For Colorado to replace our current governor and the extreme factions that have (in my estimation) done real damage within our legislature in the last 2 years, candidates will need good, reasonable ideas… regardless of the party they are from. So, let’s talk education.
I’m a bit old school. Growing up in a “functional” Boulder Valley school system, I saw good things that we no longer do. I also look closely, after traveling through approximately 80 countries over the last 20+ years, at our education gap, especially when compared to children in the APAC (Asia) region.
Here’s what I would like to see Colorado do, in terms of education, to better serve the needs of our developing generations … our kids:
- Look at moving back to a 3-year Junior High / 3-year High School model. Why we ever left this for a predominantly “Middle School” 2-year, and 4-year High School model remains a mystery to me. There are many reasons, however, why it makes complete sense to not place a 9th grader in school with a much older, much different senior in High School. But reasoning also goes far beyond that: Freshmen (9th graders) are suddenly faced with new emotions, new social situations, and new intellectual challenges; not to mention opportunity for increased bullying by much older students. We know that 9th grade is the most failed grade by students, made worse by the situations they are now placed in. Now some states are forming 9th grade “academies” – within high schools – to isolate these students from older ones. We also immediately under-populated some schools and over-populated others by shifting 33% of the attendance. This impacted school budgets as capital improvements were suddenly needed. So, tell me what the benefits have been?
- Let’s visit school budgets over the decades. Why have sports, arts, and other activities been virtually blown away – at least in Colorado – at the Junior High / Middle School level? Impacts to these programs are felt all the way into High Schools as well. I played several sports in Junior High. I traveled to other schools to compete. And frankly, Burbank (go T-Birds) usually won. But I digress. So, what’s changed? We have more people, in more houses, paying a lot more taxes. We have increasing school budgets every year. Yet our schools have no money. I have an idea of what has caused a cash drain, but I want to see the numbers from across the state school districts before calling that out as factual. Bottom line – we need to increase available school activities in sports and arts – again.
- We need to compete internationally. I told our girls a long time ago – and continue to tell them (now college grads) to this day: Your competition isn’t sitting across the aisle from you. Your competition in the market is in a whole other country. And they work hard to be a very, very worthy opponent. What do we do to compete? First, we look at our priorities. Our kids need real life skills and values. They need emphasis on math and science. They need introductions into the arts. They need history – the actual history – taught to them to understand successes and failures from the past. But school has to be stimulating. It needs to be engaging. It needs to attract kids to learn, but it also needs to get more knowledge into their heads than ever before. That’s the biggest challenge.
- I actually like the Polis policy of all-day kindergarten. We did it for our kids – we paid the costs because we could. But I would approach Polis’ mandate a little differently – in large part because his program isn’t financially feasible. I would look for public-private partnerships with industry leaders that want to invest money, materials, teacher training, etc., into the long game. That is to say, let’s get kids playing in science and math when they’re 4. Or 5. I watch the science guys on TV and love them – and the kids eat that up. It makes learning fun, and the kids accel. Now I know education isn’t all fun, but a lot of it can be. And teachers are capable of that – many are already doing it. But out-of-the-box thinking, with a strategy to become internationally competitive, is achievable.
- I would visit schools across the state to understand how to balance the equation in terms of educational quality. How do we bring equity in education across all demographics, in all areas (e.g., inner cities)? I favor school choice, because until this is fixed, parents should have the choice to send their kids to better schools. The issue then becomes, “how do we bring all schools up to that level?” Not easy, but we need to look at that. Teachers moving to different schools each school year? Increased partnerships with Law Enforcement (yes – SROs are HUGE positive potential impacts for guidance, mentoring, etc. – we have seen this firsthand, as many of you know, through our own SRO in our household). Increased focus with private partners to add educational resources to schools that need them. Increased focus with private partners to encourage kids to accel for post-graduation opportunities. There are ways to do this.
