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10 08 24 Denver Classroom Teachers Association's Rob Gould talks about Amendment 80
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Using Zoomo to stream music from iHeart90's radio is easy, or play iHeart Country or hip-hop beats. Your choice, all for free. Stream easy with zoomo play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle. This November, get cozy and stay in from movie night with Air Force One starring Harrison Ford and Glenn Close, and The Art of War starring Wesley Snipes, all streaming free on Zoomo Play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zoomo is easy. Ballots for Colorado voters heading out this Friday, where a decision will be made to regard school enrollments for families. Appearing on the ballot, as amendment 80 proponents say that this measure just will enshrine school choice into the Colorado Constitution if it passes. And joining us now in opposition, President for the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, it's Rob Gould. Rob, glad to have you back here on Colorado's Morning News. We spoke with the opposition on this earlier, the proponents of this, and they said that this is really simple and clear measure. It protects parental control over their child's education. Do you see it the same way? I absolutely know. So, you know, amendment 80 is kind of a, it's a Wolfland and Cheaps clothing, if you will. You know, Colorado law already has school choice on the books, and amendment 80 is unnecessary because school choice, it's already, as I mentioned, it's already protected a law. It's been there for 30 years, and what it actually does is that it permanently locks in a right to private schools in the Constitution for the first time ever. And private schools don't belong in the Constitution. You know, private schools, they can pick and choose to attend. Some won't accept children with the same-sex parents or kids with special needs. We should focus our funding on improving public schools, which are open to all students, not just select private schools. When we spoke with advanced Colorado earlier this morning, again, they said that 70 percent of Coloradans like our school of choice rights, and this would just give parents more options and just solidify it in the Constitution like we mentioned. However, what do you think the next steps would be if amendment 80 does pass? Well, it's going to hurt our public schools, period. Amendment 80 really opened that door to taking money from public schools to private schools in states where they pass measures similar to amendment 80. The next step is to create a voucher system. And then our public schools, you know, we need more teachers, more support personnel, better pay, smaller class sizes. Amendment 80 would make it harder to fund these improvements and hurt public schools because it basically puts those private schools in the same line as public. Rob, a little clarification on that as well. When we talked with Christy this morning, she said that obviously the fiscal note on the ballot measure is zero dollars. And she said that Colorado would be the first in the nation to do this. Are you saying that there are states that have similar measures when it comes to school choice in their Constitution? Exactly. So there's different states that have programs like this that have created voucher programs where they put it at the same level. And so those voucher programs end up taking money from public schools and then funneling into private schools. And that's where this is a very dangerous measure. We have to make sure that we both know against it. Rob, I know there's multiple stakeholders in this. There's parents, there's school districts, schools, and then there's teachers. What is the skin in the game that teachers have that you're against this? What is your concern as an educator? Well, our concern, you know, I go back to the fact that we already have school choice in law, right? And so what is it that makes this where we need to enshrine this into our Constitution? And the reason for that is because there is something more nefarious here. And what's nefarious is that it's going to end up putting those private schools at the same level as public schools. And right now, you know, our public schools, it's a challenge. It's a challenge because every day we're working to try to keep and recruit and retain the best educators. And any funding that goes away from our schools will hurt us even further. I mean, I think another thing that a lot of people don't think about is how Amendment 80 would actually hurt rural schools as well. You know, most rural areas don't have any private schools. And, you know, funding those private schools would drain money away from those rural schools and subsidize private schools in Denver and Boulder. And so that's the piece that we're cautious about. While it seems like this is something that's easy that everybody, oh yeah, sure, school choice, but we already have it. Why do we need to enshrine it within to the Constitution unless there's for, you know, other reasons? Rob, I did ask Christy about the concerns that this may hurt less affluent kids or in poor neighborhoods with those schools. But I'll ask you in this sense with this, wouldn't more competitions be better for schools if you see that the school is underperforming for whatever reason and may not always be because of the people you have, just maybe the situations and what you're dealing with. Wouldn't competition force these schools that are underperforming to have to perform better to keep those students? Well, I think that's a, so that right there is you're dealing with the fact that we already are in an unfunded system, right, or underfunded system, excuse me. We finally, just last year, we got the the by-down of the BS factor down to zero, which if you remember, that was what the state legislature owed public schools. And so now we're finally at 1989 levels of funding. Our funding levels are so low in Colorado, it's hard for us to even make improvements as is. It's kind of like we've already squeezed all the blood out of the tournament, if you will. And so any additional, you know, competition for those dollars is going to make it more difficult for schools to survive. In Denver, we have declining enrollment. And that's where, you know, the Denver School Board, we're taking a look at whether or not to close schools. And so then, you know, this, if they end up pushing for a voucher system that legally would put, you know, private schools in line with public, then that would end up taking money from the public schools and putting them into those private schools. And yes, you know, a lot of people think, well, competition will help it, but it's actually going to hurt it in the long run because it's going to make it for less money to our public schools. And it may end up costing us more money in the long run. Amendment 80 before voters coming up on November 5th with opposition to the School of Choice Measure, it's president of the Denver Classroom Association, Rob Gould. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you. Have a great day. If you put aside 25 cents every week for a year, what could you get at the end? A few cups of coffee maybe, a candle, or you could get a year of the best reporting from all over the world. Go to washingtonpost.com/bf24 right now. You'll get a Washington Post subscription for 25 cents a week for your first year. This is a Black Friday sale, so it won't last long. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs, and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming! Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using zoomo to stream music from iHeart90's radio is easy, or play iHeart Country or hip-hop beats. Your choice, all for free. Stream easy with zoomo play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle. This November, get cozy and stay in from movie night with Air Force One starring Harrison Ford and Glenn Close and The Art of War starring Wesley Snipes, all streaming free on zoomo play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy.