Teachers' Unions: words don't match actions. Colorado House Democrats voting down bills that would make you safer.
The picket signs for teachers' unions always talk about the children, but do the unions' actions match their signs?
I enjoyed Mr. Armstrong's op ed on teachers' unions below for precisely what I mention above: I enjoyed seeing the contrast between the words of the newly-elected Colorado Education Association president and what most parents and others would see as reasonable.
As I have mentioned before, it's not that union TEACHERS are automatically bad, but you need to remember that no matter what rhetoric the union uses, it is not there to advocate for your child. It's there to protect union teachers and seek their interests.
To the extent those interests overlap with a child's, great. To the extent they don't .. well ...
I'll leave it to you to read through there, but I would like to end with a quote from the op-ed. Interesting numbers for you to mull over and have in your pocket when you read about teacher pay and how much Colorado puts to students (copied with the link intact so you could trace back if you'd like):
"Let’s take a quick glance at funding. According to the Department of Education’s “Education Snapshot” from March, average per-pupil funding was $9,596 for the 2022-23 school year, and the student-teacher ratio was 17:1. Doing the math, that’s around $163,000 per class. Teachers except for those in charter schools (who make less) earn on average $65,838 per year. That’s a lot of money for administration, other support staff, facilities, and supplies."
We put a fair bit to education in this state, but I think it's fair to say, it's not filtering down much. In that sense (though for related, but likely not entirely the same reasons), I agree with Mr. Armstrong when he says:
"I don’t think the key problem is money. I think the problem is the way the money is spent."
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/04/17/armstrong-teachers-union-fights-for-politicized-schools/
Colorado House Democrats voting down bills that would make you safer.
We all see lots of articles that cover controversial legislation. We see the "big deal" bills.
What we don't often see (though to be fair I think I'm starting to note this more in coverage than in the past), are the bills that are shot down. The smaller, less controversial things that may not get lots of attention but that could have a noticeable impact on your life.
This is a shame. While they may not get a big share of reporters' attention (or sell news/get page clicks), this touches directly on our ability as citizens to hold public officials accountable. If we're to do our job as voters, we have to know what they support and what they don't.
The (bipartisan) bill linked below is such an example. The Colorado House Judiciary (read: the Colorado House Democrats) killed it when it came up for its committee hearing.
I have written in the past about how one of the contributors to crime in this state is so-called "PR" (personal recognizance) bonds. As in the infographic at the top, these are bonds where all you need do is sign a paper promising to behave and come back for your court hearing.
Reasonable enough for smoking a joint or some such, but I have read cases where violent offenders got PR bonds from a soft-hearted (soft-headed?) judge and then reoffended before the day was out. Or where an offender is back in court on another violent offense before they even have a trial on their prior violent offense.
This bill would have changed the rules such that repeat, violent offenders (defined in the bill--see the link for the bill summary) could not get a PR bond without approval of the DA. Seems reasonable to me, and the bill had sponsorship of both parties in both houses.
Yet, the House still killed it.
Remember this for when politicians talk about making us safer.
Efforts like these could have a helpful effect on public safety that they're voting down while bragging about grants and etc. that make us "safer".