There’s a dumpster fire in Colorado public education, and the new head honcho of the teachers’ union thinks he can put it out with a fire hose of your money.  

Just, please, don’t ask Kevin Vick why. 

Vick was recently elected the new president of the Colorado Education Association. He had a chance in congenial media appearances to offer a substantive vision of how union-dominated school systems — with little accountability to parents or other taxpayers — are the right choice for 21st century students.

This requires thought deeper than a cat’s milk saucer — where Vick does not dare travel.

For example, Vick touts his work as a varsity football coach and “department chair” yet offers little about how he sparked classroom excellence for kids. But he sure is excited about his work leading union bargaining units — to benefit adults. 

Let’s take a stroll through the rainbows and sunshine in Coach Vick’s land of happy talk. 

Today, about a third of all Colorado students are chronically absent from school, according to the state Department of Education — a problem that was dramatically deepened by teacher union COVID-era demands for extended school closures. 

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But in Kevin Vick’s world, one-third of kids not in school isn’t a five-alarm fire where the unions could fight for reform; it’s just an area where society “needs to dig a little deeper” to find the cause. 

Tip a glance in the mirror, Coach. 

Another area where Colorado needs to do some studying, according to Vick, is “how we measure student success.” He wants “more comprehensive” ways to tell if students are doing well.  

Here’s why.

State testing numbers are a disaster. So, change the subject instead of addressing the problem.

A snapshot: Statewide, only 40% of third-graders performed at grade level in literacy, a number that barely inches up to 42% by eighth grade. Go online and look at all the grades, third through eighth. It’s sad, and stunning.

But if you really want to know why teacher union leaders don’t want to talk about results, look at the stats broken out by race. In math, about 22% of Black and Hispanic third-graders — less than one in four — meet expected levels.  

In eighth grade, the numbers drop. Only 17% of Black students, and 16% of Hispanic kids, meet expectations.

It is a scandal neither Kevin Vick nor any of his union con game pals are made to answer for this travesty. 

Would Coach Vick tolerate such numbers on his football team? If a starting player failed on 83% of his plays, he’d ride the bench.  

But, with a straight face, the teacher unions demand more money for a failing system while stiff-arming innovations that offer rays of hope — including competition from charter schools. In fact, the education establishment backed a bill this year that would have eventually killed charters. They even fought to prevent special-needs families from choosing the best schools for their kids. 

Sadly, too many taxpayers — in both parties — believe standing up to moral eunuchs like Kevin Vick is the same as going after your kid’s third-grade teacher.

It isn’t.

Union leaders are on leave from their school districts for years in very well-paid cushy gigs. According to Pro Publica, Coach Vick’s predecessor pulled down about $180,000 per year, a lot more than your local teachers are earning. 

But Colorado isn’t alone in having anti-education grifters clamoring for the status quo. Last week the utterly unhinged, hyper-partisan Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, delivered a bizarre speech where she literally hopped up and down.  

Maybe it’s a new version of “Sweatin’ With the Oldies.”

In her rant, she repeated the tired line former President Donald Trump is “an existential threat to democracy” while endorsing a Democrat no one voted for for president — replacing a candidate whom Democrats did vote for, not that there was much of a choice even then.

And she screeched she believes in families making “reproductive choices” — obtuse to the irony she and her union oppose families making educational choices.

But we tolerate, and encourage, people like Weingarten and Vick. Until voters make teacher union endorsements radioactive, union leaders will continue to laugh all the way to the bank — at the expense of your kids. 

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.