Who supports Amendment 80
Amendment 80 reflects a familiar political divide when it comes to school choice policies.
Republicans largely support more parental prerogatives to choose schools, including private schools, and fewer restrictions on those schools.
Democrats tend to oppose unregulated choice and programs that fund private schools, and support accountability measures for schools that receive public funds.
There are, of course, exceptions to this partisan divide.
Some Democrats, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who founded two charter schools, have objected to efforts to regulate charters.
Meanwhile, some conservatives, including Christian homeschoolers, have expressed concerns about government involvement in private schooling, which they fear could lead to regulation.
The proposal frames school choice as a child’s right, leading some to worry it will give a student’s wishes legal predominance over their parents’.
Those skeptics may have a point. Rather than push directly for school vouchers, backers of Amendment 80 simply make the seemingly innocuous assertion that school choice is a “right.”
School choice as a ‘right’
The fact that advocates for this measure are framing the issue this way – rather than as an effective taxpayer-funded policy, for example – is telling.
While there are different forms of school choice, like charter and magnet schools, the modern private school choice movement emerged as a way for Southern segregationists to avoid integration.
The movement gained momentum in the 1990s by asserting that choice leads to better educational outcomes, and that it gives low-income students an equitable opportunity to attend better schools.
Those claims have not stood up.
Every rigorous study of statewide voucher programs in the past 10 years has shown that they do not improve student outcomes. In fact, they have led to some of the largest learning losses ever measured — comparable to the losses from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rather than simply giving low-income students opportunities beyond their segregated schools, charter schools lead to higher levels of segregation.
Additionally, statewide private school choice programs, such as what one might envision arising from Amendment 80, are budget-busters for state treasuries and for rural schools as they channel public funds away from high-need areas to affluent families using these programs.
In light of that track record, it is not surprising to see choice advocates move away from their earlier equity claims and focus instead on “rights” — even when such a right can lead to worse educational outcomes for kids.
But even if the rhetorical strategy around Amendment 80 is clear, the question still stands: Why push to enshrine rights that are already effectively available through both Colorado law and U.S. Supreme Court rulings?