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“Intentional obstruction”: CHEC argues Colorado lawmakers delayed homeschool changes until final days of session
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

“Intentional obstruction”: CHEC argues Colorado lawmakers delayed homeschool changes until final days of session

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado When tasks are put off to the last minute, we assume that those responsible are procrastinators or that time just got away from them. We don’t typically think that what they did was intentional. Applying this logic to our state’s General Assembly would be wrong. The majority party plans the schedule of when bills will be debated in each chamber, how to introduce them, and enacts a plan of intentional obstruction. This process was taking place during the last three days of the legislative session. Controversial bills were saved for the very last moments. On Monday morning, the State House Appropriations Committee met to discuss the final bills. Committee hearings are a place for the public to offer testimony and make t...
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Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado bills spark concern over parental rights and religious freedom

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Colorado is becoming much more antagonistic towards families and people of faith. Our leadership appears to place more importance on ideology, secrecy, and crime when introducing and debating bills. The last few weeks have been an example of that mindset. The legislative session crossed the halfway mark in mid-March and is racing towards the finish line of May 13. SB26-018, Legal Protections for the Dignity of Minors, passed out of committee on March 25 and is headed for second and third reading in the State House this week. The most problematic section of the bill was stripped out in the Senate, but the secrecy provision for minors who request a name change for reasons including conforming to their new ...
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Colorado’s assault on families: TABOR, parental rights and the bills lawmakers killed
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s assault on families: TABOR, parental rights and the bills lawmakers killed

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado In the United States of America, we cherish our freedoms. We have the freedom to protect our families, to practice our faith, to educate our children, and to live in safe communities. Coloradans want to experience those freedoms in our state, too, not just as an ideal in our country. We want truth, justice, and the American way. The American way of limited government and keeping our own money is at risk with the constant attack against the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). Homeschool families' ability to educate their own children becomes increasingly difficult as the state of Colorado takes additional resources away from us. SB26-135, State Public K-12 Education Funding, wants to circumvent TABOR restrictions and proposes k...
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‘Fully funded’ education: Panelist cites 30–70% increase as Sen. Kipp says “TABOR is why we don’t have nice things”
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

‘Fully funded’ education: Panelist cites 30–70% increase as Sen. Kipp says “TABOR is why we don’t have nice things”

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado Friday, January 16th, Day Three of the legislative session, began in a manner that seemed to promote general agreement in the Colorado House of Representatives. Since the upcoming Monday, January 19th, was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and a legal state holiday, the House began with a resolution recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Things went south when Representative Naquetta Ricks compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations to the German Gestapo of Adolf Hitler. This was a shocking statement to make in the middle of recognizing the civil rights efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. Representatives DeGraff and Bottoms brought some much-needed perspective to the conversation, in addition to Rep...
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Beyond the baby bust: Parents quietly exit Colorado public schools
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Red State, Top Stories

Beyond the baby bust: Parents quietly exit Colorado public schools

By Christian Horstmann | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Our public schools lost 10,000 students this year. Is there another reason beyond the baby bust and a population pinch? Colorado’s public schools just posted their steepest enrollment slide since the pandemic: down more than 10,000 students this year, affecting each of our top ten largest districts and many others statewide.1 Denver Public Schools alone lost about 1,200 students2 and the district is already projecting another 6,000 by 20293 – almost certain to trigger even more school closures on top of the ten that have already been shuttered over the last few years.  Interestingly, overcrowded classrooms were presented during recent school board campaigns as an issue to address, but the opposite sce...
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Teachers Union Pushes Polis To Block Federal Scholarship Option For Families
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Teachers Union Pushes Polis To Block Federal Scholarship Option For Families

By Ari Armstrong | Complete Colorado Will the Colorado teachers’ union be so spiteful toward private education options that they will deny Colorado families money from privately funded scholarships promoted by federal tax credits? We soon will find out. I first learned of the program in question when the Colorado Sun published Jay Stooksberry’s op-ed on the matter on August 19. As Stooksberry explains, buried within the One Big Beautiful Bill was the Education Choice for Children Act, which allows individuals to “make tax-deductible donations up to $1,700 to scholarship organizations.” Before a state’s families can take advantage, Stooksberry adds, the governor must opt in and “approve a list of qualifying scholarship organizations the year before the donations can ...
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Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado With Christmas right around the corner, we are all shopping in earnest. This flurry of activity makes us focus on our budget and how much we can spend on all that Christmas cheer. We are carefully counting our pennies, while the State of Colorado’s Budget continues to spend more each year. Governor Polis’ budget request for 2026 is over $50 billion. Education spending is no exception. Colorado’s per-pupil spending is $18,130, an increase of 7.4% since 2020, according to the Reason Foundation. As enrollment in public schools continues to decline, funding is going in the opposite direction. Coloradans are asking, “Where is all the money going?” Staffing levels are up, even with a 4.6% drop in public...
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The Bill of Rights was written to limit power. One civics lesson explains how.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The Bill of Rights was written to limit power. One civics lesson explains how.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “I observed… the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer,” Ben Franklin. Bill of Rights Day is often marked with references to free speech, due process and other familiar rights. Less attention is paid to the reason those protections exist at all: to place clear limits on government power. That question sits at the center of a handwritten civics lesson now being shared among homeschool students, one that walks through how the Constitution was designed to restrict government authority, including economic decision-making. Susie Dean, a homeschool civic...
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Stop Financing the Second Job
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Stop Financing the Second Job

By Christian Horstmann | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice When child care rivals your mortgage payment and eats the “extra” paycheck, having a stay-at-home parent is the wiser investment.  We’ve been told for years that homeschooling is impossible because “you can’t make it on one income.” But when families pencil out the math, a different picture appears: the second paycheck often pays for the costs created by the second job: child care first, then commuting, meals out, and the “time savers” that keep the overbooked household afloat. On paper, it looks like gain. In reality, it’s a trade.  Consider just one budget line that eats the pay raise: full-time child care. Across Colorado, the average monthly price is over $1,000; but in nine of our ten most populous count...
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