There’s nothing like leaving a subject that requires objective, unpolitical consideration to politicians. Our public schools deserve the most well-grounded, open-minded examination of what works to create wonderful schools. Ideally, HB23-1241, legislation that creates a task force to examine our school accountability system, should provide that unbiased analysis. Instead, the House speaker, Senate president, governor, House minority leader, and Senate minority leader have appointed members who will protect their interests.

Guess what groups are least represented on the task force? Public, non-charter school teachers and administrators who educate 85 percent of Colorado’s students.

Guess who are not represented at all on the task force? PTA, the Parent Teacher Association, represents the most mature parent-teacher organization in Colorado. No PTA representative is on the task force. An important objective of the task force is to examine education inequities. No representatives from schools or districts “on-the-clock,” or experiencing the greatest inequities, are appointed to the task force.

Guess who is most represented? The charter school and so-called education reform industry. Dan Schaller is president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. Tomi Amos is the CEO of Kipp Charter Schools in Colorado. Alison Griffin is vice chair of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. Tamara Hiler is a former staffer for pro-ed reform Third Way. Brenda Dickhoner is executive director of the pro-reform and conservative education advocacy organization Ready Colorado. Tony May from Garfield RE2 just recommended that his district replace the State Board of Education social studies standards with American Birthright standards. Jen Walmer is executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. Catie Santos de la Rosa works for the Montclair Innovation School. Mark Sass is Colorado’s director of Teacher Plus and winner of the Education Reform Now best education reformer. Ryan Marks is Director of Evaluation at the Colorado League of Charter Schools. Erin Kane is superintendent of Dougco and former executive for Schools for America Academy charter. Anne Keke is on the Aurora school board and teaches at an Aurora charter school. Lindsey Gish teaches at DSST-Cole charter. Nicholas Martinez represents Transform Education Now that wants to replace Adams 14 schools with charters.

Education reform and charter schools go hand-in-hand. Education reformers brought us the CMAS standardized tests and charter schools have brought us school systems with unelected boards of directors that have the flexibility of the private sector to hire and fire teachers. It’s this flexibility, it’s argued, that will transform education now, as Nicholas Martinez of TEN ardently advocates.

Oh, if only that were so. In the merger of Denver’s Strive Prep with Rocky Mountain Prep, two charter systems educating 5,000 students, turnover from June 2022 to April 2023 is more than 50 percent of staff, 400 of 730 employees according to a Chalkbeat article. That’s obviously not sustainable. Of those numbers, Strive Prep lost 32 managers and Rocky Mountain Prep lost 24. The test results in the schools show low achievement scores, some approaching levels of schools “on the clock” according to CDE’s school performance framework and Public School Review, a site that tracks data on public schools across the nation. While Strive Prep has recently closed three schools, it has not received the scrutiny from CDE and the State Board of Education that hailed down on Adams 14 School District. That district has been required to either merge with another district or subject itself to an outside management team.

Strive Prep’s board apparently insulates its schools from critique directed at traditional public schools. Peter Groff, former president of the Colorado Senate, is on Strive’s board along with Kayla Tibbals, a prominent lobbyist in the education reform movement and for the Colorado League of Charter Schools, and Amber Valdez, lobbyist for tobacco company Altria and the Colorado Bar Association, among others.

Rocky Mountain Prep is similarly positioned. Board director Pat Donovan is COO of RootEd Colorado, an education reform entity with ties to City Fund set up by Reed Hastings of Netflix fame and John Arnold of Arnold Venture Fund. Arnold is the underwriter of Parker Baxter’s project at the University of Colorado Denver to confirm that Denver Public Schools’ portfolio program represents the most important education reform in US history. Also on Rocky Mountain Prep’s board is Jill Anschutz who is a member of the state Charter School Institute that authorizes charter schools turned down by school districts.

Analysis of school test results provided by Public School Review further illustrates the wackiness of the school accountability appointments. Of 1,720 public schools, 217 are charters. Of those charters, 137 have test results below the state average. That’s 52 percent. Of the 1,720 public schools, 1,400 are traditional neighborhood and community schools operated by elected school boards. Of these, 635 have test results below the state average, or 45 percent.

Charter schools have been excellent purveyors of their excellence, whether they’re excellent or not. Their marketing budgets certainly make a difference. Their existence depends on Colorado’s citizens believing that our state testing system is an accurate representation of school performance success or failure and that charters do a better job teaching kids than traditional public schools.

The truth is that neither charters nor traditional schools have cracked the nut of developing programs where non-English speaking, low-income children will perform at a high level on standardized tests, both math and reading, in English. That’s obvious. These schools also have not cracked the nut that enables low-income, minority students to perform well on these achievement tests. Maybe it’s the tests. Maybe it’s the strain put on kids and teachers related to the tests.

Whatever is going on, individuals without a pre-set education agenda need to do the hard work of figuring out what’s needed to get this state on a productive path for all its schools. As of now, with the current crew of political appointments to the HB23-1271 task force, such progress is dubious indeed.