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June 29, 2010 03:12 AM UTC

There is a clear choice on Education in the CO Senate Primary

  • 37 Comments
  • by: wade norris

The 2010 Colorado Democratic Senate Primary signifies two different directions in Education in our Country – between a business person’s view of education vs an educator’s view of education.

Our choices include Michael Bennet and challenger Andrew Romanoff.

Michael Bennet is the incumbent appointed Senator who was also appointed to be Superintendent of Denver Public Schools.  Bennet was appointed to Superintendent because of his financial experience in business as a corporate manager for billionaire Phillip Anschutz.

Andrew Romanoff is the former Speaker of the House. He also worked as an educator in the State of Colorado as well as teaching in rural schools in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Speaker Romanoff’s website mentions that he formed a coalition to pass the Building Excellent Schools Today or BEST Act, which provided the largest investment in Schools in Colorado history, while Michael Bennet states he gave Denver teachers the largest pay raise in Colorado history.

Let’s have a closer look at each candidate’s claims and philosophy on education.

First, about Speaker Romanoff’s accomplishments from the Colorado House Democrats weblog:


B.E.S.T. Plan Provides up to $1 Billion for School Construction

(DENVER) State Treasurer Cary Kennedy, Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff, Senate President-elect Peter Groff, and State Senator Gail Schwartz announced an ambitious plan today to provide up to one billion dollars towards fixing and replacing K-12 schools across Colorado.

“Every child deserves a safe, healthy place to go to school,” said Romanoff.  He said that the inequalities he saw while touring were striking. “It’s tough to learn when the roof is caving in or your desk is falling through the floor.  The quality of your education shouldn’t depend on your zip code.

Now for Mr. Bennet’s statement that he provided Denver Teachers with the largest pay increase in State history:


Bennet says ProComp fails to provide teachers with enough money early in their careers, incentives are too small, compensation is back-ended in favor of veteran teachers and too much tax money is being banked every year in the ProComp trust.

The ProComp V2 plan offers richer bonuses to more teachers, resulting in “the largest pay increase in the history of Denver Public Schools,” Bennet said.

Starting-teacher salaries in the plan would rise from $35,500 to an average of $42,413 for a person with a bachelor’s degree. The DPS figure includes incentives, each of which would grow to $2,900 from $1,067 a year.

Was this true? Ask the Teachers:

(question) (ME) As Superintendent, Michael Bennet stated on camera that Denver Teachers had just received a pay raise – was it a raise?

MS.UNDERWOOD-VERDEAL “Technically that is one way to talk about compensation, but that is certainly not the way we live, because I won’t be able to use my retirement to go the grocery store now.

It was not a raise teachers realized on their paychecks.”

So it was not true?

“No, it was not true, in the practical sense.“

Bennet was hired as Superintendent for his financial expertise. It has now been revealed that Superintendent Bennet convinced the Denver Public School Board to invest their retirement funds into a Derivative Swap with JP Morgan – the same type of swap that are now coming under scrutiny by the Senate and House banking bill.

A call for transparency on a financial deal done by then Denver Public School Superintendent Michael Bennet has roiled political waters. School Board members, including Cherry Creek-area school board member Jeannie Kaplan, have asked for an accounting of a deal centered upon a “synthetic” interest rate swap, which has cost DPS millions. The deal, which involved mortgaging schools for an yet unrealized interest savings, has given Wall Street banks and shadowy Belgian firm Dexia (NASDAQ:DEXB) millions in taxpayer dollars. Dexia, a player in the Madoff scandal, was insolvent last year, and had to be bailed out, partially by American taxpayers…

DPS appears to already have been in a position to lose money.  In fact, in its very first month, taxpayers lost $1.5 million alone, excluding fees. The deal, which is keyed to the interest rate banks charge one another, is pegged far outside of the long-term rate average, almost guaranteeing that DPS would lose money. DEAN (Denver Education Advocacy Network) has estimated the deal has lost $51 million to date, although no actual accounting has been provided to the public or school board members. Recent testimony at the statehouse on the state pension fund concluded that the deal was $78 million underwater, and created risk for the state.

This was one of many teachers I spoke to who was willing to speak about the changes she saw in the way school was administered under Superintendent Michael.



“When he (Arne Duncan ) came to town with Michael Bennet, he called us

‘dead wood’ – he said that they needed to ‘clean house’ – they don’t want career teachers… and it is not just about a Union issue –

(me – They are trying to save money?)

“That’s just it, I don’t make that much money, I really don’t”

(Patty Corsentino was a biology Teacher for 26 years who was forced out –  step by step as part of clearing the ‘dead wood’)

This is driving out Career Educators – leaving short term and younger teachers in their place. From my experience, it was the older veteran teachers who had learned the best methods for education and taught me the most.

Andrew Romanoff speaks to this new kind of business model approach to education.



Schools are not factories and students are not widgets. The silver bullet approach – the suggestion that we should transform education by charter-izing or voucher-izing or privatizing it – that approach is doomed to fail. The real work is hard and tedious and often expensive.

But it is worth it. What keeps most teachers up at night spending their spare time and spare change is the challenge of reaching a student who might otherwise be lost.

“The joy of awakening a mind to a new idea that what drove these talented men and women to teach in the first place. But we will continue to lose effective teachers if we demonize and demoralize them – if we saddle them with the blame for society’s shortcomings and strip them of the resources they need to succeed.”

For voters interested in education there are two choices:

On the one hand you have a business man – Michael Bennet – whose philosophy on education comes from being a business person – and whose investment strategies are now costing the Denver Teacher’s retirement pension millions of dollars.

And on the other hand you have an educator – Andrew Romanoff – whose philosophy on education comes from being an educator and whose  leadership in the State House was demonstrated in his procurement of 1 billion dollars in investments in Schools in Colorado.

For voters of Colorado, on Education, it is a clear choice.

More importantly, for our Education policy, having an actual educator in the Senate is just plain common sense.

Support Andrew Romanoff.

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37 thoughts on “There is a clear choice on Education in the CO Senate Primary”

  1. I get the feeling this is just the tip of what people are going to find.

    You don’t spend years as a corporate raider for Anschutz without destroying a few lives.  So now it’s coming out that Bennet screwed teachers.  I guess that’s what he means by being an education champion.

      1. Bennet would get destroyed in the general if Democrats pick him.

        I mean this is pretty damning, and it’s nothing compared to what the Republicans will dig up.

          3. If Bennet has lost StrykerK2 and Wade Norris, he’s now able to appeal to a mere 99.89 percent of the Democratic party.  He’s reeling!

            1. teachers at this rally are not real?

              So, Voyageur, in your opinion, Teachers for Romanoff, many made up of former employees under Superintendent Bennet,

              do not count as part of the Democratic party?

              Guess you think of Teacher’s the same way Bennet and Duncan do-

              ‘dead wood’

              nice to know they have a choice this August

              1. than the one who taught you to write

                Guess you think of Teacher’s the same way Bennet and Duncan

                   Don’t capitalize

                teachers

                unless it happens to start a sentence:

                 

                Teachers are much more independent than Romanoff shills believe they are.

                  But  

                Most teachers will analyze issues on their own and reject efforts of political bosses to package their votes.

                  Finally, the use of an apostrophe and an s after a singular noun does not make it plural.    

                 

                My teacher’s preference in the Senate race is Michael Bennet.

                  Or

                The teachers’ vote will be divided in the primary, with most voting for Michael Bennet.

                   Good grief!  Don’t they teach you anything in shill school?

                  1. “I never called my opponent corrupt”

                    No he didn’t. He just suggested that he sold his vote for $2400.00

                    I suppose that it depends on what the definition of “IS” is.

                    1. look — you can disagree with the guy, but he’s hardly a shill.  Look around at where else he blogs and what he does.  He’s an environmental and education activist who happens to be a Romanoff supporter.  

                      He’s on a Colorado political site, so he makes the environmental and educational issues relevent to Colorado politics.  That’s what this site is about, in theory.

                    2. If the sun rises in the East, Wade finds that fact to be proof that Michael Bennet is a captive of the special interests.

                      Sorry, but evewrything he writes is filtered through the single lens of rahrahRomanoff/booBennet

                        If that ain’t the definition of a shill, what is?

                    3. but Bennet has voted consistently against my interests on the environment.

                      If I were a shill, i would have to make up stuff about Bennet, but since all i do is cut and paste his votes and video record real people who worked under him,

                      it is quite easy to see why he is the less preferable candidate.

                      I don’t have to look far on environmental websites to see the Democrats that have betrayed us. For example…

                      Bennet signed  a letter for more Natural Gas subsidies when people in Colorado already have flammable tap water from unsafe natural gas drilling. Bennet also signed a letter letter that would exempt coal pollution for Utility companies in any Climate legislation coming out of the Senate. And even in this time of Environmental disaster, Bennet joined with Republicans to vote against Bernie Sanders amendment to end a 35 Billion dollar loophole for Oil and Gas industries which would have funded expanding energy efficiency programs and provided new clean energy jobs.

                      If you want me to seem less like a shill why don’t you call Bennet and tell him to stop siding with Oil, Gas and Coal over renewable energy.

                      It would be a lot harder for me to attack him if he wasn’t doing so.

                    4. If I were a shill, i would have to make up stuff about Bennet,

                        Well, show me a few of the hundreds of things you’ve written attacking Romanoff for falling short of perfection.

                         OK, one thing.

                         Oh, there are none.  

                         You’re a shill and everybody knows it.

                      Why pretend to be an independent voice?

                         

    2. and came back to find the same Romanoff bloggers saying the same things they have said every day for 9 months.

      How about an honest look at both candidates to improve your credibility?  Sure, Romanoff is great on education, but failed on immigration. Bennet has made a few bad votes, but has hundreds of awesome ones. Neither is a monster, and neither is a superhero. They are both great men, and either would be a thousand times better than Norton/Buck/tea partiers.

      Seriously — you guys should turn off your computers and take a break. July is beautiful in CO.

    1. candidates pull out big new endorsements at the end of the quarter as a fundraising push to look impressive.  Apparently Romer was Bennet’s (though I’m guessing most people knew he was supporting anyway).

      Bennet pulled out Romer.  Romanoff pulled out President Clinton.  hmm…I think someone over at camp Bennet feels sad :'(

      1. Yeah, the Big Dog helps AR, but not that much.  Obama made a fund-raising trip out here and got thousands of Ds to give Bennet $25.

        That not only gave a load of cash to Bennet, it gave a list of supporters that he could follow up on — and is a big reason why he will either reach his goal of 20,000 contributors or come damn close by the end of the day.  (He was 19,261 when I checked in earlier today.)

          Clinton has made it he won’t campaign for AR.  Hey, it helps and you go with what you got.   But forget this quarter — I’ll take a fund-raising visit by a sitting president over a nice letter to an old supporter from an ex president any day.  

          In the end, I don’t think either Clinton or Obama’s endorsement, by itself, means much to Colorado’s famously independent Democrats.  But the money Obama raised for Bennet — and the list of contributors that resulted from that visit — are enduring contributions to Bennet’s campaign.

        1.  is that he not only  ran LA schools but also ran the DNC during Clinton’s Presidency for a good percentage of the time.

          His position carries weight in these parts.

          1. What’s amazing to me is how just because someone holds a certain job, they’re all of a sudden successful.  I mean, really:

            Villaraigosa said 64,000 freshmen entered LAUSD high schools in 2001, but only 29,000 graduated in 2005.

            “That means 35,000 students were missing in action,” he said. “That’s the size of the entire population of Manhattan Beach, or bigger than the city of San Fernando or Monterey.”

            http://cbs2.com/local/LAUSD.Ro…

            I will give the Gov some ups, though.  At least he fought against mayoral control of schools, which is something Bennet supports, a la Chicago Public Schools.  So much for taxation without representation, I guess.

        2. You spoke of “Colorado’s famously independent Democrats.”

          And I don’t think Colorado’s famously independent Dems have enjoyed getting railroaded into choosing Obama’s pet project M. Bennet.

    2. Ray since you seem to be all knowing when it comes to Bennet, maybe you can answer a few questions: How much did Roy Romer’s son Chris make off of the DPS bond deal when he was at JP Morgan? Not just the millions in fees on the original deal but on all of the ongoing bond sale and auction fees? What was Chris Romer’s role in that bond deal and what was his role in the New Mexico bond deal that cost Bill Richardson a cabinet seat? While we’re at it, what role did Chris play in the DPS PERA merger and did he tell PERA that if they didn’t go along with the terms he wanted Bennet/Boasberg to get, that they could forget ever having a Democratic support in the state senate?

      On your repeated claims that Bennet did a great job at DPS, maybe you can tell all of us what happened to graduation and dropout rates while he was there? How many public schools did he close and what was the percentage of minority or at risk students at each of those? While he closed those how many charter schools did he back opening? What is his relationship with KIPP and DFER and what is their collective mission or goals?

  3. just because a narciccistic smooth talker that’s addicted to adulation says he’s sorry that he gets folks deported for having taillights out, you back him right up. I believe they call it the Stockholm syndrome.

    I’d be surprised if you win a 2nd term. You’ve let your displaced anger at Bennet cloud your judgment.

    The fact that you support deporting people disgusts, though. You favor corporations over people.

      1. Considering it’s a public figure trying to smear another one anonymously to settle scores. Everyone knows who it is. If she wants to say something, she should have the guts to say it, and face the consequences that will come.

        1. about the rules here.


          “First off, it is your right to post anonymously at Colorado Pols.”

          Ray has no right to try to identify or out someone.

          For that matter, since you are also engaging in the same type of out-ting behavior I am emailing your name as well.

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