Last week the Secretary of State completed its line-by-line review of the petition signatures for Initiative 22, the billion dollar tax increase to fund SB 213. Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that, "the proposed ballot measure concerning 'funding for public schools' was found to be sufficient as required by statute." But just barely.

The group Colorado for Kids turned in 165,706 signatures, but after the line-by-line review 79,850 of those signatures were rejected. That is nearly half of the total submitted! Obviously these people did an unbelievably sloppy job collecting signatures if nearly half of them have been thrown out. And that leaves the total of accepted signatures, 89,820, at just 3,715 above the required minimum to be placed on the ballot - an incredibly slim margin. 

Initiative 22 now becomes Amendment 66 - a change to Colorado's state constitution. This isn't any ordinary tax increase; it's a billion dollars every year and it will be in the state's constitution. The slim margin that allows the measure to be placed on the ballot and the sloppy signature collecting should be questioned before Colorado's citizens are forced to pay.

Republican presidential nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, attended the Education Nation 2012 Summit Tuesday, saying a few words before taking questions from NBC’s Brian Williams and the audience, portions of which were aired Wednesday on the Today Show’s Education Nation (you can see the video hereand read the full transcript here). Governor Romney offered a contrast to President Obama on education reform, particularly in regards to the President’s assertion that criticizing teachers unions is equivalent to “teacher-bashing.” Among the many education issues covered during his appearance, Governor Romney did indeed address the issue of teachers unions that often hold back reform. But he also discussed the importance and of the role of teachers and the value we should place on the profession.

President Obama appeared this morning on the Today show’s “Education Nation” on NBC (see the video here). In the interview Savannah Guthrie began by asking the President about the recent teachers union strike in his hometown of Chicago. Specifically Ms. Guthrie addressed how the strike put Democrats who support education reform in a difficult position, as they have traditionally sided with unions. Ms. Guthrie quoted the Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, as saying that President Obama chose his side – the unions. Obama responded that “Governor Romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher-bashing.” Ms. Guthrie struck back asking, “can you really say that teachers unions aren’t slowing the pace of reform?” President Obama went on the defensive replying, “I just get really frustrated when I hear teacher-bashing as evidence of reform.”