It’s official: The proposed school finance restructuring known as Initiative 22 will appear on the November ballot, now under the title Amendment 66.
Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced Wednesday that the initiative, which would raise $950 million in additional taxes for education, had passed the threshold of valid signatures required to bring the measure before voters.
Proponents had been confident all along that they had more than enough signatures after delivering almost double the 86,105 required. A random sample analyzed by Gessler’s office came up just short of the verification rate necessary to put the initiative directly on the ballot, although it projected that supporters would have the requisite valid signatures.
That triggered a line-by-line analysis that pushed the approval process all the way to the Wednesday legal deadline for the secretary of state to make his determination.
Gessler ruled that of 165,710 signatures submitted, 89,820 were valid. He rejected 75,890.
Despite the administrative delay, proponents have been moving ahead to promote Amendment 66, which would create a two-tiered state income tax and also change the way the state delivers funding to individual districts.
It also would pour nearly $1 billion into public schools for programs such as expanded full-day kindergarten and half-day preschool, while also targeting money for at-risk students and English-language learners.
The revisions passed the legislature as Senate Bill 213, but the law won’t go into effect unless voters approve the accompanying tax increase.
“We’re happy to have qualified and eager to continue,” said Curtis Hubbard, spokesman for Colorado Commits to Kids, the group spearheading the campaign. “We’re meeting with groups all over the state, sharing information about what Amendment 66 will do and why we need their support.”
Colorado Commits to Kids raised more than $500,000 in the August campaign finance reporting cycle, bringing the group’s total cash contributions to more than $1.5 million.
The effort once again received large contributions from the Colorado Education Association, which gave $200,000, and medical equipment heiress Pat Stryker , who gave $150,000, while California-based Kaiser Permanente Financial Services pitched in $100,000.
The CEA and Stryker have accounted for nearly $1 million of the total cash contributions. Much of the early funding financed the signature-collection effort to get the initiative onto the November ballot.
Opposition groups so far have raised little money.
Coloradans for Real School Reform reported no contributions, while Coloradans Against Unions Using Kids As Pawns raised $2,025, almost all of it from the tax reform group Colorado At Its Best.
Kevin Simpson
Author: Mile High Mamas
Mike
Even if this wasn’t such a rank economy, I’d vote against this. Haven’t we thrown enough money at public education in this state to recognize that money isn’t the problem? I hope this goes down in flames so badly that the powers that be actually start seriously investigating what can be done to actually improve the situation in our public schools.
Sima
This is an absolute no brainer: YES. Schools need to have adequate funding to produce the results that drive our economy. Stop thinking about your own little issues and move to the society as a whole. Nothing drives an economy better than a well educated populace. Colorado currently funds K-12 education near the bottom of all of the other states and comparatively gets okay results. We have a dedicated education workforce who puts in so much to their job. Those who complain about their work have no clue how to do the job better. Funding does support instruction as long as the focus is on instruction. It is time for those so negative about education to actually look at what is being done in schools and seeing teachers as the true professionals that they are.
Candace
Let’s say this passes. We raise taxes. Who is held accountable if there is no improvement in schools? Without anyone being held accountable you can be sure there will be zero improvement.
It would be refreshing to see someone held accountable. . .teachers, school officials, the mayor, the department of education, students, or parents. Unfortunately no one is held accountable except for the tax payer. Changes need eto be made but I’m doubtful they can make it happen.
James
It’s always curious, if not sad, to see all the griping about school spending – here in a state where we’re below average, but there is also complaining about results. There used to be an old Yankee adage, that you get what you pay for. Here a few reality checks on that account:
* As a list I’ve posted shows, all of Colorado’s top-performing public school districts spend more than average – with the top 5 in the $12,000 – $14,000 per student range
* Among private schools, the only ones significantly outperforming public schools at the high school level, are the ones spending between about $12,000 and $25,000 per student
* The public charter schools that are held out as stellar performers, like Denver’s DSST and KIPP (a nationwide program with schools in Denver), are ones that private donors are “throwing” large amounts of money at on top of their public funding, so that they can spend about $12,000 – $14,000 per student.
* In the currently popular model of success in a once-struggling urban district, the Union City District in New Jersey, they have about $16,000 per student per year to spend – far more than any of Colorado’s struggling districts with large populations of disadvantaged students.
* Every attempt to “do more with less”, from for-profit contract schools (like Edison, supposedly run by Wall Street’s best and brightest, which once had a presence in Denver and now has thrown in the towel) to voucher programs (whose students, according to several recent studies, perform no better than if they had stayed in public schools), and even charter schools that don’t have significant extra private funding, have failed to fulfill the promise of improved performance.
People can thumbs-down me if you like, but can anyone provide any clear-cut real-world evidence to the contrary? Even the oft-cited DC schools, which are an unusual case due to factors such as being in one of the country’s costliest cities (where even a good private preschool can top $25,000 a year), are surrounded by a number of the country’s best school districts, such as Fairfax and Falls Church in Virginia – all of which spend well above the national average.
Evan
No one has a problem with teachers. People have a problem with public schools, the government, and the unions not being held accountable when give us a terrible results year after year after class after class.
Becky
You might want to pay attention to the news these days – for about a decade now we’ve had an increasing emphasis on standardized testing to measure results, and a host of penalties for schools that fail to measure up from allowing students to transfer to out-and-out reorganization and closure of schools.
Do you have any ideas of how it ought to be done differently – or just complaints about those who are trying to make it work?
Kari
These days there is actually plenty of choice between charter schools – ironically, originally introduced by teachers’ unions, which have also recently set up a new one in Denver – and magnet schools, plus all the new provisions for open enrollment across school and even district boundaries. My kids, for instance, benefitted from the “choice” of DPS programs that measure up to even the most expensive private schools.