Is 23 the way to fund schools?/ Yes: It's an investment worth making

As a businessman and banker, I reviewed with some skepticism the school funding initiative on the ballot this year. To my surprise, I found that Amendment 23 is a conservative, responsible way for voters to invest in the well-being of Colorado's families and communities and our economy.

We must invest in our schools now so our young people can succeed as workers and citizens in the 21st century. If we do not, we place the future prosperity of our state at risk.

Our business community requires a work force that is better educated than ever before in history. That's why we've supported vital educational reforms in Colorado: High academic standards, award- winning student assessments, and accountability.

Thanks to the Governor's Report Card, every public school in Colorado will be held accountable for providing Colorado students with a first-rate education. But the story doesn't end here.

Now, as voters, we must provide the funding that will allow our schools to perform as we expect them to do. When Colorado voters passed the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights in 1992, we acquired the right - and the responsibility - to make major decisions on how our tax dollars are spent.

The state's TABOR surplus is expected to grow in the future. In order to use a small portion of the surplus to fund schools, a vote of the people is required - and putting it in the state constitution is the only way we can be sure that these resources will be spent on, and only on, education.

A critical factor in achieving the standards we have set is to authorize the legislature to use a small portion of the TABOR surplus to improve our schools. This is what Amendment 23 does.

School funding in Colorado has fallen far below the national average. Since the 1980s, we've fallen from 11th to 32nd in per- pupil funding. We now have the eighth-highest class sizes in the nation. These are not statistics to be proud of when our state's economy consistently ranks in the top five in the nation.

For the sake of our future prosperity, our students need good teachers, smaller class sizes, current textbooks and up-to-date technology.

Instead, our youngest students struggle to learn in classes with as many as 34 students. High school classes often top 40.

Teachers are lucky to have a classroom set of textbooks for their math, science or social studies classes. The days when students had their own textbooks are long gone in Colorado.

We continue to lose many of our best new teachers to other states or private industry where they can earn a living wage. Instead of doing homework, Colorado students are going door-to-door selling gift wrap, candy and body lotion just to buy new computers and classroom materials.

Amendment 23 is a common sense way to remedy this deplorable situation. It guarantees that funding for public schools will increase by at least the rate of inflation plus 1 percent for each of the next 10 years, and at the rate of inflation after that. This funding increase will bring Colorado back up to the national average.

It will follow every child into every classroom in Colorado. It will support reform and accountability. It will help local school districts pay for literacy programs, programs to meet state standards, textbooks, teacher training, teacher performance incentives and reduce class size. It will pay for the Governor's Report Card, which, in turn, holds the new money accountable. Amendment 23 does all this without increasing taxes.

Now is the time to invest a portion of the surplus in schools - vote yes on 23.

- Nelson is a retired banker and immediate past president of the Public Education and Business Coalition

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