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Some have complained that there will be too many issues on the Colorado ballot in November. But even those critics should concede that a protracted ballot is a testimony to the honesty of our legislature.
How so? Assume that you need to purchase some legislation favorable to your interests. If our General Assembly were corrupt, you'd take the cheap and easy route and spend your money under the gold dome, where there are only 100 votes to purchase.
But instead, various special interests must now spend freely to influence the 1.5 million Coloradans expected to vote this year. When it is cheaper to buy the citizenry than the legislature, then the legislature must be honest.
Anyway, the big kahuna among our ballot issues is the
Children First
initiative touted by Gov. Roy Romer.
If we had an effective truth-in-advertising law, it would
be known as Teachers First,
Administrators
First,
or even better, Children Last.
It would raise the state sales tax rate by 33 percent, thus encouraging more mail-order buying and less business in Colorado.
The additional tax money, about $250 million, would go to Colorado primary and secondary schools -- even though many authorities argue that state colleges should come first if there's any new money available.
The sales tax is regressive. The poor pay a proportionately more than do the rich, since the things that poor people buy -- pet food, old cars, second-hand furniture -- are taxed, while the purchases of the wealthy -- stocks, bonds, securities, senators -- are not so taxed.
Most of the proceeds from Children Last
will go
for payroll. The average Colorado teacher makes about 34
percent more than the average working Coloradan.
This means you should forget anything you've heard about the National Education Association as a liberal outfit, unless you are so miseducated as to think it is progressive to raise the taxes on people making $22,000 a year in order to give pay increases to people making $30,000 a year.
Even at that, Children Last
might be worth it if
there was any evidence that increased spending on schools
resulted in increased performance by students.
Not only is there no such evidence, but the available data point the other way. Per-student spending in constant dollars has risen about 30 percent since 1980, but test scores and the like continued to decline through the decade.
As I have pointed out before, Salida is one of the poorest school districts in the state. If all Colorado schools ran at the Salida level, the state education fund would have a $500 million surplus, not a looming $360 million shortfall.
Nonetheless, the local district was rated in the top 7 percent of the nation's 15,889 school districts by School Match, a company in Columbus, Ohio, which serves corporate relocation specialists.
And even when they spend only 75 percent of what the richer Colorado districts spend per student, Salida schools have always found the money to do the things that school districts deem important: add sports, hire new administrators and raise pay for administrators. Children don't come first now; why would that change with more money?
Gov. Romer is lucky that he doesn't have to cross a
state line while he promotes Children First.
Otherwise, he might have to worry about federal laws
concerning fraud.
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