out of their driveways… snow day!). They joined Dr. Michael Mannino, author of the Independence Institute report Deferred Retirement Compensation for Career K-12 Employees: Understanding the Need for Reform (PDF), for his informational presentation to the joint House and Senate Education Committee. New Ed News Colorado reporter Nancy Mitchell provided some colorful coverage of yesterday’s unusually well-attended proceedings (hey, I don’t even want to get out of bed at 7:30 AM): Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, drew applause from a standing-room only crowd when he closely questioned Michael Mannino, a University of Colorado professor who helped write the report. “Is it possible that your phrases like drastic tax increases and meltdowns could be fear-mongering on your part … in support of your political agenda?” Merrifield asked, an apparent reference to the report’s sponsor, the Independence Institute, which bills itself as a “free market” think tank based in Golden. “Could it be that you’re making an assumption to support your personal views that teachers shouldn’t have a defined benefit plan?” Merrifield asked at another point. “I want people to […]

Update: State Board member Peggy Littleton also weighed in (see below) When I asked my teacher, she told me that judges are supposed to interpret the law — not just make up stuff. (Which is something I tend to do after eating the last two chocolate chip cookies from the jar.) So I was a little confused and disappointed when I saw what went down a couple days ago at the Colorado Supreme Court. Independence Institute president Jon Caldara and the Denver Post‘s Vincent Carroll are among many who have highlighted flaws in the court’s judgment. They’re right — the ruling seems to say taxpayer protections in the state constitution don’t mean much when the issue at stake supposedly is “for the children”. I know it’s really not my fault, but being a kid, whenever I’m used for unsavory political purposes — well, I feel a little guilty about it. That guilt led me to get my Education Policy Center friends to ask the opinions of some other important people about this supreme court decision: namely, members of the Colorado State Board of Education. Interestingly, the State Board was the original defendant in this lawsuit led by the Independence Institute […]

That didn’t take long. The Rocky Mountain News is no more, but education reporter extraordinaire Nancy Mitchell is back. Hopefully the first of many, she has posted a lengthy piece on the proposed merger of the Denver Public Schools (DPS) and state PERA retirement systems. DPS officials are pushing the discussion forward, saying that the current set-up costs them funding that could be used in the classrooms: “We pay $685 more per pupil per year in pension and retiree costs than any of the other 177 school districts in Colorado,” [superintendent Tom] Boasberg said, “which comes out to $47 million more per year … “Translate that into teachers, that’s 700 or 800 teachers, that’s a reduction in our class size of 15 to 20 percent. Every class that has 30 students would be a class of 25 students.” Unfortunately, this article didn’t delve into the costly problem that University of Colorado at Denver professor Michael Mannino highlighted in his recent Independence Institute report Deferred Retirement Compensation for Career K-12 Employees: Understanding the Need for Reform (PDF). The average retired DPS career employee can expect to earn $627,570 more in benefits than his or her estimated retirement account balance. It’s a […]

Last year it was a big issue to see many Denver area public charter schools get significantly shortchanged in bond election requests for more facilities money. It has come to light that charter schools across Colorado receive less than 2 percent of school construction bond money, even though they educate about 7 percent of the total public school enrollment. Why shouldn’t they be treated more fairly? Enter state senator Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, a perennial champion for school choice and educational opportunity. She introduced Senate Bill 176 (PDF) in the state legislature to address the inequity. The bill would require school districts to consult with charter schools about their facilities needs before holding a bond election, and would require school districts to include those needs in the election request “unless the district and charter school agree otherwise.”