Mount Virtus

More than a month after Colorado's Face the State launched onto the Internet map with its exposure of a hateful, anti-charter school email by Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, the well-trafficked pioneer site WorldNetDaily recounts the story to its vast conservative audience. To the chagrin of the education status quo defenders at the Colorado State Capitol, this story continues to have good traction. Kudos, Face the State! … [Read more...]

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 … [Read more...]

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 … [Read more...]

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 … [Read more...]