Understanding the Constitution: the 14th Amendment: Part I
- November 15, 2021
Teacher contracts function virtually as the constitution for a district, yet their provisions are little known to the public. Unpleasant surprises emerge when the Denver Public Schools contract is read from the viewpoint of frustrated education consumers. Article 44 bars community accountability committees from monitoring classroom work (although required by state law).
READ MOREPublic education in Colorado is ripe for change. The legislature has enacted a new funding formula and a grassroots accountability process. The Governor has made school creativity a priority issue.
The final months of 1989 brought to the state three major conferences on improving the schools: a business-education summit in August, a Gates Foundation national symposium of reform experts in September, and a regional strategy meeting on parental choice hosted by U. S. Secretary of Education Lauro Cavazos in November.
READ MOREWhether or not events of the 1990s bear out the fashionable assumption that the Cold War is over, with the passing of the 1980s we are clearly entering a period when America’s relationship with the Soviet Union will be closer, more routine, and more diversified that ever before. This will mean not only greater engagement at the government level, but also a dizzying expansion of non-government contacts.
READ MORERapid, efficient movement of people and goods is fundamental to the vitality and prosperity of any metropolitan area, Metro Denver faces growing pains as it seeks to modernize an overcrowded transportation system so that mobility is more nearly equal for everyone and costs are more directly allocated to users.
READ MOREDenver this year renewed and expanded a 1983 law setting goals (in practice, quotas) for the share of public works contracts that will go to firms owned by minorities (25%) and women (12%).
But the program is vulnerable to public disapproval and judicial overturning since it fails the tests imposed by recent U.S. supreme Court and appeals court rulings.
READ MOREhe conclusion from those studies, ststistically rigorous and thoroughly documented was as follows: “An inverse relationship exists between changes in state relative tax burdens and state relative economic growth. Those states with decreasing relative tax burdens tend to experience subsequent above average economic growth. Those states with increasing relative tax burdens tend to experience subsequent below average growth.”2
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