Education

By William Moloney

By Steve Schuck

This column introduced the topic of school choice in America for the March 2010 issue of A Line of Sight. This month, the focus will be on two school choice programs with proven success to illustrate the positive impact of school choice on educating our children.

Education is one of the most fundamental and important institutions in any society. Given the immensity of education’s role in molding future leaders, education should be controlled at the local level where parents and the community are familiar with important local issues and who are invested in the outcome of education. The federal government should have a limited role in allocating tax dollars for education. But as the Department of Education has grown, its control over education funding has increased as well.

There is a consensus that the desperate plight of Higher Education finances in Colorado calls not for tinkering around the edges but a radical re-examination of basic premises. The traditional solution of “Give Them More Money” is simply not an option given the perilous condition of the state and national economy.

Amendment 23 has become synonymous with K-12 education spending in Colorado, which now tops out at $5.7 billion a year and represents 43 percent of the State’s general fund budget. As the State continues to struggle with significant budget decisions and revenue shortfalls, legislative leaders are finally forced to deal with Amendment 23’s spending mandates.

College students sometimes do dumb things. I never did, but I’m told that others may have. However, sometimes the administrators at a college exhibit more idiocy than the students. Such is the case at Yale University.

The America’s Promise Alliance released a report last week, Cities in Crisis, an Analytic Report on High School Graduation. Studies cited in this report indicate that on average only 7 out of 10 students in the USA are successfully finishing high school. In Colorado, the statistics for 2007 graduates, those who started 9th grade and finished with a diploma in 12th grade, was 75% or 7.5 out of 10, which is slightly higher than the national average. One must wonder if the $6,660.00 spent per pupil annually (almost $90,000.00 over the course of a K-12 education!) is a wise investment.