Mount Virtus

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!

Today’s Wall Street Journal takes notice of Colorado’s brewing battle between Big Labor and the state’s economic well-being:

A labor-union campaign in Colorado to tighten restrictions on layoffs and crack down on corporate fraud could put Democrats in an awkward position as they gather here in August for their presidential convention.

Unions are pushing to get a total of six measures on the fall ballot, all of them opposed by small-business owners and corporate interests.

“If they pass, it would be like putting a big ‘Do Not Locate Your Business Here’ sign on Colorado,” said John Brackney, president of the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.

Don’t believe the unions’ initiatives would harm the economy? How about this opinion from a normally reliable pro-union academic:

But others said they would impose an unprecedented burden on businesses of all sizes. “I think they would turn the lights out in the state,” said Ray Hogler, a professor of labor law at Colorado State University.

The major point overlooked by the Journal? That though Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter has sought to get business and labor interests to avoid the “mutually assured destruction” of a costly ballot battle this fall, it is Ritter who owns the responsibility for setting this fight in motion.

If Democrats in general will be in an “awkward position” with this political fight going on in their national convention’s backyard, then no one will be in a more “awkward position” than the state’s chief executive: Bill Ritter.

A quick glance at Politico this morning …

Bad news for Barack Obama: A stinging blowout defeat in the West Virginia primary holds a lot of evidence that the Leftist Illinois Senator faces serious demographic challenges beyond the bellwether state.

Not-so-bad news for Barack Obama: All signs point to another bad national election season for Republican candidates.

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.

Update, Part Deux: Sources have contacted me to correct my update. The Act hasn’t officially passed the Senate yet. The final vote will be later this week. The first vote was a procedural motion that appears to be a strong indicator of a final vote. Anyway, there is hope for this bad legislation to die yet.

Update: Just as I was publishing this post, it looks like the Act has passed the Senate, with a lot of so-called Republicans also enabling the legislation. So goes the world…

Unsurprisingly, the Democrats in Congress haven’t accomplished much since they took over. Most notably, Nancy Pelosi’s 2006 “plan” to bring down gas prices is still in the works.

One special interest group to which Democrats have been busy pandering is Big Labor. They keep trying to take away workers’ rights to a secret ballot (aka the “Employee Free Choice Act”) as a means of growing private-sector union membership.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Washington have been trying to coerce the growth of union clout in the public sector, too. The issue at hand is the Public Safety Employee-Employer Cooperation Act of 2007 (S. 2123), which has made its reappearance in the Senate, having initially stalled there after passing the House:

Under current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union.

Democrats want to change this for the entire country. A bill that passed the House last year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000 people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything — pay, benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.

A top-down dictum to small local governments to mandate union recognition for police, fire, and other public safety workers? It’s a lot more efficient for Big Labor leaders to push the change at the federal level than to wade through the various laws of different states that have different prevailing views about public-sector labor relations. And Congressional Democrats are enabling them, without any compelling reason in the public interest and, in fact, many potential harms to the public interest.

If you want more information, the Alliance for Worker Freedom has a ton of resources on the issue. There’s also a great brief written by James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation.

Last year, when this issue was first hot, I interviewed Weld County Sheriff John Cooke for an iVoices podcast to discuss the potential local impact of the federal legislation.

A major earthquake in China today strikes home with a couple of my Colorado blogging friends.

Jared and his wife are waiting to pick up their new son from China. Meanwhile, El Presidente waits to hear from “friends and former students” who live in the affected region.

As usual, if you are so inclined, prayers are in order.

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.

In Skeptic magazine, peer-reviewed Ph.D. chemist Patrick Frank comes out with the latest rational debunking of man-made global warming hysteria, complete with well-sourced footnotes. More recommended reading for Gov. Bill Ritter and Boulder U.S. Rep. Mark Udall.

Meanwhile, more scientists sign on to the dissenting report.

As the challenging evidence mounts, we’ll wait in vain for the nightly news report.

There’s no need to recount the many woes and difficulties Colorado Republicans have faced in recent years, dethroned and demoralized by a well-funded and well-planned onslaught from the Left in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

Thanks especially to the principled and savvy work of several key lawmakers in the caucus, the Republicans finally held their own this year. They have set the table for a comeback in Colorado, but the road is still arduous and uphill.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel shines the light on one of the most prominent - if not the most prominent - GOP rising stars: Senator Josh Penry. The Sentinel reports on the growing speculation that their 32-year-old hometown hero will lead the Senate Republicans next year:

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, said Penry’s political prowess and ability to negotiate from a position of strength, even as a member of the minority party, makes him a prime candidate to lead the Republican caucus.

“He’s definitely the future of the Republican Party in Colorado, particularly in the Senate,” Brophy said.

Senate Minority Leader Andrew McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, who has served as the Senate’s top Republican since mid-2005, is term-limited this year after serving six years in the House and eight years in the Senate.

“(Penry) has a nose for what’s important,” Brophy said. “And it seems like he finds a way to be involved in those things that are really important.”

Meanwhile, Sentinel reporter Mike Saccone surveys readers on his blog as to Penry’s next destination. (I voted for “The governor’s mansion.” To me, the only question is when. But maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.)

Politically speaking, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for some semblance of limited government and fiscal conservatism.

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.

It’s a classic trick to try to extort taxpayers, yet Bill Ritter and Colorado Democrats are acting as if we’re too naive to see it.

Mr. DNA at Rocky Mountain Right yesterday highlighted a story in the Denver Post where Ritter and other Democrat leaders made an absurd and startling revelation - blaming the Republicans (who are in the minority across the board) for the inability to move forward a transportation agenda:

“I feel like this conversation broke down around politics, that we tried to get the Republicans interested in looking at how we would put together different pots of money,” Ritter said. “We began our conversation very early in the session and could not get the Republican leadership to act on it at all.”

Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, said Democrats could never get Republicans to sign on to a plan.

“So, we are now just crossing our fingers and hoping a bridge doesn’t fall down between now” and January, when lawmakers can try again, he said.

What’s the problem? Well, if you go on to read the rest of the story, you’ll see the problem really is that some Democrat legislators (whose party has a 40-25 advantage in the House, and a 20-15 majority in the Senate) wouldn’t go along with Ritter’s plan, because it would have involved voting for a tax increase in an election year. So that’s the Republicans’ fault?
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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.