Colorado voters will be faced with a proposed constitutional amendment that is meant to enshrine school choice in the state. Mike DeGuire, writing for the Colorado Times Recorder explains where it came from, and why voters should say no.
On November 5, 2024, Colorado voters will weigh in on a hot topic in education today: school choice. Amendment 80 would make the concept of “school choice” a guaranteed right in the Colorado constitution. The text of the amendment reads as follows:
(1) PURPOSE AND FINDINGS. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF COLORADO HEREBY FIND AND DECLARE THAT ALL CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO ACCESS A QUALITY EDUCATION; THAT PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIRECT THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN; AND THAT SCHOOL CHOICE INCLUDES NEIGHBORHOOD, CHARTER, PRIVATE, AND HOME SCHOOLS, OPEN ENROLLMENT OPTIONS, AND FUTURE INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION. (2) EACH K-12 CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO SCHOOL CHOICE.
Who wanted to see this as a constitutional right for Coloradoans? And why do they feel the need?
Advance Colorado is the conservative think tank organization that developed the language for Amendment 80, and they coordinated the expensive signature gathering to secure approval for the measure, originally titled Initiative 138. The backers acknowledge that parents already have the right in state statute to “send their kids to a neighborhood school, charter school, private school, home school, or across district lines.”
However, Kristi Burton Brown, executive vice president of Advance Colorado, believes that school choice needs to be in the state constitution to guarantee “that legislators in the future can’t attack our rights and take them away.” She acknowledged that Colorado would be the “first state in the nation to allow voters to put the right to school choice in our state constitution.”
Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado, also highlighted the organization’s reason for this measure on X, stating that “out-of-touch legislators are just going to keep going after charter schools. That’s why we need to put school choice in our Colorado Constitution this November.”
Brown’s and Fields’ comments relate to efforts last April by three Colorado legislators to enact a charter school accountability act, a bill supported by the Colorado Education Association (CEA) and other pro-public education groups. In their report on why they initiated Amendment 80, Advance Colorado stated that the proposed charter bill would have “destroyed school choice for charters.”
Advance Colorado’s solution to the “problem” of legislators promoting charter accountability is to put “the right to school choice in the Colorado Constitution” which they assert will give school choice “legal advantages a normal statute does not have.” Over fifty highly paid lobbyists were assigned to kill the charter accountability bill which was publicly opposed by Governor Polis, and was defeated in the House committee.
