President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
August 11, 2006 09:50 PM UTC
20 Comments
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the Republican candidate there – Bob Gardner – help coordinat the campaigns for Eric, et al. and their actions after election and has to live with his support of someone who has basically trashed his school board. (Eric has publicly advocated that all public schools should be abolished). With D-12 (Cheyenne Mountain), D-14 (Manitou) and D-20 (Air Academy) all in HD-21 and very supported by their residents, the D-11 recall focuses attention on the anti-public school sentiments of the Republican candidate. (yes, for disclosure, I have participated in the campaign of the Democrat in HD-21 – a true moderate).
isn’t ur wife running against Gardner in HD 21?
With the slant your diary takes, it looks like the Christian Coalition has provided you your talking points–that, or the school unions, neither of which are known for credibility these days.
With the inability to procure valid signatures from D-11 residents, in the final weeks anyone who looked of age and could hold a pen was asked to sign on the hope of getting lucky and having qualified signatures. All pretense of trying to prescreen and eliminate invaild signatures was waived. This shotgun approach makes about as much sense as your scatterbrained rambling.
that your response had exactly zero response to any of the facts laid out and was solely intended to connect me with two groups that I have had no contact with. If you would like to fact check my comment and respond to any inaccuracies that would be fine. Responding with “Nannie, nannie, boo boo” seems to do little to advance the discussion. BTW, I got my call from the RNC asking me if I would accept my nomination as “2006 Republican of the Year” – did you?
I think there’s a policy on this board against spreading unsupported accusations. You are accusing up to 500+ people of perjury, so I’d suggest you provide evidence.
As one of the more than 500 volunteers in the effort, I collected about 100 signatures each in the last two weeks of the effort. I certainly never got any instructions to take signatures from someone who is not a registered voter in the district. Maybe I forgot to attend that secret meeting? Perhaps I just got lost on my way to your imagination, which is where these instructions were given.
I’d guess the signature numbers jumped at the end for normal, expected reasons. Since the effort was nearly all volunteer, there were a lot of circulators who just kept their petitions and turned them in at the end, rather than going to all of the weekly meetings.
you in? Are you helping any of the campaigns down there?
I’m in HD-18 and SD-11. I’m volunteering for John Morse in his senate race. I’m lukewarm about the house race, but I’ll vote for Merrifield because, basically, a vote for Kyle Fisk is a vote for James Dobson and Ted Haggard. I went to one Merrifield campaign event, but that’s about it.
It was a shame that the rest of the reformers did not win in the last election. Christen is defiantly a hothead, but D-11 needs some drastic change. The teachers union has been running this district into the ground for decades and they are wasting my money on a shoddy education. I am in favor of public education, but our current system is utterly ridiculous. Think about this, if you drive down Powers, you see tons of contractors who run all the high tech national security systems at Peterson and Schriever (including GPS). The government hires them because private companies can be more effective and efficient than a bureaucracy. If we can find competent companies to build fighter jets, submarines, and space vehicles, how come we are scared that no one other than government bureaucrats can run elementary school? But in D-11, they are continually fighting for more NEA and government intervention and less private sector interaction. Can anyone explain this to me?
Help for D-11? Get rid of Rep. Merrifield, chair of the state Education Committee. Okay, okay – it’s not a silver bullet. But it’s a step in the right direction.
what has Mike done? I was more disappointed when the El Paso County delegation spent his first two years voting down every bill he introduced and then reintroducing some of them with a Republican sponsor. Heck, he cosponsored bills with Keith King this year and I would not have called them closest of friends. Mike can be more abrasive than I prefer but I was looking for some specifics to hang my hat on.
Robert, here’s just part of where the correlation between private enterprise and public education fails:
(1) How does the ability of private contractors to “build fighter jets, submarines, and space vehicles” correlate to the ability to educate children?
(2) Do we not realize that a jet engine has never refused, of its own free will, to work on any given day? Do we have to be worried about submarines arriving for work hungry, or abused by its parents?
(3) Are we suggesting that defense contractors never waste money? That there’s no feather-bedding, etc etc within the defense sector? Private enterprises are interested in creating the largest possible profits for its shareholders, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But is that what we want for our schools? Ask the parents of the Edison charters, or the charters run by White Hat (Life Skills)how they feel about the education their children are receiving from private enterprise.
As for the other post, about the recall campaign grabbing any signature they could, that’s just simply untrue — but it is symptomatic of the level of discourse from the far right-wingers who can’t believe that 20,000 people (minimum) in D-11 object to what Christen stands for.
At no time during the 60 day period were petitioners encouraged to gather just any old signature; in fact, just the opposite was true. It serves the recall campaign no good to turn in obviously bogus signatures, because the County Clerk would surely reject them, and then what purpose would be served? No, the people who got out there the last two weeks busted their butts to make something positive happen, and they wouldn’t have wasted their time to do otherwise.
2 out of every 3 start ups fail. What do we do for kids if their education provider fails or embezells? Also, I assume we get NCLB accountability from private firms – yes? Also, I assume private education firms MUST accept special ed students – and meet the ADA requirements – for voucher dollars. Finally, a voucher school that suspends or rejects a student for any reason must have a hearing process and, if the suspension or expulsion was economically driven, then pay for the alternative costs while keeping the voucher money, right? You see where this heads?
Finally, I was intimately involved in the energy deregulation process in the US. Prices were to go down and service was to improve, right? Tell that to the XCel customers. Deregulation can cause prices to go UP in markets that are MUST have (can you say California?). Do you argue education is not a MUST have in the current world?
1. My suggestion that if private contractors are capable of learning how to produce the most complicated mechanisms in the world, then potentially a private contractor could learn how to run a 1st grade classroom. You are right, they are not similar, but if profit driven entities can figure out an increadibly complicated system, other profit driven individuals can probably figure out how to teach math and reading. It’s not much of a stretch.
2. Not sure what your point was here.
3. Are you suggesting that the government is MORE efficient than the private sector??? I am not saying that private industry is perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than the government. Aside from utilities and natural monopolies, I can not think of anything the government has run that is more efficient than the private sector. I pay a ton of taxes and I wish that my money were put to good use.
Regarding the other post, yes a lot of start ups fail, often because they are engaging in new markets that are complex beyond the capabilities of the entrepreneur. But how is the federal government doing compared to that? Our university system is considered the best in the world, and it is driven by free market competition. Our primary schools are considered some of the worst in the industrialized world… you get my point.
You are correct to be concerned about the risks of profit driven individuals in education, but you do not understand the true potential compared to the disaster of federal education today. If a competitive system were to arise (and yes the government should regulate it for quality and accountability standards), we could save billions of dollars and educate our kids to much higher level at the same time. It’s kind of like having your cake and eating it too.
and I can tell you I LOATHE the idea of designing a market structure that will encourage efficient, cost effective universal education. Three reasons –
one, all the complex examples you point out are for concrete, testable products (testeable PRIOR to delivery) – it is very easy to write a specification set and get them tested; this can’t be done for education. Especially because someone can “blame” the student performance on that date or falsify the tests by cheating – already cases of that in public schools, in a private, self-managed school even easier;
two, the cost of setting up schools is high, vreating barriers to entry that allow capital, rather than ideas, to diminate the market place; the concept of outsourcing government functions is premised on a high number of competing sellers to ensure they play fair (everyone seems to premise the government buyers are outmatched by the private sellers), that requires low barriers to entry to prevent problems (that failure is part of what happened in the energy market) – I fear that will not be the case in education;
three, schools CANNOT overcome poverty, parental abuse, physical handicaps – external factors that will not go away with privatization – if, as you expect, the costs drop by “efficicency” gains (which, in private business, also means dropping out the extraneous items) where will what is essential a social services function be delivered – the schools won’t and I believe Americans will not allow children to be discarded. What I envision is schools handling a portion of the student body and the “untouchables” being handled in public schools at a SIGNIFICANTLY higher cost than today. Or are you saying we just throw the unwanteds on the trash heap? About 20% of some school district budgets are for special ed – even in cases where the students only represent 5% of the budget. What this really means (if you take a $6,000 per child average cost) is that you are spending about $5,050 per non-special ed kid and $24,000 per special ed kid. What private firm will accept a special ed kid for a voucher – so do we lower “non-special” vouchers to $5,000 and “special”vouchers to $24,000? Now, every private educator will be working as hard as they can to get all their kids “special qualified”.
You see the point – I hear all these “private will be better” and my expectation is that costs will EASILY double by the time we are done. Design for me a system where the private market GUARANTEES me better education at lower cost for ALL students with a backup that if they fail the public schools are reinstituted with no cost to the taxpayer and I’ll buy in. Ain’t going to happen – already bought that once in power and natural gas, fool me once shame on me, fool me twice ain’t going to happen.
“I design free markets for a living,” I am not sure what that means. I am thoroughly familiar with economics, and I can tell you that free markets are not “designed,” they are allowed. Read about the invisible hand and that will explain more. The entire premise of Adam Smith thoughts on free markets was that markets should be allowed to function with little to no government interference (excluding the instances of the tragedy of the commons). The only way to “design” a free market is to make sure that nothing in the market is designed. You have thoroughly confused me about what you could possible mean.
Now about your other points. The government also contracts out the training of many of its employees. From pilots to accountants, just about any area of government relies on private contractors for instruction. I consider this less difficult than building fighters though so I did not include it in my previous post.
You are right that barriers to entry can be somewhat high, but that does not mean that private contractors can not run education more efficiently. If the government provided the building, it would be quite reasonable for a contractor to provide the education services. Even without this, the private sector could probably accommodate. Sky scrapers are being built by investors, why not one story school houses?
Regarding your statement about special needs kids, of course the private sector can deal with them. Today, we spend more money per pupil in the public education, I would expect the same in a privatized system. The government would simply issue a larger voucher for children who require special treatment. More money means private schools would be more willing to help. It’s just common sense.
Finally, you state that the costs would double under a private system. Check out the cost of some of the private schools in the state and see what you find. You will discover that private education systems are less expensive than government, not more. The cost per pupil is, in marginal terms, over $7000 per year. This does not include the amortized cost of capital which can drive the true cost per student to over $15,000 per year. Do some quick math and you will see why privatizing makes sense. Take just the marginal cost of $7000 per year and multiply it by a class of 25 students. That gives you $175,000 per year for an average class. Teachers make loaded rates of around $60,000, leaving $115,000 for all other expenses (not including infrastructure). You sound smart enough to figure out a way to run this operation for less than $100K and have some profit. When I look at that, I see potential to improve, don’t you?
do you really believe all markets are “free”? Look at SEC regulation, et al. The electricity markets throughout the world are not Adam Smith markets because Enron proved that gaming the customer caused massive fraud – or do you believe consumer protection laws should be scrapped? If so, then I also assume you feel “caveat emptor” should rule if someone sells you poison instead of mouthwash, right?
Yes, the government contracts out for training and I have seen as much fraud in training programs as I have seen in anything else. Kids are LESS likely to know when a class is crap than an adult is.
You suggest the government could provide the building – sounds like you are now going to charter schools, not vouchers. Actually, I like charter schools – more options, more integration, less fraud. Otherwise, how do you decide who gets the opportunity for access to government buildings? Also, I assume you will not let the private entity make money on the fact that the school is financed with taxpayer money, right? More regulation needed there – I assume then that the taxpayers get audit rights on the company books, yes? Skyscrapers are built by investors – many have gone bankrupt – do the taxpayers bail out bad investors in public schools? If not, who takes care of the kids – back to an earlier point?
Bigger vouchers mean an incentive for schools to reclassify kids. I assume you will create a government agency to check the validations, right? otherwise, how do you keep the private schools from inflating the costs? Also, your premise is that costs of public schools are lower – the idea of higher cost special needs vouchers just chewed up a lot of those savings. Care to quantify what private schools would charge for this and come back with the savings?
Let’s take your case – the teacher makes $60K. Where are the support staff – the cafeteria, the phys ed, the music teacher, school nurse, secretary, janitor – or are we cutting out all of that? Also, in a district like Pueblo over 20% of the costs are for transport (buses). Are all students going to be responsible for their own transport. Also, lets add utilities at 10% of costs. Let’s say – as many of our smaller schools go, we have 125 kids in the school. First of all, our schools are more like a 20/1 student teacher ratio. So we have $140,000. That leaves $80,000 per class. or $400,000 total.
I figure you are now at an additional $300,000 just for the additional costs of transport (annual cost of running a bus 60 mile per day at $0.75 per mile equals $8,100 per bus or $32,000 for 125 kids alone) Do you really feel the adminstration costs outside of what I laid our are less than $100,000 – not any comany know of. Don’t see how you get there. Seems like you want to have it grow on trees – still say your numbers are massively LOW.
Am I saying there aren’t any systems that could be improved – no. Am I suggesting that a blanket “they’re all broken throw them out” is a crock, yup. Do I believe the drumbeat of vouchers for every school district has, to me, a background noise of businesses wanting to feed at the public trough resounding in my ears – yup.
I figure you are now at an additional $300,000 of operating costs. Look just for the additional costs of transport (annual cost of running a bus 60 mile per day at $0.75 per mile equals $8,100 per bus or $32,000 for 125 kids alone)
in many districts the Board of Ed is not paid. I assume the board of directors of the private company will serve for free, too, right?