By Chris Stiffler Senior Economist and Author of “Economics In-Other-Words“

“Members, any other questions for the witnesses?” asked the committee chairman.

“Yes, go ahead,” he added, nodding toward another senator.

“Mr. Stiffler,” the senator began, “you mentioned a camel’s nose under the tent in your testimony. I’m just curious—did any of your earlier drafts also include references to ‘whistling past graveyards’ or maybe…elephant eating?”

“Mr. Sti…(chuckle)…ffler…” the chairman chimed in.

“Uh…thanks, senator, for the question…uh” I said, now sweating through my corduroy blazer. “I did write an analogy about a horse race if you want to hear it?”

The room chuckled cautiously—the kind of laugh that says, ‘Are we allowed to laugh at senate hearings?’

I continued, “I thought that underfunding public schools and then complaining about low outcomes is like entering a horse in a race, removing one of its legs, replacing it with a mop handle, and then getting mad when it finishes last. How’s that?”

The chairman straightened up and declared, “Alright, that’s… impossible to follow. Would anyone else like to testify or offer another colorful, animal-based metaphor?”

And that’s how, with one week left in the legislative session, I found myself in front of the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee talking about mop-legged horses like it was perfectly normal policy discourse.

I was there testifying against a resolution on “school choice.” It was yet another attempt to funnel public school dollars into private hands. In November 2024, voters narrowly rejected Amendment 80, which would have added language to the constitution that clashed with existing laws banning public funds for private schools.

SR25-009: A Love Letter to School Choice, or a Breakup Note to Public Education?

This latest Senate Resolution (SR25-009) read like a love letter to school choice, but if you squinted sideways, it was also a breakup note to public education. (“It’s not you—it’s your underfunded teacher’s lounge coffee maker.”)

Now, on the surface, the resolution was as appealing as a basket of puppies wearing tiny graduation caps. Who doesn’t love “choice?”

But let’s be clear: “school choice” isn’t about letting students pick between gym and Advanced Placement biology. It was about creating the policy framework—maybe not a law yet for funneling public dollars into private schools.

Because here’s the part they don’t put on the school choice bumper sticker: We already have school choice in Colorado. You can already enroll your child in a charter school. You can transfer schools. You can send them to a private school. You can homeschool. You can enroll them in night school. You can even teach your kids in a yurt using interpretive dance. (“Okay class, now pirouette your feelings about long division.”)

What the school choice resolution was doing was classic camel’s nose under the tent maneuvering. For the record, camels are very large, and once their nose is in, their hump is not far behind. And their hump is usually carrying a voucher bill.

See, we’ve seen this movie before. In other states, it started with resolutions just like this one: a gentle ode to educational freedom. Then came voucher programs, then tax-credit scholarships, and pretty soon the local public school is hosting bake sales to afford glue sticks, while tax credits for private academies are exploding the state budget, like what happened in Arizona.

If you really care about funding classrooms, you don’t start the process of sneaking tax dollars out the back door and into private hands. You fund the public schools directly.

Vouchers, no matter how you rebrand them—tax credits, education savings accounts, or Hogwarts Express scholarships—are about taking away public school dollars. And that ain’t choice. We don’t want to start down the road to taking public dollars for private schools.

The Fate of SB25-009

On May 1, 2025, the Colorado Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee voted 3–2 to postpone SR25-009 indefinitely using a reverse roll call, effectively ending the bill’s consideration for the session.

So yes, this resolution is dead… for now. But like a horror movie villain with a heartwarming name—say, ‘School Choice: Return of the Phantom Funding Menace’—it’ll be back. Maybe dressed up in friendlier language. Maybe wearing another tiny graduation cap. But still aiming to sneak public dollars out of public classrooms and into private bank accounts.

If it looks like a camel, smells like a camel, and keeps backing up a voucher-laden hump into your child’s public school funding… maybe don’t let it in the tent.

Because—here’s my final metaphor, committee chair—We can’t let mop-legged horses run this race. And we definitely can’t let camels rewrite the track rules.

Call it what you want, but if it drains money from public education, it’s not a reform. It’s a rebranding. And Colorado voters already said neigh.