SAVE THE KIDS

Comparing the 2026 CD7 State Board of Education Candidates

There are effectively 2 candidates. They differ dramatically

Karla Esser PhD, Democrat, Incumbent

Karla is lock-stock-and-barrel liberal education establishment with 35+ years in the US and German systems including running teacher training programs, and has been on the board for 6 years. Expect her to continue leftist programs ad nauseum while cancelling grants for gifted and talented programs. Expect her to be supported by unions and others vested in the system.

Steve Barton MSEE, JD, MD, MBA, Republican

Steve is an electronic engineer and patent lawyer with a medical degree. He proposes saving the kids by reforms including evicting leftist politics from schools and introducing basic business concepts while improving real science, math, and history education. Some of these reforms may require the board to request the legislature change Colorado laws. Steve’s proposals include:

Basic Reforms

• Listen to parental suggestions because they may have good ideas.

• Grade school districts on parental involvement in curriculum decisions and textbook selection to force districts to involve parents.

• Improve financial efficiency by scoring school districts on their administrator-teacher ratio, and streamline state board grant procedures to allow school districts to spend more on classrooms and less on administration.

• Evict politics from the classroom, prohibiting teachers and schools from sending political literature to parents.

• Prohibit granting credit or excused absences for political activities and demonstrations.

• Rename and reschedule “spring break” as “Easter break” and “winter break” as “Christmas break”.

Improve Classroom Experience

• Strictly limit classroom screen time and ban cell phones.

• Boot boys from girls’ sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms.

• Reintroduce Christian morals like the “Golden Rule” and require Christianity be treated as well as other faiths.

• Improve security by arming selected staff or teachers- avoid soft targets.

Overhaul Curriculum

• Encourage districts to focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic in grades K-3 using traditional methods that work, like phonics.

• Bring outsiders like engineers, scientists, nurses, doctors, businessmen, and veterans into schools to teach reality. This includes teaching students and teachers how astronomy and physics were reformed with math in the 14th-17th century scientific revolution, how math is used to calculate medicine doses, how artificial intelligence relies on rapid multiply-and-add, what businesses do to make a profit, and recent history as seen by those who lived it.

• Encourage discussion of religious motivations in historical events like Henry VIII, the Spanish Armada, the Reformation, Mayflower pilgrims, founding of, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, settling of Utah, the 100-year’s war, the Roman Empire, the Crusades, Islamic conquests, and adoption of the1st Amendment.

• Require civics, including the US Constitution and bill of rights in schools. This must include the right to, and importance of, a lawyer if arrested, and the vast changes brought about by the US Civil War and adoption of the 13th-15th amendments.

Upgrade Teacher Training

• Require math-based science for teacher’s licensure. Science needs to be taught using math, and math needs to be taught with science. The handwaving-level science typical teachers now take leaves them unable to do this.

• Require teachers to learn enough business to know what it takes to make a profit. Most teachers mean well, but fall into leftist traps because they have never worked outside government and don’t understand reality. Further, basic accounting can make wonderful math problem sets with calculations of cash flow, property tax, social security tax, unemployment tax, sales tax, etc.

Paid for by Barton Campaign, Steve Barton, treasurer