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2011-11-02 Home Front: Culture Wars

Colorado voters reject raising taxes to support education

In what could be a harbinger of the 2012 election, Colorado voters Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have raised nearly $3 billion for education by temporarily increasing state income, sales and use taxes. With 59% of the projected vote counted, Proposition 103 was trailing 65% to 35%, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.

Posted by Fred 2011-11-02 02:10|| || Front Page|| [18 views ] Top

#1 I've lived where the government threatened deep cuts to the school system unless the voters approved some funding measures. They got crushed. And lo, the educational system didn't suffer more than token cuts. The politicians use this to raise money and then they add it to the slush fund and forget where it came from. Fuc& 'em. Education was never this expensive before, and it was far better than until recently. I don't know why they need so much money.They could do so much more to run things efficiently, but they don't. Things like "half days" of school once a week. Doesn't do anything to reduce the transportation costs, and the school still needs to start up and shut down! No real savings. And it interferes with the parents' work day. To prove they are working as efficiently as they know how, they make a big show out of writing on the backs of scrap paper and other inefficient cost-saving measures just to show everyone how hard they are working to save money. Everyone sufferes except the politicians at the top who are laughing all the way to their cronies' banks. Restrictive legislation and regulations that prohibit the schools from doing things that make sense, like requiring me, a parent, to fill out a CORI form before I can bring store-bought cake and cookies into the school and help the teacher with a Halloween party in full view of all the teachers and a myriad of students. They don't work with the parents to establish an alternative to expensive bussing. They hire full-time assistants who have some kind of degree to help hand out pencils and keep the kids in line in grade school and don't allow parents to come in and volunteer to help with classes. They assign useless homework like pasting a bunch of pictures that represent their likes and dislikes on the outsides of a box, which ends up taking a day or two away from learning RR&R. Of course that's good 'cause someone with one of them thar degrees sez so. They spend weeks out of the year focused on skewing their grades higher on standardized tests rather than teach useful material, then the next year the school wonders why the students are taking several weeks longer than it normally takes to achieve proficiency in math. And over a third of the time they are on some kind of break or recess or "relaxing" activity.

Why feed a broken system? My kids learn more from me at night than they learn in six or seven hours of school each day. I swear we'd be better off to pull our kids out of school to teach them in a neighborhood basement.

Posted by gorb 2011-11-02 10:45|| 2011-11-02 10:45|| Front Page Top

#2 "temporarily increasing state income, sales and use taxes"

With gummint, there is no temporary tax increase.

Glad to see Colorado voters aren't suicidal.

Now get rid of the lying clowns who came up with this idea.

Posted by Barbara 2011-11-02 11:04|| 2011-11-02 11:04|| Front Page Top

#3 I swear we'd be better off to pull our kids out of school to teach them in a neighborhood basement.

Teach 'em something practical like welding, carpentry, auto shop, computer science, cosmetology, and home economics. You know, the kind of stuff that actually helps a kid get a job.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-11-02 13:23|| 2011-11-02 13:23|| Front Page Top

#4 How about asking parents to pay for thier own childrens education?

They might start to value it instead of just using it as a creche so one can work?

They might also start to demand some quality teachers.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2011-11-02 13:38|| 2011-11-02 13:38|| Front Page Top

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14:56 Grom the Reflective
14:49 49 Pan
14:48 swksvolFF
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14:37 Frank G
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13:49 Skidmark
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13:39 Skidmark