If you have any questions at all about this process, please don’t hesitate to contact Ben DeGrow – ben@i2i.org or calling 303-279-6536 ext. 113.

A big thanks to 7NEWS for picking up on our video and for finding Diana Oakley to share her compelling story. More people need to find out about kids like Nathaniel Oakley who cannot learn well in one size fits all education. This program can save kids like him.

State officials argue it could cost an additional $4 billion a year and cause taxes to increase if the plaintiffs prevail. They argue that the state has doubled its investment in education since 1994, and it gets 40 percent of state money. The state spends nearly $3 billion a year on education.

In the same article, the Education Policy Center’s Ben DeGrow asks, “Where would the (extra) $3 billion come from?” Oh, we know where: taxpayers! There’s no easier way to shakedown citizens for more of their money than to scare them with kids not learning. Unfortunately, with this latest shakedown come implications much larger than K-12 education funding itself. This lawsuit will have an impact on TABOR. What the plaintiffs are essentially arguing is that a judge can (and should) overrule TABOR and force the state to spend more money on education by raising taxes on the people without the required vote. Otherwise, as Ben said in the Gazette article, “Where would the $3 billion come from?” If the plaintiffs win, it’s not like they are literally going to hand over the entire state budget to schools right?

Right? ……

To learn more about this case, check out Geoff Blue from the AG’s office here on my show Devils Advocate:

This year it has become even worse. On April 11 at a joint appearance, JCEA president Kerrie Dallman and Jeffco superintendent Cynthia Stevenson publicly concurred that all negotiations had been closed.

It’s not like they held a public meeting and no one from the public showed up. Closed-door meetings mean the public cannot attend even if they do show up. Ben sums up the pro-transparency argument nicely,

Good government operates in the light of day. It’s time to change how business is done in Colorado’s largest school district. The board should make open negotiations with employee groups a standing policy, and honor public votes regarding whether to close sessions on a case-by-case basis. Parents and other taxpayers need to be brought to the table, rather than treated as secondhand citizens.

1. Further reform of PERA must be one the highest priorities of this General Assembly. Although PERA boasts assets with market value of $32.9 billion, its total liabilities were nearly twice that amount – $56.3 billion – even after the legislature adopted the latest PERA bailout: SB1 (2010). That means the stated unfunded liability is $23.4 billion, or a little over $10,100 for every family or household. PERA’s 2009 Certified Annual Financial Report confirms that the Board of Trustees’ assumed future rate of return greatly affects the funding ratio. If trustees were to assume a conservative return of 4 percent the real liability would approach $40 billion, or $20,000 per household. [ PERA Certified Annual Financial Report (CAFR), December 31, 2009.]

2. Adopt tuition tax credits to save money for the State and local school district. Setting the credit scholarship below a student’s per-pupil revenue share ensures both short-term and long-term savings while empowering more families with a wider range of quality education options. We urge legislators to utilize an econometric model from the Cato Institute to measure the fiscal impact of education tax credits, as we did. Plug in your own assumptions to see their effects. Our cautious inputs projected saving $21.3 million at the state level during the first three years of the program. Over 10 years, State savings would reach $176 million, with nearly $697 million saved at the district level.

3. In Colorado, the Medicaid caseload has expanded faster than the state’s population, and faster than the proportion of the state’s population in poverty because the state has continuously expanded Medicaid eligibility. The state share of expenditures on Medicaid has continued to increase in good times and bad. Simply rolling eligibility levels for Medicaid and Medicaid mental health back to the FY 2007 levels would save about $243 million in state funds each year. The Governor and legislators must start the waiver process, or oppose the Maintenance of Effort, to ensure that the State maintains some control over the program.

4. The State’s Old Age Pension Plan costs $105 million per year. A resident qualifies if over age 60 and meets the need-based standard for eligibility. The Plan provides financial benefits up to $699 per month to beneficiaries. The Plan is even more generous than Social Security because, unlike the federal program, beneficiaries do not need to show they have ever earned income, lived in the state before applying for benefits, nor ever paid any taxes of any nature to Colorado!

UPDATE: and here you go…over the jump…

Hundreds of thousands of people showed…

…err…ummm….

…make that hundreds, perhaps a thousand people showed up for the OneNation rally in DC on Saturday.

And of course, there were drums:

A lefty rally wouldn’t be a lefty rally without the ear-spraining bang of giant bongo drums.

Hey, now…that logo looks suspiciously familiar…

One wonders if their German-language publishing arm isn’t named “Bürgerbräukeller Verlag”.

Who knew that Vezzini was a communist? Inconceivable!!!

Isn’t “Democratic Socialist” redundant?

And in case you can’t quite make it out on the flyer in the lower left, the special guest at the Democratic Socialists of America’s reception is Congressman John Conyers.

Don’t forget to buy yourself a Mavi Marmara/Gaza Flotilla souvenir tee before leaving the rally. What back is complete without a white-on-black advertisement of your Jew-hatred and uncreative appropriation of clichéd Obamaisms?

Judging from their listless attitude, one could be forgiven for wondering if the jobs being funded here are their own, as rental protestors.

“Communism at the OneNation rally? What communism at the OneNation rally? Why, it’s just rightwing fearmongering paranoia to think that anyone on the left is associated with a murderous totalitarian ideology like communism! It’s crazy-talk!”

If you apply the same standards to the attendees of this rally as the hysterical left has applied to the tea party rallies over the past year, it’s clear that the UAW is a communist front organization. After all, they are present at a rally where communists are not merely also present, but actively participating with (ironically enough) literature sales tables. There can be no doubt, then, that every single member of the United Auto Workers endorses every word of the communist literature for sale, along with every idea expressed by every speaker, sign, and attendee at the rally.

And don’t forget, folks: always look for the union label at your astroturf rally!

Check out the photo stream here…