Dark money groups have corrupted Denver School Board elections (Opinion)

Are the Denver School Board elections transparent and democratic Not really Sadly the Denver School board campaigns are far less democratic than any other Denver elections with two dark money groups providing more than of the funding We are talking more than million from these two groups in and expect the number to be even higher this fall There is no other Denver or even Colorado electoral contest with so much soft or dark money pouring into an voting Not only is the funding coming from just two c organizations the lecturer union Denver Classroom Tutor Associations Action and a charter school advocacy organization Denver Families Action but neither group is transparent about the sources of their funding or their expectations for candidates Denver Families Action doesn t even list their sources of funding on their website in spite of spending more than in Another dark money group Better Leaders Stronger Schools spent more than million Instead of school board candidates having to focus on making their event to voters and raising money from Denver supporters school board candidates must first convince one of these organizations to back them School board candidates know that without either of the outside group s sponsorship they have little or no chance of winning One hundred percent of the candidates that have won a Denver School Board seat since had the promotion of one of the two groups To be fair the independent expenditure committees funded by DCTA or Denver Families Action are not allowed by law to coordinate with the candidates but the reality is that they don t need to coordinate to provide strong help as we have seen in the last several rounds of elections Independent expenditure committees organize for the candidates pay for flyers social media and even TV ads And if they say something unreasonable the candidate can honestly say they know nothing about what DCTA or Denver Families Action did on their behalf Related Articles Denver Society Schools defies Trump administration deadline for removing all-gender bathrooms East High School apprentice detained after taking gun to class Denver Constituents Schools earns green academic rating from state for first time since Superintendent says DPS s all-gender bathrooms don t violate Title IX vows to protect students from hostile administration Trump administration says DPS violated Title IX with gender-neutral bathrooms The largest part comparable voting process to school board are the Denver City Council elections In those races there are independent expenditures that include developers unions and other special interests But in none of these elections was the IE funding greater than the candidate s campaign spending And in the bulk of the city council races the IE funding was less than which meant that the city council campaigns were managed by the candidates with far less influence from outside dark groups as compared to the school board elections Why are the city council races less influenced by IE s There is a population match that encourages candidates to raise their own funding The match is publicly disclosed and allows them to run a campaign without having to be dependent on IE s City council candidates have more control over their campaigns and this incentivizes them to directly connect to voters A review on the impact of the city s inhabitants matching fund displayed that there was far more participation in terms of voter aid for candidates and more candidates So what can be done to enable school board candidates to act independently and allow voters to know it is unlikely that a candidate has been influenced or bought by a special interest group Here are three practical suggestions Provide a society campaign match for qualified school board candidates Return the responsibility for voting campaigns to candidates so they do not have to depend on Independent Expenditure Committees Expand the number of regional school board members from five to eleven to follow Denver City Council regions so that school board members can better represent their communities The current school board regions make it hard for candidates to truly represent the requirements of their society because of the size and diversity of the current school board regions Pay school board members commensurate with other city offices like Los Angeles This will make it accomplishable for far more qualified candidates to run for school board seats The school board is responsible for managing a budget nearly half the size of the city budget and educating students It s a responsibility as great as any city council seat Denver s schools are in situation with chronic absenteeism declining enrollment segregation and too minimal low-income students thriving academically Too countless teachers cannot afford to live in Denver and masses development funding is threatened at the state and federal levels The district requirements thoughtful committed board leaders Oddly as two people that have mostly disagreed on school board candidates and guidelines we find ourselves strongly agreeing that without changes to how we elect Denver School Board members it is unlikely that our beloved Denver schools can live up to their promise Now is the time to curb the outside growing influence of DCTA and Denver Families Action stop the balloting arms race and return our school board races to the voters We need to bring democracy back to community mentoring in Denver Van Schoales is a former residents school mentor Denver school principal and guidance improvement sometimes improvement advocate Scott Baldermann is a former Denver School Board member and parent of two DPS students Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns editorials and more To send a letter to the editor about this article submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail