Charter Families Are Majority Makers
Good morning everyone,
On election night last week, there were any number of consequential races being decided for both our state and country. In the midst of all the attention being paid to the Presidential and Congressional contests, you’d be forgiven for not having the bandwidth to absorb much else. But one race in particular – that for a decisive seat on the Colorado State Board of Education – was important on many levels, not least of which for what it revealed about the importance of the state's growing and influential charter school sector.
In the 8th Congressional District (CD8), Gabe Evans managed to eke out a narrow victory against incumbent Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo, but the more interesting shift occurred down ballot in the same district.
In the CD8 race for the State Board of Education, Republican nominee Yazmin Navarro managed to win by a much more substantial margin, besting the incumbent Democrat Rhonda Solis by roughly 16,000 votes.
What caused Yazmin Navarro’s margin of victory to be so large?
In a nutshell, it was charter school families – 18,000 charter school parents, to be exact.
As you know, the State Board of Education serves a critical role when it comes to public charter schools, with the power to overturn the decisions of local school boards that reject the applications of new charter schools or refuse to renew existing charter schools. The winner of the CD8 race would determine whether the State Board of Education retained a bipartisan, pro-charter school majority or, for the first time in state history, flipped to more of an overt anti-charter posture.
In the end, the candidate who vowed to support charter schools when they proved effective at educating kids was the one who emerged victorious.
The outcome of the race made one thing clear: Charter school families are a political force to be reckoned with.
With over 137,000 Colorado children currently being served by public charter schools – 50% larger than the largest school district in the state (Denver Public Schools) – this is a constituency that cannot and should not be ignored.
Efforts supported by CLCS Action, the League’s partner 501(c)(4) organization, focused on a group of 18,000 charter school parents in CD8 with a mission to inform, engage, and activate them on the State Board of Education race. We took not a partisan position, having supported Democratic candidates in other races, but one based on which candidate would best serve our students and families.
We reached out with digital ads, mailers, and texts, letting them know the stakes of the race and where each candidate stood on the issue of charter schools.
And charter school parents of all political persuasions took notice and voted accordingly.
To win by the margin she did, Yazmin Navarro had to convince a significant number of voters who supported Democrat Yadira Caraveo in the CD8 Congressional race to cross the political aisle and support her in the CD8 Board of Education race.
Thank you to all who stood with us and made their voices heard in this election. It was a momentous outcome and one we need to keep replicating as we prepare for what’s likely to be another contentious legislative session ahead.
Dan Schaller, President
Colorado League of Charter Schools
