Voters find Amnd. 66 confusing- DRO Herald 11-3-13

Voters find Amnd. 66 confusing

Complexity confounds wary residents

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Photo by: Brennan Linsley/Associated Press

Consultant Brent Haldiman talks with an AP reporter about the upcoming vote on a statewide ballot measure to raise taxes to fund education, at a coffee shop in Denver. The income-tax question to be decided by Colorado voters Tuesday would raise taxes an estimated $950 million a year.

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By KRISTEN WYATT
Associated Press

DENVER – An income tax question to be decided by Colorado voters Tuesday sets up a watershed change for how public schools are funded and could be the largest voter-approved tax hike in state history.

But Amendment 66 is so complicated that it’s hard to find a voter who understands it.

The ballot measure rewrites Colorado’s labyrinthine School Finance Act to correct funding imbalances that state education officials say have grown worse over time. The proposal would raise income taxes an estimated $950 million a year. It also would revive a progressive income-tax structure Colorado abandoned in the 1980s.

For state-taxable income of $75,000 or less, the income-tax rate would increase from 4.63 percent to 5 percent. Income more than $75,000 would be taxed at 5.9 percent.

Supporters of the measure have raised more than $10 million to promote it. They’ve aired television ads promoting more arts education and other easy-to-understand upgrades that could result if voters pass the measure. Supporters have campaign offices spread across the state and are touting the amendment as an important investment in the state’s future.

Still, the measure’s prospects are far from certain.

Confusion and uncertainty seemed to dominate voters’ minds on several trips to question voters about the idea. Moms visiting the Denver Botanic Gardens liked the proposal but didn’t understand what it would do. Retirees at a coffee shop said they didn’t think either side of the tax campaign was giving them the full story. One mother grabbing a sandwich on her lunch break said she voted against the measure – because she thought it would take money away from schools.

The mood was summed up nicely by Brent Haldiman, a 32-year-old consultant in Denver who hadn’t made up his mind on the school tax measure last week.

“I want to say ‘yes,’ but I don’t know,” he said. “Everyone wants to give more money to schools, right? But what is this really going to do? I couldn’t tell you.”

The measure would raise per-pupil funding and backfill school budgets that were hurt by falling tax revenue during the recession. It would eliminate the state’s “cost-of-living factor” funding boost and drive more money to districts with large numbers of at-risk students.

The proposal also would fully fund half-day preschool for at-risk students and give schools money to implement stricter teacher-tenure standards.

Supporters call the school overhaul a complicated but necessary modernization of how Colorado funds public education. Critics complain that additional money doesn’t ensure students get better educations and that the measure doesn’t contain adequate safeguards to ensure the money is spent as intended.

The tax structure itself also has inspired debate. Some business groups have given the measure a chilly reception because it revives the progressive income tax framework Colorado used from the 1930s to the 1980s. Supporters of the measure insist that a progressive tax framework, where the wealthy pay a greater percentage of their incomes, is used in most states and won’t damage the economy.

Polling on the tax measure is scant, and voter turnout is projected to be low. It’s an electoral off-year and Amendment 66 supporters are prepared for half as many voters as in 2012.

Even guessing turnout is dicey. This is the first statewide election in which all registered voters received ballots at home.

Voter turnout low with days to go- DRO Herald Article 10-31-13

Voter turnout low with days to go

Trend signals ‘big problem’ for school-tax amendment

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By Joe Hanel Herald staff writer

DENVER – Turnout for Colorado’s first all-mail election is low with less than a week remaining to vote.

Republicans are voting in much higher numbers than Democrats – a troublesome fact for backers of a tax increase for schools.

As of Thursday morning, 622,066 voters had turned in their ballots, less than one in five of the state’s registered voters.

“All the indicators are that this is a more conservative electorate than we’ve seen in some time,” said Eric Sondermann, a Denver political analyst.

Votes cast so far have tended to come from registered Republicans, from more conservative parts of the state and from older voters. Also, men have closed the typical gender gap and are voting almost as much as women this year, Sondermann said.

Colorado voters have to decide whether to raise their income taxes for public schools (Amendment 66) and to impose taxes on the retail sale of marijuana (Proposition AA). Closer to home, voters are deciding on school-board races in Durango, Cortez, Bayfield and Archuleta County, mill levies for fire departments and a fee for plastic bags in the city of Durango.

Amendment 66 supporters are running by far the biggest campaign, a $10 million effort to convince voters to raise their income taxes for the first time since residents claimed the power to approve all tax hikes in 1992.

Republican voters have been much faster to turn in their ballots than Democrats and unaffiliated voters, and two weeks into voting, 40.6 percent of the ballots returned have been from Republicans, compared with 30.9 percent from Democrats.

“If today were Election Day and ballots were being counted today, it would be a big problem for Amendment 66,” Sondermann said.

Yes on 66 spokesman Curtis Hubbard says early turnout is not a big concern, despite Republicans’ traditional rejection of tax increases.

“I don’t think you can view this election through the lens of Republican versus Democrat,” he said. “That said, it doesn’t surprise us that people who are opposed to taxes will be quick to turn in their ballots.”

Under the mail voting law the Legislature passed this spring, Election Day on Tuesday is merely the last day in the three-week period of voting. Every registered voter is supposed to get a ballot in the mail, but people who want to vote in person can do so at a few centralized locations. Traditional neighborhood precincts will not be open this year.

La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Parker helped write and lobby for the mail-ballot law. So far this year, only 14 La Plata voters have showed up to vote in person instead of by mail, she said.

But mail turnout is low, too, with just 22 percent of registered voters casting ballots.

“I anticipated a lot higher turnout due to what we have on our ballot. It’s surprisingly low,” Parker said.

In the last odd-year election, less than a third of registered voters turned out. That year also had a proposed tax increase for education, Proposition 103. It lost by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.

The Yes on 66 campaign is trying to fight that history by waging the type of television and door-to-door campaign typically seen only in presidential races. The campaign has 18 field offices that are sending out volunteer and paid canvassers every day, Hubbard said.

Amendment 66 supporers will need to boost their numbers in Denver and its suburbs this weekend. Denver is the state’s most liberal large county, but only about 11 percent of its registered voters have had their ballots counted, compared with more than 17 percent in the conservative stronghold of El Paso County.

However, Denver has not processed all the ballots it has on hand. Denver County Clerk spokesman Alton Dillard said he expects to see a bump in Denver’s numbers this weekend.

The window to mail back ballots is closing. Ballots must be received at the county clerk’s office by 7 p.m. on Election Day, when the polls close.

Andrew Cole, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said there is no hard deadline for dropping ballots in the mail.

“We always just say that if voters have any doubt a ballot will make it back by Election Day to go ahead and drop it off in person,” Cole said in an email.

Hubbard said the Yes on 66 campaign is telling voters they can drop their ballots in the mail as late as Saturday, as long as they are sure they don’t miss the mail carrier.

jhanel@durangoherald.com

Ninth Grade: The Most Important Year in High School - The Atlantic- 11-1-13

Ninth Grade: The Most Important Year in High School

By Michele Willens

Kevin Wolf/AP Photo

Educators are increasingly focusing on the ninth grade as the year that determines whether a young person will move on or drop out of school. According to research published in the journal Education, ninth graders have the lowest grade point average, the most missed classes, the majority of failing grades, and more misbehavior referrals than any other high-school grade level. Ninth grade has increasingly become a “bottleneck” for students: A joint report from Princeton University and the Brookings Institution found “in 1970, there were 3 percent fewer tenth graders than ninth graders; by 2000, that share had risen to 11 percent.”

“More and more of us are realizing that it’s the make or break year for many 14- and 15-year-olds,” says Jon Zaff, director of the Center for Promise at Tufts University. “It’s a time when the cognitive, emotional, and physical are all coming together. The schools are likely new environments, and the students have more autonomy and more homework.”

Not only are youths entering the intimidating institution that is high school, they are experiencing the usual adolescent angst and depending on poor decision-making skills. “Students entering high school—just at the time brains are in flux—still have the propensity to be impulsive and are prone to making mistakes,” says Washington D.C. psychoanalyst Dr. Linda Stern. “They are therefore experimental and trying to separate and might try substances that interfere with the normal developmental process. Put all that together with raging hormones, the normal academic pressures, and meeting a whole new group to be judged by.”

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Related Story

Do American Schools Need to Change? Depends What You Compare Them To

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When kids fall behind and have to repeat a grade, they can wind up in a vicious cycle of peer judgment and low self-esteem. “We are ending up with something now called the ninth-grade bulge,” explains Zaff, “which means a glut of students who have to repeat the grade. So they are stigmatized socially as well as academically, which can also lead to their finding it easier to just give up.”

While she doesn't deny that the ninth grade is a pivotal moment in a student’s education , Diane Ravitch, author of Reign of Error, has her suspicions about the motivations behind schools’ growing interest in ninth-grade performance. "Many schools allow students to advance ready or not, and when they reach the ninth the stakes are higher. The high-stakes testing starts in the tenth grade so kids are being held back not for their own sake but to protect their school’s statistics. If the focus were really on the students, people would be thinking creatively about how to help them instead of thinking if them as data points."

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Educators are honing in on three indicators—attendance, behavior, and course performance—that are believed to be the most accurate measurements of a student’s likelihood to either quit school or move on. A lengthy, detailed guide from the National High School Center states that “more students fail ninth grade than any other grade in high school, and a disproportionate number of students who are held back in ninth grade subsequently drop out.” The guide describes telltale signs that can be detected as early as the first semester of the first year in high school: The biggest risk factor for failing ninth, for example, is the number of absences during the first 30 days. Missing more than 10 percent is cause for concern. In addition, first-year high-school students are classified as ‘on track’ if they earn at least five full year course credits, and have received no more than one F per semester. So to be ‘off track’? You do the math.

High schools are working to use this information to keep students in school past the ninth grade.  The Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins School of Education recommends something called the Freshman Seminar for students in their first year of high school. The program offers learning materials and training specialists to aid students in study and social skills. Some students use it during homeroom or advisory periods, some during special enhancement periods.

“We try to build some relevance into their experience to go along with the regular curriculum,” says  Mary Maushard, communications director for the Everyone Graduates Center. “So many of these ninth graders—particularly in high-poverty areas—just don’t see any reason to stay in school.”

There are signs that programs and administrators are getting through to high school freshmen. In Portland, Oregon, Self-Enhancement Inc.–which employs coordinators to oversee 30 high-risk students each, in 12 public schools—takes pride in a 98 percent high-school graduation rate for the students it works with. Goals are set for every student, and the aides are available 24/7 and serve as links between child and school, parent and school, and child and parent.

“A lot of what we do is to prepare the students for the ninth grade,” says Self-Enhancement project manager Lisa Manning. “We make sure they have cultural activities that engage them and that they attend a six week-summer program for the academics before even starting.” 

New York City’s Flushing High School, one of the city's so-called “dropout factories,” now hosts a program designed to keep at-risk students in school. Initiated by the Sports and Arts In Schools Foundation, a non-profit that works to improve low-performing schools in the city, and sponsored by AT&T, the program brings in a support staff to encourage students to participate in after-school activities in athletics and the arts and to work closely with low-performing students throughout the school day.

“Just by staying on top of the students who were considered to be in trouble academically, we’ve had tremendous success,” says Amir Sultan, a program manager for the Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation. “Now, some 85 percent have moved on to the tenth grade. That’s not only double-digit improvement over previous numbers, but over the other students not in the program.”

The answers seem to be coming, however gradually, and at least the right questions are being asked. “The main one is what does each of these potential dropouts in the ninth grade need as they make this big transition?” says Zaff. “It’s a time of great upheaval and great opportunity.”

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/ninth-grade-the-most-important-year-in-high-school/281056/

Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

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Would Amendment 66 be a big win for charter schools? DRO Herald- 10-28-13

Would Amendment 66 be a big win for charter schools?

Animas High School sees a boon; others see missed opportunity

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Photo by: SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald

Animas High School figures to receive around $450 per student for construction costs if Amendment 66 passes. Animas High juniors take a break from the classroom and work in the hallway Monday morning during humanities class. From left are Ashton Cornett, Cole Hawkins, Bryn Joyner, Lana Clark and Marisa Looney.

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By Joe Hanel Herald staff writer

Advertisements for Amendment 66 say the proposed tax increase will help fund art, music and physical education. But for Animas High School Executive Director Michael Ackerman, the only subject that matters is math.

If voters pass the income tax hike, his school stands to receive $450 per student to cover construction costs. When Ackerman multiplies $450 by Animas High’s 400 students, he comes up with a number that’s about $40,000 shy of his school’s annual debt service.

“We’d still be fundraising, but it’s a lot more digestible gap,” he said.

Around the state, charter schools have greeted Amendment 66 with a mix of support and skepticism.

Animas High would be one of the big winners if voters opt to raise income taxes by about $1 billion a year. It’s a different picture in Cortez, where Southwest Open School officials are unsure of the amendment’s benefits for their school.

One estimate by the Legislature’s staff members shows Southwest Open School and Battle Rock Charter School, west of Cortez, stand to get $179,000 and $83,000 respectively. But Jennifer Carter, director of Southwest Open School, does not know if those projections are accurate.

“The formula is going to be pretty complex, so to run numbers would be challenging,” Carter said.

Because of the unclear effects of Amendment 66 on all charter schools, the Colorado League of Charter Schools has decided not to advocate for or against it.

And one retired Democratic legislator says the amendment is such a missed opportunity for charter schools that he has joined the mostly Republican opposition campaign.

For Ackerman, though, the math is clear. Academic results at his school are on the rise, even though the budget is falling.

“It’s not sustainable. I’m pretty much out of magic tricks when it comes to fundraising,” Ackerman said. “There is no fluff in the Animas High School budget.”

Ackerman’s teachers have never had a raise, although they got a bonus from a donor at the end of the school’s second year.

“People are going to have to do right by their families. They’ve got bills. They’ve got graduate degrees they’re still paying off. They’re going to look elsewhere,” Ackerman said.

Bob Hagedorn, a Democratic former state senator from Aurora, said he thinks amendment supporters did just enough for charter schools to ward off their opposition.

The amendment is a missed opportunity to fund expansions of high-performing charter schools with long wait lists, Hagedorn said. He’s not worried that charters will suffer if the amendment fails.

“Certainly, Colorado has demonstrated we can have good production with the revenue they are currently receiving,” Hagedorn said. “A billion dollars just seems a bit excessive.”

Although it’s neutral, the Colorado League of Charter Schools does see an upside.

“It would be an advantage to the majority of charter schools across the state,” said the group’s president, Nora Flood.

However, urban schools with more at-risk students would benefit more, while the effects on rural charter schools are less clear, Flood said.

Charter schools that are authorized by the state – like Animas – would get more out of Amendment 66 than schools chartered through a local school district, such as Southwest Open.

The amendment requires local districts to share their mill levy overrides with state-chartered schools in their area. But for schools chartered through a district, the amendment only requires districts to negotiate with their charter schools about how to share the mill levy.

State-chartered schools also do better under Amendment 66’s payments for construction, which Ackerman calls the Achilles’ heel of the charter school movement. Nondistrict charters that have their own buildings would get $450 per student, compared with $100 per student for schools operating in buildings owned by the school district.

If Amendment 66 passes, the state’s 4.63 income tax rate would rise to 5 percent on income of $75,000 or less and 5.9 percent on income more than $75,000.

jhanel@durangoherald.com

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Amendment 66 Article-DRO Telegraph-Volume XII, No. 43, Oct. 24, 2

An Animas High School student sits in the hallway Tuesday afternoon, working on his computer. Charter schools like Animas, which is modeled after High Tech High in California, could get more funding from the state under the new law associated with Amendment 66./Photo by Steve Eginoire

Getting schooled

Voters to decide on billion-dollar plan; plus

9-R board candidates and changes by Tracy Chamberlin

The current education system in Southwest Colorado could be getting schooled this November with the potential for big changes on the ballot.

Voters are being asked to consider reshaping the structure of public education funding in Colorado with Amendment 66; reducing the size of the Durango school board with Question 3A; and electing several members for that board’s next session.

This week, the Telegraph breaks down these issues, examing the two ballot measures and giving readers a chance to meet the candidates vying for their votes.

It’s not just about the tax hike that would add a billion dollars to the public education coffers in Colorado. Amendment 66 also introduces several changes to the current funding system, essentially restructuring it.

The first step in the process was passing Senate Bill 213 this past spring.

Introduced by Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, the 141-page law replaces the 1994 School Funding Act and changes how much each school district gets per student and why. It also attempts to address how the state can fill the budget gap in lean years an how to make the whole process more transparent.

Of course, the billion-dollar question for voters is the tax hike. Under the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights only voters can approve higher taxes, which is why Amendment 66, part of SB 213, is on the November ballot.

Currently, residents pay a flat rate of 4.63 percent on their income. The new rate would be two-tiered, meaning that higher incomes would be taxed at higher rates.

Those making under $75,000 would pay a rate of 5 percent and those more than

$75,000 would pay a rate of 5.9 percent. For a Durango family making around $50,000, the uptick in taxes would be between $100 and $150 a year.

The fiscal school year runs from July to June, so in the first year, which would be 2013-14, these tax increases would mean an extra $452 million. The first full year in 2014-15 would bring in $950.1 million and that number would go up to more than $1 billion starting in 2015-16.

Then there’s the change to where all that money goes.

The new law restructures the formula for how much each student gets, channeling more money to early-childhood education, at-risk students and English-language learners. Durango is one of the districts that would ultimately benefit from this new formula, getting almost $500 more per student.

Another part of SB 213 is the creation of the State Educational Achievement Fund. With at least 43 percent of Colorado income and sales taxes going to education, this fund would be an account where monies collected during high times could sit until they are needed during lean times. Like a back-up plan, this is meant to give the state an option besides cutting school funding during a recession.

How much would you pay? Under the Amendment 66, the income tax rate for Coloradans would go up either 5 or 5.9 percent. To figure out exactly how much that might be, residents can go online and enter in their taxable income atwww.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/CGA-LegislativeCouncil/CLC/1251644845398

Amendment 66 It addresses what ails state’s education system- DRO Herald Editorial- 10-28-13

Amendment 66

It addresses what ails state’s education system

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School funding across Colorado will be much improved by the passage of Amendment 66. In it, more money will be allocated to schools with students from low-income families and those in small districts, and the critical teacher and principal performance evaluation requirements will be properly funded. Money will be available for specially tailored programs that are known to bring learning improvements, and principals will be able to play a bigger role in creating their own school’s budget. Principals, closer to their students than a central administrative office, know what is best.

The money to do all these things, about $1 billion in the first year, will come from income taxes. The current Colorado rate of 4.63 percent of adjusted income will increase to 5 percent on amounts less than $75,000, and to 5.9 percent on amounts above $75,000. Nationally, only about 50 percent of Americans pay income taxes. Colorado’s percent may be slightly higher than that because the state’s average family income level is in the highest quartile, but not much.

The $1 billion will return Colorado’s public school funding to about $7,400 per pupil, or about what it was prior to the recession.

Looking directly to state income taxes for school funding is a first for Colorado. Tapping that new source, taxing those who make the money, will make it possible for the Legislature to fund other state needs that have been second-best. Higher education, for one. The state’s colleges receive only a minimal amount of per student funding, among the lowest in the nation. Students are paying more of their own way, and can graduate with considerable debt.

Colorado had been a leader in providing close to equal education funding across the state, but fell behind in recent years. Amendment 66 will go a long way toward rectifying that.

Significantly, Amendment 66 will also cancel Amendment 23, a well-intention voter-approved amendment in 2000 that required public education to be funded at a higher level than turned out to be economically possible. An annual inflation-adjusted increase will continue, but as a statute rather than as a constitutional mandate as in Amendment 23. Thus, the Legislature will be able to address it as economic conditions change.

Critics of Amendment 66 claim that among other things it will shift tax revenue from wealthier school districts to those less wealthy. But the revenue in Amendment 66 is income-tax revenue, and state income taxes have never been tied to particular municipalities, counties or school districts. State income taxes are taxes that are pooled in a sense, along with the state’s sales tax and state fees, to provide funds for needs and commitments across the state.

Amendment 66 is complex with multiple components, but its passage will immediately address in targeted ways much of what ails the state’s pre-kindergarten through high school education system.

Amendment 66 deserves a “yes” vote.

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