Jared Polis Foundation Education Report: News

The Colorado General Assembly passed several education bills during the 2007 legislative session, many of which were signed into law by Governor Bill Ritter. Enacted legislation included lowering the minimum age for compulsory education; expanding opportunities for students to take college courses in high school; increasing funding for supplemental online courses; establishing state high school graduation requirements; and streamlining school accountability reports. Here is a summary of some of these new laws:

Senate Bill 16:
Minimum Compulsory School Age
(Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo; Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction.) Lowers the minimum compulsory education age from 7 to 6 years of age and specifies that parents who choose to home school their children are not required to begin the program until the child is 7 years old.

Senate Bill 140:
Teacher Identifier System and Commission
(Sen. Nancy Spence R-Arapahoe; Rep. Debbie Benefield, D-Jefferson.)
Establishes a 13-member Quality Teacher Commission that will analyze the achievement gaps among teachers and implement a teacher identifier system to track teacher effectiveness. The identifier system will be developed and implemented by 2009, and will help move more qualified teachers to schools that need to improve their performance.

Senate Bill 148:
Fast-College/Fast-Jobs Program
(Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver; Rep. Edward Casso D-Thornton.)
Creates a pilot program to enable students who are enrolled in participating high schools to simultaneously complete a high school diploma and an associate’s degree or a career and technical education certificate within five years, beginning in ninth grade.

Senate Bill 215:
Online Learning Education
(Sen. Sue Windels, D- Jefferson; Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver.)
Provides online education accountability by creating a Division of Online Learning within the Colorado Department of Education. The division will work with the Commissioner of Education and the State Board of Education to develop stronger accountability methods, oversee the release of progress data, and ensure the use of curriculum in accordance with state standards.

Senate Bill 239:
Long Appropriations Bill: Affordability for College
(Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo; Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction.)
Caps tuition increases at public postsecondary education institutions for low- and middle-income Coloradans at no more than 5% per year. Also provides an 8.5%, or $7.4 million, increase in state financial aid for eligible Colorado students.

House Bill 1048:
Longitudinal Analysis of Assessments
(Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs; Sen. Sue Windels, D-Jefferson.)
Helps parents’ and teachers’ understanding of kids’ progress in school by focusing on their individual development during the school year through longitudinal assessments (repeated observations over time).

House Bill 1118:
High School Graduation Requirements
(Rep. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora; Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder.)
Requires the State Board of Education to adopt guidelines for the establishment of high school graduation requirements by July 1, 2008. This bill allows districts to develop their own high school graduation requirements, but they must meet or exceed any minimum standards set by the state.

House Bill 1345:
School Accountability
(Rep. Tom Massey, R- Chaffee; Sen. Sue Windels, D- Jefferson.)
Makes it easier for parents to understand and gain access to how their kids’ schools are performing by streamlining the three school accountability reports into one easy-to-read report that will be available online.

School Mill Levy Stabilization
On May 9, Governor Ritter signed into law the “School Finance Act of 2007.” Coined the “Colorado Children’s Amendment,” the enacted legislation ends the steady decline in the local share of K-12 education funding. By reducing property tax rates (mill levies) in 33 school districts and freezing property taxes in another 142 districts, the new law will provide additional funding to school districts.

Mill levy stabilization halts automatic decreases in local property taxes in some school districts, which has forced them to rely increasingly on state coffers for the majority of their funding. While in 1989 the state was responsible for only 43% of K-12 funding, by 2007 the state’s share had grown to 64%. There was concern that decreased local funding would mean decreased local control.

Although opponents of mill levy stabilization argued that it constituted a new tax, which requires a vote under provisions of the 1992 Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, the Colorado General Assembly Office of Legislative Legal Services determined that the new law “clearly does not constitute a new tax…for the purposes of the voter approval requirement section…of the state constitution.”

Additional funds resulting from the mill levy stabilization will be used to expand the number of slots in the Colorado Preschool Program and to phase-in full day kindergarten.

Governor Ritter Appoints P-20 Education Council
In April, Governor Ritter created the P-20 Coordinating Council. The council’s purpose is to align the state’s educational system from pre-school through grade 20 (graduate school) and ensure that all students are ready to successfully meet the needs of employers in today’s global knowledge-based economy.

Co-chaired by Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brian; Joe Garcia, President of Colorado State University-Pueblo; and Bruce Benson, a businessman, former chairman of the Metropolitan State College of Denver board and past chair of Gov. Owens’ Blue Ribbon Panel on Higher Education for the 21st Century, the council will meet indefinitely. Recommendations that require legislation in the next legislative session will be submitted by the end of November.

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