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Judge rules Colorado education funding system is unconstitutional
thedenverchannel.com ^ | 12/9/2011 | Wayne Harrison

Posted on 12/10/2011 7:22:58 AM PST by businessprofessor

DENVER -- A Denver judge ruled Friday that Colorado's education funding system is "irrational and inadequate" and violates the state's constitution -- a decision that's a victory for school districts and parents who sued but hardly the end of a years-long debate.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: educationfunding; judicialactivism; k12
A leftist Denver judge strikes bold new territory on judicial activism essentially putting the entire Colorado general fund under judicial control. Education funding consumes more than 40 percent of the Colorado general fund. This judge demands the entire general fund ($7+ B) be spent on K-12. No court has ever made such a sweeping ruling. The only remotely comparable ruling is the Missouri court that effectively put the Kansas City school system under judicial control for a limited time. This ruling goes far beyond any previous court ruling on K-12 education funding.
1 posted on 12/10/2011 7:23:06 AM PST by businessprofessor
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To: businessprofessor

The system has more gold than Midas.
The problem is how it gets spent.
Just like anybody that goes broke it’s the spending gone crazy that does them in.


2 posted on 12/10/2011 7:29:01 AM PST by gfbtbb (The answer to your question will not be found here.)
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To: businessprofessor

If the Colorado legislature had a pair among the lot they would impeach and remove this judge.


3 posted on 12/10/2011 7:35:15 AM PST by 17th Miss Regt
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To: businessprofessor
Colorado spends I think $5B on illegals welfare and can't find money to properly fund schools and want to raise taxes. The government is blackmailing tax payers into tax increases because of their mismanagement.
4 posted on 12/10/2011 7:35:36 AM PST by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
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To: businessprofessor
The rat governor Hickenlooper and Republican state Attorney General Suthers could ensure their reelections by holding a presser and telling the judge, “Nuts.”

Then, give a speech on separation of powers. It would amount to daring the judge to hold them in contempt.

5 posted on 12/10/2011 7:37:08 AM PST by Jacquerie (No court will save us from ourselves.)
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To: businessprofessor

This will destroy the state of Colorado. The Abbott decision enabled total and absolute corruption in the education RFP system in New Jersey that to date has total over $4Billion dollars in outright fraud and almost no prosecutions, all within a 13 years of implementation. Over 10% of the total state level school funding a year was skimmed by crooks, every year, for the last 13 years.

While I don’t like Gov. Christie on many points, he has tackled Abbott corruption head on and is making a good bureaucratic foundation to prevent future looting of the general fund in NJ to this insane NJ Supreme Court decision.

You missed the New Jersey Supreme Court 1994 and 1997 Abbott v. Burke decisions. And 2009 review.

^ Abbott v. Burke, 100 N.J. 269, 495 A.2d 376 (1985) (”Abbott I”).
^ Abbott v. Burke, 119 N.J. 287, 575 A.2d 359 (1990) (”Abbott II”).
^ Abbott v. Burke, 136 N.J. 444, 643 A.2d 575 (1994) (Abbott III); Abbott v. Burke, 149 N.J. 145, 693 A.2d 417 (1997) (Abbott IV).
^ Abbott ex rel. Abbott v. Burke, 199 N.J. 140; 971 A.2d 989 (2009).

See the opposing views in Hanushek, Eric A., and Alfred A. Lindseth. 2009. Schoolhouses, courthouses, and statehouses: Solving the funding-achievement puzzle in America’s public schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, and in Goertz, Margaret E., and Michael Weiss. 2007. “Money Order in the Court: The Promise and Pitfalls of Redistributing Educational Dollars through Court Mandates: The Case of New Jersey.” In Annual Meeting of the American Education Finance Association. Baltimore, MD.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:UIOH_82cIxoJ:edpro.stanford.edu/Hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads/06_EduO_Hanushek_g.pdf+Money+Order+in+the+Court:+The+Promise+and+Pitfalls+of+Redistributing+Educational+Dollars+through+Court+Mandates:+The+Case+of+New+Jersey&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiX2nS_HKNVypl21NTsVtmBFIniO1p34V2cD1FAubXg87uadnqaNFuudjqtUcleB82YMBQMU8Rux6L11OWpIlUFopMdeJMgT1TkZqEqeEbvsVlXFjX3p31f1KdJxO_lIcWvWiLP&sig=AHIEtbTpQZ-HJXGWfvoFZCxsOgOQk0FSTQ

http://www.aei.org/article/education/the-effectiveness-of-court-ordered-funding-of-schools/


6 posted on 12/10/2011 7:38:56 AM PST by JerseyHighlander
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To: businessprofessor

The obvious remedy is to defend. Eliminate the public schools completely so that they are no longer underfunded they are simply no more.


7 posted on 12/10/2011 7:39:08 AM PST by DaveyB (Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. -John Adams)
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To: businessprofessor
While it may not have been a court ruling, the revision of funding methods in Texas known as "Robin Hood" certainly approaches this for chutzpah.
8 posted on 12/10/2011 7:39:39 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: businessprofessor

“Section 2. Establishment and maintenance of public schools.

The general assembly shall, as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, wherein all residents of the state, between the ages of six and twenty-one years, may be educated gratuitously. One or more public schools shall be maintained in each school district within the state, at least three months in each year; any school district failing to have such school shall not be entitled to receive any portion of the school fund for that year. “

“at least three months...”
Those were the good ol’ days alright.


9 posted on 12/10/2011 7:56:09 AM PST by mrsmith (Start electing a 'Tea Party' Majority Leader in 2012 now!)
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To: businessprofessor
Good. Let the legislature start by defunding the entire judiciary.

How do we recall judges?

10 posted on 12/10/2011 8:03:49 AM PST by MileHi ( "It's coming down to patriots vs the politicians." - ovrtaxt)
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To: businessprofessor

Oh I thought we had 3 branches of government...guess we only have 1 judges. The word impeach comes to mind


11 posted on 12/10/2011 8:28:54 AM PST by goat granny (.)
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To: 17th Miss Regt
If the Colorado legislature had a pair among the lot they would impeach and remove this judge

Until the People start telling these "judges" to stuff it, the decline will keep accelerating.

12 posted on 12/10/2011 9:20:42 AM PST by trebb ("If a man will not work, he should not eat" From 2 Thes 3)
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To: businessprofessor

Instead of battling the liberal judges, they should just change the constitution.

Insert language saying that education funding is solely the responsibility of the counties and schools districts and expressly deny any suggestion that there is equal funding for every student in the state.

Part of the problem is that school districts that are too small to support themselves want Colorado taxpayers to write them a blank check.


13 posted on 12/10/2011 9:31:21 AM PST by 5by5
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To: JerseyHighlander

Thanks for the links and comments about Abbott! You are right....this will do to Colorado what Abbott did to New Jersey. In NJ, Abbott schools swim in money with technologies that my supposedly “affluent” district here can only dream of. For example, an audit of Camden City schools showed that money has been misspent to the tune of BILLIONS...security guards raking in 100,000 plus salaries, non-existant jobs paying out thousands in which the person never showed up to work...one item was the cost of a copier system for a school. A purchase order was paid for close to a million plus dollars, and they had NO idea where the money went!!!! The audit said the school paid 100 times what the going rate was.
In the meantime, my boss (I teach in a school here) tells me that we can’t afford to buy enough books for my honors class and our taxes keep going up. IN Abbott schools, each room has a smart board, iPads are soon coming,..you name it.


14 posted on 12/10/2011 11:01:17 AM PST by t2buckeye
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To: 5by5
Part of the problem is that school districts that are too small to support themselves want Colorado taxpayers to write them a blank check.

The ruling was much broader than underfunding of a few school districts. The judge ruled that no district was adequately funded. She implied that doubling (or more) funding for education is necessary.
15 posted on 12/10/2011 12:02:03 PM PST by businessprofessor
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To: businessprofessor
This is Kansas City all over again.

Money And School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment

It might not be desegregation this time, but the idea that throwing other people's money at any "disparity" will fix it has been proven completely wrong over and over again.

But the only real goal is to enable teacher's unions to collect more union dues.

16 posted on 12/10/2011 12:17:17 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Holding our flawed politicians to higher standards than the enemyÂ’s politicians guarantees they win)
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