CO Dems on the Joint Legislative PERA subcommittee keep secrets so as to not "confuse" voters. No easy answers on school segregation. Your chance to be a media expert.
Yesterday I wrote about Polis' listening tour. Today I want to share something related.
Perhaps the Democrats running this state aren't bothering to engage with you because (in addition to not wanting to hear contrary opinions) they feel as though you would find things like taxpayer funded retirement problems "irrelevant" or "confusing".
See the screenshot attached from the op ed about PERA below for the source of those words, used to characterize Mr. Scharf's ideas by PERA subcommittee Democrats about transparency.
Pardon me, but people who tell me something is irrelevant or that it would confuse me make me think they're gaming me or hiding something.
After all, anyone with a decent understanding ought to be able to relate the topic of interest (perhaps with some loss of detail or subtlety) to a layperson. Someone saying they can't is hiding something: either to protect you from seeing their ignorance or some thing they don't want you to know.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2023/09/21/sharf-keeping-taxpayers-in-the-dark-about-public-pensions/
No simple answers here.
Been holding on to this article for a while letting it marinate. I wanted to present it as food for thought. Please feel free to put in your two cents below in the comments.
The article below is not easy to categorize in my view. That is to say, it makes some interesting points while at the same time having some faults in reasoning; it's not a case of being able to say "it's pure crap" or "it's all correct".
I won't go through the whole article, but there were some things that stood out I wanted to touch on.
First, the article is chockablock with confusing disparity and discrimination. And this holds for things like segregation (a loaded word if ever there was one). Pulling a quote from the top line:
"Denver schools remain intensely segregated by race and family income — conditions that have persisted for decades and play a major role in shaping educational opportunities, a new study finds."
I don't doubt that (especially if you define segregation such as the report authors did as a differential enrollment by race), but I don't necessarily think that it's automatically evidence of wrongdoing or racism.
People end up in different neighborhoods for many reasons. Some economic, some socioeconomic/class, and some based on race--with the important caveat that people sometimes CHOOSE to separate themselves this way.
For example, recent immigrants (the greatest portion of non-native English speakers who go to our schools) tend to not have a lot of money. They also tend to take jobs that don't pay much. This puts them in neighborhoods that are poorer than others.
You also don't see a lot of mixing of races among immigrants. It might be different now that demographics are changing, but if you're ever in Denver drive down Federal. Alameda and Federal used to be a hard, bright line that divided the mostly-Latin communities from the mostly-Vietnamese ones. That is it was almost like crossing that intersection flipped a switch where the signs went from Spanish to Vietnamese. This was not government-enforced. This was the choice of the immigrants who settled there. I'm not sure, but my guess is that they felt more comfortable in their new land living with people from their same region, who spoke their language.
My point is that there are a variety of reasons why we might see differentials of populations by race and/or economic class in our schools.
Still, and this is what I meant about this article not being easy to dismiss, the fact that there are disparities doesn't mean we ought to allow them to continue.
Taking a quote from the article, "For example, more than half the gifted and talented students in Denver attend schools with large concentrations of white and higher-income students. 'We hold that it is not that Gifted and Talented students are more likely to be White and wealthy but rather White and wealthy students are more likely to be seen as Gifted and Talented by Denver Public Schools,' the [study] authors write. They said the failure to see the talents of other students 'represents an institutional shortcoming' and goes against the district’s obligations to provide a good education to all students."
Hear hear.
If we start from the premise that all races have on average the same proportions of talents in different fields (art, mathematics, what have you), then we should have roughly the same number of students that we identify as gifted or talented in each population as a percent. The fact that we done, regardless of the cause, means that this is a disparity that needs attention. This is something we should fix.
Additionally, and this is my idea and not one from the article, I think we need to revisit how we fund schools, and in particular, how money is distributed in large districts.
I have had friends who taught at schools in DPS that were located in lower-income areas. These schools were often run down with broken mechanicals and looked raggedy. Do you think that this would be tolerated by parents whose schools were in wealthy districts?
We put our money and our attention into things that matter. When schools look run down and things don't work I believe it sends a message. It sends a message about how education is valued and the value of the students. And I've taught long enough to know that, whether this is the intended message or not, it's getting heard loud and clear.
Big districts should pool their money such that schools in lower-income neighborhoods get the same attention, time, and money as the ones in wealthier neighborhoods. This is tough to do across districts (see my earlier video series on school funding in Colorado for the state's attempt to equalize funding for property-rich and property-poor districts), but ought to be much easier within a district like DPS.
Fixing things like this are only fair and need to be done regardless of what it is that caused them.
What do you think? As I say, if you feel inspired to speak on this, please do.
https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/7/31/23814060/denver-school-segregation-latino-education-coalition-report
Know something (say it's cattle ranching, drilling a well, mechanical engineering, OB/GYN nursing)?
Here's a way you can potentially add your voice to the conversation in this state.
One of the media newsletters I read had a blurb about the group below creating a database of people reporters could turn to when and if they have questions.
Quoting their preamble from the link below:
"Amplify Colorado Diverse Source Guide aims to ensure that Colorado’s local and statewide news coverage is more equitable and better reflects the communities it serves. The guide is a response to a call from community members and journalists of color who want to strengthen the relationship between newsrooms and Coloradans from diverse backgrounds of all kinds by broadening the range of voices, experiences and expertise in local news stories and by making it easier for community members to connect with their local reporters."
When I read about this, the idea popped into my head that "... broadening the range of voices, experiences, and expertise" that the media pull from is both a wonderful goal and an opportunity.
It's an opportunity for people from ideologically and geographically diverse groups to get themselves in front of reporters so that the reporters have the chance to talk to more than just the usual suspects.
I want to encourage you to consider putting yourself out there (I have already under the subject headings of science and education). This is especially true if you are from a rural area or Ag. We need folks like you to speak up more.
There's no guarantee that you'll get asked anything, and you must be willing to speak to the press. You'll also have to tolerate some of your info being out there (you get to choose how much to share). But it doesn't take much time and it holds the potential to be a way for you to contribute to bringing some balance back into the discussion in this state.
Worth the 10 or so minutes it takes and worth sharing some not-at-all personal details about myself.
https://amplifycolorado.colabnews.co/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email