Voters in November will be asked to decide whether to mandate just how many public school dollars should be devoted to classroom instruction.
Amendment 39, promoted by the Washington, D.C.-based First Class Education, is asking voters to require districts to spend 65 percent of their operating budget on instruction that directly touches students.
That includes classroom teachers and personnel, field trips, libraries and librarians, music, arts, computers and institutions for special-needs students.
The goal is to improve education, said Tim Mooney, director of First Class Education. He is a consultant for First Class Education – Colorado, a local group headed by state Rep. Joe Stengel, R-Littleton.
“If you paid teachers more, you’d have better teachers,” Mooney said. “If you bought better textbooks, you would have better learning.”
Costs associated with administration, food services, transportation, nurses and counselors, among other departments, would not be covered by the 65 percent measure, but would be funded by the remaining 35 percent in the district’s operating budget, according to Mooney.
Too many administrators are collecting high salaries, Mooney said.
Capital expenditures – which are devoted to buildings – would not be affected because they are not part of districts’ operating budgets.
Statewide, Colorado districts spend 60 percent of their operating budgets in the classroom, according to the Colorado Department of Education.
The proposed amendment allows school districts to request a 1-year waiver, which would exempt a district from having to spend 65 percent of its funding on the classroom.
Opponents of the measure say it would strip local school boards of their right to control education in their districts.
“Thirty-nine takes local control away from school boards,” said Bill Ray, spokesman for “No on 39. Coloradans for Excellent Schools.”
“We elected 178 school boards to make decisions on school district needs,” he said. Schools have individual needs but “what Amendment 39 does is right away puts a cookie cutter over every school district in the state. What you have here then is a mandate … that would affect all school districts.”
“Colorado should make its own decision about how it funds its public schools,” Ray said.
“As fuel prices and energy prices go up, it’s going to cost more money to put diesel fuel and gasoline on a bus,” he said. He also said the procedures for getting a waiver are unclear.
The opponents also cite a Standard & Poor’s study that found “no significant correlation between the percentage spent on instruction … and student proficiency rates on state reading and math tests.”
A second ballot measure, Referendum J, meanwhile, also asks voters to spend 65 percent on classroom instruction, but includes principals, support staff (counselors, nurses, bus drivers, food service workers), teacher training, college placement services and medical services as part of the definition of classroom instruction.
If both proposals pass, any conflicting provisions of Referendum J will not be enforced, a state analysis of the proposals says.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-820-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
