My Education Policy Center friends told you the judge’s decision last Friday to put the brakes on the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program would create a lot of chaos for families. That’s the question of the hour: What are the more than 300 students who had received scholarships (and some had already started schools) going to do?

Just like families make different choices based on their students’ educational needs, so many of their fallback scenarios will be different. FOX 31 News highlights one Castle Rock family:

Two of Becky Barnes’ kids were enrolled in the voucher program. Now unable to pay their private school tuition she is working hard to get them enrolled in public schools. Her first grader will go back to the neighborhood school.

Her 7th grader will attend cyber school. Other families are choosing to stay at their private school and pay the tuition.

Becky Barnes is one of three parents whose emergency education plans were documented today in an article by Karin Piper. Another parent was Diana Oakley, mother of Nate Oakley, for whom things seem to be working out at least for now: Continue Reading »

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You thought I was going crazy yesterday waiting for a ruling on the Douglas County Choice Scholarship injunction request? Another day, and it isn’t getting any better. We have been promised Judge Martinez will issue a ruling this week, so at the most I should only have another day or so to hold out.

But you know what? Colorado isn’t the only place where people are currently waiting for a judicial decision on a “Choice Scholarship Program.” This news comes today from the Northwest Indiana Times:

A Marion County judge is set to rule next week on whether Indiana’s new school voucher program passes constitutional muster.

Continue Reading »

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Welcome to Week 2 of 5 in Colorado’s ongoing school finance adequacy lawsuit, familiarly known as Lobato v State, or just the Lobato case. A report this morning from Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl highlighted some of Monday’s key plaintiff testimony:

One of the main plaintiffs’ witnesses in the Lobato v. State school funding lawsuit testified Monday that his study projects Colorado needs to spent $10.3 billion a year on K-12 schools, an increase of $3.6 billion.

Justin Silverstein is vice president of Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, a Denver-based research and consulting firm that produced a 96-page study projecting the funding Colorado school districts would need to support the demands of state requirements such as new content standards, tests and teacher evaluation systems. The firm was paid $115,000 by the plaintiffs for the study. [link added]

I think I just overheard one of my Education Policy Center friends ask where they could get $115,000 to conduct a study and write a report. But I digress.

Anyway, the lead sentence of that story caused me to do a little back-of-the-envelope math. $10.3 billion minus $3.6 billion = $6.7 billion. Diving deep into the murky waters of school funding statistics — where you can blindly pull a number of different dollar figures off the ocean floor — I have to ask: Where does that number come from? Continue Reading »

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Update, 8/3: Further highlighting how the attempt to enjoin the Douglas County voucher program would disrupt families’ lives, Denver 7 News has a great story — including an interview with Diana Oakley, who was featured in the recent Independence Institute video on Douglas County vouchers. In fact, if you watch the video of the 7 News report, you might even see a little unattributed footage from that video….

Yesterday I pointed out that hearings for the Lobato school funding lawsuit were officially underway. And yesterday, the team at AM 850 KOA’s Colorado Morning News released the first of their two-part dive into Douglas County’s voucher debate.

Why? Because Colorado’s second big “edu-trial” of the week starts today, with a Denver District Court judge set to consider a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Douglas County voucher program. I’m still wondering what took so long to try and disrupt families’ lives with the threat of an injunction if it was so urgent for the ACLU & Company.

Being young and all, nor do I get why so many groups and people want to take educational choices and opportunities away from kids and families. I’d like to think they have a better reason than Cindy Barnard, one of the plaintiffs who led off the 850 KOA story with this head-spinner of a quote: Continue Reading »

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Update: In today’s post on Lobato, the Colorado Education Association blogging team writes: “In 2008-09, before the current recession began, Colorado spent $1,809 less per pupil than the national average of all states.” However, the National Education Association’s latest data (see page 55, table H-11) show Colorado spent $9,574 per student in 2008-09, only $616 below the national average. Someone in Denver needs to contact the D.C. mother ship.

August is here, can you believe it? For a few students, it means school is starting. But the big news is the first of two major education-related court case hearings gets underway today. Reporter Carol McGraw lays the groundwork of the six-year-old Lobato v State school funding lawsuit with a substantial article in the Sunday edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette:

“Where would the $3 billion come from?” asks Ben DeGrow, senior education policy analyst for Boulder-based [sic] Independence Institute.

He said the court has no business ordering the legislature what to do. “What makes a judge in a courtroom more qualified? This is throwing the state Constitution out the window.“

Under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, state and local governments cannot raise tax rates without voter approval and cannot spend revenues collected under existing tax rates if revenues grow faster than the rate of inflation and population growth.

“They should leave it up to the voters if they want a tax increase to pay for education.”

Continue Reading »

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Some groups like the ACLU have their reasons for wanting to shut down the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program and take educational opportunities away from about 500 kids. Some people can’t help but be offended by other people’s choices, I guess.

Here we stand one week away from the start of a legal hearing to determine whether the legal request to enjoin the choice program should be granted. But if it’s such a big deal for the ACLU and its pals to stop families from receiving Douglas County vouchers, why did they wait so long?

That’s part of the strong argument raised by the Dougco legal team in their response to the motion for a preliminary injunction: Continue Reading »

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Today I’m going to step back and let someone else do the talking. You’ve probably been following the developments surrounding Colorado’s groundbreaking Douglas County Pilot Choice Scholarship Program. I’ve covered it a lot here. Since the promising program was approved in March, 500 students have won vouchers worth about $4,600 to help cover the cost of tuition at a private school families have chosen to best suit their needs.

In this new video produced by my friends in the Independence Institute’s Education Policy Center, it’s a story like 13-year-old Nate Oakley’s that brings to life the need for Douglas County vouchers, and the real threat created by lawsuits filed by the ACLU and other groups:

After that, what more can I say? For many kids and many parents, school choice really matters. Don’t take it away.

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This hasn’t been one of the big issues on my education transformer radar, nor is it one I’ve covered before. But it does bring out an interesting point of clarity for those who are interested in our K-12 schools and the politics that surround them. The Coloradoan in Fort Collins reported yesterday that the state’s largest teachers union has filed a legal challenge against a new public school reporting requirement:

The statewide teachers union has sued the Colorado Board of Education over new rules requiring the public disclosure of teacher arrests.

The board passed the new rules this spring at the prompting of Fort Collins resident and board chairman Bob Schaffer.

The first attempt to establish the rule was shot down by a 4-3 vote in May 2010. The State Board went back to the drawing table to address concerns and complications, but the teachers union remained fundamentally opposed: Continue Reading »

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A couple weeks ago I filled you in on how there are two separate groups that have filed their legal complaints against the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program. Well, as Ed News Colorado reports, now they’ve taken the next official step:

Plaintiffs in two lawsuits challenging the Douglas County voucher pilot are asking for an immediate halt to the plan, arguing it must be stopped before any public dollars flow to private schools.

“Once the money is illegally diverted away from public schools, the bell can’t be unrung,” said Gregory M. Lipper, attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, one of the plaintiffs.

Continue Reading »

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Update, 6/28: Coverage also available from Nancy Mitchell at Ed News Colorado, including a 3-minute video clip of Tuesday’s press conference.

Very, very good news today! Both the Denver Post and Associated Press report that the Institute for Justice (IJ) has intervened to defend four Douglas County families who face potential harm from lawsuits filed by the ACLU and other groups to try to shut down the Choice Scholarship program.

But then again I already knew that, since some of my Education Policy Center friends were at this morning’s press conference at the State Capitol. IJ senior attorney Michael Bindas laid out the case and explained why the defense of the program would prevail. “The program is neutral with respect to religion, allowing both religious and non-religious schools to participate, and ensuring that it is by the private and independent choice of families where any of the scholarship funds are directed,” he said. Continue Reading »

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