Jared Polis ranks high among our state’s “education governors,” a list that over the years has included Democrat Roy Romer and Republican Bill Owens. Polis shares with Romer and Owens not only a firm command of the top issues facing the state’s schools but also a fervent commitment to provid ing Colorado’s kids wide-ranging educational opportunity.  Polis, an internet entrepreneur, launched his political career by winning a seat on the state Board of Education. He also founded two charter schools and has been a consistent champion of Colorado’s groundbreaking charter school movement.  So, it only made sense when he signed on earlier this month to a promising new initiative passed by Congress last July to fund scholarships through federal tax credits for K-12 students to attend schools of their choice.  Polis deserves applause for embracing this watershed policy. Colorado parents crave school choice, as evidenced by the explosive growth of the state’s public charter schools. There are now more than 260 of the publicly funded, autonomously run charter programs, serving fully 15% of all public school students in the state. So, Colorado’s climate is right for expanding educational options. Starting in 2027, the tax credit will offset federal income-tax bills dollar for dollar, up to $1,700, for donors to scholarship-granting organizations. While tax credit-eligible donations are capped at $1,700, the granting organizations may offer individual scholarships of higher value to help cover a student’s wide-ranging needs. Those needs could include private school tuition as well as tutoring costs for students at public schools.  What’s especially compelling is the potential for the tax credit to provide meaningful educational alternatives for kids from households of limited means, trapped in underperforming neighborhood schools. Those at-risk students could benefit profoundly in life-changing ways. Polis merits all the more credit for opting Colorado into the federal initiative given the pushback he has been receiving within his own party from some of the usual, head-in-the-sand defenders of the public education status quo. Even though the tax credit requires no expenditure by our state and doesn’t divert any of its K-12 funding stream, critics of the new congressional policy wrongly see it as a threat to public education.  Far from jeopardizing public schools, however, the tax credit stands to help them. It can be used to cover after-school programs as well as tutoring and other costs to bolster kids enrolled at public, neighborhood schools. But the tax credit also will reinforce what should have been the real premise of public education all along: Notably, that public education funding, whether federal, state or local, is supposed to benefit individual students rather than brick-and-mortar bureaucracies. That only can happen if the funding can follow students to the kind of schooling that works for each of them. Which, in turn, means letting those students and their families choose what works best. Sadly, school choice has become a political football and long has been a cause of division within the ranks of Colorado’s ruling Democrats. So, Polis’ public statements on his decision have stressed pragmatic considerations about not wanting to leave federal funding on the table when it could benefit our public schools. And that’s certainly true. But Polis’s long-term track record on educational choice and innovation makes clear he gets the big picture. And that is that Colorado’s schoolchildren need meaningful education options.  Now, they have another such option. ...read more read less