After some stumbling along the way (see "Merit-Pay Melee in the Mile-High City"), Denver voters will finally get the opportunity to decide if revolutionizing the way teachers are paid is worth a $25 million tax hike. The city's school board and union have finally agreed upon the language needed for the fall referendum, about a year after the teachers originally voted to accept the plan.

A recent Teaching Commission survey found the public has grown comfortable with the notion of some kind of merit pay for public school teachers, but there's a graveyard of equally good ideas that died at the ballot box, especially when anti-tax groups have chosen to organize. We'll keep watching.