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I must say that as a senior who has always been supportive of public education, even I was jolted by a call from my daughter about my granddaughter attending a junior high school in Centennial, Colorado.
It is an international baccalaureate school with higher standards and more innovative approaches to learning, a strong gifted and talented program and an extraordinary music department. My granddaughter had found her stride, taken up cello in their orchestra and was blossoming from a bored elementary school student to a well-rounded, happy person with a realization that her life ahead held great promise. My daughter had attended a school board meeting where both the orchestra and the IB program were threatened by budget cuts. Literacy coaching for those at the bottom of academic achievement was also on the chopping block. School board members were in tears, they were so distraught. (Latest word: orchestra survived, the IB program did not, and the literacy program was cut in half).
A friend of mine with a child in my local Grand County schools moaned about the $1.2 million dollars in cuts facing the East Grand district this year and another million dollar cut scheduled for next year. A teacher in a Jefferson County charter school told me she is seeing her classroom load gradually increase so much, she fears reduced attention to the individual needs of her students.
How did this happen? Why? How was it that Colorado ranks 40th in the nation for per-pupil funding, 40th in student-teacher ratio in primary schools, 50th in teacher salaries, and 46th in 8th-grade achievement scores? How many more children will miss the chance to blossom, to find their place in a competitive world? Our kids are far behind their counterparts in other countries or even in other states. How would they have a chance to find jobs in adulthood when so many others would be so much better prepared with superior skills?
The answer, my friends, lies partially in state and local funding shortfalls, and the other in
insufficient numbers of citizens valuing education to force education to the top of the class in funding priorities.
The two are tied together, of course, since politicians set much of the spending priorities in the legislature and they listen to their constituents.
In the next fiscal year, the State is cutting $350 million for K-12 education because revenues from income and sales taxes have taken a dive. More will be cut in the 2011-12 school year, and those cuts eventually could include 5,000 Colorado teachers. Colorado statutes require a balanced budget — no borrowing to make up deficits. This is a hardship now that the tax collections are shrinking with the economy. A $1.3 billion shortfall is projected in 2010-11. Furthermore, the funding pot has statutorily required allocations for many services, leaving only a fraction of it in the general fund with any flexibility from which to find cuts.
Unfortunately, education is part of the general fund pie left vulnerable to a raid.
The problem is compounded by the 1982 Gallagher Amendment that keeps residential property taxation — a major source of local school district funding — low by continually reducing the percent of the value of a home that is taxed. The problem was compounded by the Tabor Amendment that restricted the ability to increase mill levies to make up the difference.
In 2000, voters approved Amendment 23 that mandated education funding at 1% above inflation. However, even that failed to keep up with actual costs. Elements of that law have been sunsetted. State Senator Rollie Heath (D-Boulder) is leading the effort in the Senate to eliminate thirteen special interest tax deductions currently allowed.
If successful, the measure would add another $125 million to the general fund.
There is no guarantee that all will go to K-12 education, though the Governor is an advocate of supporting K-12 education.
The bill has passed the House and is now on to the State Senate this week or next.
President Obama bravely proposed increasing federal funding for education by 7.5 percent in his State of the Union address, but it is unclear at this time how that would help local districts other than by improving and reforming “No Child Left Behind.”
Federal stimulus money granted to Colorado infused $152 million dollars into K-12 education (East Grand received $60,000 of it) and we would have been that much worse off if it had not.
The rest is up to citizens of this state to insist that public education is not left behind. Quiz candidates of both parties for state and federal offices. Ask them where they stand.
Take note. Register your support for K-12, and vote accordingly.
Sources of data: www.greateducation.org and www.recovery.gov ;
Visit the Muftic Forum Blog at www.skyhidailynews.com and www.mufticforum.com
It is an international baccalaureate school with higher standards and more innovative approaches to learning, a strong gifted and talented program and an extraordinary music department. My granddaughter had found her stride, taken up cello in their orchestra and was blossoming from a bored elementary school student to a well-rounded, happy person with a realization that her life ahead held great promise. My daughter had attended a school board meeting where both the orchestra and the IB program were threatened by budget cuts. Literacy coaching for those at the bottom of academic achievement was also on the chopping block. School board members were in tears, they were so distraught. (Latest word: orchestra survived, the IB program did not, and the literacy program was cut in half).
A friend of mine with a child in my local Grand County schools moaned about the $1.2 million dollars in cuts facing the East Grand district this year and another million dollar cut scheduled for next year. A teacher in a Jefferson County charter school told me she is seeing her classroom load gradually increase so much, she fears reduced attention to the individual needs of her students.
How did this happen? Why? How was it that Colorado ranks 40th in the nation for per-pupil funding, 40th in student-teacher ratio in primary schools, 50th in teacher salaries, and 46th in 8th-grade achievement scores? How many more children will miss the chance to blossom, to find their place in a competitive world? Our kids are far behind their counterparts in other countries or even in other states. How would they have a chance to find jobs in adulthood when so many others would be so much better prepared with superior skills?
The answer, my friends, lies partially in state and local funding shortfalls, and the other in
insufficient numbers of citizens valuing education to force education to the top of the class in funding priorities.
The two are tied together, of course, since politicians set much of the spending priorities in the legislature and they listen to their constituents.
In the next fiscal year, the State is cutting $350 million for K-12 education because revenues from income and sales taxes have taken a dive. More will be cut in the 2011-12 school year, and those cuts eventually could include 5,000 Colorado teachers. Colorado statutes require a balanced budget — no borrowing to make up deficits. This is a hardship now that the tax collections are shrinking with the economy. A $1.3 billion shortfall is projected in 2010-11. Furthermore, the funding pot has statutorily required allocations for many services, leaving only a fraction of it in the general fund with any flexibility from which to find cuts.
Unfortunately, education is part of the general fund pie left vulnerable to a raid.
The problem is compounded by the 1982 Gallagher Amendment that keeps residential property taxation — a major source of local school district funding — low by continually reducing the percent of the value of a home that is taxed. The problem was compounded by the Tabor Amendment that restricted the ability to increase mill levies to make up the difference.
In 2000, voters approved Amendment 23 that mandated education funding at 1% above inflation. However, even that failed to keep up with actual costs. Elements of that law have been sunsetted. State Senator Rollie Heath (D-Boulder) is leading the effort in the Senate to eliminate thirteen special interest tax deductions currently allowed.
If successful, the measure would add another $125 million to the general fund.
There is no guarantee that all will go to K-12 education, though the Governor is an advocate of supporting K-12 education.
The bill has passed the House and is now on to the State Senate this week or next.
President Obama bravely proposed increasing federal funding for education by 7.5 percent in his State of the Union address, but it is unclear at this time how that would help local districts other than by improving and reforming “No Child Left Behind.”
Federal stimulus money granted to Colorado infused $152 million dollars into K-12 education (East Grand received $60,000 of it) and we would have been that much worse off if it had not.
The rest is up to citizens of this state to insist that public education is not left behind. Quiz candidates of both parties for state and federal offices. Ask them where they stand.
Take note. Register your support for K-12, and vote accordingly.
Sources of data: www.greateducation.org and www.recovery.gov ;
Visit the Muftic Forum Blog at www.skyhidailynews.com and www.mufticforum.com
