Foundation philanthropy has progressed to a new level of conceit with the Daniels Fund’s “Big Bet” to bring 40,000 charter and private school seats to Colorado. Did Hanna Skandera and Luke Ragland, Fund CEO and Daniels’ Sr. VP of grants, ask the people of Colorado if this was a good idea? Did these philanthropic heads go to the Colorado General Assembly for this authority, or any publicly elected entity for that matter?

Bill Daniels and the Daniels Fund initially gained public praise for their attention and commitment to ethics in business. The University of Denver’s College of Business is named after Bill Daniels because he founded its excellent program in business ethics. So it’s curious as to why and how his namesake fund would want to sabotage public education and divert public dollars from public schools, mostly neighborhood elementary schools and comprehensive middle and high schools that serve Colorado’s communities.

This Daniels Fund project is evidence of the arrogance of too many foundations and so-called civic investment funds such as City Fund financed by Reed Hastings and John Arnold, both billionaires on a mission to take down Denver Public Schools in the November election. These wealthy donors and their anti-democratic legions think they know what’s best for the rest of us common folk. They don’t need to ask if their initiatives are proper public policy. They have money and their money talks.

Let’s first do some math: 40,000 seats represent 100 elementary schools at 400 students per school. Colorado has 264 charter schools with about 160 elementary schools funded with public money. That’s about 15% of Colorado’s students at 127,000 children in 2022-2023. The fund wants to increase the total number of charter students by about one-third when the current number is putting lots of pressure on districts such as Denver Public Schools and Jeffco schools to shut down their non-charter schools.

Stay up to speed: Sign-up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

How these established charters are supposed to staff up and expand facilities to accommodate so many students while maintaining standards and achievement is unknown. Whose money will provide that staffing-up and new space is known.

Currently, charters receive most of their funding from local districts, the state and federal dollars. Moving 40,000 students out of public-school management will subtract about $400,000,000 ($10,000 per student) from district budgets that bring comprehensive programs to their schools. Charter school kids often take advantage of these district programs. Districts pick up that tab.

Shouldn’t this large shift of public dollars from school districts with oversight from elected officials be taken to the voters? Shouldn’t Republicans particularly be concerned about this unaccountable takeaway of tax dollars as an assault on the General Assembly’s taxing responsibilities, much like attacks on TABOR rules?

Dollars spent on publicly funded school district infrastructure – programs to support children with special needs, English language learning, Advanced Placement courses and Gifted and Talented programs, and school athletics, including equity for girls and boys – would be up for grabs. Where will those charter school children go for athletics, music and arts and vocational education without a vibrant public school system governed by elected representatives of the citizens in our communities?

Then there’s the problem of school discipline in the charter school system. According to data from the Colorado Department of Education, schools in the Charter School Institute district do not expel students. While every other district in the state shows some students receive the maximum disciplinary action of expulsion, there are no recent records at the state level of any Charter Institute students receiving that disciplinary result. Are the children in Charter Institute schools angels, or are challenging students simply counseled out or flipped over to the charter school’s publicly run school district? Where will those challenging students go if public school districts across the state are sent into a funding tailspin because of the Daniels Fund’s grand bet? Right now, there’s not enough money to support counselors and mental health staff with our current school budgets.

Then there’s Bill Daniels’ statement of values. According to the Daniels Fund website, he loved the communities in which he lived and was dedicated to giving back to them. The Big Bet turns those values upside down. Closing neighborhood schools and community middle and high schools will cause parents and children much grief (see the impact on Manual High School students in Denver and on neighborhood families in Jefferson County, among others.) All too often, it’s small neighborhood schools in poor communities that are most affected as their children must travel farther, often under more dangerous conditions, to different schools.

Philanthropists on the charter school bandwagon often cite the canard that charters do better than traditional public schools in educating students. That’s incorrect. The quality of charters overall compared to public schools overall is not significantly different even though charters have an advantage over how students are selected. Finally, padding charter school numbers does nothing to solve the real challenges to our student population today.

Poverty creates the greatest strain on schools. The state is now supporting free lunch for all students. Taxpayers voted to do that. It’s a start. The best bet the Daniels Fund could place would be on underwriting anti-poverty programs and resources including health clinics, mental health services, dental and eye care, housing and community support for parents and their children. That’s a much better roll of the dice than the craps game the Daniels Fund is currently playing.

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