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The president of Colorado’s largest academics union has denounced a textual content message to Colorado voters that falsely implies he helps Modification 80, which might enshrine faculty alternative within the state structure.
The message consists of an audio clip that includes Kevin Vick, the president of the Colorado Schooling Affiliation. It doesn’t embody a disclosure of who paid for it, a possible violation of state legislation.
“They’re blatantly misrepresenting the place of myself and hundreds of academics throughout the state, who’ve been vocally opposing this damaging initiative that may open the door to diverting thousands and thousands in funding away from the general public colleges that educate 95% of our youngsters and funnel it to personal colleges,” Vick mentioned in an announcement.
The textual content message juxtaposes an audio clip of Vick saying “faculty alternative has labored very properly for college kids for years” with an unattributed written message saying Modification 80 would let households preserve the college alternative that’s in place now.
Modification 80 opponents be aware that the power for folks to decide on the place to ship their youngsters to high school has existed for many years and consider that the modification backers’ true function is to open the door for public schooling funds to go to personal colleges.
If Modification 80 fails, the state’s present faculty alternative is not going to change. Advocates for the measure say that passing it ensures that legislators can’t assault faculty alternative sooner or later.
On Thursday, Bri Buentello, the director of presidency affairs for Stand Colorado, one other schooling group against Modification 80, filed a criticism with the Secretary of State’s workplace relating to the messages.
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s workplace mentioned that as a result of the criticism has been filed, the workplace is not going to touch upon whether or not the textual content messages violated disclosure legal guidelines.
The criticism is directed at Colorado Daybreak IEC, an impartial expenditure committee, which reported that it spent greater than $872,000 on mail and textual content communications in assist of Modification 80 on October 12. Colorado Daybreak can also be listed as paying for the web site that helps Modification 80.
The criticism notes that as a result of the committee shouldn’t be registered as a difficulty committee, it could be violating state legislation by supporting Modification 80.
One situation committee, College Alternative for Each Youngster, registered with the state to assist Initiative 138, which is the previous title for Modification 80. However that committee has not reported receiving or spending any cash this yr.
Each the problem committee and Colorado Daybreak IEC have the identical registered agent, Katie Kennedy, who didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the textual content messages.
Colorado Daybreak IEC has been the topic of not less than two different related complaints previously, together with one which resulted in a high quality for improper disclosures.
A lot of this yr’s contributions to the Colorado Daybreak impartial expenditure committee come from an affiliated nonprofit that based on tax filings is chaired by Steve Durham, a Republican member of the State Board of Schooling, and from one other group known as Shield our Youngsters, run by Luke Niforatos, a vocal opponent of drug legalization.
Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado protecting Okay-12 faculty districts and multilingual schooling. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.
