Mount Virtus

What a week. It may be just enough to motivate me to get this blog back running in full gear. Sorry to disappoint some of you. My election night fresh analysis post got some attention, then Michelle Malkin cited some earlier work I had done on Prop 103 and education funding. Today, it gets better (or maybe worse, depending on your perspective), as my mug is featured in an excellent 8-minute Choice Media TV video feature about the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program:

You certainly don’t need to watch it for my sake, but please watch it to help keep hope alive… and spread the word. Why? As I wrote in an in-depth post-election analysis for Ed News Colorado, the message has been sent that it’s time to do something different, more effective, more productive with K-12 education. And Douglas County is one of the leading pioneers. (Here’s another post-election piece — about Prop 103 and the teachers union — you might enjoy.)

Now tonight, it’s on to CU-Boulder for a movie premiere panel event, where I figure to be in the minority. Should be fun….

Update, 11/2: One quick correction, as Englewood voters appear to have approved the construction bond / BEST grant, but turned down the mill levy override. Also, a great roundup of school board election results in El Paso County from the Gazette.

From school board races to mill levy and bond measures, there are a number of issues pertaining to education in Colorado being decided this evening. Well known is the fate of the Proposition 103 “For the Children” tax hike — which not only crashed and burned but also disintegrated in a ball of blue-hot flame (64% No vote at last count). Two out of three Denver Public Schools board seats went to the reform ticket, with a third between challenger Jennifer Draper-Carson and incumbent Arturo Jimenez literally too close to call at this hour.

Disappointing news in my own backyard of Jefferson County, where the reform, Republican-backed “Dads” ticket of Jim Powers and Preston Branaugh were defeated. In my mind, though, the story of the night has to be in Douglas County — where a unanimous majority in favor of the nation’s first school board-initiated voucher-like program appears headed for complete electoral vindication. Other lesser-touted school board results of note: (more…)