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We have friends who live in Highlands Ranch. They are very happy with their school. Remember both sides are extremely political, both the school board and their opponents.
The opposition was unable to win an election, despite millions of dollars flowing in from around the country. It's unusual that national machine politics would be so concerned with one school board, and DCSD has been enemy number one of many Labor/Leftist groups.
The proposed voucher program, if you look into it is not a bad idea, and would REALLY benefit those stuck in poor school districts. Most of the detractors actually know little to nothing about the voucher program.
Part of the reason it is being launched in Douglas County was because the detractors always said that vouchers were just being pushed to hurt poor school districts. DCSD however is one of the best in the country. So if it worked there, it destroys the argument that the vouchers are bad. That is why you see national political machinery working overtime against the board.
The opposition is just louder than the supporters, which is why the opposition was "shocked" that the board was reelected. I mean "how could people be so fooled" the opposition cried. After all, don't people know how terrible the DCSD board it, I read about it on Facebook The people who work and live their lives, largely support the board and the district. The opposition couldn't even win with millions of dollars from outside and an endless clanging of drums.
You've got it 100% backward. The school reform candidates who won the last 2 elections are the ones with the big out of state donors. Jeb Bush even donated. The other side is the one with the local support of hundreds of parents donating hours upon hours, printing their own fliers, donating $10 or $20 at a time. No wonder we couldn't win. It was 48%-52%. Considering all the money on the other side, we did pretty well. Please stop spreading misinformation.
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Originally Posted by resipsa
Thanks for the suggestion on the Speak for DCSD facebook group, I'm looking at it now and that seems to give a lot of good information.
As for GoldenZephyr's argument that most people are happy with the changes to DCSD and that voucher policy that allows public school dollars to flow to religious schools is a good thing....I don't really want to get into any kind of political argument over it but if that view of the community is accurate, then maybe Highlands Ranch and other Douglas County areas just aren't for me. It's disappointing as I really liked a lot of things about the area, but my kids are young so schools are a top priority for us. We may have to focus our home search more in the CCSD areas.
It is a very conservative area, but I know a lot of Republicans who do not support vouchers or anything else the board and district are doing. I don't think GoldenZephyr's opinions are accurate.
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Originally Posted by resipsa
Alright, so I guess the big question is how much of the problems can be fixed with the next school board election? Which I believe is this November. We're probably a year away from moving, so I plan to watch what happens then.
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Originally Posted by GoldenZephyr
Totally agree with you. Thinking back, I was spending a great deal of time in Highlands Ranch during the 2013 school board election, and I couldn't even tell the names of the so called "Koch" funded board members.
However, I saw political activists EVERYWHERE putting the names of the Teachers Union leftist candidates.
At every school, it was "beep beep, vote for all 3" with the name of the political activist candidates. I never even saw a sign for who was running on "team Koch". So for all the "Koch" money, I didn't see any advertisements, just the millions on advertisement from leftist political machines.
Yet, despite the enormous political bullying, and it was bullying, no one who supported the DCSD board could show it at a school for fear of physical attack. My friends would pick up their kids from school and be pelted with political advertisements, activists would even try to turn students political apparatchiks.
Honestly, I believed the school board was "bad" until I really started to dig in and was turned off by the hysterics, activism, distortions, and bullying. My friends don't need other people to "speak for the community". They have their own voices, thanks!
Contrary to what some believe, it is not a union vs board thing. I have nothing to do with the union. I am "just" a parent trying to get what is best for my kids and all kids. The union doesn't enter into it.
Since you don't live here, you didn't see the propaganda from the right. There were many, many glossy mailers and door hangers. There were even billboards and TV commercials, all paid for my donors outside the school district. You have to wonder what their interest is in our district.
I'm stunned at how backward you have it. Seriously stunned that anyone could think that the community candidates were the ones with the money. It was a bunch of moms taking times out of their days to try to get the correct people elected. Unfortunately, it didn't work.
I could write a book about the bullying and condescension from the board to the parents in this district, the outside money, my personal interactions with board members and board supporters. It is unbelievable. There is a lot of good info at these links.
Medians are meaningless in this type of comparison. Median is simply the midpoint between highest and lowest income. If you understood Median Income, you wouldn't use it the way you did. The number of 200K+ households are much greater at CCHS than pretty much any Douglas County School. The Merit scholars are from very wealthy homes, which was the point of the earlier poster who said that wealth produces better educational outcome. There are more very high earning families in GV that easily make up for the low end. Newport Beach has a median income of less than GV, but I know total wealth is MUCH higher. There are a few homes alone in Newport Coast that would buy you 1/4 of all the real estate of GV. Yet, its median income is lower? Ponder that for a moment.
CCSD is a good school district, DCSD is also a good school district. However, leftists can't accept that you could do things differently and still be good. You have one way, their way.
DCSD opponents have a very serious political agenda, they pretend they don't. Does DCSD have a political agenda, yes, but at least they are honest about it and don't go off pretending to "speak for the community".
"Speaking for the community" is the usual leftist groupthink that assumes anyone "who has any brains" must always agree with them, without question.
Disagreement and dissent are not allowed in any leftist ideology.
That is what scares me the most, the way leftists think, it is you MUST agree with everything that they say, and how they do it or you are the enemy. Demonizing, ridicule, hatred, presumption that they are "speaking for the community", all hallmarks of leftist discourse.
I have friend in Highlands Ranch and they love their school, they have friends who love their school. So contrary to leftist groupthink, there are people "in the community" who are in fact, happy with the district. This is why I suppose they were reelected, despite millions from national political machines.
It is possible, and pretty common in DCSD to be happy with your school and unhappy with the district. Many building admins have done their best to shield their school families from the district crap. Some other's aren't as lucky. It may seem counter-intuitive to like the school but not the district, but that's a pretty accurate description for some people.
70% of the households in DCSD do not have kids in the schools, and most of those households are conservative. They voted for the people on the shiny fliers without knowing what's going on. That's how they got elected.
Please see the links I posted. I would love to know where you got the idea that the losing side was the one with the money and political machine.
I understand what you posted about the outside money influence...
what is not so clear is the true motive for those invloved...
are the board members really trying to "dismantle the system" as you write; or is it possible that they are merely trying to accomplish some community goals to which they were elected by their communities to do?
It's very clear. Look at the agendas of these people in every segment they involve themselves. It's always privatization and dismantling government. How can you even begin to think that isn't what they are after???
The entire goal of a voucher system is to allow people to pull money out of public schools and spend it on private schools. This by definition is dismantling the system. That's not an opinion.
Now, you may feel that this is a good idea, but I can show you study after study that shows how it favors the wealthy and disproportionately hurts the most at risk students.
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Originally Posted by eatsDEN
I'm guessing the folks present at the meeting had opposing views to the board,
and possibly were disrupting the proceedings from being conducted in an orderly manner?
I saw some video of citizens that demonstrated this sort of behavior pretty recently too...
Imagine how you would feel if your school board, elected by a bunch of people who live in the district, but don't have kids, was making dramatic changes to the system that you saw as very detrimental. I think it's perfectly fair for these people to speak passionately in opposition.
Attacking people instead of their argument is often a sign that you don't have a reasonable point to make.
It is possible, and pretty common in DCSD to be happy with your school and unhappy with the district. Many building admins have done their best to shield their school families from the district crap. Some other's aren't as lucky. It may seem counter-intuitive to like the school but not the district, but that's a pretty accurate description for some people.
70% of the households in DCSD do not have kids in the schools, and most of those households are conservative. They voted for the people on the shiny fliers without knowing what's going on. That's how they got elected.
Please see the links I posted. I would love to know where you got the idea that the losing side was the one with the money and political machine.
Good links and thank you for posting them. I believe in the sincerity and conviction of your perspective. Honestly, at first I somewhat agreed with the perceived "overwhelming political opposition" to the DCSD Board. However, as I spent more time in 2013 I started to question if there was a bigger agenda here.
The opposition candidates are all hard core political operatives. All backed by Unions and union money. Super PAC type funding doesn't really get counted in with the donations that are listed.
I suspected something was up when I started hearing the opposition claim things like:
"Speaking for the community"
"Speaking for our schools"
Lots of use of "coalition", "all parents", essentially anything that connotes "everyone agrees with us".
The thing is, they actually start to believe their own hype, and that is why they are shocked that they lost, how could they? The "community agrees with them".
I've found that left leaning politicos and their supporters tend to use collectivist language, while others use individualist language. So the more I heard these candidates and their supporters claim they were "speaking for the community" I knew something was up.
Good links and thank you for posting them. I believe in the sincerity and conviction of your perspective. Honestly, at first I somewhat agreed with the perceived "overwhelming political opposition" to the DCSD Board. However, as I spent more time in 2013 I started to question if there was a bigger agenda here.
The opposition candidates are all hard core political operatives. All backed by Unions and union money. Super PAC type funding doesn't really get counted in with the donations that are listed.
I suspected something was up when I started hearing the opposition claim things like:
"Speaking for the community"
"Speaking for our schools"
Lots of use of "coalition", "all parents", essentially anything that connotes "everyone agrees with us".
The thing is, they actually start to believe their own hype, and that is why they are shocked that they lost, how could they? The "community agrees with them".
I've found that left leaning politicos and their supporters tend to use collectivist language, while others use individualist language. So the more I heard these candidates and their supporters claim they were "speaking for the community" I knew something was up.
Seems like DCSD isn't quite in the peril that the some claim.
Hard core political operatives? You've got to be kidding! Who is saying these things? The links I posted speak for themselves.
You don't live here. You need to stop spreading lies. You are conservative. You agree with the board. I get it. They are already winning. They don't need you telling outright lies to get ahead.
DCSD has friends at 9 news. Their education reporting can't be trusted. IIRC, the rating was given based on different criteria than previous years. They removed either special ed kids or drop outs, from the calculation, or something to that affect. The OP can't base his move on one news story.
As someone pointed out, DCSD students will turn out fine because we are a relatively wealthy area (I'm not wealthy, but the whole area, relative to others) with involved parents. We are starting to pick up the slack where we need to. My kids are doing cursive and spelling workbooks this summer because they just plain stopped teaching those in the middle of the year.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the cuts that were made a few years back that haven't been reversed, and all of the fees we are charged for these supposedly free public schools. I spent $150 on supplies for 2 kids; the school ran out of copy paper last year and begged parents for more. Kids who ride the bus are charged $.50/ride. Some schools have had to cut some specials classes (PE, music, art, tech). The district decided all the libraries need to be updated into "learning commons" with fancy furniture and computers, but didn't offer any money to do it. There is fundraising like crazy.
DCSD has $2.75 million in capital needs, and went around the district with a powerpoint presentation about what is needs and how it could be paid for - with a $2 million bond that would keep tax rates the same as they are now. Then the board decided not to put it on the ballot because they promised their constituents on the right that they wouldn't raise taxes. They won't even ask for a few dollars per household to fix the schools. And now they owe $4 million back to the state because they cut HS class time so much.
A last-minute election report confirms what reform opponents in the hotly-contested Douglas County school board race long have sought to deflect or deny. Namely, the challenge of the pro-reform board in this month’s election is bankrolled by the American Federation of Teachers national union.
Last edited by eaton place; 07-10-2015 at 07:48 AM..
Imagine how you would feel if your school board, elected by a bunch of people who live in the district, but don't have kids, was making dramatic changes to the system that you saw as very detrimental. I think it's perfectly fair for these people to speak passionately in opposition.
Attacking people instead of their argument is often a sign that you don't have a reasonable point to make.
Sometimes civic issues are difficult... Sometimes voters don't have the same priorities...
The voters are still in the district, despite not having school aged children...
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The people who work and live their lives, largely support the board and the district. The opposition couldn't even win with millions of dollars from outside and an endless clanging of drums.
