The Colorado State Board of Education says Commerce City’s Adams 14 school board members would “develop trust” with the University Prep (UPrep) charter network of Denver if they focused on the district’s students rather than on “adult” issues. That view presumes the Adams 14 Board members’ “adult” back and forth with the UPrep charter network isn’t focused on children.

The Denver Public School Board has been subject to uncomplimentary shots from a variety of individuals and organizations including the recently formed Educate Denver led by Federico Pena, Wellington Webb and other well-known Denver politicos.

In fact, it’s past time Colorado’s adults have an adult conversation concerning the relationship of charter schools to traditional public school institutions to understand the charters’ impact on children and their education. This is especially timely due to the prospective closure of one of the Strive Prep charter schools in Denver and the prospective expansion of UPrep into Commerce City.

Strive Prep has Peter Groff, former president of the Colorado state Senate and current strategist of MCG2 Consulting, on its board, along with some top-notch lobbyists at the state capitol. Reed Dixon, an oil and gas entrepreneur, and Dietz Fry of Endeavor Capital contribute additional board expertise.

Strive Prep’s network is merging with Rocky Mountain Prep. On RMP’s board is Pat Donovan, managing partner of RootED, communications consultant Jill Anschutz of the Colorado Charter School Institute board, and Marlon Marshall of City Fund. RootED has Tom Gougeon of the handsomely endowed, Denver-based Gates Family Foundation and Ethan Gray of City Fund as board members. City Fund has Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, and Romy Drucker, director of Education Programming with the Walton Family Foundation, on its board.

University Prep has its own group of well-connected individuals on its board of trustees. Cuneyt Akay is a white-collar crime attorney with the Denver firm Greenberg Traurig, Renae Bellew is with the Denver Scholarship Foundation, Brenna Copeland is with the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Emily Eikelberner is with the Tuchman Family Foundation, Tracey Lovett is with the Daniels Fund and Nicholas Martinez is with Transform Education Now.

The numerous charter schools run by these unelected board members mostly serve low-income students of color. The schools are segregated. UPreps have 94% minority populations. UPrep’s achievement scores are in the 30% to 40% range, meaning plus-or-minus 30% of students are proficient in reading and math. Most of the Rocky Mountain Prep and Strive Prep schools produce similar results, plus or minus a few achievement points.

The schools enforce pleasant uniform policies of polo shirts and khaki pants, skorts, shorts and jumpers. They put “prep” into their names because they’re college and standardized test preparatory in mission. UPrep states that it prepares kids for college in kindergarten. How fun is that? Homework is a must. Students can choose their own shoe styles but they can’t have flashing lights on them. Students mustn’t wear anything that may cause distractions.

So though the charter school statute says these schools will bring innovation to the public school system, these particular programs in Denver have mostly brought uniformity in terms of curriculum, dress and mission.

This uniformity is supported by the wealthy, well-connected individuals named above who have access to lots of money from non-profit foundations whose donors receive tax reduction benefits. Additionally, the well-connected members of these boards use public dollars from the collective taxpayers of Colorado to finance their “tuition-free charter prep schools,” even though “tuition-free” describes all K-12 public schools in the state. In the case of these Denver charters, they’re not producing substantially better or worse results than traditional schools even as the negative financial impact on sustaining traditional public education that educates roughly 85% of Colorado’s kids is substantial.

It’s that impact that has reached a tipping point. With Colorado’s student enrollment declining, traditional public schools are hammered when not enough students remain in neighborhood buildings paid for by the public. Publicly-elected school boards then reap the havoc of having to close these under-resourced neighborhood schools.

In Adams 14, UPrep would like to expand into an area near Rocky Mountain Arsenal and an RTD light rail stop that real estate developers are eyeing for affordable housing for residents who want to live and work with easy access to downtown. Adams 14 has recently built a new elementary school in the area and looks to bring more capital improvements. The district has also taken significant steps to stabilize and develop its faculty and support its bilingual population of students.

While these district efforts don’t mean UPrep shouldn’t have a role in Adams 14, the district and its school board must not be put in a position where UPrep would undermine these positive initiatives. These academically grounded programs should be affirmed by other elected officials who want our public schools to succeed.

In sum, here are the “adult” issues Colorado’s citizens and, by extension, its legislators, must address. By our constitution, our public schools are managed by publicly elected individuals who live in the communities where our collective taxpayer money underwrites public education. Except with charters, where unelected individuals, often associated with well-funded foundations that are tax write-offs to their founders, use public dollars to underwrite and control segregated “tuition-free prep schools” with waivers from state policy in neighborhoods where Michael Dell, of the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and Netflix’s Reed Hastings, who created City Fund, have never lived and would never live.

Can this system give all students a chance at a “thorough” education as our constitution prescribes, support our public, public schools and secure our democracy?

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.