In 2010, they suffered a major loss when Colorado enacted, arguably, the strongest teacher tenure reform in the nation, Senate Bill 191.

Today, education reformers nationally have even more backing from multi-state organizations like Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), Stand for Children and StudentsFirst, to name just a few.

Of course, our view is that the Total School Choice model, as described by John Carson, president of the Douglas County (Colo.). Board of Education, is the way to go.

The left in Colorado, however, only wants reform on its terms.

On March 26, the “ United States of ALEC,” a purported expose of the American Legislative Exchange Council, was screened in Denver. Afterward, Elena Nunez of Colorado Common Cause moderated a panel discussion. During the Q&A session, a woman directed the following comment to the panel at 49:30 in the video above.

“It sounds like we’re looking at this as a Republican versus Democrat issue,” she said. “And, I think there’s a lot of Democrats that are very dirty in this. Looking at [state] Sen. Michael Johnston, Senate Bill 191 author, and… he’s also coming out with his current bill for refocusing the finance of education, which I have real concerns about. It has lots of really pretty wording in it. And, I think that the astro-turfing…the astro-turf organizing…the Democrats for Education Reform, which is purely ALEC-type of stuff. I think one of our problems is if we’re focusing on Democrat versus Republican instead of looking progressive versus corporate, we need to really re-speak the, rethink our language.”

Tony Salazar, executive director of the Colorado Education Association, responded with this comment…

[51:44] “A lot of the corporate money and money that comes directly out of New York City from hedge-fund managers…Democrats for Education Reform is a good example of that. Stand for Children is another group in the state that all pushed Senate Bill 191 and other reforms that have been taking place here in Colorado…”

—

“One of the things that we can’t forget – and I’ve mentioned this when Senate Bill 191 passed – which we fought at the time vigorously because some of the things in there that we felt were very punitive towards teachers…that was done under a Democratic legislature with a Democratic governor. And what they did is they picked off just enough Democratic legislators – and the Republicans as a bloc stood back and watched the infighting happen in the caucus – and voted as a bloc with the small number of Democrats that passed the legislation.”

Salazar’s answer indicates that the CEA, the state’s largest teacher union with some 38,000 members, is still reeling from its major legislative defeat in 2010 when “The Great Teachers and Leaders Act (SB 191)”—a landmark teacher effectiveness and accountability bill – passed a Democratic-controlled legislature and was signed into law by then-Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat.

It’s worth recounting that history (see below).

Salazar’s comments reflect what appears to be a schism among Democratic Party constituencies between education reformers and anti-reform defenders of the status quo, working to barricade a bloated and under-performing public education system.

This year’s big school reform initiative in Colorado is Johnston’s SB-213, a rewrite of the School Finance Act. But that has a different political complexion because it comes with a potential price tag of $1 billion in increased taxes for schools and would have to go before voters in a referendum after approval by the legislature.  [See also Vince Carroll's column in the Denver Post here.]  We’ve reported previously on those efforts by Johnston, D-Denver, and state Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder. On April 2, Democrats in the state Senate voted on a party line, 20-15, to refer the measure to the ballot this November. It now faces action in the Colorado House.

“We are examining SB 213 to see how it will impact the growth and achievement of students across Colorado and the vitality of the education profession,” Salazar said in mid-March. “We agree with much of the bill’s premise and components, but believe there is room to improve it to properly address education funding.”

SB 213 this year may not face the heat from the left in Colorado that SB 191 did in 2010. Earlier at the March 26 event, Alan Franklin, the political director of ProgressNow Colorado, said this about SB 191 at 40:20 in the video above…

“There are bills occasionally that come through with ALEC that attract some measure of bi-partisan support. An example of that was a bill that my organization opposed in 2010 called Senate Bill 191. It’s called the Great Teachers and Leaders Act – very duplicitously named in my opinion. It instituted educator effectiveness standards that are still in the process of being worked out. All of this reflects the right-wing education agenda, let’s be very clear, even though it anecdotally had some Democratic support.”

The emergence of organizations like Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) – which touted the SB 191 effort as “Creating a Winning Legislative Campaign: the Colorado Story” – continues to put pressure on the status quo and progressives.

In addition to Johnston and state Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, who sponsored SB 191, prominent DFER members include current House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, and Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia. Additionally, former House Speaker Terrance Carroll, former state Senate president Peter Groff, and former state Sen. Ron Tupa serve on the organization’s national speakers bureau.

The burgeoning education reform movement is now recognized by both major parties, as well as by a number of prominent progressives. Take, for example, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles – as the Huffington Post’s Jon Ward noted in September–during the 2012 DNC in Charlotte:

“But it is hard to paint the school reform movement as a right-wing conspiracy. Support for taking on teachers’ unions is growing in Democratic and liberal circles. The best example of this might be Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former organizer with United Teachers Los Angeles who is in favor of greater school choice and teacher accountability.”

Memo to opponents of real education reform such as Messrs. Salazar and Franklin: It’s about the kids, not defending the system.

Below is some background on SB-191 in Colorado and why it was so controversial among Democrats.

“Teachers will have to demonstrate effectiveness for three consecutive years before earning tenure, officially known as non-probationary status. They could lose that status after two consecutive years of ineffective ratings. Non-probationary status currently is irreversible,” reported The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on May 20, 2010.

Two other key provisions of the bill were that it:

1) Requires that all teachers and principals receive an annual evaluation, and

2) Bases at least 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation on student academic growth.

The Colorado Statesman reported on May 14 about the impressive bipartisan support SB 191 garnered:

“The so-called teacher-tenure bill passed the House 36-29 Tuesday after a series of potentially threatening parliamentary maneuvers, including a brief filibuster by Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Englewood. On Wednesday, the Senate accepted House amendments by a vote of 27-8 and sent the bill to Gov. Bill Ritter, who has said he will sign the bill.”

The margins of passage in both chambers were strong:

“In the Senate, 13 of the body’s 21 Democrats voted yes. The original April 29 Senate vote was 21-14. Eight Democrats and the House’s one independent [Rep. Kathleen Curry, I.-Gunnison] joined 27 Republicans in supporting the measure in that chamber. reported by EdNews Colorado on May 12, 2010” (List of Democrats who voted yes.)

The Democrats had a +7 majority over Republicans in the state Senate in 2010 – a ratio of 21:14. In the House, their majority was even greater at 37:27 (and 1 independent). In other words, SB 191’s sponsors were very successful at winning strong Democratic support.   In 2013, the partisan divide in both chambers is tighter at 20:15 in the Senate and 37:28 in the House, which should give reformers an added advantage in forging bipartisan majorities.

In addition to chief sponsor and then-freshman state Sen. Mike Johnston, the bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Christine Scanlan, D.-Dillon. Both Johnston and Scanlan are advisory board members of Democrats for Education Reform; Johnson is a former teacher and principal. Scanlan was a school board member who now serves as director of legislative affairs for Gov. John Hickenlooper. Republican co-sponsors were state Sen. Nancy Spence, R.-Centennial, and state Rep. Carole Murray, R.-Castle Rock, a former teacher.

Gov. Ritter signed the bill on May 20, 2010. During a press conference spotlighting the bill’s enactment, Ritter pointed out that the legislation, which essentially eliminated unconditional lifetime tenure, for teachers was opposed by the Colorado Education Association (CEA) but supported by the smaller Colorado affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. It also won the endorsement of Randi Weingarten, AFT’s national president, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Salazar’s barbed comment reflects the left’s intent to discredit school choice as discriminatory, when the real battle is about providing quality education for all children, as documented here, here and here by Michael Q. McShane, a research fellow in education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a former schoolteacher.

We interviewed Salazar on March 26 after a panel discussion in Denver that followed the screening of “United States of ALEC”, a purported expose of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

We asked Salazar about the day’s news in Indiana, where the state Supreme Court upheld school vouchers, which Salazar said is “part of the agenda to defund public schools.” Regarding the recent Colorado Court of Appeals decision that upheld Douglas County’s Choice Scholarship Program, Salazar said, “My hope is that it gets overturned by the higher court.”

In answer to questions about the growth of charter schools in Colorado, Salazar said that the CEA supported the initial law in 1992 to serve “at-risk children in poor neighborhoods” but that “all the restrictions” have since been stripped away.

“…Really, what’s been unfortunate is that there’s been no intentional look to see how if the kids in charter schools are actually performing better than the kids in traditional schools,” said Salazar, at 3:47 of the video above. “In fact, the evidence shows that it’s kind of mixed. Some schools that aren’t performing well at all. But that doesn’t seem to matter, we’ve still been growing the charter school movement here in Colorado.”

“The unfortunate thing in Colorado is that it’s been used as a segregation method…The original intent to serve at-risk, low-income children through the years was really not meant in this state, it was meant to be a segregation tool for affluent white children, a lot of them in the suburban districts. And that’s unfortunate, because I don’t think that was the intent of the law when it was first passed.”

Is there any basis to Salazar’s claims?

A June 2012 analysis of Denver Public Schools enrollment data by Alexander Ooms, a senior fellow at the Denver-based Donnell-Kay Foundation and a board member of the Colorado Charter School Institute, found that segregation is no more prevalent in charter schools than in typical public schools.

“So, are public schools in Denver segregated?” Ooms wrote. “Yes. Are charter schools any more segregated than traditional schools? No. Much like other demographics, charter schools in Denver reflect the public school system.”

In his March 15 speech at CPAC, the annual conservative confab, Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., offered a bottom-up approach to education reform as a path for conservatives hungry for electoral victories. He advocated education reform and school choice that places parents, not federal or state bureaucrats, in the driver’s seat when it comes to how and where their children can best learn and grow.

“…When it comes to education, let the Democrats extol the virtues of our hopelessly antiquated one-size-fits-all factory schools where the child follows the dollars,” he said. “Meanwhile, let us feature the success of child-centered education solutions that meet the needs of the digital age, education where the dollars follow the child.”

“We had a union leader in Louisiana who said that parents don’t have a clue when it comes to making choices for their children. That is the debate we need to be having as a country. I met with a group of moms the very next day who said, ‘Governor, we make choices for our children every day. We know the needs of our children better than the bureaucrats in Baton Rouge and Washington, D.C.’ That is the debate we need to be having in this country today.”

Quoting former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Jindal said, “This is how we must win the argument,” then you can win elections. He then proposed an American government that divests itself of centralized power, returns it to states and localities, and thereby expands the ability of citizens to make decisions closest to home.

Also known as the principle of subsidiarity, this concept maintains that citizens should be able to make decisions at the level that is closest to the problem – in other words – bottom-up solutions.

Jindal was not just articulating a theory. As the National Review’s Patrick Brennan wrote last year, he’s championing bold reform proposals in Louisiana: extending school choice to all students in average or below-average performing public schools; creating tighter accountability for charter and private schools that participate in his scholarship program; and reforming a stagnant and moss-laden teacher tenure system.

Kate Obenshain, noted blogger, author, and a former chairwoman of the Republican Party of Virginia told us at CPAC that the broad appeal of the documentary “Waiting for Superman” is evidence that school choice is a winning argument for most parents, regardless of income, who just want the best for their children.

“Democrats and liberals who are pushing back against school choice are pushing back against American school children,” she said. “They’re denying them any hope for the future, particularly those who are most disadvantaged. Because, really, getting a quality education for some of those kids is their only hope … and their parents know it and desperately want that opportunity for them,” she said.

Kellyanne Conway, president and CEO of the Polling Company, said her data shows that, over the last five years, education has held its place behind jobs and the economy as the number 3 or 4 issue for most Americans, particularly among females and Hispanics…

“Education means first and foremost the ability and the right of the parents to have a say in where their children go to school and what is taught there. And that is the essence of school choice. That nugget is incredibly popular to people across the country, particularly parents,” Conway noted.

Moreover, the RNC’s new Growth and Opportunity Project report (the so-called “autopsy” review of the 2012 elections) released on March 18, echoed Conway’s point, recommending school choice as a key policy (p. 15) that garners “high levels of support in Hispanic communities.”

“Perhaps no policy demonstrates the depth of our Party’s commitment to all Americans as strongly as school choice — our promise of “equal opportunity in education” to all children regardless of color, class or origin.”

If Jindal, Obenshain and Conway’s analysis is embraced by conservative activists and those who support the RNC’s issue-driven outreach to Hispanics, school choice could become the cornerstone argument attracting women and Hispanics to new center-right majorities.

“Chris Christie just the other day gave this wonderful stem-winder that’s gone viral on the Web where he confronts a heckler about school choice,” said Goldberg, the National Review Online editor-at-large and author. “He makes a great point about school choice – which is that there is no institution in America that can withstand a lack of competition for too long. And there are different forms of competition and whatnot…Whenever you have monopoly you have bloat. You have mandarins and bureaucrats that take over, who end up padding their own portfolio as it were at the expense of somebody else. And, I think that one of the things conservatives really have to work better at is explaining to people that school choice and issues like that aren’t simply ways to break the backs of teacher unions. They’re actually the best policies for improving the plight of young people.”

Our interest in Golberg’s take on school choice came after two potential candidates for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R.-K.Y., and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., each mentioned the issue in their CPAC remarks. [Paul went on to win the on-site CPAC Straw Poll--edging out Rubio 25 to 23 percent.]

“…I think every parent in America should have the opportunity to send their children to the school of their choice,” said Rubio

“There are millions of Americans, young and old, native and immigrant, black, white and brown, who simply seek to live free, to practice their religion, free to choose where there kids go to school,” said Paul.

In the funny game of democratic politics, is it better to make a bold push in one direction, or to try to bring diverse interests together around a “Grand Bargain”? When it comes to Johnston’s monumental effort, the question is being played out before our eyes. The idea is to tie “bold” school finance reform to a “bold” $1 billion tax increase proposal on November’s ballot.

Ed News Colorado reported on the Feb. 28 feedback session Johnston’s office sponsored, where he heard lots of questions and lots of concerns. Former State Board of Education member Randy DeHoff stressed a reasonable point that the overall effort really isn’t so bold on reform. He described it fairly as “a lot more money going into a 19th century system.”

At the same time, some supporters of “revenue enhancements” or “increased investments” to K-12 education expressed doubts, insisting that the $1 billion target wasn’t high enough. Johnston talked about internal poll results that showed asking for more money would be fatal to the whole proposition. He framed 2013′s “Grand Bargain” as the vanguard of a longer-term effort.

“What I want to do is make that initial investment and then get a chance for us to track our results and see how we’ve done, and then help us inform the next investment,” the senator assured the crowd of 150 or more.

Rollie Heath, Johnston’s senior Democratic colleague on the Senate Education Committee, echoed the theme in an apparent effort to reassure wavering support from the Left.

“How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? This is not eating the elephant,” he said. “This is beginning to take a bite. That’s why I tried to do [Proposition] 103. Let’s at least start, because if we don’t start, we’re never going to get there.”

Two months after 103, Senator Heath’s 2011 tax increase campaign, burned up in the meteoric flames of voter anger, a Denver district court judge ignored key parts of the state constitution and ruled that the state underfunds K-12 education by $2 billion to $3 billion per year.

State officials appealed the early 2012 Lobato ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, saving the legislature from having to comply with the decision. At least for the time being. Never mind PERA’s costly retirement contribution burden. Never mind the growth in spending on non-instructional personnel. Never mind that cost-saving options like scholarship tax credits are off the table.

Even if Johnston’s plan succeeds, his school finance reform bill passes the General Assembly and 50.1% of voters approve an income tax hike, he acknowledges discovering recently that the schools’ gain (and taxpayers’ pain) wouldn’t get into gear until 2014.

“It’s slow, even when you’re going fast,” Johnston explained.

After nearly two full years of the School Finance Partnership and untold number of meetings, technical discussions, and feedback sessions, the goal still seems far away. Trying to push through needed changes to the School Finance Act by joining those changes at the hip with a bigger tax bill still appears a tough sell.

Hence, a pep talk from Sen. Heath to keep the fragile coalition from splintering apart.

“That means we can’t equivocate,” he lectured the audience. “But we’ve got to be honest, is it going to give everything that you want? No. Heck no. Is somebody going to get a little more than the neighbor next door? Yes.”

One next door neighbor that spoke up loudly last Thursday were charter school parents and leaders, who saw in the first draft an unsatisfying solution to the existing financial inequities most of them face. Some suburban school officials additionally have raised their own serious concerns about a new formula that drives state dollars away from cost-of-living expenses and twice rewards high-poverty districts for their low-income students.

Official numbers have been hard to come by, but the best estimates show property and income taxpayers from wealthier areas picking up a disproportionate burden for very little or no return to their local K-12 schools. Districts like Denver and Aurora figure to hit the jackpot.

Combined with the very real concern that most of the dollars would be backfilling through a $600 per student “State Education Investment” and full-day kindergarten funds, with little tied directly to innovation, the centrifugal force on the bill’s political support could be felt around the room.

Now it’s back to the drawing table. Word has spread that the second draft (the official bill) will drop in the next couple days. Eager eyes wait to see whether and how the 144-page legislation improves. A lot is at stake.

[Cross-posted from Mount Virtus.]

[Update: On March 8, 2013, Johnston introduced SB 13-213, reported EdNews Colorado.]

Whatever the outcome, the suburban Colorado school board has taken the lead on major reforms in the way the district serves students and their parents; and in bypassing the unions to deal directly with teachers on pay and performance issues.

Nine days before the ruling, after a board meeting on Feb. 19, 2013, we asked Board President John Carson a series of questions, starting with the recent acclaim by SchoolDigger.com, which ranked the district among the top 10 Colorado school districts.

“…We’ve got outstanding teachers,” said Carson. “The administrators, the board, are working hard to make sure that the system is held accountable, that we reward great teachers and that we put the kids first. The focus here is basically put the interests of parents and kids first. They’re the consumers of the public education and we want to make it clear that their priorities are our priorities.”

Regarding the challenges of communicating the board’s reforms to the public…

“Certainly there are folks out there who I think are putting out a lot of inaccurate information, particularly the teachers union, which we no longer have a contract with. They chose not to work with us. And we’ve moved on as a district. We want to move forward and get on with the education of our kids and focus on the excellence of the school district.

“And so we’re communicating directly with teachers. We’re including teachers in the whole process of developing the pay-for-performance system, the evaluation system. We’re communicating with parents. We welcome parents asking questions, asking tough questions. And we want to make sure we get them accurate information.”

Regarding criticism from Brenda Smith, president of the Douglas County Federation of Teachers, about teacher pay, as cited by The Denver Post the day Carson was interviewed…

“We’ve been able, fortunately, to give the teachers in Douglas County a modest raise,” said Carson. “We’d like to do more. I think we’ll be able to do it again this year. So we’re very proud of the budgeting that our administrators, our leadership team has done, and we can…improve the benefits for teachers and improve the pay for teachers. I think the comments of the union are reflective that their interests really aren’t with teachers [but] with their own pocketbooks. What made them the most angry is that we stopped paying the salaries of union officers [who] didn’t even teach. And so, we’ve moved on. We work directly with teachers now. We don’t need an intermediary organization. Teachers are very much a part of the development and program in this district.”

On the outcome of legal battles over the Choice Scholarship Program (which seeks to allow an estimated $4,750 in per-pupil funding to follow up to 500 students to private schools, if they and their parents chose that option)…

“I’m always cautious in making predictions in how the judges will rule. Obviously, we feel we have a very strong case. We have an excellent legal team. We spent a lot of time putting the Choice Scholarship Program together in a way we believe is legal under Colorado law and constitutional. It’s patterned after programs that have been held up by the U.S. Constitution – and by the Colorado Supreme Court. So, ultimately, I’m very confident we’re going to prevail. And we’ll keep fighting for this program. I think it’s one of the most important education reform initiatives in the country right now. So, we’re going to keep fighting for it.”

On how Colorado stacks up to Indiana’s voucher program and what may come from Douglas County’s experience…

“Our hope is that when our program is upheld, and it’s demonstrated how popular and successful it is, that it will spread statewide and we’ll end up with leadership in this state that wants to give parents and kids throughout Colorado school choice, total school choice, to send their kids to the education that they choose, whether it’s charter schools, or traditional neighborhood schools, or home schooling, online schooling. Or the Choice Scholarship type of program, partnering with private schools. We think all of those should be available for parents and kids.”

On whether the voting public in Douglas County is aware of the stakes in the Board of Education election in November…

“Well, I do. We’ve had successive elections. And we’ve been very clear that we believe in school choice. We have a strong partnership with the charter schools. We’ve demonstrated fiscal responsibility. And the voters have re-elected the board members who believe in those things. And I’m very confident they’ll do so again in the fall.”

The video is above, including a sign stating, “Our Kids Deserve Better,” with a reference to www.DouglasCountyClassrooms.com.

Douglas County Classrooms is an ad hoc group organized by the Douglas County Federation, a chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the union that has been battling the school board.

“Mandy Sheets, a representative for the teachers union, told Clayton Woullard of the Denver Post in December that the Douglas County Classrooms group was created to oppose the school board’s reform efforts,” reported The Colorado Observer on Feb. 19.

Both the Douglas County Federation and Douglas County Classrooms advertise “Peaceful Gatherings” on their respective websites.

In addition to opposing the district’s school “choice scholarship” pilot program (which is tied up in the courts), the union objects to the Board not renewing the union’s collective bargaining agreement, which expired June 30.

In addition, EdNews Colorado reported on Feb. 15 that the union filed two lawsuits in Douglas County District Court: one involving downsized teachers with tenure who claim they were passed over for re-hire priority, and a second that challenged a new cost-saving disability/sick leave policy.

“A second complaint over the district’s decision in July to scrap a bank of 10,000 teacher sick days was lumped with it, resulting in one lawsuit,” reported EdNews.

The school board responded in a press release that it’s support for teachers included a 3 percent pay hike in 2012, reported OurColoradoNews.com.

“This is a union that has tried to flood the community with misinformation and political spin in an effort to tear down the excellent reputation of our schools and our teachers,” School Board President John Carson said in the release, the website reported.

Citing the Fitch reference to “conservative financial management” in the suburban Colorado school district, Carson went on to say…

“Just to give you an example of that. A few years ago, in response to taxpayers in the county who would come us to quite frequently and say, ‘Why do you have so many high level administrators. Why don’t you put more money into the classroom?’ Well, again, our team has done precisely that.

“In 2008, there were 71 central administrators in this school district. Today, there are 55. And I think that’s a tremendous reflection of the fact that the cuts are being made at the top so we can put more resources down into the classroom. We realize we have to be leaner. And we want to make sure…that we can achieve some savings in the upper levels of the bureaucracy.”

The board is scheduled to have another meeting this evening.

New Mexico Watchdog recently spotlighted state Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, D.-Las Cruces, and her legislation (House Bill 257) to end “social promotion” that allows third-graders who lack basic reading skills to advance to the fourth grade.

“The (teachers) unions are the ones pushing back on this,” the Democratic state representative and retired school teacher from Las Cruces told New Mexico Watchdog, “and I think they (Democrats) have a responsibility to take a close look at all the bills being proposed.”

In January, Forbes magazine profiled Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and its newly-minted speakers line-up of former state legislators, including three former legislators from Colorado: Terrance Carroll (former Speaker of the House), Peter Groff (former state Senate president) and Ron Tupa, once a state Senator.

One of the names on the DFER list, Gloria J. Romero, is a former California legislator and onetime union stalwart who is now all about education reform and is the California Director of DFER. Her path to school choice, recounted in media reports, is well worth noting.

In the video above, Romero pumped up the crowd at National School Choice Week’s Whistle Stop Tour in L.A.– the launch of a 14-stop cross-country train trek to rally for choice. (As we noted earlier, the second stop was in Albuquerque.)

“Si se puede, Si se puede! (Yes it can be done!),” she chanted, echoing the Obama campaign in 2008 and the United Farm Workers’ refrain before that. But in the above video from Jan. 25, 2013, the context is much different. Wearing a bright yellow scarf that symbolized National School Choice Week, here’s what the Golden State Democrat said in the Great Hall of L.A.’s Union Station…

“This week is about the future of American public education. Today we stand in Los Angeles ready to kickoff a 3,500-mile tour across the nation carrying the simple belief and proclamation that we, the parents, demand a revolution in public education and our voice is simply going to say, ‘Give us the right to choose.’ We’re going to choose with the [California] Parent Trigger Law so that parents can say, ‘If school officials won’t transform failing schools, then get out of the way, because we will!’ And in Compton and Adelanto, and here in Los Angeles now, parents are on the move signing petitions to say ‘we want quality schools for our children.’ …”

To Romero, ”education is a civil rights issue.” As The Wall Street Journal noted in an August 2012 interview, titled, Gloria Romero: The trials of a Democratic Reformer:

“If we don’t educate, we incarcerate, she said.”

Romero is pro-labor in her roots and a 12-year legislative veteran who served as Majority Leader from 2001 to 2008. She is the public school-educated daughter of a railroad worker and a one-time labor advocate, but is now challenging the powers-that-be in public education.

With a doctorate in psychology from California State University, Long Beach, she became a professor at Cal State, Los Angeles–entering politics to advance her ideals in civil rights and social justice, noted the WSJ.  First elected to the state assembly in 1998, she later earned a Senate seat by winning the East Los Angeles district held previously by state Sen. Hilda Solis, who was elected to Congress in 2000 and subsequently served as U.S. Secretary of Labor.

As Majority Leader and then as chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, she took on the public unions in an effort to reform California’s burgeoning prisons and troubled schools. In 2010, her last year in the Senate (due to term limits), she wrote the nation’s first parent trigger law, which she described in a San Diego Union-Tribune OP-ED as:

“[F]or the first time in the history of California, we gave parents the responsibility for their children’s education. We gave parents real power, allowing them to petition to close or drastically revamp a badly failing school.”

Romero is candid about the obstacles to reform–the California Teachers Association (CTA), she told the WSJ,  has amassed inordinate power—killing or co-opting practically every reform bill or initiative in Sacramento.

“Ms. Romero believes the only way to bring down the public union…and they “must be brought down” is to go after “what feeds the beast.” In other words: payroll deductions.”

Last year, with former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan, a former state Education Secretary, and a retired state Supreme Court justice, she spearheaded Proposition 32 – a paycheck protection initiative—that would have barred unions and corporations from withholding money from worker paychecks to finance political activities.  The measure failed by a margin of 57 to 43 percent.

Romero personifies that reform is not owned by a political party. She is considered a liberal and her legislative record proves it—scoring an 89 out of a possible 100 progressive points in 2009 by one estimate.  As a Latina from a border state, she is emerging as a bilingual voice for school choice among Hispanics seeking economic mobility:

“There are families and parents and children across the nation that are waiting to get the baton that we will pass to them today. All I can say is whether they’re charter schools, or open enrollment policies … or parent trigger laws or special opportunity scholarships. However we look at choice, the most important thing is remembering that parents should be the educational architect of our children’s future. And when we can do that, we can deliver a better American Dream for all our children.”

[Cross-posted from Who Said / New Mexico.]

]]> http://whosaidyousaid.com/video/school-choice-and-reform-not-owned-by-a-political-party/feed/ 0 http://whosaidyousaid.com/video/carson-dougco-economic-growth-to-lead-to-a-lot-more-students/ http://whosaidyousaid.com/video/carson-dougco-economic-growth-to-lead-to-a-lot-more-students/#comments Sat, 09 Feb 2013 04:12:28 +0000 WhoSaidYouSaid http://whosaidyousaid.com/?post_type=video&p=20214 John Carson, president of the Douglas County Board of Education, discussed job growth and the potential effect on school enrollment, as well as observations from the recent AA+ Fitch rating of district bonds, at the board meeting Feb. 5, 2013.

“I was quite pleased to read in the newspaper yesterday that the good news keeps growing for Douglas County,” said Carson, referring to an article on OurColoradoNews.com, titled, “Efficiency spurs economic growth. “As the school district here, we’re going to have to prepare for this, because we’re going to have a lot more students. People are coming here because of the high quality of the teaching, the schools…”

The article cited some 4,000 jobs announced in the past six months, including Visa, Redwood Trust, Charles Schwab in 2013, and Dish Network, Hitachi and Children’s Hospital in 2012.

Other articles cited in his remarks….

Money’s list of American’s best small cities, 2012.

Fitch Rates Douglas Co. School District RE1, CO’s GOs ‘AA+’; Outlook Stable, Jan. 27, 2013

[updated 2/9/13]

]]> http://whosaidyousaid.com/video/carson-dougco-economic-growth-to-lead-to-a-lot-more-students/feed/ 0