Bob Schaffer

Schaffer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised Catholic.[4] He attended Archbishop Moeller High School.

The son of public-school teachers, Schaffer worked his way through college as a farm hand. In 1984, he graduated from the University of Dayton with a B.A. in Political Science. He was later awarded an honorary doctorate in Management from Colorado Technical University.

In 2010, Schaffer was appointed principal of Liberty Common High School, a college-preparatory charter school in the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colorado. During his time at Liberty Common, the first four graduating classes posted the highest average composite ACT score in Colorado, with the class of 2015 breaking the state record.[13] In 2017, Schaffer was appointed headmaster of both Liberty Common High School and Liberty Common School, its elementary counterpart.[14]

In May 2019, Liberty Common High School banned four seniors from attending graduation. The seniors had bought a box of 25 condoms and distributed them in lockers across the school; they claimed this action was a statement against Schaffer's criticism of Colorado House Bill 19-1032, which would mandate comprehensive sex education in Colorado schools.[15] Schaffer condemned the distribution of condoms as "sexual bullying."[16] The incident was covered in statewide news and generated minor controversy online about the seriousness of the condom distribution. In 2019, Liberty Common High School was granted a waiver from the sex education bill.[17] "The law, passed in May, requires public schools teaching sex ed to use a comprehensive curriculum, including teaching about consent and providing information for LGBT students."[18]

Schaffer was vice-president for business development at Aspect Energy, LLC., where he was involved in a variety of energy, mining and education projects, working primarily in wind energy. He was also a board member on the National Alternative Fuels Foundation,[19] but environmental groups released attack ads during the 2008 U.S. Senate race highlighting Shcaffer's congressional vote which gave $2.5 billion to alternative energy research and a much larger amount to traditional energy research and tax credits.[20]

Schaffer served as president of the Parental Alliance for Choice in Education, a non-profit corporation promoting school choice reform in Colorado's public education system, and is active in the state's transformation to a market-driven education system.

Schaffer has been chairman of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, a nonprofit corporation that provides economic education and civic-leadership training in Colorado.[21] Schaffer is a regular columnist for the Fort Collins Coloradoan daily newspaper.[22] Schaffer was also an opinion columnist for the now-defunct Northern Colorado Courier.

Since 2003, Schaffer has been chairman of Leadership Program of the Rockies, a nonprofit organization providing economic education and civic-leadership training in Colorado.[23]

In March 2005, Schaffer was elected Republican National Committeeman for Colorado.

Schaffer was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Colorado State Board of Education by a party vacancy committee, representing a district that is coterminous with the state's Fourth Congressional District. He successfully ran for the seat in 2006, against Democrat Tom Griggs. In January, 2009, Schaffer was made chairman of the Colorado State Board of Education with a unanimous decision of the four Republican and three Democratic board members.[24] Fellow board members elected Schaffer to continue his chairmanship in 2011.[25]

As Chairman of the Colorado State Board of Education, Schaffer borrowed ideas from Singapore and Finland when working to create new forward-thinking standards that are both internationally benchmarked and designed to grow students’ strategic thinking capabilities over fact memorization.[26]

Citing the importance of letting parents know if someone proximal to their children has been arrested, Schaffer took a leadership role in the effort to require parent notification if a school employee is arrested or charged with a serious crime. The measure went into effect in April 2011 despite strong opposition from the Colorado Education Association, the state-based teachers' unions.[27][28]

Schaffer maintained the position throughout the debating of the measure that parents are in the best position to make decisions about their children's safety. He voted against adopting Common Core standards, but the federal standards passed on a 4-3 vote. Adopting the standards were a keystone factor to the Colorado's application for $175 million in Race to the Top funds. In early 2011, Schaffer took heat from Democratic State Board of Education member Mary Johnson. The disagreement was over Schaffer's inviting William Maloney, Colorado education commissioner under both parties from 1997 to 2007, who spoke on “three incontestable realities concerning which America has been in denial for decades,” regarding America's education performance on a global scale, the unsustainable costs of education, and the availability of better models for the path forward.[29]

Under Schaffer's chairmanship tenure, unanimous charter school guidelines were adopted. The new concrete rules adopted best practices for charter school authorization.[30]

He is the Colorado Chairman of the Judicial Confirmation Network. In 2006, Schaffer founded Dreamsoft Colorado, LLC,[31] a firm that creates high-end interactive websites for business and political clients. He is also the President of AMDG LLC. As a member of the Fort Collins, Colorado community, he owned a small business.[10]

In 2008, the League of Conservation Voters named Schaffer a member of its "Dirty Dozen" because of an anti-environmental record during his tenure in Congress.[35]

In 2001, then-congressman Schaffer voted for President Bush's energy plan that Democrats argued was a $33 billion gift to the oil corporations.[36] Republicans argued that the bill would help reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.[37]

• Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on October 9, 2008 [38]
• The Pueblo Chieftain on October 17, 2008 [39]