Dark money — some of it from out-of-state multimillionaires and billionaires — is once again flowing into elections for the Denver Public Schools Board of Education.
With four of seven seats up for grabs, the spending is leading some to question how democratic and transparent the race to guide the education of 90,000 students really is. Others contend large sums of money help inform voters in races that traditionally have low turnout.
Dark money groups — organizations whose donors aren’t fully disclosed — cannot coordinate with candidates, but they can buy TV ads and glossy brochures. So far this year, one independent expenditure committee has spent big on a slate of candidates, while a second committee backing a competing slate has yet to give.
Back in 2023, donors backing charter school interests outspent teachers’ unions 5-to-1, with $2.2 million spent on the race.
In that last election, the group Denver Families Action, the political arm of the nonprofit Denver Families for Public Schools, pushed all three of its candidates to victory, unseating three of the seven union-backed candidates on the board. Dark money made up more than 70 percent of the funding in the 2023 race, according to longtime education analyst Van Schoales.
“Since 2011, there has been no [Denver] school board member that has been elected without the support of either of the major groups,” he said. The amount that candidates are raising from their traditional supporters is shrinking, giving more power to outside, opaque groups that dominate in spending.
Schoales and others would like to jumpstart conversations about how to make Denver’s races more transparent and democratic.
Who are the dark money players in this year’s race?
A decade ago, sharp lines were drawn between groups of candidates. On one side were those who supported charter schools — publicly funded, privately run schools — as well as other “reform” strategies. On the other side were teachers union allies who often backed neighborhood public schools.
Today, those lines are more blurred, with candidates more likely to hold a mix of positions. But that hasn’t stopped dark money from flowing into the race.
On the one side are Better Leaders, Stronger Schools, an independent expenditure committee that’s raised $718,000 as of mid-October. Its top donor is Denver Families Action, the political arm of Denver Families for Public Education, which has contributed $600,000 so far. It’s reported spending more $637,000 on campaign ads for its endorsed four candidates, Mariana del Hierro, Caron Blanke, Timiya Jackson and Alex Magaña.
Denver Families Action says it’s broadened beyond its charter school roots and focuses on issues central to all models of public schools. But its primary funding source is The City Fund, founded by out-of-state billionaires Reed Hastings and John Arnold. The City Fund has donated millions to urban school board races in support of “charter and charter-like schools.”
Wealthy individual donors also are contributing to Better Leaders, Stronger Schools: Republican billionaire Phil Anschutz has given $40,000. Another multimillionaire businessman, Bruce Benson, former president of the University of Colorado and former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, also has donated.
Multimillionaire Kent Thiry, former CEO of health care company DaVita, donated $350,000 in the 2023 school board race but hasn’t donated so far this year.
The teachers union is on the other side
On the other side, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and its committee Students Deserve Better, funded mostly by the Colorado Education Association, are backing Amy Klein Molk, Xochitl Gaytan, DJ Torres and Monica Hunter.
It’s collected $280,000 in donations as of mid-October, but so far hasn’t spent on the DPS race this year. Instead, it’s focused on several other Colorado school districts. DCTA’s small-donor committee, which must report who gives it money, has collected $200,000 and has contributed $24,000 to DPS candidates so far. Another small donor committee, the Public Education Committee, has contributed about $21,000. DCTA president Rob Gould contrasted the sources of money.
“When it comes to billionaire money versus teacher money, they’re two very different things … The money that comes to the fund, those are voluntary contributions from individual teachers … the same teachers that have to go spend their own money on their classroom,” Gould said.
Teachers’ union says reform era did damage
Gould said the DCTA chose candidates who understand the challenges in the classrooms and will advocate for lower class sizes and greater teacher input in decision-making.
He said DCTA doesn’t want a return to the turbulent education reform era of 10 to 20 years ago that brought instability: less teacher voice in curriculum, a performance pay system that caused teachers to leave high-needs schools, and schools filled with novice teachers that would be closed because of poor performance.
“We just don’t want to go back to some of the reform policies of years past,” Gould said. “Those reforms eroded teacher voice, caused burnout, and led to a 20 percent turnover rate year after year.”
Gould believes Denver’s choice model has deepened inequities because some have ways to transport their children to higher-performing schools that sometimes have less crowded classrooms. Some charter networks have access to millions in outside funding.
“If we are going to have this true choice system, everybody should be able to access it…We have kindergarten classrooms with 35 kids in them. We’ve been talking about that for the last four years… Students can’t wait. We need to have fixes to these issues today.”
Charter supporters say it’s about good schools
Clarence Burton Jr., CEO of Denver Families for Public Schools and its political arm, acknowledged the organization has received millions of dollars from out-of-state interests that back charter schools and other education reforms. But he sees Denver Families for Public Education as bringing forward a “deeply community rooted voice.”
Over two years, the organization canvassed 100,000 Denverites about what they wanted for the future of public education. It used a 37-member community panel to vet candidates.
“Our North Star,” Burton said, “is making sure that every kid in the city of Denver has access to a great public school.”
The organization’s priorities include improving academic outcomes, fully funding classrooms and teachers, providing more mental health support, and repairing the “deep mistrust” between the school board and community.
Burton commends DPS’s recent progress but said the district needs a stronger vision for moving forward. “DPS going green for the second time in its history is a good thing,” he said, referring to the state’s performance rating system.
“But is it fast enough to ensure that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, are going to get what they deserve on the timeline they deserve it?
Burton rejected the idea that his group represents only charter interests. He said the organization works with all school models and wants to replicate what works best at each.
“Families don’t care what the governance model of their schools are,” he said. “What they care is that they have access to great public schools … As much as possible, we’ve tried to be an organization that has built a big tent.”
Burton defended Denver Families Action’s significant campaign spending — $600,000 so far. He said it’s meant to increase voter engagement in a race that often has low turnout because many voters don’t have school-aged children.
How does money influence the board?
Some former board members say they didn’t feel pressure to vote a certain way after getting outside backing.
Still, incumbents Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum, whom DCTA supported in 2021, lost that backing this year after a few votes the union disagreed with. Esserman now touts his independence, quoting a Denver Post editorial on his campaign web page: the “ideal candidate will be independent enough to buck the union when it is wrong, and strong enough to stand up to failing charter schools and demand accountability.”
Gould said the union’s expectations were to make sure teachers have the ability to keep the rights they’ve worked hard for in their contract that “gave a teacher voice within their school.”
Schoales said multimillionaire funders, too, have expectations. It could be how candidates approach authorizing charter schools or what expectations are for performance or whether to keep schools open or closed, he said.
“Why would they fund somebody unless there was an expectation that they were aligned in terms of both philosophically as well as particular policy positions?”
The downsides of dark money
Independent expenditure committees can escape accountability. Donors can give through layers of organizations so voters often don’t know exactly who’s funding them. When they send out a misleading or negative mailer, candidates can claim they had nothing to do with it. Schoales points to a recent attack ad claiming that at-large candidate Amy Klein Molk, who once founded an ed-tech company, wanted to replace teachers with AI robots.
“It’s sort of comical because she’s the one who’s supported by DCTA and the teachers’ unions and they would never support a candidate that wanted to replace teachers with AI robots,” Schoales said.
He calls it “bizarre” that a handful of wealthy, often Republican-connected donors wield such power in a heavily Democratic city. He criticized both sides for a lack of transparency.
He’d like both sides to publicly share lists of who sits on their boards or who is giving them money.
Solutions for the future?
Schoales, a longtime charter school proponent and frequent union critic, recently teamed up with former union-backed DPS board member Scott Baldermann to argue for structural reforms.
In a Denver Post editorial, they proposed creating public matching funds for school board candidates – similar to the nine-to-one small-donor match that is available for Denver City Council candidates.
They also called for expanding the Denver Public Schools board from five to 11 members to mirror the city of Denver’s district structure.
“It’s easier to connect with your constituency if you have a smaller area of folks to represent,” Schoales said. They argue that with small districts, candidates might be able to run a campaign through community outreach rather than relying on big-money committees.
Denver Families’ Burton said his organization hasn’t examined these ideas yet.
The union’s Gould said he supports exploring the ideas but is skeptical they’ll fix the problem.
“My fear is that these billionaires can just pour $4 million into a school board race. Is it going to help the problem or exacerbate the problem?” he asked.
Ballots are due Tuesday, Nov. 4, by 7 p.m. (Our voter guide is available here.)
