In this episode of Restoring Education in America, Priscilla Rahn dives deep into the complexities of educational reforms. From the introduction of Excalibur Classical Academy, a new private school aiming to restore America’s heritage through classical education, to an impassioned critique of recent legislative efforts. The discussion dissects the implications of several bills, including changes to teacher licensing and the creation of an Educators Memorial Highway. Priscilla candidly shares her insights and questions the efficacy and intentions behind these legislative actions.
Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
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Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Vaughn, and I’m so appreciative that you have decided to join the conversation today. This fall, there is a new private school opening. You know, I talk about it every show. It’s Excalibur Classical Academy. Their mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of freedom for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. We’re living in a time where a lot of kids are learning in the public schools how not to love our country, and we want to raise young people who understand the origin of their rights how to identify the threats to their rights and how to defend against those threats. And it starts with an understanding of God and country and our inalienable rights that come from our creator. At Excalibur, they believe that parents are the first educators of their children. And so Excalibur Classical Academy is going to partner with parents to support them, to provide them with a strong classical education in the liberal arts. So if you would like more information, especially if you have a young child that will be starting kindergarten through third grade, please go to their website, ExcaliburClassicalAcademy.org to request an information session, a tour. I’m sure they will be happy to support you and in your education choice journey. And also something that’s really notable is that Excalibur is offering 100% tuition assistance for all families. So reach out to them to learn more. Well, today it’s just you and I. I have been very, very busy. I’m finishing out the school year and doing the radio show and opening Excalibur Classical Academy that I haven’t had a lot of time to keep up with the 500 to 700 bills that I’ve been going through the Colorado State Legislature. But I decided I was going to pause and just look up some of the bills that, you know, have to do with kids these days. And one of the bills is Senate Bill 26-126. And this one has to do with teacher licensing. It’s got a lot of Senate sponsorship, mainly Senator Marchman and Senator Rich. And the bill summary reads like this. Current law provides that the Department of Education may issue a professional teacher license to a teacher with at least three years of successful experience in teaching within the previous seven years of another state or country for which the department has granted reciprocity. The bill eliminates the requirement that an applicant have the successful experience in teaching within the previous seven years. The bill retains the requirement of at least three years of successful experience in teaching. So basically what it’s saying is the current law says that a teacher coming in from another state with reciprocity have three years of teaching experience within the previous seven years. But this current bill, if it passes, will delete the seven-year requirement but retains the three-year experience threshold. I’d love to know what you think about this. It is set for March 31st, which is tomorrow, 9 a.m. at the house. I think this is receiving a lot of support. And as a teacher who started teaching in Texas and then transferred to Colorado for myself as a young teacher, when I moved from Texas to Colorado, I had a teaching license in Texas. But I still had to go through all of the testing and certification in Colorado in order to get a professional teaching license. And I don’t know too many jobs that make you retest other than maybe lawyers. But it would be nice for teachers who have gone through their education practicum to who are licensed to teach in other states could still come to Colorado, get a professional teaching license, even if they had taught more than seven years ago. If they had taught for a few years, their license would be respected here in the state of Colorado. So, you know, the rationale from what I understand is that We have a work shortage, and this bill takes two simple steps to address the teacher workforce shortage. So I think that this bill will pass. It’s a common sense bill. It looks like it’s receiving a lot of support in the House and the Senate and would be a good thing for us in the state of Colorado because we do have a teacher shortage and we need to make sure that if there’s a teacher who moves into Colorado who has a desire to teach and has experience to teach, that we remove as many hurdles for them as we can. Okay, let’s take a look at another one that’s going to be heard today. It’s HJR 26-1024. The summary is basically about… designating State Highway 92 in Delta County from mile marker three to mile marker seven as the quote unquote educators and teachers memorial highway. So it’s a house joint resolution. And basically it says they’re gonna change the name of part of a highway. So I’ll read the be it resolved part for you. It says, be it resolved by the House of Representatives that the Colorado General Assembly recognizes our educators and teachers for their invaluable labor to lay the foundation of lifelong learning in the students of our state, that it is fitting and proper to designate the portion of State Highway 92 from mile marker three to mile marker seven, and that travels through Reed, Colorado, as the Educators and Teachers Memorial Highway, and that the Colorado Department of Transportation may accept and expend gifts, grants, and donations for the purposes of the initial placement of signs to mark State Highway 92 from mile marker 3 to mile marker 7 as the, quote, educators and teachers memorial highway, end quote. Be it further resolved, the copies of this joint resolution be sent to the Colorado Education Association, the Delta County School District 50J School Board, the Delta County Board of County Commissioners, the Delta County Historical Society, the Colorado State School Board, and the Colorado Department of Transportation. Now, I don’t know how they decided which stretch of highway to call the Educators and Teachers Memorial Highway. I just question why our legislators are spending time on something like this that is a nothing burger. It’s not benefiting any teachers. It’s not putting any money into the hands of teachers. It’s not putting any money into the hands of students. It is going to cost the state money to change signs, I am very upset about how they’re spending their time rather than appropriating money for national board certified teachers and their stipend because there’s going to have to be maintenance on this sign. And so to not really put funding into schools and educators, But to say we’re going to do this resolution to say we appreciate educators. To the state legislature in Colorado, if you appreciate teachers, then you show up by appropriating more funds. That’s my opinion. I’d like to know what you think. OK, here is Senate Bill 26104 scheduled for the House Judiciary April 14th. Senate sponsorship, Liston and Snyder, House sponsorship, Clifford. And it’s concerning a requirement to install exterior key boxes at schools. And the bill summary reads as follows. The bill requires each school district or for an institute charter school or non-public school, the school to install a key box that contains keys and other access control devices necessary for law enforcement agencies to access each building and room located on the school grounds. The bill permits using school security disbursement program money to install a key box. So I’m assuming that this bill was written as a precaution, considering that we’ve seen across the nation problems with law enforcement accessing schools if there’s an active shooter. And so this may be an attempt to address this by requiring all schools to have a key box where law enforcement can access it and get into a school in real time. So I’m curious to know what you think about this. Do you feel like this is the proper role of government? Do you feel like this is a great idea? Should all schools have this? I know that all schools should have this. their floor plan, their building plan. They should have entrances and exits available to law enforcement and first responders so that they know how the school is laid out. I think that’s a smart idea for safety. Do you feel like this is something that we really need right now in order to have precautions in place to keep children safe? you know, might be a good idea. And as long as it’s just law enforcement that knows where those lock boxes are and, you know, a bad guy can’t get to it. And I don’t know how secure these lock boxes are. They look pretty secure, but if they’re secure and no one else can get into it, bad guy, then I think that that might be a good bill. And so again, this bill will be heard April 14th. House Judiciary. The Senate sponsors are Liston, Snyder, Ball, Carson, Coleman, Cutter, Frizzell, Kirkmeyer, Wallace. These are people I respect. So, you know, I’m sure they thought it through. All right. Here’s another one. House Bill 26-1193 concerning vision tests for pre-kindergarten students. It is re-engrossed. It passed third reading on March 27th. So this bill summary reads, current law requires that school districts test the vision of students in kindergarten and the first, second, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth grades. The bill requires that school districts also test the vision of students in pre-kindergarten and updates terminology by replacing the word sight with the word vision. All right, so I know as a public school teacher that outside organizations have been hired to come into the school to do vision and hearing exams on the students. It’s really convenient for parents, but here’s my question. Is it the proper role of government to provide vision tests at school? This is a question we always should ask because, again, when we are looking at The passage of 500 to 700 bills a year in the state of Colorado seems very excessive. Now, I went and looked up if there’s a fiscal note for this bill, and it shows zero fiscal note for the state of Colorado. Okay, well, if the state of Colorado is not paying for outside bills, organizations, doctors and nurses to come in and do vision tests, then that means it goes back to the local government or the school district to pay. So right now, school districts are already paying for kindergarten through ninth grade students to get a vision test. Now they’re going to add pre-K to that equation. So it’s going to cost school districts more money. Well, we’re facing a big deficit in the state of Colorado. I don’t think schools are going to receive less money, but they are definitely not going to receive more money. So someone has to pay for this. My question to you is, should parents pay for their children to get vision testing or Or should the government, which is, well, we know the government doesn’t have money of its own. We, the taxpayers, will be covering that cost. Do you think it’s the school’s responsibility to pay for vision testing? And a lot of times they’re also paying for glasses. Now, our hearts can say we definitely want to make sure children are not overlooked. And if they’re having a hard time reading or if they are misreading things and they have dyslexia, we want to make sure we identify those problems in the schools with children. But Who’s supposed to pay for it? And this just looks like another opportunity for government to grow bigger and bigger and to become a nanny state rather than say to parents, please make sure your children get a vision and hearing test. All right, let’s go on to our next bill, Senate Bill 26-48. This bill is concerning removing the exception that authorizes a minor who is 16 years old or older to marry with judicial approval and in connection therewith reducing an appropriation. So the bill summary says current law requires an individual to be at least 18 years old In order to obtain a marriage license, accept that a minor who is 16 or 17 years old may obtain a marriage license with judicial approval. The bill repeals this exception, therefore requiring that an individual be at least 18 years old to obtain a marriage license. Okay, I find this bill fascinating because basically what it’s saying is like right now, You have to be 18 in order to get married. But if you’re 16 or 17 years old, a judge can approve your marriage license. This bill is sponsored by Democrats. in the Senate and the House. And so they’re saying, oh, no, no, we want to get rid of that. We don’t want 16 and 17 year olds being allowed to get married. But they pass such crazy other laws that give rights to minors. So I’m a little confused by this. I’m not saying it’s a bad law. But again, is this the proper role of government? to say that a 16 or 17 year old with the approval of their parents and with the approval of a judge cannot get married. I understand there are safety concerns. I understand that there are young people, minors who are being exploited because of this law, but is that the proper role of government or are we growing our nanny state? Okay, here’s another one, House Bill 26-1291. Now, this one actually was postponed indefinitely, but I find it fascinating. It’s a bill concerning modification to the execution of licensed personnel performance evaluations. The bill summary said, under current law, a local board of education’s local board or board of cooperative services or BOCES, licensed personnel employment performance system, must ensure that non-probationary teachers receive one evaluation resulting in a written evaluation report in each academic year. The bill requires that non probationary teachers receive one evaluation resulting in a written evaluation report at least once every three academic years, except that if a non probationary teacher receives a less than effective rating, the local board or BOCES may require that the non probationary teacher receive one evaluation that results in a written evaluation report in the next academic year. Okay. I find it very interesting that this bill was postponed indefinitely because what it’s saying is if you’re a non probationary teacher and if you have a satisfactory evaluation, you don’t need to be evaluated except once every three years. because currently it’s every year. So I don’t understand the thought process behind it, perhaps because this is sponsored by Representative Hamrick, who’s a retired teacher. that a lot of teachers, especially if you’re between 20 years and 30 years of experience, you feel like having an evaluation every year may not be that effective. And I will say, as someone who’s been in education for 32 years and has been a principal and an evaluator, that your evaluations are only as effective as the person who’s evaluating you and giving you feedback and who really understands the rubric of teaching from your district, the things that you are being evaluated on. And as the evaluation force gets younger and younger and the teaching force gets older and older, it can become pointless a lot of times for someone to come in and evaluate you when they haven’t had a lot of experience in the classroom themselves. And so what I’ve seen over the last 10, 15 years are building principals who have very little classroom teaching experience, oftentimes five years or less, who have moved out of the classroom into principal roles who really don’t understand how to be an instructional leader and coach. And so these evaluations oftentimes are a formality, but they don’t actually grow teachers. And so we do have a lot of teachers in the classroom who are not as effective as they could be. Because they don’t have a lot of mentoring. They don’t have a lot of coaching. The feedback cycle is not consistent. So I would be curious to see if this bill makes its way back. There may be opposition by the teachers union. on the language of this bill, but I think it’s a good conversation to have. But that does, again, go back to local control, local government. Our local school boards need to make sure that their evaluation system for teachers is effective and that the individuals who are doing the evaluations and the coaching, because an evaluation is one thing. Coaching after that is really, really the critical piece to help grow educators. And guess what? I don’t care how many years you’ve been teaching in the classroom, you can benefit from coaching. And it doesn’t have to be someone who’s been teaching as long as you. It could be someone who’s been teaching 10, 15 years. For me, I think that’s a bare minimum. I think you should have been in the classroom for a minimum of 10 years before you call yourself going out, evaluating, coaching, and mentoring somebody else. Because it takes that long to kind of get your legs up under you to understand that what is going on in the classroom and to have spent time differentiating and working with all kinds of students in order to be able to help somebody else. So I think that’s really critical. But I would encourage you guys to go to the Colorado State House and Senate websites to look at the bills that are coming up. You can look according to committee. There’s all kinds of committees. I like to go to the education committee and see what bills are on the docket. and call my state legislators and my state senators and say, hey, I have a question about this language, or I see this is coming up, here’s my input. And that allows me to be a part of the discussion, even though I’m still teaching during the day, I can’t always get down to the Capitol or sign up for testimony, but I can always write a letter or reach out to my elected officials to give them my input. So I would encourage you to do the same. But I also would encourage you to take a hard look if you have school-aged children at different options other than public education. I would love to say that things are getting better in public education, but I just don’t see it happening. And we have a lot of choices. Homeschool options are great if you have the courage and you are an avid reader and you want to learn all about these different content areas. There’s different supports for you. I would encourage you to take the leap to homeschool. Other great options, private schools, Excalibur Classical Academy, again, is opening this fall in the Centennial area, K-3, and we are adding a grade level every year after that. Please take a look at our school. And charter schools, there are great neighborhood schools that are public schools. You just have to vet everything that’s happening there. So You know, you are the first educator, parents. You are the first educator of your children. You have every right to walk into your child’s school and build a relationship with the administration, with your child’s teachers, to volunteer. I would definitely encourage parents to do that. I want to talk to you about President Trump’s big, beautiful bill and the education tax credits. We are fortunate here in Colorado that our governor has opted in to the tax credit. And what that means is starting in twenty twenty seven, you can donate up to seventeen hundred dollars to an SGO, which is a scholarship granting organization. For example, a scholarships. We all know about a scholarships. If you donate, you can receive a federal tax credit of $1,700. So it ends up being a wash for you. It’s a win-win because your dollars can be designated to a school like Excalibur Classical Academy. So if you are one of these people who believes in supporting parents in their education choice journey, and you want to invest in the next generation of young people, I would encourage you to start looking around at where you can donate your scholarship funds to. Excalibur Classical Academy has a link that you can donate your $1,700 to through ACE Scholarships. And then that money will go to helping a young child access a high quality private education. At Excalibur, we have an open door policy for our parents. You will be able to see all of our curriculum. You will be able to see all of the titles of the books that are in our school. Not a single book will be allowed into our school that has not been pre-approved by myself. And you will know all of the titles because they will be publicly listed on our website. And we want to be transparent to parents. We don’t want you to worry about what’s coming into the school. What are the teachers teaching your students? What hidden agenda there is. There will be no hidden agenda. So Please make sure that you take a look at that information about the education tax credits. The state of Colorado will have more information forthcoming as they get more details from the federal government. But just know that that is coming. But I just appreciate you tuning in today for this little quick update. Thanks for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue, and speak truth.
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Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.
