The chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court asks for more money. Education funding will likely be another big conversation this legislative term. Why does bread stale?
The chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court asks for more money.
The Colorado Politics article below covers Chief Justice Marquez's appearance before the Joint Budget Committee, JBC, of the legislature (a lot of government agencies, departments, and branches come and sit before the JBC because they hold the purse strings).
In what will likely come as no surprise, to anyone, ever, that has watched the government, the Chief Justice wants more money. This coming in a year when the budget is already tight; depending on where and how you get your news, you may have heard about the state government running a little short on money.
Paying no heed to fixing the corruption scandals and lack of faith by many in our state's judiciary, Marquez here mainly wants more money to hire more judges. Quoting:
"The top priority, she [Marquez] said, was the creation of 29 new judgeships over a two-year period. The total cost, including associated staff, would exceed $20 million annually. 'We're beginning to lose judges who are choosing to leave because of workload overwhelm. We are starting to backslide in recent gains among diversity of our bench and we're seeing an unfortunate drop-off in applications for judicial vacancies,' she continued. 'This does not bode well for the future of our judiciary.'"
I sympathize: as someone working at a state institution, I can't tell you the number of people that are doing more than one job for one job's pay. My guess is that the private sector is not much different. Money's tight all over.
If for no other reason than to keep its commitment to speedy trials, our government should be investing in the judiciary. It should have been for some time now (if you read the article you'll note this is not a new problem).
If we lose judges and can't replace them, or if we work the existing judges to the point of making errors, no one is served. I don't like paying taxes, but I want functioning courts.
If we find ourselves in the position of budget drafters being skeptical of how to fund things, we have no other direction to look than at those (Democrats) who have ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE for running the state for the last four years.
Their profligate spending, their lack of prioritization of differing government functions in favor of expanding the government, in favor of tax breaks to their preferred special interests, has put us here.
It has put us in a position of struggling how to do the basics of governance not too long after bragging about how many rich people's EV's we've subsidized.
p.s. if I held the purse strings, no money would go to the judges til there was a process in place to deal with judicial discipline.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/courts/lawmakers-suggest-chief-justices-request-for-new-judges-may-be-nonstarter/article_7ad4b396-ce15-11ef-b30f-2f876759a147.html#google_vignette
Education funding will likely be another big conversation this legislative term.
Like the fight over unions, I have a feeling that education and education funding will loom large this coming legislative session.
If this issue is a passion for you, I want to give you some background and context on the issue from my perspective (that of a fiscal conservative who has worked in education for years now). I want to offer some counterpoint to the relentless narrative you will hear in the media and from teacher-union-affiliated Democrats.
Inevitably, any discussion about school funding at our capitol will devolve into the idea that we need to spend more on education. In some form or another, you will see (with or without statistics attached) that Colorado spends less than others on education. In some form or another you will see that we need to invest more in teachers to attract and retain the good ones.
The Center Square article linked first below touches on that. It details a couple reports (recently released) that recommend we spend billions more on education.
Similarly, the Colorado Sun article linked second below gives the teachers' union thoughts on teacher retention (with, probably surprising few, the recommendation that we pay teachers more).
Both are worth a read, no matter where you land on the issue.
I don't disagree that money can help in education. But, as I have noted and written about for some time now (see an older op ed linked third below), I am a skeptic that merely opening the dump valves to spray money thoughtlessly into the education bureaucracy will do anything.
As I wrote in my op ed (with the link intact):
"Judging from previous years, we are spending more on Colorado students, but are we getting our money's worth in educational outcomes? I don't think a reasonable person would say yes."
This is echoed in the Center Square article. Again, quoting:
"Experts at the Common Sense Institute believe more funding isn’t necessarily the solution to fixing many of the problems facing Colorado’s students. Kelly Caufield, executive director of the institute, said that it is time for a 'new conversation.' 'The data is showing us time after time that more money is not resulting in better academic outcomes for Colorado's K-12 students,' she told The Center Square. 'It’s much easier to just have the funding conversation, versus the harder conversation about priorities within the classroom and how we are addressing the needs of students.'”
Part of the reason for not thoughtlessly spending more on education shows up in an earlier report by the conservative-leaning Common Sense Institute. I posted about this earlier and link to my earlier newsletter fourth below.
The short version is that more money into education has grown the administrative part of the school bureaucracy; the extra money we dump into the system doesn't seem to reach those that need it, the students.
Where does money help? Money helps in the parts of the system that currently are strapped for money: rural districts, lower income urban districts. It helps when the money makes it to the students instead of administrators. It helps when we allow locals to pursue the kinds of education that they know works well in their populations.
As for teacher retention, salary is important yes, but take it from someone who's been an educator for more years than I care to count. I did not get into this business because I wanted to be rich. As long as I can live a comfortable life (and I do on my current salary), I'm happy.
For me, the decision about remaining a teacher has more to do with quality of life than with the numbers on my paycheck. Interestingly, this shows up in the Colorado Sun article.
Quoting:
"The report [the article details a CEA report on a member survey] notes that more than half of those who took the survey said teacher shortages have become more severe and that schools don’t have a sufficient pool of substitute teachers, 'further straining classrooms and affecting student learning.'"
Having a planning period, not losing it to having to cover others' classes, I can personally attest are an example of what I mean when I talk about quality of life. If I spend my day hectically running from place to place, and, on top of that, have to push all other work to outside regular working hours, THAT is when the low pay catches up.
I encourage you to study up and then speak up on this issue. Policy makers in this state need to hear from more than just the teachers' unions and the advocates who perennially ask for more, more, more.
We can improve education in this state, but the usual tack of dumping more money into the system isn't working. Push lawmakers to be more thoughtful.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/colorado/article_94538fe0-cd07-11ef-bf16-c3288a72b5f3.html
https://coloradosun.com/2025/01/13/colorado-education-association-state-of-education-report/
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/opinion-are-colorado-schools-underfunded-a-teachers-view/article_0903aa7c-eb67-11eb-bc18-ebfcb2c30326.html
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/cde-calling-for-educator-feedback?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Why does bread stale?
That time of the week again. Last post til Sunday and thus it's time for some learnin', something not related to politics.
I love bread. I like to eat it. I like to make it.* I even sell it on the side.
There is nothing at all like the taste of fresh, scratch-made bread. The problem is that homemade always stales quickly. Storebought? Not so much. This raises the question of why and how it is that bread stales.
The short, and somewhat overly-simplified, answer is that staled bread has "unbaked".
When you bake bread, the heat of the oven helps the starch molecules from whatever flour(s) you're using to gelatinize. This is distinct from merely mixing them; agitating something such that starch molecules are next to water molecules is not the same as the chemical reaction that takes place which combines water with starch in a way which alters the chemical bones.
In this sense, it's a little like concrete setting: you're not just mixing and drying out, you're changing the way the chemicals bond to each other at a molecular level.
So now you have your big beautiful loaf. It's out. It's fully cooked. Give it about a day or so and it's stale. It's drier. It's harder. It's crumbly.
What gives? Especially when that loaf of Wonder is pillow-soft for days.
The thing about chemical reactions is that they can run both ways. Gelatinization, being a chemical reaction, can go backwards and the starches can kick the water back out coming back similar to a state in which they were prior to cooking. The bread starts to "uncook".
See the attached graphic (from the blog post linked below) for a picture version.
What can you do to prevent this? The blog post lists some ways that professional bakers avoid staling. Give it a look. Better living through chemistry.
If you're a home baker, there are some (non-chemcial) things you can do to help your bread last.
1. Freeze, or keep on the counter, but do not refrigerate bread. Oddly refrigerating fresh bread stales it faster. Want to keep it a long time? Cut it into portions, wrap well, and freeze. I like to make loaves which I slice for sandwiches for lunch. I cut the loaf, put slips of wax paper between slices (so they don't stick) and freeze.
2. Wild yeast starters (sourdoughs) tend to stay softer longer than commercial yeast breads. Even a portion of your leavening from wild starters helps. Flavor doesn't hurt either.
3. Tangzhong (see the second link below) helps bread avoid staling. I can also tell you it produces some of the softest, fluffiest bread you've ever had!
4. Familiarize yourself with ways to make use of staled bread because you won't ever completely stop it. Pain perdu ("lost bread", French Toast), panzanella etc. were all invented for just such a problem. That wild yeast starter sourdough? Marvelous French Toast by the way.
That's it. Whenever writing starts to feel stale to me, posts like these are what bring back some joy so I'm glad I got to share.
Back at it Sunday!
*For all those that have clamored for pics of my hot buns, wait no more. The picture at the top of the post is of one of my favorites (made as rolls instead of a loaf): panmarino. Flavored with olive oil, roasted garlic, fresh rosemary and softened with the addition of mashed potato, this is a great one to pair with Italian food.
https://www.musimmas.com/resources/blogs/5-ingredients-that-extend-the-shelf-life-of-bread/
Nothing more pleasing than warm fresh sourdough!