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July 19, 2013 11:01 AM UTC

Hickenlooper Ramps Up Public Support of School Tax Hike

  • 27 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post reports, Gov. John Hickenlooper is (wisely) becoming more vocal in his support for a school tax increase this fall:

In an interview with The Denver Post, Hickenlooper said he would advocate for passage of the proposed two-tiered income tax by participating in discussions, talking with opponents and, if needed, making television and radio appearances.

Hickenlooper said while tax increases may not be popular, the proposed November ballot measure would pave the way for needed reforms. Reforms, he said, have garnered attention and support from Microsoft founder Bill Gates and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

"There have been a number of other tax increases that have been proposed and we have resisted it but, in this case, I think the benefits far outweigh the costs of increased taxes," Hickenlooper said. "It's a chance for Colorado to be the No. 1 state for public education in the U.S."

This is a wise move by Hickenlooper to position himself as the leader voters expect to see. Since he was already going to support the $950 million ballot proposal, there was no point in offering his support quietly. As we've discussed before in this space, one of the biggest dangers to his re-election campaign is if Hick allows a narrative to form that he is not a "leader" and shies away from making decisions. Meekly supporting a high profile tax measure would be significantly harmful to Hickenlooper's re-election bid, costing him much more support than he might lose from opponents of the measure (who aren't likely to vote for him anyway).

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27 thoughts on “Hickenlooper Ramps Up Public Support of School Tax Hike”

    1. Hey Elliot:

      Hickenlooper on the relationship of the education funding ballot proposal to PERA funding:

      "There is no lump sum subsidy of PERA anywhere in this."

      Mike Rosen: "I didn't say there was."

      Link:

      http://www.850koa.com/pages/mikerosen.html

      The perspective of "Scott A" on Rosen:

      "Some 40 years ago, Mike Rosen was a public servant, a member of the US Army.  He could have chosen the military as a career, job security and a pension after 20 years of service, but little opportunity to make big money."

      (Note that like Coffman, we hear Mikey's incessant complaints regarding PERA, a public pension that had a 69 percent funded ratio at the time of the PERA contract breach in 2010.  Note that we hear these complaints from Mikey about PERA, but we hear nothing from Mikey about US military pensions that have a ZERO percent funded ratio.  Military pensions are paid directly out of operating budgets.)

      "Mike, being the capitalist he is, chose to quit public service and go into the private sector, where he would have the opportunity to make big money.  His choice, more risk, but also an opportunity for more reward.  His choice.  Now, he lost a big chunk of his retirement savings when he invested in the Agile group. So, he will be working for a few more years, but remember, he knew that the private sector promised the opportunity for big reward, but carried great risk as well."

      (Mikey "had his head handed to him," as they say in the securities industry, by one Bernie Madoff.  Mikey possesses unparalleled financial sagacity.)

      "Now, he will do everything he can to demonize public servants who chose job security and PERA deferred compensation.  He's not worried about anything but his tax rates . . "

      http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23680897/peras-tall-tales

    1. To improve results, you need better facilities. You need better, up-to-date books, and better technology and better materials. You need teachers qualified to teach the subjects they teach, and you need better teacher standards. To get qualified teachers, you need to have salaries comprable to private sectors jobs to lure qualified people. They also have to want to teach the next generation and not just think of it as a job. You need activities that keep students engaged before school, after school and during breaks so they keep learning. And then you need so much more. 

      The rub of it all – all of that requires more money then our school districts have. And that's because we've handicaped our state. So things just cost more than many are willing to give up. 

      But nice catch-22. The only way to get more money is to improve results. But if you improve results without more money, than you proved you don't need more money.

    3. Your version of David's "throwing more money at the  problem won't help" is getting tiresome. How about coming up with something new? Colorado's dreadful underfunding of its public education system (pre-K through career/job entry) is well documented and understood — by most of us. Will this plan succeed? We'll see. But let's talk about throwing money.

      No, just raising teachers' salaries and benefits and adding more bodies to their ranks is not going to fix it. Society has changed. We must change what a teacher is. Student testing to "hold teachers and schools accountable" (another weak minded version of your "improve education results") comes too late in the process to fix the system and is not only failing, but fucking things up.

      Teaching must be raised to the level of other true professions that are respected and that most in our society feel deserve their relatively high incomes. If we're going to attract a higher quality teacher, it must be more difficult to become one. Right now our teacher training programs accept around 50% of applicants; medical and legal training programs accept something less than 10%. Accountants, doctors, engineers and like professions have review bodies (universally with a state) to establish standards and to test and winnow graduate applicants to their professions before they can be hired; graduate teachers merely sail into the marketplace, and boards have no buoys to mark the channels.Were our teacher training colleges (and like institutions) to attract only the best and these best were to prove themselves before they enter the classroom, the commensurate monetary reward would soon follow. Boards would be forced to compete. And boards would, in self interest, defend and support their hires, including with equipment, supplies and buildings. Those things need money thrown at them–up front.

      Another thing: Best ideas invariably come from practitioners. Yes, that is an axiom. But the folks in the trenches, on the factory floor or in the classroom who actually confront and solve problems, in order to improve their systems, must have a way to dissiminate and share their bright ideas. Contrary to our (uninformed) gut feelings, US teachers spend too much time in the classroom. But those national systems we hold up as exemplars (eg, Singapore, Finland) keep their teachers behind closed doors (for all intents and purposes professionally stranded) around 600 hours a year; ours are trapped with their kids over 1000. Top lawyers in good firms spend most of their careers receiving instruction,  perusing professional literature and case law and attending professionally sponsored seminars and other gatherings that improve their knowledge, strategies and presentation. Lawyers who spend 1000 hours a year in courtrooms are called public defenders. Somebody has to throw money at those things–up front. Our teachers currently are as harried, as regarded and as rewarded as public defenders. Pitiful.

      And it's undeniable (though you may try to deny it) America's weak "welfare state" (Yes, for which you, David and I are responsible.) is a major direct drag on the success of our schools. But even though that's completely beyond their control, let's blame the schools, especially teachers, anyway, right? Nations with superlative school systems also have solid societal (governmental) support for the general welfare of their citizens. Parents who are poor or otherwise disadvantaged don't have to choose between feeding their kids or buying their asthma meds. Kids with emotional or mental problems aren't doomed to "fall through the cracks". Extra-curricular activities (Can we agree these programs–in moderation and when desired by the kids–are beneficial to formal learning?) are generously supported by the schools, municipalities or civic groups.  Yet we throw kids that are hungry, lacking rest, dealing alone with their own behaviorally disruptive tendencies, un-nourished by music, leadership clubs, art or sports activities, at our schools and our teachers. And stand back and judge the results.

      All these things need money thrown at them–up front. Before we can see "improved education results". Before kids are tested and teachers are evaluated. And before we throw up our hands and spout some lame excuse like "Well, it's been proven that just throwing money at the problem doesn't mean it'll get fixed."

      Now I have no knowledge of this new tax plan or whether it will help "reform" Colorado's education system. My first reaction  is, if Hickenlooper is supporting it, it's probably half-assed.

      [Sorry Ralphie: Wall of text!]

       

        1. "How about coming up with something new?"

          Are you ready?

          Take children of uneducated, poor parents away from them and give the kids to educated, rich people.

          New. Would improve educational outcomes.

          2. There are already plenty of children in foster care from disadvantaged and abusive homes, waiting to be adopted by rich people — or by anyone!  More children than suitable parents willing to adopt.  And nevermind suitable rich parents – most of the best parents who foster and adopt are far from rich.

      2. @GL,

        The medical and legal professions limit entrance in order to reduce competition.

        Teachers practice in the public sector, in almost all cases.  Their numbers can not be arbitrarily limited in order to keep fees/salaries high.  

  4. Improving education  would be easier if we could exclude certain students either from the measuring or the actual schools.  We'd be #1 again in a hurry!  ANd it's cheaper.

     

     

    3. Sorry, MADCO….it's been done. Charter schools pick and choose the children they accept. Many of them send out recruitment letters to the "best" kids in the spring and summer. The sleaziest ones accept kids with disabilities and behavior problems, keep them long enough for the October count to get the school funding for the kid, then expel them, leaving them for the public schools to enroll. There are usually enough behavior problems to justify this on paper. I know for a fact that some Kipp charter schools do this, although they'll deny it.

      Think about the impact on a child – rejected from the "good" school, coming into a "bad" school 2 months into the school year, when most friendships have been made and routines learned. It's a despicable practice, but it will continue as long as there are people beating drums for school "choice".

      Having said that, there are some good charter schools that conscientously try to take their share of troubled kids.  There are no teacher unions in charter schools. Many have very low standards for the teachers they hire – the younger and cheaper, the better.

       

  5. This is needed, though I wonder if it's "enough" to really address all of the problems with Colorado's school funding mechanism. It will have to do, though – we're not going to get a bigger change past historically reluctant CO voters, especially now that the CO Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution's education provision means essentially whatever the legislature says it means.

    Colorado's schools are not adequately serving our state. Compared to the rest of the nation according to the statistics they are both under-funded and teach to a lower standard than the national NAEP testing standards. If we wish our state to soar, we need to challenge our schools and provide them with the resources to rise to that challenge. We can't expect our schools to excel when so many of them are hobbled by inadequate funding.

  6. To Galapago, Dave, etc. I think we should support this because the legislature passed SB-??? and the teachers have made a good faith effort to implement it. So a fair step now is to provide more money to implement it.

    Has education spending risen at double the rate of inflation with no improvement? Yes. Is the education system administrative heavy and slow to change? Yes. But the system is making real effort to improve. In return we need to step up with more funds because the system will not become perfect, and more efficient, overnight.

  7. Since we're talking education funding and Dave B has already brought up the increasing funding thing… I read an interesting article (and its follow-up) the other day called "Where's The Money Gone?" It argues that much of the oft-stated increase in education funding is a byproduct of inflationary oddities, and that of the remaining increase, most went to programs other than "regular" education. The study ends in 1991 (and its follow-on in 1996), and interestingly includes the Boulder Valley School District (whose expenses increased the least of all the districts studied).

    Basically, the paper states, school costs increase faster in part because they aren't caught up in the general productivity gains that make up most of the CPI inflation adjustment. Teachers, after all, cannot magically increase the speed of learning – and certainly not at the same rate as overall productivity gains. So what used to cost 10 workers in salary in 1967 (when the study data begins) costs perhaps 8 workers in salary in 1991. But it still takes 10 teachers. So adjusting by the full CPI bucket isn't accurate for schools. Instead, the paper posits taking the service CPI, minus a couple of extra-high inflation items like medical costs, and using that to calculate overall per-pupil expenditures. Under that scenario, overall per-pupil spending increases are over-estimated by about 40% – that is, when "reformers" say per-pupil spending has gone up 100%, the effective increase in spending is only 60% due to productivity limitations.

    Further, the study found that only 26% of the "net service inflation" adjusted increase over 24 years went toward "regular education" – i.e. education (and administration, operations and maintenance) for regular students. 38% of the increase in spending went to special education, and most of the rest is split up between various programs designed to catch at-risk youth (e.g. food programs, bilingual education, dropout prevention…)

    Over those 24 years, equipment and more specialized subject matter instruction make up almost all of the "regular education" increase.

    Although this study is dated, it's the only one I've found that puts together all of the pieces of the puzzle. They had to go to specific school districts and ask for this data in order to get this picture of school spending – the DofEd doesn't collect data in the detail needed to understand what's happening to school spending.

    So now when someone asks: why is per-pupil funding going up so much and we're not seeing improvement in scores, you can tell them. Schools aren't factories, and most of the new money is going in to helping kids that previously fell through the cracks. Finally, while overall test scores haven't improved much, minority scores have (though not enough) – and the change in school spending is partly responsible for driving those increases.

  9. @PR

    I copied your link, although I had been just trying to pick up the one sentence.  But, it is a good link.

    Now, the increase in spending for special education would not result in increased achievement scores; but the money and achievement scores for these special ed kids are all put together. Prior to the mid-70s' , kids who scored low on an IQ Test were systematically excluded from the public schools.  Individual school districts could decide what the IQ number for the cut off was.  Kids with normal or bright IQs with spcial physical needs, such as Cerebral Palsy, were also excluded.  Civil rights legislation in the mid-70s made public education a civil right for all kids, regardless of physical, mental or both handicaps.  The consequence was an incredibly increase in the expenditures to serve the needs, especially the severely physically handicapped, without an accompanying increase in achievement scores.  The general public is not aware of this.

    I would be in favor of separating out the achievement scores of kids with limited intellectual capacity from the achievement scores of kids who are in regular classes and presumed to have the intellectual capacity to achieve at the so-called "proficiency level."  The blind and physically handicapped with "normal IQs" should be included in the overall achievement scores, but identified.  I think that would give us a better indication of how the schools are really doing in terms of achievement.

    The influx of spanish-speaking, and other native language speakers, into public schools present a whole other category of high expense, low initial gain, students.

    These different groups are entitled to adequate funding and should be able to achieve according to their potential.  But, right now, we really don't know if that

    is happening.  

    Having said all of that, I have to make a full disclosure.  I will vote against the tax increase, because we can't afford it.  I know that is not fair.  I am being honest. We are not yet eligible for the senior property tax rebate…besides it is suspended most of the time.

     

     

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