Senior policy analyst Ben DeGrow’s insights on a recent major Colorado school finance court ruling are featured this week on American Family Radio News (One News Now). In an interview with reporter Bob Kellogg, DeGrow highlighted some key basic problems with the Denver District Court ruling in Lobato v State:

“First of all, this is a decision that belongs to our elected representatives and the legislature to decide how much resources are dedicated to education,” he notes. “But this claim that education is so drastically underfunded just goes to show that the way we spend money on schools is broken.”

Elsewhere in the story, DeGrow described the effort to push school funding “adequacy” through the courts rather than pursue dramatic school funding reforms through the legislative process as “wrongheaded.” Colorado needs a system where money follows the student directly to the school of their choice, rather than formulas that are filtered through government agencies.

Follow the link to read the story and listen to a 1-minute audio clip.

For a more in-depth discussion of the Lobato decision’s shortcomings, listen to DeGrow’s December 2011 iVoices podcast interview with University of Colorado-Colorado Springs professor Joshua Dunn.