By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
This coming November voters will be deciding on Proposition NN and possibly Initiative 195, the former being a referred measure by our state legislature and the latter a ballot initiative which as of this writing was out for signatures with no definitive answer on whether it will be on the ballot yet.
Both measures are of the type I like to label with “won’t someone think of the children?!” That is, both of them are geared emotionally to tap into the completely natural desire to help children.
The thing is, there are some problems with the reasoning in both.
To demonstrate, I will lean heavily on the well-written op ed about education funding from one of the interns at the Independence Institute (as well as my own experience as an educator for decades now). I link to the Complete piece in full below.
Let me start with some background. Quoting with links intact:
“Both measures aim to allocate more money towards K-12 education through different avenues: Proposition NN asks voters to give up refunds of overcollected tax revenue under the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), while Initiative 195 restructures how they’re taxed entirely by swapping Colorado’s flat income tax for a “progressive” or graduated tax. While the measures sound appealing to some on paper, voters should ask whether increased education spending actually improves outcomes for Colorado students. The data say no.”
My own experience also says no, but that no is not an emphatic one. It has some caveats.
As Mr. McCahill (the author of the Complete piece) notes, there is no correlation between our state’s standardized test scores and the money spent on education. He covers it in more detail, but we are already spending more and the results either fall or stagnate.
With regard to the idea that this might be an effect of our state not reaching the point where past deficits have been cured, Mr. McCahill has this to say:
“Districts that increased funding by $6,000 or more per student managed no better than those that increased by $800. Pueblo City Schools, for example, increased spending by over $6,500 per student and saw ELA scores fall by 6.2%. In comparison, Widefield School District increased spending by $800 per student and saw ELA scores fall by 6.3%. If underfunding were the issue, we would expect higher-revenue districts to recover faster than lower-revenue ones, but that’s not the case. COVID-19 was a severe interruption for educational and social development—a problem that throwing more money at didn’t fix.”
and
“Unfortunately, this disconnect between spending and outcomes didn’t begin with the pandemic. In the years leading up to COVID, school districts were generally increasing their spending and improving outcomes, as 85% of districts improved in Math and 87% in ELA. However, achievement varied regardless of revenue or enrollment. Districts with modest spending increases improved just as much, or more, than districts with large spending increases. Consider the contrast between two similarly sized districts from 2015-2019. Fountain 8 school district raised its spending by $5,291 per student, and math scores increased by 0.8% and ELA by 2.2%. Pueblo County Rural spent only $312 more per student but improved math scores by 6.8% and ELA by 4.6%. Even when scores were progressing, spending wasn’t reliably driving the improvement.”
I’m inclined to agree. From what I’ve read and seen, I think there are some things that greatly impact educational success, and they’re not necessarily tied to money.
Teacher turnover or lack thereof has a huge impact on learning. Students learn better from experienced teachers, and also when there is a relationship with the teacher. It was and s a tremendous boon to being effective as a teacher when you have been at your school long enough to teach siblings and friends of former students. Conversely, a revolving door of teachers, even worse newly-minted ones, leaves students with deficits.
Another big help, especially for students in poverty, is a school culture that is appropriate to the population. Different students from different socioeconomic backgrounds see education differently. There needs to be freedom to adapt the traditional school model to address this. There needs to be real school choice.
Lastly, you need teachers who are invested in doing well and honing their craft.
Dwell on that list for a minute. There are things there that you can reasonably tie to money in education. There are things that defy money too. Sometimes both are true of the same item. This is why throwing money mindlessly into education is such a poor solution. I’m not saying I’ve got the magic either. If I could crack people’s heads open and pour in motivation, I wouldn’t be writing this. I’d be in a lawn chair on the beach of my private island.
There is one tiny corner of the problem that I do feel confident in speaking on. To the extent that money can help, it cannot just be blanket payments given to school districts. It needs to go directly to the classroom any the humans in it that are teaching and learning.
It’s not a slush fund. It’s not a check handed over a handshake with cameras popping in the background. It’s not a sop to teachers unions. It doesn’t fund the latest wonder technology for the classroom.
When I read through the op ed below, I don’t get a sense that either of these “education funding” measures fit the bill. Quoting for the last time with embedded links left intact:
“SB26-135’s own fiscal note “assumes that school districts are not required to report specifically how the funds are used to CDE.” Essentially, it tells districts to use money towards classrooms and teachers but does not check their spending. Initiative 195 checks spending closely on the back end, but there’s no guarantee of how much will reach K-12 classrooms. The bill states the revenue must be spent on: (a) Colorado Public School Education…(b) Health Care…(c) Early Child Care and Education. There’s no formula deciding how much goes toward each bucket.”
I’ll end by coming back to the line at the top of this post. If the backers of the measures above are so certain that their measures will improve education, why not put our money where their mouth is?
Put a sunset in both. A sunset that says that we get to vote on this again after 3 years after we’ve seen whether there was an improvement or not.
Instead we have the usual: give us more of your money and hope it works (with no accountability if and when it doesn’t). Oh, and keep that money coming forever. Certainly til the next time we come hat in hand.
https://completecolorado.com/2026/07/16/higher-k-12-spending-doesnt-equate-to-improved-outcomes/
Related
It comes from the Our World In Data graph on financing education.
It has some intriguing graphs, both comparisons across country and across time for the US and the world.
https://ourworldindata.org/financing-education
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.