By Chandra Thomas Whitfield, Chalkbeat Colorado Mattye Crowley spent most of her summer agonizing over whether to enroll her 5-year-old son in kindergarten at their neighborhood school this fall. The west Denver single mother, who also has an 8-year-old son in the third grade, said she feared for her children’s safety as the number of […]
full-day kindergarten
Posted inCOVID, Education, Health, Politics and Government
Colorado’s coronavirus budget crunch is putting Democratic accomplishments at risk
Anna Layden makes $57,000 a year as an educator in Durango and owes the same amount in student debt after putting herself through college and graduate school. To pay it down, she applied for a $5,000 loan repayment through a new initiative for Colorado teachers. Deana Cairo wanted to see her 19-year-old son with developmental […]
Posted inCartoons, Opinion
Jim Morrissey: Jared Polis’ temporary favorite
More cartoons from The Colorado Sun.
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Let’s target tax cuts that help lift Colorado families out of poverty
As legislators, we start every new year thinking about how to build a brighter future for every Coloradan. But as we look ahead, we must also be mindful of history in order to make sure the future is better than the past. That’s why the op-ed Gov. Jared Polis authored in The Colorado Sun on […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns, Politics and Government
Jared Polis: A New Year’s tax cut surprise for every Coloradan
As we end 2019 and look forward to 2020, I’m excited to work hard to help Colorado tackle tough challenges in the next decade. The common thread throughout my first year in office has been working hard to save Coloradans money — on education, health care, utility bills, housing and more. Families are already saving […]
Posted inEducation, Politics and Government
The Democratic agenda came with a big price tag. Now Colorado budget writers worry about paying the bill.
To pass their expansive legislative agenda, the new Democratic majority at the Colorado Capitol spent big this year. Real big. And now even Democratic budget writers are worried about how to make ends meet. “There were a lot of bills passed last (session) that have continued spending … and some of those were very large,” […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Polis’ free all-day kindergarten lets parents re-enter the workforce. How can we help them?
In May, Gov. Jared Polis signed a bipartisan bill into law funding full-day kindergarten for Coloradan kids starting this fall — a transformational investment in our state’s future. When I heard the news, I naturally thought of how I felt when my daughter, Addison, reached kindergarten age. I learned that even though she was going […]
Posted inColoradans, Education, News, Politics and Government
Colorado made kindergarten a priority. But when it comes to four-day school weeks, lawmakers don’t see a problem.
Back when he was a school teacher on the Eastern Plains, Frank Reeves was no fan of four-day school weeks. “I fought it and fought it,” Reeves said. But now that he’s the superintendent of the East Grand School District in Granby, Reeves said, “I just don’t see a difference” academically. There’s no question something […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Carman: Colorado has run out of excuses for its decades-long failure to support education
The kids are heading back to school across Colorado, some with bulletproof backpacks along with their No. 2 pencils and spiral notebooks, and once again we face the challenge of educating children on a shoestring. Colorado has a long history of starving schools. Since voters passed the TABOR amendment in 1992, per-pupil spending for K-12 […]
Posted inEducation, News, Politics and Government
Gov. Polis’ full-day kindergarten program could bust its budget by $40 million in first year, state survey predicts
School administrators anticipate near-universal attendance in free, full-day kindergarten this fall, a state survey found, which would blow a $40 million hole in the budget Colorado lawmakers set for the first year of the new program. In the last school year, 36 of the Colorado’s 178 school districts had students enrolled in half-day kindergarten programs, […]