President Obama’s home state of Hawaii and nine politically important states east of the Mississippi mysteriously beat out Colorado’s kids in a rigged competition for “Race to the top” money. So Colorado kids and taxpayers are funding increased education spending that neither they nor Colorado nor the country can afford to pour down another patronage dark hole. In an excellent editorial, 

the Colorado Springs Gazette explains how politically-driven centralized planning in Washington has proven once again that states shouldn’t be sending education dollars to Washington to be redistributed by politicians and the bureaucrats who answer to them. This is the reason so many libertarians and conservatives believe the U.S. Department of Education should be shut down. It’s just a political tool for presidents and teachers unions. It hurts kids in Colorado and around the country.

Impact graphs from the editorial:

If it seems cruel to take from children in Colorado to give to East Coast kids, that’s because redistribution isn’t kind. Redistribution schemes are inherently cruel to those who lose. Central planners choose winners and losers, based on a given set of criteria. The winners get other people’s money and the losers forgo the fruits of their own productivity.

Race to the Top put states in competition for billions in education funds that would go to the chosen few. All states will pay, so it was incumbent upon Colorado to compete for the funds.

President Barack Obama’s Department of Education used a panel of judges to score each application based on a set of criteria that should have favored Colorado heavily. The panel wanted to choose states open to charter schools. Colorado is easily the nation’s leader in the charter school and school choice movement. We were told another major factor in the judging would be a state’s ability to improve underperforming schools and to link teacher evaluations to student achievement.

In all categories, Colorado should have fared exceptionally well. In its last session, the Colorado Legislature bucked the teachers unions and passed SB191, specifically to show Obama’s special panel our willingness to demand and reward teacher excellence. The bill, nicely written to protect teachers with a variety of checks and balances, ties tenure to performance reviews. It does away with teachers who cannot perform at acceptable levels and rewards those who get good results. Few states, if any, were in a better position to wow the panel. So why did we lose? Maybe the judging had more to do with politics than educational excellence. That’s often how central planning really works.

Thanks Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall for sending Colorado money to Hawaii and Florida. We know they need it more than we do.

LINK:

Colorado kids wind up as losers. Colorado Springs Gazette.