Naumann: Let’s embed our right to school choice in the Colorado Constitution

Colorado charter schools, and the cause of school choice in our state, dodged a bullet at the Capitol when legislation that would have crippled the charter movement was soundly defeated in a bipartisan vote. This annual, relentless assault on families’ rights and quality education can only be stopped if we vote to put the right to school choice in the state Constitution.

As predictable as the sun rising in the east, each year status-quo education groups convince sympathetic legislators to introduce bills that, in one form or another, would damage Colorado’s successful system of school choice. These bills would penalize students across the state who want to choose a school that better fits their needs.

Our state has a long and highly successful school choice legacy.

For decades, families have not been limited to the neighborhood school that their home address assigns their children to attend. Picking another public school or a magnet school that serves students better has created competition among schools within districts, with educators working hard to attract new families to their schools. And Coloradans have been able to consider charter public schools, with independent governing bodies and often specialized curriculum, that today enroll 15 percent of the state’s student population.

And of course, families often choose private schools or homeschooling, options that became even more sought-after following needless and educationally damaging COVID shutdowns.

Competition among schools is a very good thing, driving innovation, and empowering parents and educators. It also increases accountability, because when families vote with their feet, it sparks a healthy consideration of why some schools are preferred over others.

This competition, while popular with families and innovative educators, is not universally beloved. In fact, establishment education groups, including the teachers union, find it to be irritating rather than a welcome challenge. So, they invest the energy they could expend on school improvement into the task of proposing legislation that stifles competition, and killing bills that provide greater opportunity, and choices, for families and students.

Here are two examples from this year’s session.

One bill, Senate Bill 24-122, would have created education savings accounts to assist families with special needs children to choose the school, program, or therapies that their children need. Often these children need specialized educational programming and services, and these publicly funded accounts would help them take at least a portion of their school tax dollars for a non-public program that better suits their needs. This, like many innovative education bills, was lost.

A second bill, which the teachers union and their allies loved, was a direct assault on charter schools. House Bill 24-1363. The legislation was, in essence,  a “greatest hits” collection of numerous methods to make it far more cumbersome to launch, operate and grow charter schools. The bill was killed in committee by a strong, bipartisan 8-3 vote.

Good news without a doubt.

But there is no guarantee in the years ahead that reasonable Democrats – or a pro-charter school Governor like Jared Polis – will always hold power to protect school choice at the Capitol. A change of a few seats and the election of an anti-school choice Governor and the basic freedom Colorado families have enjoyed for years could vanish with one stroke of a pen.

There is an insurance policy against this: the State Constitution and the power of the people to amend it.

Simply put, we could amend the Constitution to state explicitly that families have the right to choose the school that fits the needs of their children best because every child deserves access to a quality education.

With this fundamental right in Colorado’s Constitution, the annual parade of needless and damaging legislative attacks would grind to a halt. The only way for them to take these rights away would be to put their own constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Given the popularity of Colorado’s existing system of school choice, and the benefits that it has provided to tens of thousands of children over the years, providing this basic protection is a battle worth fighting. Leaders are working to place such a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year, and it is incumbent upon Coloradans of all political persuasions to stand up for the basic educational freedom that so many have valued for decades.

Colorado’s children deserve it.

Sage Naumann is a conservative commentator and strategist. He operates Anthem Communications and was previously the spokesman for the Colorado Senate Republicans.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Let’s embed our right to school choice in the Colorado Constitution