Mount Virtus

Face The State has an interesting story today about possible conflict of interest behind a school district’s attempted lawsuit to get rid of an innovative online public charter school:

An education official involved in a lawsuit against an online charter school and the state school board is acting with conflicted interests, say some of those impacted by the legal action.

Critics charge that Michael Poore, the assistant superintendent for Colorado Springs School District 11 and chairman of Colorado’s Online Learning Advisory Board, faces a conflict when it comes to his district’s legal action against Hope Online Learning Academy and the Colorado State Board of Education.

Specifically, they object to the fact that he has been permitted to craft regulations that govern online programs with learning centers in multiple districts, and then use these regulations to sue Hope and the state board.

“How can [Poore] lead the lawsuit when he’s the one writing the rules?” said Lisa Villanueva, director of a Hope learning center in central Colorado Springs.

Check out the whole story. See what the education establishment won’t try to get rid of a competitor that some students and families have chosen as a better option.

Are Coloradans awakened yet to the union takeover of Colorado? On this site, I’ve covered Big Labor’s controlling influence on the legislature (last year’s House Bill 1072) and on Gov. Bill Ritter (union “partnership” executive order, anyone?). One that hasn’t received as much play is the unions’ controlling influence on the Colorado Supreme Court.

What, you say?

There’s hardly any other way to explain the Court’s 5-2 ruling yesterday that the teachers union is exempt from certain campaign finance restrictions in the state constitution.
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Calling all Colorado candidates for state and county office! Want to catch up on your policy homework? The Independence Institute (where I work) is sponsoring an important event on June 11:

Want your state legislative candidates to be intellectually well-armed for battle on the campaign trail? Then make sure he or she attends our candidates’ briefing on Wednesday, June 11 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Independence Institute offices. We gather the state’s leading free market experts on everything from TABOR, to transportation, to education, to property rights, to energy policy and more. Candidates will leave well-prepared to debate issues and field questions from friends and foes alike. This event is free of change and open to all state legislative and county commissioner candidates. Seating is limited.

DATE: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
TIME: 8:30 a.m to 4 p.m.
LOCATION: Independence Institute, 13952 Denver West Parkway (Building 53), Suite 400, Golden Colorado 80401 COST: Free of charge for state legislative and county commissioner candidates; other candidates included as seating allows.

TOPICS: (to include but not limited to) TABOR, health care, education, property rights, energy and environment, transportation, second amendment and grass roots organizing.

The Independence Institute will provide lunch and materials.

For questions contact Amy Oliver at amy@i2i.org. For reservations contact Eileen Mahony at EMMahony@gmail.com.

RSVP for this Event

Please spread the word.

Why the cryptic title: Ed is Watching? It’s the name of a new blog I’ve started contributing to as part of the Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center. If you go there now, you’ll already find posts up on charter schools, on Flunked: The Movie’s Colorado debut, and on a new major school choice law in Georgia.

From Jon Caldara’s blog:

Ed’s job is to keep an eye on, “… legislators, state officials, school boards, administrators, principals, teachers, and other people and groups that have an influence on public education in this great state.” So to get your daily education fix, check in with Ed and see what he has to say.

Please stop by the site, bookmark it for regular visits, and tell all your friends!

Flunked: The Movie - an Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) production - comes to Colorado next Wednesday, May 21. The Independence Institute (where I work) is sponsoring the showing of this spectacular 47-minute film about the success stories that should inspire transformational change in our nation’s education system. The film, narrated by Joe Mantegna, is more engaging and entertaining than your average documentary. Here’s a preview:

Also, you can listen to this iVoices podcast recorded today with EFF’s Steve Maggi to learn more about the film. And go here to find out how to sign up for the May 21 event.

The teachers union in Washington State turned down millions of dollars in grant money that would have gone to boosting teacher salaries. What, you say? A pair of editorials today explain the story.

First, the Daily News Online:

That $13.2 million grant Washington state won last year to enhance the teaching of Advanced Placement courses in math and science is history. It’s lost because of the financial incentives it would have provided for teachers who improve test scores. The Washington Education Association didn’t much like the idea of tying teacher pay to student performance on exams. Neither did the teachers union like the involvement of an outside party, the grant provider, in teacher-pay decisions.

The zinger, though, comes from The Columbian:

Logic leads one to believe the WEA would support more pay for teachers, but because the NMSI grant money would come from an outside source, free from union manipulation, the union effectively killed the program.

Meanwhile, six other states will benefit from the grants awarded in September. WEA union bosses would point out that those are “right-to-work” states with weaker union rules. We would counter: That’s precisely the point, and those six states are also “right-to-better-education” states.

In our state, though, the union wins while students and teachers lose. For sheer accuracy, someone, please, take the “E” out of the WEA.

So why would we want to give Colorado’ teachers union more power?

The Dead Governors couldn’t even bring themselves to defend their majority Democrat Party for accomplishing so little. So they tried to make fun of the minority Republicans for not getting much done themselves either:

How do you write a critical op-ed about how Democrats talked and Republicans acted without bothering to mention anything that you actually accomplished yourself?

For example: “On health care, we tried to clear away regulatory hurdles…” Good job on trying!

Do Colorado’s Left-leaning online apologists get the irony here? “You Republicans are going to criticize our Democrats for not fixing the state’s problems? Well, I know we were in charge, and there were only 60 of us compared to 40 of you, but you didn’t get anything done either! So take that!”

(Hmm… 60 vs. 40. There must be some connection here to the Democrats’ opposition to education standards for math - I’m not sure where the sex education mandate fits in, though.)

The Dead Governors exemplify the Left’s inability to take responsibility, even when they’re in power. They must be taking cues (here and here and here and here) from their leader: Gov. Bill Ritter.

I about fell out of my chair when I read this local CBS4 TV news story (video also available):

An out-of-state architectural firm has billed an Adams County School District nearly $60,000, for hotels, meals and travel expenses in the last year but the district hasn’t bothered to ask for, or review, a single receipt.

“It’s negligence,” said Kevin O’Brien, a former IRS agent, CPA and business ethics professor at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. “The public has a right to expect there will be some minimum checking on those receipts because its really the public’s money.”

Adams County School District 50 hired Healy, Bender and Associates of Naperville, Ill., last year. The school district enlisted the company to help design a new high school and elementary school and renovate Westminster High School and Ranum Middle School. [emphasis added]

This development is only going to fuel citizens’ distrust of school district management, especially in light of the the Denver Post report that plenty of turmoil already exists over how to spend the $98.6 million bond money approved by local voters in 2006.

Watch the CBS4 news video, if you get a few minutes. Reporter Brian Maass closes with a remark that should inspire gift ideas for School District 50 administrators.
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The Center for Education Reform, a national charter school advocacy group, has unveiled a new Web tool for families across the country to locate a public charter school near them: YourCharterSchool.com.

I test drove the site a bit, and it seems user-friendly. In addition to the map feature, there are several helpful links along the side to guide the uninitiated and to arm any user with important facts. For Colorado families, I’d say YourCharterSchool.com is a very nice complement to the more comprehensive, state-focused School Choice for Kids website.

But I’m also interested to hear what Colorado’s resident charter school expert Denise has to say.

A busy day, not much time to blog. For those of you following Bill Ritter’s property tax hike on trial, Jon Caldara reports that closing arguments are set for tomorrow morning at 10:00.

With Gov. Bill Ritter’s property tax hike still on trial, the Rocky Mountain News reports that state treasurer Cary Kennedy - who thought up the mill levy “freeze” idea - made a remarkable concession on the witness stand:

State treasurer Cary Kennedy conceded today on the witness stand that a bill passed last year by the legislature alters the way taxes are calculated with the net result that many property owners pay more.

But Kennedy continued to insist the 2007 law, SB 199, does not violate Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

O-k….
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Yesterday was the first day of the court hearing on the lawsuit by the Independence Institute (where I work) and Colorado taxpayers against Gov. Bill Ritter’s unconstitutional property tax increase.

Today’s Denver Post explains a key issue behind the plaintiffs’ argument:

They noted that in 1993, the General Assembly amended the School Finance Act to ensure that the property taxes raised for the local share of total program funding for public-school education in each school not violate the revenue cap of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

But with passage of the 2007 amendment, Ritter used it to freeze mill-levies, the opponents charged. The freeze holds mill levies — the rate at which taxes are charged — in place when they normally would fall, allowing local school districts to collect more tax money. The state, in return, can use the money it saves for other purposes.

“These are property taxes,” said lawyer Richard Westfall in his opening statement Monday in the weeklong trial. “Evidence will show the purpose of the amendment was to shift the tax burden from state to local citizens.”

Over in his account of the first day’s proceedings, Jon Caldara has a great analogy for this transfer:

…[L]et’s say your employer starts paying your personal home mortgage for you so you don’t have to, did he just give you a pay raise? The state lawyers in court today would argue no, because your boss didn’t give you a larger paycheck. The rest of us would recognize it as a raise because one of your big expenses is now being paid by someone else, giving you more cash to spend on other things. The mill levy freeze is helping pay the state’s bill to local school districts - money the state now doesn’t need to pay them.

And our state constitution is very clear. If the state gets more money to spend, it has to the voters for permission first. Our constitution simply says Ask First!

The Post also picks up the solitary argument from the other side’s team of lawyers:

But lawyers for Ritter and the Colorado Department of Education told Habas that TABOR’s revenue and spending limitations are not absolute and that the mill-levy freeze is proper. The TABOR limitations can be changed, weakened or done away with entirely, if voters approve, argued lawyers John Mill and Mark Grueskin. And that is exactly what happened, they told Habas.

The fundamental flaw in the taxpayer-funded government attorneys’ argument is that the de-Brucing elections voters faced in many school districts were not advertised as authorizing tax increases. Caldara highlights an example in the testimony from an elected school board official in El Paso County’s Cheyenne Mountain School District:

He is on a small school board and helped campaign for his school district’s successful de-brucing. He held himself out to his small community and promised that if they voted to pass the de-brucing it would allow the district to keep an extra $120,000 or so in extra revenue. He promised his community it WOULDN’T RAISE TAXES. Bill Ritter’s mill levy freeze has made him into a liar.

Bill Ritter’s mill levy “freeze” made this school board member into a liar, and many other Colorado voters into fools. Stay tuned here and at Jon Caldara’s blog for updates on Day 2 of Bill Ritter’s tax hike on trial.

At long last, court hearings begin today in the case of Gov. Bill Ritter raising Coloradans’ property taxes without a constitutional vote of the people.

From the Denver Post:

The freeze is estimated to bring in $117 million this year and $3.8 billion over a decade, up from an initial estimate of $1.7 billion when it was passed.

Richard Westfall, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the two sides will call about 10 witnesses, likely including school finance experts, the state treasurer and school board members. Dreyer said Ritter is not expected to testify.

“A lot of the discussion is going to be about addressing pretty esoteric points in the school finance act,” Westfall said.

The trial is scheduled to last a week. It will be heard by Judge Christina Habas, who was appointed by Gov. Bill Owens in 2003.

If the judge rules against the freeze, the state could have to somehow refund the freeze money it has already collected.

“We think the evidence is very clear,” Westfall said. “The voters didn’t approve it.”

Reminding readers that “it’s not the cash, it’s the constitution,” Jon Caldara’s blog offers updates on this week’s legal proceedings to see who will win Round 1: the Governor or the taxpayers. Regardless, the case will end up being appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court.

Nancy Mitchell in the Rocky Mountain News reports today about the Colorado Student Assessment Program:

Colorado’s $22 million testing program appears headed for replacement after more than a dozen years and scant evidence of improvement in recent results.

In other words: Not enough kids are learning fundamental reading skills at the critical junction of 3rd grade. Therefore, some people say it’s time to modernize and improve the CSAP, and others want to scrap testing and accountability altogether.

The first group has the right idea, provided updating the state’s assessment system is done correctly. The second group makes an absurd flight from logic. Imagine if the news story were about a state-funded auto emissions testing program in which the same percentage of cars were failing after 12 years. Who would use the flat results to argue that the solution is to scrap the testing program?

Maybe some change in the testing procedure would be helpful, but if the goal were to reduce emissions then other policies or incentives would be promoted. Not getting rid of the test. How then would we know the results?

The problem here is that some people want to get rid of the CSAP because having kids learn to read is not exactly their primary goal for schooling. Others don’t like the fact that it highlights the failures of some schools in the public education system. While updating the CSAP may yield some measure of success, don’t think that getting rid of the test will make Colorado’s education problems go away.

Meanwhile, Michael at Best Destiny has his typically keen insights about the announcement of preliminary CSAP results.

In a story about the new $18 billion state budget signed by Gov. Bill Ritter, a local Fox TV news station reporter stated:

In education spending, the State of Colorado ranks 49th.

Of course, this sentence is suspect from the start, because it doesn’t tell us whether it’s measuring higher education or K-12 education.

If the article is referring to K-12 education, then it wasn’t true two years ago, it wasn’t true last year, and it isn’t true this year, either.

There are two reliable sources for K-12 education funding data. First, Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show Colorado ranks 36th in “current” per-pupil spending. The lowest possible ranking that could be devised shows Colorado at 47th in spending per $1,000 of personal income. Yet this comparison presumes the richer a state is the more it needs to spend.

The U.S. Department of Education ranks Colorado 35th in “current” per-pupil spending, and 26th in “total” per-pupil spending.

Other sources, like Governing magazine and the National Education Association, consistently have ranked Colorado near the middle in per-pupil K-12 education spending.

My guess is that the reporter was trying to refer to K-12 education, because the scaremongers typically say Colorado ranks 48th in higher education spending, not 49th. Even so, Mark Hillman debunked that claim last year:

Harmonizing with the choir crying poverty for colleges and universities, CFPI ranks Colorado 48th in higher education spending. Governing places us 26th, again right at the middle and just behind California. Moreover, the share of Colorado’s population enrolled in higher ed is well above average, suggesting that we’re getting good value and that affordability isn’t a significant barrier.

The reporter should have listed her source for the 49th claim.

Face The State reports:

A bipartisan state legislative coalition killed an amendment late Tuesday to this year’s School Finance Act that would have taken millions away from the state’s charter schools.

The amendment, proposed during House debate by Rep. Debbie Benefield, D-Arvada, would have cut funding for at-risk students by approximately $4.5 million.

Benefield justified her amendment, telling the House she ran it “because I can,” with her backers saying the amendment addressed concerns that the state’s current funding formula does not properly define “at-risk.” Benefield maintains that the current formula awards schools money disproportionate to the actual number of at-risk students they serve.

It’s at least good to see that sensible members on both sides of the statehouse aisle thwarted the attempt to take money from public charter schools by changing labels of which students are “at-risk” and which are not.

However, like many of her Democratic colleagues, Rep. Debbie Benefield has been a consistent opponent of true parental choice in public education - though her remarks haven’t been as strident or as infernal as some.

Yesterday I was privileged to meet Ethiopian journalist and scholar Habtamu Dugo. He shared a small part of his story with me. As one who like most Americans easily can take for granted the freedoms we enjoy, I was humbled by his steadfast courage, gracious modesty, and passionate eloquence.

This evening Habtamu will be speaking at the Independence Institute:

A persecuted reporter and academic, Mr. Dugo will share his experiences exposing human rights abuses in Ethiopia, restrictions on freedom of the press and what happens when a journalist dares to defy the brutal Ethiopian government.

Mr. Dugo will join us for a reception at the II offices on Tuesday, April 22 at 5:30 p.m., followed by his presentation and Q&A at 6 p.m.

RSVP for this Event

If you are able to make it this evening, it will be an opportunity you don’t want to pass up.

It is my pleasure to share the following notice with my readers: Dr. Jay P. Greene, head of the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform and Manhattan Institute scholar, one of the sharpest minds in the world of education policy, has started a blog under his own name.

In only a few days Jay already has provocative posts up on the proximity of teachers union headquarters to state capitols, comparisons of sexual misconduct data on male public school teachers vs. male Catholic priests, and more evidence of the myth on K-12 education spending. ( As he explains on the introduction page, all views expressed on the blog are his, and not necessarily those of the respective institutions for which he works.)

I would invite you to check out Jay’s new blog.