Mount Virtus

Are you a student at a charter school or the parent of one? Or maybe just stuck on one of the long waiting lists to get in? In the past week we’ve learned that the now-ex-chairman of Colorado’s House Education Committee Mike Merrifield (D-Manitou Springs) thinks you’re worthy of eternal damnation – Mike Littwin thinks it’s a big joke:

This wasn’t a Deanna Hanna or a Joe Stengel scandal. This was Mike Merrifield writing that backers of vouchers and charter schools deserved a “special place in hell.”

That’s it. It was written on private e-mail, but, apparently, not private enough. Windels’ e-mails went the way of a public records request from a new conservative Web site – facethestate.com – and, when it went public, Merrifield had to apologize for not loving charter schools and then resigned as head of the House Education Committee.

Your blood boiling? I didn’t think so. The most upset person I met was [Senator Sue] Windels, who noted that her friend Merrifield is undergoing chemotherapy.

Maybe Littwin just doesn’t know anyone connected to charter schools – which serve conservative families, liberal families, and everything in between in Colorado. But he’s sure that any anger from the email revelation is all contrived. That’s good old-fashioned liberal compassion for you.

He might have noticed that the rest of the email exchange between Merrifield and Windels (D-Arvada) detailed their plot to effect a “full repeal” of the Charter School Institute, which uses strict but fair, objective standards to authorize charter school requests when parents face recalcitrant opposition from local school boards. Two state lawmakers lead a coalition that wants to take educational choices away from families, and then we learn just how visceral is the hatred that at least one of them has for parental choice. Is it a big deal? Yes.

Meanwhile, the Denver Post reminds us that Representative Merrifield’s “resignation” as committee chair “changes little.” But now you have clear insight into the plans of Democrat leaders and their liberal apologists in the press. Patronize charter school parents, let the brouhaha blow over, and get ready to return to the status quo as soon as possible.

One of Merrifield’s fellow Democrat legislators, who happens to disagree with most in his party on this issue, isn’t feeling the love. According to the Post:

Merrifield wrote that Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, one of a handful of Democratic advocates for charter schools, “would freak, but who cares.” Carroll said the e-mail made it clear Merrifield “thinks we have a lower class of morality than he does.”

He’s already dismissed the concerns of many Colorado parents, but how long before Littwin notices the growing rift within his own Democrat Party? Don’t hold your breath.

Colorado Democrats continue to show their true colors. They voted to create a fund to accept donations for after-school math and science tutoring programs but shot down an attempt to give even a token amount of state funds as seed money. Senator Mike Kopp (R-Littleton) proposed contributing $250,000 from the State Education Fund for the program, which has a proven track record of success:

“This amendment would augment strength within the program by moving money to fund the proposal,” said Kopp when proposing his amendment.

“I think $250,000 is a reasonable amount to help these kids achieve their goals. (The program) has a 100-percent graduation rate, and some of these kids are doing types of mathemathics I haven’t even heard of before.”

The vote in the Senate against the amendment was 18-16. To his credit, freshman Senator Chris Romer from Denver jumped the party ship and showed himself to be one of the few commonsense Democrats in the State Capitol.

During the previous fiscal year, the State Education Fund (SEF) took in $361 million and spent $336 million on K-12 education. Revenues and expenditures are forecast to continue rising for the foreseeable future. The SEF accounts for a small fraction of total state dollars spent on public schools. And Democrats couldn’t find a quarter million to scrape together for a program with a proven track record?

Okay, I tried to feign surprise, but it didn’t work too well. We know that the Democrats are too beholden to the established union and bureaucratic interests in the public education system. How could Ken Gordon or Sue Windels explain to CEA lobbyists that a sum less than .01 percent of the state’s annual contribution to public schools could be spared to help improve high schoolers’ understanding of math and science?

Or maybe giving a tiny shred of public money to this program would be a tacit acknowledgment that the education system spends its plethora of funds in a less than efficient manner?

Or maybe they really are having a hard time finding savings in the budget? I’ve got an idea that would more than cover the miniscule amount proposed in Kopp’s amendment. At least $750,000 a year funds teachers union officers to take leave from the classroom to perform union business (Large PDF). In 2003, Democrats (and sadly, a few Republicans) worked to kill a proposal that would have outlawed taxpayer subsidies of union release time. So on second thought, maybe fiscal frugality really wasn’t the Democrats’ motive here.

Nor was it the motive when Sue Windels and the Democrats in the Senate Education Committee shot down a proposal to provide school districts incentives to reward their best teachers with pay increases. Uncomfortable with the idea of giving better teachers more money, CEA testified against Senator Nancy Spence’s SB 141. Never mind that Governor Ritter himself has touted performance pay in his “Colorado Promise.”

While it may appear to the uninitiated that Democrats at the State Capitol from time to time have found the religion of fiscal conservatism, be not deceived. It’s simply a matter of badly misplaced priorities. When the interests of students and families clash with the interests of unions and bureaucrats, most Democrats ditch the people for the interest groups.

So $250,000 by itself isn’t a big deal, but it does tell us a lot. And little by little, the independent voters of Colorado may find themselves experiencing serious doses of buyer’s remorse.

Ideally speaking it is the hard job of a legislator to prioritize the distribution of scarce resources to programs based on their deserving and effectiveness. Representative Cheri Jahn (D – Wheat Ridge) is laudably pushing to ensure that foster children receive their share of state social services funding.

But the Democrat majority in Denver could do significantly more to provide these children greater stability and an opportunity for success: provide publicly-funded scholarships allowing foster kids the ability to choose a stable education program, whether the school be public or private. Foster children frequently are shuttled from home to home, and in the process transferred from school to school – often moving into educational environments that offer both privacy and needed services. The public school system can accommodate some of these foster care children, but certainly not all. It’s worth taking a look into.

Of course, making the scholarship proposal would require challenging the union power base that prefers to keep a tight grip on the public school monopoly. But it’s been enacted in Arizona and proposed in Maryland. It’s an idea where concern for what works best for at-risk kids should trump ideology and partisan differences. There may be enough Democrats in the Colorado legislature willing to join Republicans and give such a plan a try, but having to get through the pro-union gatekeepers in the education committees would make such an endeavor more than daunting – I’d say it would border more on the realm of impossible.

One moral of the story is clear: Having the Republican Party in power means at least having education committees who are favorable, not resistant, to school choice. Ideas like publicly-funded scholarships for foster care children could be introduced and debated. Interest groups, like the unions and bureaucrats, would not be able to dominate the conversation. Just a thought.

The Democrat Party’s intramural squabbles are intensifying, and Colorado is ground zero for the shakedown. The Denver Post reports this morning that the Teamsters’ James Hoffa, Jr., confronted Governor Bill Ritter yesterday with the threat that the party’s convention scheduled for Denver next year could “blow up” if Ritter doesn’t kowtow to the Big Labor agenda. Still a bit angry about the governor’s veto of House Bill 1072, don’t you think?

The response from Ritter’s office?

The governor has said he made the decision in order to advance a broader agenda. He declined an interview Monday on his encounter with Hoffa.

But his staff pointed to Ritter’s recent restoration of a voluntary payroll deduction for state workers that automatically covered union dues. That option had been suspended by former Republican Gov. Bill Owens.

An interesting way for the Post reporter to phrase the action, but the governor’s staff essentially admitted Ritter’s executive order was a peace offering to Big Labor: “Here, have access to the state’s payroll system.”

Meanwhile, the governor’s office has yet to speak out on the controversy [Update: I was mistaken to write this point - as the Colorado Springs Gazette reported today, Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien went a long way toward reassuring support for charter schools at a meeting yesterday.] generated by the revelation of deep-seated hatred and the viciously anti-charter school agenda of the state legislature’s two committee chairs. In today’s Rocky Mountain News, Senator Sue Windels (D-Arvada) pleads innocent for having been merely the recipient of the incendiary email.

As a result of the intense scrutiny, Windels also said she is going to let her anti-charter school bill (Senate Bill 61) go away and die. Why? In part because six senators from her own party have clearly stated they won’t support the legislation now that the sponsors’ motives have been exposed. One has to wonder how the growing numbers of pro-school choice Democrats feel about their party rewarding with power members who have a vicious hatred for their support of giving options to all parents – including many poor and minority students trapped in failing urban schools.

Governor Ritter is trapped in a brouhaha with Big Labor, with the peace offering of the state’s payroll system not enough to satisfy union appetities. What’s more, he has to be hoping the growing tensions within his party’s ranks in the state legislature over charter schools and school choice will just cool down and go away.

Leading Democrats in Colorado are busy trying to put out fires that threaten to damage the state and national coalition. Politically speaking, I can’t say I’m too distraught by the news.

But give them a chance to regroup, and the attacks on workers’ rights and school choice will resume full force.

The results are in from the unofficial Mount Virtus grassroots “Who Should Replace Wayne Allard?” straw poll. I kept the polls open a couple days longer than originally planned, but it did very little to change the final tally. So who was your first choice to be the Republican nominee for Colorado’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2008?

No surprises. While he lost some of his early commanding lead, former Congressman Bob Schaffer never trailed from start to finish – earning 54 of 120 votes cast (45%). While it’s still early to have to announce his candidacy, at the moment it looks like the field is clear for Schaffer to enter.

A crowd fought for the next four slots with about 10 percent of the vote each. Scott McInnis (who is officially OUT of the race) narrowly edged out Tom Tancredo, Bill Owens, and Marc Holtzman. Tancredo is already busy running for two offices, Owens has expressed no interest in throwing his hat into the ring, and Holtzman has been silent.

Ironically, all the remaining candidates who have expressed any interest in the open U.S. Senate seat finished in the bottom tier. Bob Beauprez, who has remained coy about whether or not he would get in the race, finished with 5%. Secretary of State Mike Coffman earned 4%. Dan Caplis, Bentley Rayburn, and Attorney General John Suthers shared the last 6 votes.

And now a brief diversion from politics & public policy:

Simply put, today is the best day on the American sports calendar. A lot of fans today are donning orange and blue to root the Florida Gators to success in an unprecedented feat: simultaneously winning back-to-back NCAA basketball titles while defeating the same school they beat to win the NCAA football title earlier in the year. Whoa! Yes, this game will be fun to watch for sure, and here’s hoping that Ohio State can make it a close contest.

But around this house today, sports fans don their blue and orange to celebrate Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. My beloved Detroit Tigers begin their American League pennant defense at home against the Toronto Blue Jays, with emerging pitching phenom Jeremy Bonderman on the mound.

Baseball fever has seized the land of my nativity with a newfound fervor, as a team coming off two long decades of futility shocked the sports world en route to last year’s Fall Classic. This year the AL Champion Tigers are back, virtually intact: with the proven powerful bat of Gary Sheffield added to the lineup to boost an offense that seemed to shy away last October against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Pitching? The Tigers are loaded – witness the fact that the loss of Kenny Rogers for half the season to a blood clot in his arm will slow Detroit down a bit but should be far from fatal. Almost every other team in the Majors would sell the farm to have the young talented combo of Bonderman – Justin Verlander – Nate Robertson – Joel Zumaya, with the amazing Andrew Miller groomed to join them soon.

Whatever the results on Opening Day, it signals the return of baseball season – the first Detroit has experienced with great hopes, expectation, and confidence in a long time. Less than 3 hours ’till Jeremy tosses out the first pitch: How sweet it is!