Search Results for: Lobato

As the boss Jon Caldara noted yesterday, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers took time this week to talk to my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow about the latest with that school funding lawsuit. Lobato, you’ve heard of it? Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to the 12-minute interview: A quick follow-up with three points:

If you can dig way back into your memory banks, four months ago the Colorado Supreme Court decided it had a say in determining the state’s school funding policy — giving new life to the Lobato v State lawsuit. Recently, two of the plaintiff lobbying groups have been urging local school boards to agree to help pay the legal fees. In essence, this means taxpayers are funding both sides of a lawsuit to force taxpayers to spend more money on schools. As News 5’s Andy Koen reports, Colorado Springs School District 11 last week voted to spend $50,000 on the lawsuit, even though a Democrat state legislator says the money simply isn’t there in the budget, and an education legal expert says these lawsuits are ineffective (click here to watch a 2-minute video of the news story):

Last week I told you about a new Colorado Supreme Court decision (PDF) that opens up the doors to judicial policy making in our state’s school funding system. Well, now my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow has weighed in with a column for today’s Colorado Daily on the Lobato v State ruling: The four-member majority in last week’s ruling showed a token amount of concern about overstepping their bounds into legislative turf. The justices said they just want to ensure a “rational basis” exists for the current system. Nevertheless, Coloradans should have very little confidence in restraint from the Colorado Supreme Court.

We’ve been talking a lot about the courts lately. Between the Dougco voucher decision, the ridiculous silliness going on in Thompson, and Washington’s bizarre decision that charter schools are unconstitutional, there hasn’t been much cause for celebration. I’ll admit to feeling pretty darn frustrated with the courts. Now, many of the folks on the other side of reform aisle are also experiencing some court-driven frustration after roughly a year of waiting. Today’s 4-3 Colorado Supreme Court decision in Dwyer v. State of Colorado has cemented the legislature’s interpretation of Amendment 23 to the Colorado Constitution and the “Negative Factor” it spawned.

Education policy and the courts: Usually not a match made in heaven. Though often there’s a very good reason to pay close attention. Like six months ago, when I proclaimed my excitement that the landmark Douglas County school choice case finally reached a hearing at the Colorado Supreme Court. Sorry if I got anybody’s hopes up. We’re into the summer months, closing in on the fourth anniversary of when the complaint was first filed against the Choice Scholarship Program, and here we are still waiting for the big decision from the seven justices. Meanwhile, you can cheer up a bit at a tidbit of good school choice news from a different case:

Are you interested in new K-12 “research” that creates new ways to measure funding, obsesses over inputs, rests on logical leaps, AND challenges its own claims? Well, then I have a couple reports for you! The headlines create such drama: Washington Post, “Inequitable school funding called ‘one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time’” The Atlantic, “How Ineffective Government Funding Can Hurt Poor Students” Education Week, Nation’s ‘Disinvestment’ in Public Schools Is Crippling Poor Students, Reports Say Sure, the United States stands at or near the top of the world’s rankings in per-pupil spending, yet its students finish well below that on measures of math and science achievement. But somehow a disaster is looming, if we don’t spend more money. Or is it that money isn’t being spent equitably? Or both? Let’s start with the Education Law Center’s “Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card.” As its title suggests, the report purports to focus on the issue of whether states provide “fair funding” based on student poverty.

When it comes to the world of K-12 education in Colorado — you know, what keeps my little eyes busy watching — today (this week!) is all consumed in the political debates over Senate Bill 213, the big school finance overhaul tied to a billion dollar tax increase. So I invite you to follow the clever, quippy (is “quippy” a word) Eddie on Twitter today starting at 2 PM Colorado time. Or just tune into the hash tag #CoSchoolFund. At this point, I hardly know what to expect. After nearly two years of a School Finance Partnership predicated on the idea of a “Grand Bargain”, it comes down to the introduced legislation‘s first big committee hearing this afternoon. With 174 pages of legislation and billions of dollars to be allocated, you can be sure of lots of witnesses, questions, and discussion. Here are a not-so-dirty dozen questions I hope to see answered (in no particular order):

I’ve recently been asked whether I actually take the time to read every piece of hate mail, er, fan mail that I receive with not only compliments but also with thoughts and suggestions to improve this blog. Let me tell you, I’ve never let a piece go unopened. And yes, all your suggestions have been heard loud and clear. But this time, it really is important for me to talk about school finance. You see, Ed News Colorado reports today that the School Finance Partnership has released a new and expanded version of a report released five months ago, highlighting some guiding principles to develop a new school funding system for Colorado. The Partnership includes several groups from CASE, CASB and CEA to a few more reform-minded organizations, and is co-chaired by former state treasurer Cary Kennedy. To approve any and all recommendations required the full consensus of all these groups on the steering committee. Unsurprisingly, then, the result is not exactly tilted in a fiscally conservative direction. That’s seldom how these things work. But it’s worth a closer look:

I need a sidekick. No, I really, really do. Someone maybe a little naive and idealistic (even more than yours truly) who can feed me lines like these: Sidekick: What are we going to do today, Eddie? Me: Why, same thing we do every day: Blog about education, of course! Sidekick: Oh, yeah. Of course. But what exactly are we going to blog about? Me: Same thing we blog about every day: How schools need to spend money more effectively in tight budget times…. Ok, so I exaggerate a bit. Just a little bit! I mean, in the past couple weeks alone, we’ve covered the issue of reforms focused on productive spending here, here, here and here. It’s a common theme for a very practical reason. As Checker Finn and Amber Winkler explain in the preface of the new Fordham Institute report How Americans Would Slim Down Public Education:

Marcus Winters — whom I will long remember as the author of Teachers Matter and featured presenter at the Independence Institute’s first-ever Brown Bag Lunch — has written a great new piece for City Journal. Appropriately titled “Better Schools, Fewer Dollars,” Winters’ column addresses the issue of tight budgets and educational productivity. A few weeks ago I highlighted a new 2-minute Education Policy Center video on rethinking Colorado school finance that sounded similar themes. Winters brings forward data, some more familiar than others, to show how spending per K-12 student skyrocketed in the past generation with very little or no improvements to show for it. The Manhattan Institute senior fellow further undermines the logic of adequacy studies used to inform court decisions like Colorado’s Lobato case. And this is what a Denver judge hangs her cut-and-paste ruling for the state to spend billions more in scarce resources? Anyway, Winters also reviews the research on cost-saving charters and voucher programs, which show some benefits for students and at the very worst could be interpreted as not doing any harm. Nothing new or surprising there for faithful readers or others who have paid attention to the education reform debate. But his concluding […]