Our View - Thursday

Rotten apples

Statehouse gets failing grade on education reform

Here’s an interesting tidbit we culled from a recent news story. Six of eight Democrats on the House Education Committee are members of a teacher’s union. Whether or not that constitutes a conflict of interest, it certainly explains why most of the education-related action in the soon-to-wrap session has been focused on turning back educational advances in Colorado, rather than moving the state forward. It explains, as well, why bills aimed at strengthening standards and English proficiency died in that committee.

Unions are the single biggest stumbling block to educational innovation, higher standards and parental choice in the country. And they rule the roost with Democrats in charge in the Statehouse and governor's mansion. Doubters need only look at what happened this session.

All attempts to strengthen public school curriculums were turned back — though Democrats did manage to impose new sex education standards on school districts that are supposed to enjoy “local control.” A promising performance pay bill was derailed. The push for an education-related tax hike succeeded, though K-12 schools already are guaranteed automatic funding increases thanks to Amendment 23. And efforts to de-fund charter schools and negate the power of the state’s Charter School Institute were launched. Other than that, most of the vaunted school “reforms” Gov. Bill Ritter and Democrats promised haven’t materialized — but perhaps that’s a blessing, given that their definition of reform seems to be moving the state backward on education.

“Gov. Bill Ritter listed educational improvements as his first priority in his Colorado Promise campaign book, but near the end of his first session in office, little has changed in the way students will learn next year,” The Gazette reported Sunday. “Though the Democratic governor’s plan to increase school funding by $50 million is making its way through the Legislature, bills to require greater student proficiency in math, science and English were rejected.”

Ritter and Democrats promise that the big changes will come next year, after a special education task force — whose members haven’t yet been named! — studies the issue. What a cop out.

House Education Committee member Victor Mitchell, a Republican from Teller County, told The Gazette that Democrats have focused on only three things this session — “less choice, less accountability, more money” — while nothing has been done to address high drop-out rates, a yawning performance gap and the fact that nearly half the freshman at state colleges need remedial classes.

Attempts to strengthen math and science standards and ensure English proficiency died in the House Education Committee, which Rep. Michael Merrifield chaired until an e-mail was made public in which he demonized supporters of school choice. “Merrifield said the ideas were too narrowly focused and would lead to increased dropout rates or take away other student options, such as art and music classes,” reported The Gazette. There you have the unionista mindset in a nutshell.

“To me, math, science and English are more at the core of the educational mission than sex-ed,” Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Golden, said. “I have to question whether we went forward or backwards in this session. I think we went backwards.”

We think so, too. If anything’s been too narrowly focused this session, it’s Merrifield and other union flunkies, who seem more interested in defending the status quo than in moving public schools into the 21st century.

To tell the truth

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, the former U.S. senator from North Carolina, committed the common Democratic faux pas at the California Democratic Convention in San Diego last weekend. He decided to be forthright and call not just for the repeal of the “Bush tax cuts,” but for considering a general and large tax increase, on — who else? — the wealthy and corporations.

“It’s just the truth,” Edwards said. “It’s the only way to fund the things that need to be done.” And one of the “things” Edwards wants is a universal health care plan that could cost, by initial estimates, up to $120 billion a year.

We appreciate candor from any politician. But honesty in defense of bad policy is no virtue. It’s also likely to backfire. Other Democrats who have tried the “straight-talking, tax-raising” approach include Democratic California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, who was walloped by Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, and Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale, who never got traction in his run against Ronald Reagan in 1984. Republican George H.W. Bush lost re-election in 1992 after breaking his “no new taxes” pledge.

Democrats want to increase government spending on health care, education, child care and, well, you name it. And they might as well be honest about how they intend to pay for it. Still, raising taxes is wrong because it reduces individual freedom and hampers the economy by shifting money from the productive to the unproductive. Corporate tax increases are only passed on to consumers.

The problem isn’t, as Edwards suggests, that the federal government — which has nearly a $3 trillion annual budget — doesn’t have enough money. The problem is that the government spends too much on too many things government shouldn’t be doing. If we could confine it to doing the bare basics, as the founders intended, tax rates might be low enough that more Americans could afford healthcare coverage.

We’re still waiting for the politician willing to tell the whole truth: That the federal government is far too big, too intrusive, too wasteful and too costly. That would be forthrightness worth celebrating.