Amendment 73

Summary

This provides substantially more funds for K-12 education. The funding comes from increased taxes on the well-off. If you make under 150K/year, you won't see an increase. If you make over that, it's quite affordable.

This is not targeted funds for specific programs, it's a process to restructure the general funds for education while also increasing the total revenue provided to the schools. The restructuring is an easy yes, it's the increased funding that's the big question.

Vote Yes

I've talked to a lot of people in the state government, educational system, etc. They're trying. Many are taking politically unpopular stands that they think are the right thing. Many schools & teachers are trying new approaches.

My opinion is to now do our half of this and provide the additional funding - and continue the efforts recently added to require more accountability in return.

Arguments Against

There's two arguments against. The first is self-interest. If you don't care about improved schools then this is an easy no.

For those that are looking to the future, there's the question of will the increased funds lead to better outcomes. And the majority (not all) of the research shows no corelation between spending and student achievement - within a reasonable range.

Interesting tidbit - the biggest corelation with a child's success in K-12 is their mother's educational level. As to us dads - no corelation.

Arguments For

Our K-12 educational system is presently failing to prepare enough students for the jobs of today and tomorrow. It works well enough for the well off, but for everyone else, most students are going to have a hard time getting the education necessary for a good job.

And as a business owner, the biggest problem we face by far is finding qualified people to hire. For the last 10 years we have always had job openings, some which have taken over a year to fill (if you're a brilliant software developer - email me!)

This isn't something it would be nice to fix, this is something we must improve.