In last November's election Jefferson County, Colorado, elected three new, conservative members to its five member school board. The are opposed to increasing taxes to support the schools, but favor more charter schools, which will take more money away from the existing public schools. At the most recent board meeting, the county superintendent of schools resigned, according to the Denver Post. The board said it was her choice, but indications are that she was under pressure to leave, if only because she would not be able to run the schools as she thought they should be run. It sounds as if she was particularly pressured by the conservative law firm in Colorado Springs that the new board has hired to represent them.
This is a bad sign for education in Jeffco. Soon evolution and other topics that conservatives don't like will be removed from the county's lesson plans. They want to institute an incentive pay plan for teachers, which in theory should be good, but in practice turns out to be very hard to implement fairly. It discriminates against teachers who teach in school with a high percentage of poor, disadvantaged students, and of course could be implemented in a way that rewards teachers who teach a conservative agenda in line with the board's agenda.
The fact that one of their first board meetings was so divisive and raucous is a bad sign that they intend to pursue their agenda without trying to compromise with their opponents. It will not be a pretty or pleasant transition, and the political infighting will not help the students.
