CO Constitution Requires Tax-Funded Schools Three Months Per Year

The Colorado Supreme Court is totally out of control. As Clear the Bench details, the court's latest outrage is to allow a legal suit to force taxpayers to send more of their hard-earned money to government schools.

As Vincent Carroll summarizes, the suit would "undermine democracy and the separation of powers in Colorado."

The Denver Post's Tim Hoover nicely reviews the case. He writes, "Kathy Gebhardt, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the school-funding suit, said... courts would have to determine whether the right to a 'thorough and uniform' education funding system outweighs the right of citizens to vote on taxes."

But why should the courts get to establish what constitutes a "thorough and uniform" education? As Carroll and others note, the state's Constitution explicitly grants funding authority to the general assembly.

However, there is another telling line in the same provision that indicates what the document's authors thought consistent with a "thorough and uniform" education: the line requiring schools "at least three months in each year." Obviously, dramatically less tax spending on education is consistent with this part of the Constitution.

Here is the entire bit from Article IX:

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.

No Tax Funds for Religious Schools

David Card, "president of Escuela de Guadalupe, an independent Catholic, dual-language school in northwest Denver," made a series of astounding comments in an article for the Denver Post today.

Card argues that some religious schools "are effective in developing Colorado standards-based academic proficiency in subjects like math, reading and science, and in producing high school graduates." No doubt. But then Card adds, "Clearly, the state has an interest in this."

Clearly, Card has lost his faculties. The government's job is to protect people's rights, not dictate education policy for private schools. Many parents flee to private schools precisely to get away from political interference. Card would extend that interference to schools that are currently private.

Card argues that the state -- i.e., politicians -- should finance religious schools (presumably including his own). He pretends that politicians can force other Coloradans to finance only "non-sectarian efforts" by religious schools. The division is impossible. A religious school of necessity infuses its entire program with its ideological premises.

I left the following comments online:

"No person shall be required to attend or support any ministry or place of worship, religious sect or denomination against his consent." -- Colorado Constitution, Article II, Section 4

Forcing a person to finance a religious institution, against his will, violates his freedom of conscience and right to property. Moreover, no conscientious religious school would willingly accept the political interference that inevitably follows political funding.

Most Americans Fail Civics

Thanks to an article by Deroy Murdock, I became aware of a civics test and poll from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The group's release notes:

[L]ess than half of all Americans can name all three branches of government. And only 21 percent know the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people" comes from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which president elect Barack Obama cited in his acceptance speech on Election night. ...

30 percent of elected officials do not know that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence; and 20 percent falsely believe that the Electoral College "was established to supervise the first presidential debates"

Almost 40 percent of all respondents falsely believe the president has the power to declare war

40 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree do not know business profit equals revenue minus expenses

Only 54 percent with a bachelor's degree correctly define free enterprise as a system in which individuals create, exchange and control goods and resources

20.7 percent of Americans falsely believe that the Federal Reserve can increase or decrease government spending

It's important to note that the questions are multiple choice, which makes them a lot easier to answer. Still, I did have to look up a few.

Some of the questions are more meaningful than others. For example, the phrase about "for the people" logically would fit in a variety of documents. And, today, the president does have the de facto "power to declare war," even if war is called by some other name in such cases and the Constitution lists no such power. Most of the questions avoid such problems, and it's a pretty interesting test. You can compare your results with the averages.

Notice that, for most questions, elected officials performed worse than the general populace. Elected officials did a bit better on the question about public goods -- I suppose because they tend to use the public-goods argument as a pretext to increase government spending for projects that are not in fact public goods.

Marshall Fritz, 1943-2008

Marshall Fritz has just passed away from pancreatic cancer, I just learned. The founder of the Separation of School and State Alliance, Fritz advocated a truly free market in education, criticizing conservative voucher proposals for risking government control over now-private education.

I first met Fritz back in 1997. I had written one of Fritz's acquaintances a letter about education, and the recipient had forwarded the letter to Fritz. He wrote to me: "I'm going to be in Denver shortly tomorrow, Tuesday... I was *very* excited reading your letter. Do give me a call, please; my name is Marshall Fritz... We're with the Seperation of School and State; you're insights on the voucher are right on target."

I happened to take some notes of our conversation, and they reveal that even then we differed dramatically in our basic ideas even as we agreed on the politics of education. Fritz was a Catholic libertarian, while I was an atheistic libertarian who eventually grew apart from libertarianism as well. I wrote, "Fritz seems to reify evil. He talks about how, 'If there's evil, there must be the opposite of evil, or, God'."

"Fritz argues that the liberals will take over the vouchers within a few years."

"You can de-claw a lion, and it's still a lion. You can de-fang a tiger, and it's still a tiger. But what do you have if you take God out of morality?" I forget the particular beasts involved in the analogy, but that's the idea. Fritz means this as a rhetorical question, to mean, "Morality is nothing without god." I, on the other hand, am tempted to answer his question, "It's a good start."

Fritz seemed keen on making Catholicism more evangelical. He told this joke: "What do you get when you cross a Catholic with a Jehova's Witness? Somebody who rings the door bell but then has nothing to say."

He gave me some writing advice (which I occasionally take): sentences that begin with "you" should be in a two-to-one ration to sentences that begin with "I."

This line is hilarious, given the post-9/11 hysteria: "He lost his wallet and was talking himself onto planes with his picture in his newsletter."

"He bought flowers - 3 supermarket boquets - for Tancredo's wife." I don't recall if this was the first time I met Tom Tancredo, but it was definitely the only time I've been to his house.

We went to the offices of the Colorado Education Association (why I have no idea). Here's what I wrote about that:

My notes on the CEA meeting: 1) He was pretty harsh with Ms. Davis. She said, "we can always improve." He said, "well, our position is that socialism by its very nature cannot be reformed but can only get worse," or some such. 2) The main lady said standards are needed; his main objection is that standards would be too low to be meaningful.

I quoted one of the CEA representatives about Fritz, "He's a nice person, though I disagree with everything he says."

Fritz came back to Denver in 1998, and I picked him up at the airport. I sat in on an interview between Fritz and Janet Bingham of the Denver Post. Her article reads:

Get government out of education, pitchman says

The Denver Post - Wednesday, June 24, 1998

Janet Bingham, Denver Post Education Writer

Marshall Fritz is a salesman. His pitch: Get the government completely out of education.

He wants to end compulsory education and end all government taxation and support for schools.

The result - which even supporters say is a long shot at best - would be the replacement of all tax-supported education, including vouchers, with privately supported schools or home schools.

Government-run schools, he contends, don't work because the "politically strong" are able to impose their views of what education should be on the "politcally weak" - whether they be traditional Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hispanics or any other group. ...

Fritz... claims that more than 3,800 educators, parents, clergy and policy leaders nationwide have signed his proclamation calling for an end to government compulsion in education funding, attendance, and content. ...

Among Coloradans on the list: Tom Tancredo, former president of the Golden-based Independence Institute and Republican candidate for U.S. Congress in the 6th Congressional District; John Andrews, 1990 Republican candidate for governor in Colorado; and Kevin Irvine, 1991 Colorado Teacher of the Year.

A Post editorial of June 28 blasted Fritz:

The California-based Separation of School And State Alliance, with the approval of some Coloradans, would like to see an end to compulsory school attendance and government financing of education.

The Denver Post would not. Education is the highest obligation that government at all levels must face...

Free and compulsory education is the bulwark of a free society and the best insurance that it will stay free. Obviously it is sometimes wasteful, sometimes slapdash and sometimes listless, but it is an established system that can be counted on to give all children a shot at improving their lives. Improving it is an urgent need. Abolishing it is absurd.

The mere fact that Fritz made his agenda a part of the public debate is impressive.

Fritz returned later in 1998 to lead a conference on school and state. The articles I wrote about the event were the first I published through FreeColorado.com (then the Colorado Freedom Report at www.co-freedom.com).

Earlier this year I wrote to him, "Marshall, I'm very sorry to hear the news. It's good to hear, though, that you're keeping your spirits up. Thank you for everything you've done to advance liberty."

He answered on March 17:

Ari....

Thank you.

I still fondly remember you're driving me, our discussion on tutoring and freedom, and Haley's Comet.

And, of course, staying in Tom Tancredo's home.

Love,

Marshall

Marshall was an eccentric and gregarious man who lived his ideals. While we often disagreed, I'll miss his optimistic enthusiasm.

The 30-Minute Parent

This news story describes a new effort by Denver Public Schools to get parents more involved with their children:

A new effort is focusing on the role parents must play in their children's lives to make them better students. It asks parents to spend 5,280 minutes every school year with their kids doing some sort of intentional activity, such as reading, attending sporting events or going to a museum.

So parents should really stretch themselves, really get into the whole parenting thing by spending a whopping half-hour with their kids every day. Wow. If you spend 35 or 40 minutes per day with your children, I guess you get the gold star.

Then there is this detail:

Parents are being asked to enroll in the Mile High Parents program at their children's school or on the Internet. They will track the minutes they spend with their kids and be eligible for prizes, such as gas cards, money for college and tickets to cultural events.

Sweet! Now you can get prizes for occasionally acting like a parent!

But who's paying for all this stuff? The article doesn't say, and I found no information at Mile High Parents. May we presume it's donated?

The irony here is that Denver Public Schools are tax funded, and the tax funding of schools reduces parental involvement with their children's education. Tax funding largely severs the link between customers and providers, and it trains parents to depend on government bureaucrats to raise their children for them. The solution to that problem is obvious, which is why most people will continue to ignore it.