Editor’s note: In the weeks before the Nov. 2 election, The Denver Post is asking Colorado’s three gubernatorial candidates to respond to a series of questions on some critical issues. This week, they tackle education, and were asked to respond to this question:
With another year of possible cuts to K-12 education, is Colorado’s system underfunded? If so, how would you steer more money into it? What other education reforms should the state propose?
Few areas of policy are as emotionally charged as education. When our children are involved, emotions run high and opinions are often intractable. And solutions to the myriad problems facing our education system are often hard to discern.
But we do know this much: Our children are falling behind the rest of the world, and our system of education is failing them.
No other sector has had the kind of access to tax dollars that education has enjoyed, and with little accountability. Because of Amendment 23, Colorado’s education system has grown artificially while other areas of government saw slashed budgets. And what do we have to show for all that investment? Sky-high dropout rates, lacking proficiencies across the board, and very little improvement in sight.
As governor, I would work to increase the transparency of K-12 budgeting so we can see exactly which tax dollars are being used wisely and which are not producing results. Improvements must be measurable, as you cannot manage what you cannot measure.
Numerous studies have shown that the single most effective thing we could do to improve education is to remove poor-performing teachers. But for far too long, the teachers union has obstructed education reforms by protecting the least effective teachers at the expense of the most effective. We need a governor who will stand up to those union interests and fight to ensure that our children come first. Tenure should not be a right, but an earned privilege.
Our state government also needs to encourage school choice and promote competition among public, private, charter and home schools. Parents, not bureaucrats, should control where their tax dollars are spent, and vouchers are an effective way to accomplish that goal. We need to continue exploring incentive-based pay programs accompanied by quantitative benchmarks for teachers.
Throwing more taxpayer money at the problems of education is not the answer. It’s time to get smarter about how we’re spending those dollars. More competition between schools, transparency in educational funding, and a governor who will stand up to the teachers unions will produce more productive teachers, better administrators, and will improve the educational outcomes for our children. It’s time we got serious about doing right by them.
