Colorado voters to weigh in on school choice

DENVER (KDVR) — Should the right to school choice be enshrined in the Colorado Constitution? It is a question voters will have a chance to decide, and not everyone is happy about that.

Some parents and teachers are concerned that the question could go too far.

“I urge you as strongly as I possibly can to vote no on Amendment 80,” Kevin Vick, president of the Colorado Education Association, told a crowd of opponents of Amendment 80.

Teachers and parents from across the state gathered to rally Friday against the ballot initiative looking to add the right to school choice into the Colorado Constitution.

Opponents fear if passed, the initiative could open the door to private school and charter school families getting access to dollars for public schools.

“The public schools are struggling with funding as it is. This potentially opens the door to siphoning off funding to private schools that most of the money would go to people that are already paying the tuition at private schools anyway. So people are really worried,” Vick said.

To be clear, there is no language in this year’s ballot measure that mentions school funding. But opponents worry Colorado could end up with issues seen in states like Arizona and Ohio, where vouchers became available for families regardless of income levels.

“We’ve seen what happens in other states when these deceptive, destructive voucher schemes pass. They hurt our public schools, taking away resources from the schools that serve the vast majority of kids in our states. They destroy state budgets, costs balloon,” said Noel Candelaria, secretary and treasurer of the National Education Association.

Although families already have the right to school choice in Colorado, supporters of the initiative insist this measure is about protecting that right from any future legislative efforts that could threaten it.

“Colorado would actually be the first state in the nation to allow voters to put the right to school choice in our state constitution. It’s a right that we already have in statute,” said Kristi Burton Brown, executive vice president of Advance Colorado, a think tank backing the measure. “And right now in Colorado, if you want to send your kids to a neighborhood school, charter school, private school, home school, across district lines to pick a better school, you have the right to do that. What this amendment would do is put it in the constitution so that legislators in the future can’t attack our rights and take them away.”

Efforts were presented this past legislative session to increase accountability and transparency around charter school operation and funding in the state, but it failed to become law.

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