Column this joy over Back, who's recent column in The Rocky Mountain Voice don't align with teachers' unions against Amendment eighty for school choice.
Joey, welcome back to the show.
Hey, thank Andy, great to be here.
Well, let's talk about our Amendment eighty. What it would do. Let's start with that.
Okay, Well, it would put in the lock box I call the lock box of the Colorado Constitution the right to school choice for parents to direct And that's really an important word, to direct their kids schooling, where their kids go to school. In other words, a lot of people are misunderstanding this because the actual amendment language says
the children have the right to school choice. So some people are mistaken mistakenly thinking that that means that the kid has the right to decide on the school the kid goes to, and that's just preposterous.
Well, it also says it says clearly in the initiative that parents have the right to direct their children's education. Yeah, the language is there's.
But people are ignoring that because I think that language is not in the actual uh, in the in the language that's said that's on an Amendment eighting on the ballot, and so people are missing that really important part. And and some of the homeschoolers and some of the charter people are saying, oh, my kid is going to decide and I can't have my kid, and that if you just follow that and let's just have a little fun
and follow that ridiculous assumption. Do they really think that that a kid is going to sue the parent in a Coloro court and have a radical judge who's usually a Democrat who's totally against school choice and public money being used to fund any private school, is going to stay to the parent, Okay, Now your kid wants to go to private Catholic school with his friends, so you're going to have to fund that private Catholic school and you're going to have to uh allow this kid to
do it. Or conversely, if the kid wants to go to you know what, prepare it to homeschool. Does anybody really think adem just going to say, okay, parent, you need to quit your job and stay home and homeschoolier kids. I mean, it's just so ludicrous and far fetched and not happening.
Well, and for me, I mean, for me, the whole argument stops when in the amendment it says parents have the right to direct the education of their children. That is part of the actual Amendment. So that should not even we shouldn't even be doing like you know, hypotheticals joy because I don't want to encourage people to think down that line, because the language says the exact words, parents have the right to direct the education of their children.
So we need to just put that to bed.
Believe. I know, I've gotten on Facebook from people who do not understand that elementary fact that parents direct the right. That's why I went to the to the preposterous scenario of the judges. They just don't seem to get that. And the other thing they're saying all over the place is that the schools will be told by you know, there's a line about quality education, that the kids have
a right to quality education. Or people are saying, oh, well, quality education is going to be defined by the state, by the government, and they're going to come in and tell homeschoolers and charter parents and private schools this is what you have to do. And you know what, already, the Department of Education, the Board of Education in Colorado
is the one who really sets the curriculum. You know, essentially for schools and so the government is already influencing that and they're not going to influence anymore when this an eighty passes. And that's the thing that people are just they're just being gripped by these rational fears when they should be welcoming this Amendment eighty with glad hosannas and singing in the crashing of drums and symbols. Instead of that, they're coming up with these really frankly ridiculous
objections to it. And as you said, actually at the top of the hour, I think if we don't have this Amendment eighty, the legislature is going to continue to interfere. And they're already trying because they're going to say, oh, look at the Republicans, the charter people, they don't care.
They failed this.
I think this is a big, big deal because now that it's on the ballot, if this fails, because people don't necessarily understand, and you've got this in your column that last year House Build twenty four thirteen sixty three was designed to start eroding charter schools and it would have taken away their ability. A charter school can now use available school buildings for free, and that would have taken that away.
It repealed the Yeah, it repealed.
The ability of district charter schools to apply to use the district building or land. So they're going to start chipping away. And if we don't have this protection in the constitution, those chipping away, they will just continue and they will smell blood in the water if this pass.
If this doesn't pass now.
Yeah, And actually the worst provision of that bill that the Democrats tried to pass last time to erase charter schools actually just to destroy the ability of charter schools to function at all. At about fifteen percent of kids in Colorado go to these wonderful and by the way, they're public charter schools, which a lot of people.
Don't get that either.
They also, in this terrible bill that thank god didn't pass, they would give the district the right to actually eradicate all charter schools, even existing charter schools in the district, if the district's per pupil enrollment is projected to decline, not even if it declines, but if it's projected to decline.
So you see what that does. That absolutely strangles the ability of parents just to me, It just effectively bans all charter schools in the district if they're per pupil enrollment is projected to decline, because, of course, the public school people, the Democrats don't want the competition.
Of charter schools.
That's why they're trying to kill charter schools and homeschooling because these always are nearly always score a lot better in testing and in proficiency than the regular public school. So that's why they want they can't handle the competition. And by the way, of course, just the mere fact that the National Education Association at that crazy Randy Winingarten and our local school unions teachers' unions tearing Paulo, have actually kicked in between eight and ten million dollars to
try to destroy Amendment eighty. That should tell oh, it's working.
I want to read this to you, this text message, I just got it.
Joy.
If the kid wants to go to the school where they're encouraged to be trands, the legal system has already wiped out parents. If the wording recognizes the rights of the parent, cool, But if it bestows rights to a child.
No go for me.
So let me explain to this text where they're wrong. Okay, they're run because it clearly delineates parents have the right to direct their children's education. The implied right that you're giving children is not clearly spelled out in this language, and it would come in conflict with the clearly spelled out language that gives parents the rights to direct their child's education.
So one of them is assumed. One of them is clearly in the amendment.
Yeah, they just have to Well, if they look at their blue book under this, I think page three nine or something, then the language is explained about the parent having the right to direct education and people just need to look up the word direct. Do you understand what direct means? People? I mean sincerely. And also this completely ridiculous scenario that the parent is going to be taken court by the child. That's just not happening for the
reasons that I explained. And even if it were to happen, the parent would not be instructed by the court to quit his or her job at homeschool the kid or to pay her religious school, which is another thing people a parent are terrified of, and to pay tuition for real. I mean, no court is going to it's going to command a parent to pay for religious instruction for their kids at some Catholic school or Lutheran school or whatever.
So I've got another text message I want to address here, and that is how is this taking money from public schools? That's what the antis are claiming. There is no money being directed anywhere. All this amendment does is say that parents have the right to choose the best educational choices for their children, and that existing charter schools, homeschool options, private schools.
Have the right to exist. That's all it says.
There's no money, there's no economic impact, there's nothing. But that's the scare tactics used by the unions who say that this is going to be used for vouchers, when no one is talking about that at all.
No, that's exactly right. And so also the homeschoolers don't want vouchers, right, they don't want vouchers for whatever reason. And they're all using the weirdest thing and the most bizarre thing is that the homeschoolers and the unions are using the same language to try to defeat AMT eighties. And that should be a clue. People don't want to be on the side of the teachers' unions if you
care about school choice, because they don't. They've been trying to destroy school choices, excuse me, absolutely forever, and that's why they're spending, as I say, eight to ten million dollars to destroy the amendment. And the other thing that people say is, oh, we already have school choice in howrall. Well, I live in the district that happened to have a one person conservative majority on the board, but a while
ago they didn't. And any district area that has liberals on the board, on your school board, they can just deny school choice by denying charter applications, Willy Nill, you just at the district level. And people don't seem to get that either. But if we put it in the lock box of the constitution, that's what we must do. If you care about school choice, forget all these frivolous, absolutely you know, bizarre, preposterous arguments about how the kid is going to decide what schools she or he is
going to be in. That's just not true. And as you say, there's no fisical what we call a fiscal note on this amount. The fiscal note would be spending of public money. There's no spending, and there's no possibility of spending public money. This is just a clear statement that we in Colorado and we parents and believe in school choice for kids, period.
Joy Overbeck, I appreciate your time today. Hopefully people will read Amendment eighty and see clearly that parents are given control of their child's education.
I appreciate you coming on the show today. Joyce Our Joy.
Thanks Mandy, thank you.