Two letters to the Assembly. One for free speech, the other for Social Studies standards. Also, another way to follow bills in the Assembly.
Stand up for your right to speak out
A bill that protects right to freedom of speech
Sen Kirkmeyer's bill that protects your ability to challenge a contempt of court order on free speech grounds is up for committee hearing (Judiciary--2/6).
I posted about this one before and had hoped to be able to testify in person, but I'm unable. So, I did the next best thing. I sent in an email to the sponsors and committee this morning.
I wanted to share in case this was one you were interested in supporting too. The email is below and the bill is linked below the email.
An open email to the sponsors of SB23-24 and the Senate Judiciary Committee
Hello to all,
My name is Cory Gaines. I am a resident of Logan County.
I am writing today in support of SB23-24. I would like to explain why I support the bill and I urge you to forward it to the committee of the whole for debate.
Our system of government is based on the idea of checks and balances; the idea that no one department, branch, or person should have too much power.
I completely understand the need to have a contempt of court order be robust. I am a teacher and I can tell you that it would make classroom management a whole lot harder if students somehow got the idea that my word didn't matter or that I had no ability to back up what I said with some sort of consequence.
Just like my authority in my classroom shouldn't be absolute, however, no judge's authority should be absolute--all the more so when it comes to our constitutional rights.
With the current rules in our judiciary, I'm afraid this is not the case. People can be put on nearly unlimited contempt, effectively muzzling them for as long as one individual government official sees fit.
This shouldn't be the case and SB23-24 is a fix for that problem.
I urge you to vote in line with reasonable American values. I urge you to vote in line with the foundational ideas behind our Republic. I urge you to vote to forward this bill to the committee of the whole.
Thank you for your time.
Cory
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-024.
What you don’t measure, what you don’t quantify, you don’t know.
I saw an article (linked below in the open email) recently about a bill that would drop the state-level testing on Social Studies.
Bad idea in my view and for a number of reasons.
I had hoped to testify on it, but its committee hearing (Monday 2/6 at 1:30--see the bill's page linked below the Sun story) doesn't work with my class schedule.
I wrote an open email and sent it. I thought I'd share in case this would be a passion of yours. If so, the bill's page is below. You are also free to use any or all of what I write in your own advocacy.
An open email to the sponsors of SB23-061 and the Senate Education Committee
Hello to all,
My name is Cory Gaines and I'm a resident of Logan County. I had hoped to testify on SB23-061, but my working schedule as an educator prevents it.
I am, therefore, writing in with my thoughts. If anyone on the committee would like to quote from this letter, please feel free.
I am not a social studies teacher by profession, but I have taught at both the high school and post-secondary levels for more years than I care to count.
There is a maxim that I hammer into my physics students at all levels (whether it was teaching high school freshman physics or calculus-based physics to future engineers): what you do not measure, what you do not quantify, you do not understand.
The way that you measure could be something that reasonable people might disagree on, and this applies to hard sciences like physics and pedagogy alike, but the idea that we should drop an overall check on students' understanding of vital topics like civics and the basics of government is foolhardy. I'm okay with a change to how the state assesses social studies, but I'm not okay with dropping the testing altogether.
If the argument is, as the Sun article linked below which interviewed one of the sponsors, that it will save money to be put to better use for teachers and programs, I'd like you to consider how much money will be saved and how extra money has been spent by our education bureaucracy lately. If you're thinking "not much" and "not on teachers" you're right on both counts. Extra money hasn't made its way into the classroom for some time now and stopping a test is (as the Sun article quotes Senator Lundeed as saying) a "miniscule" savings.
I'd also like to point out my own personal experience as a "lead teacher" to illustrate why letting individuals (whether they be individual people or individual districts) have little to no outside supervision would be a bad idea. In the past and currently, I have worked as a lead teacher. Overall my philosophy with regard to this work is to let teachers have discretion on the little things, but not on the big things--this is particularly the case when we all teach the same class. For example, individual instructors can write their own unit tests and decide on how many to give (above a certain minimum), but we all take the same final exam. This lets people decide for themselves, but reinforces the idea that the instructors need to all touch on the important topics. It also gives me a chance to see whether or not they are skipping certain sections in order to go easy on their students.
Our state level social studies test is no different. Yes, individual districts and instructors should get discretion on the little things. They can and should be running their own individual assessments to check student progress, but someone, somewhere should be checking on the big things. If this bill passes, that will most assuredly not be the case.
Modify the test, modify the procedure, but do not vote for this bill that eliminates it altogether. It offers no meaningful savings and has too big a cost.
Thank you for your time,
Cory
https://coloradosun.com/2023/01/27/social-studies-standardize-testing-colorado/
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-061
In a previous post, I'd mentioned the conservative law watching group Liberty Scorecard Colorado.
In that post I'd mentioned how they have a bill tracker. I just got a reminder email yesterday that I thought I would share. The link below is to their preliminary guide (I don't think they have their full machinery up and running because the session is new), listing some of the 232 (!) bills already introduced this seession.
A couple things of note.
1. If you want to sign up for their mailing list, you'll find it in the upper right.
and
2. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll see buttons for a guide on how to testify and how to follow a bill. If you've read this page long enough, that's not new to you, but in case you haven't ever seen, those are handy buttons. See the screenshot for what they look like so you don't miss them.
As the guide says, and I'm quoting,
"MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. You need not be an expert on a subject to speak before a committee. If you have a strong opinion and want the legislators to know where you stand on an issue, you can attend a committee hearing and sign up for your 3 minutes of comments. You can also testify remotely. Links are below."
What I'd add to that is that even if you feel like your comment won't matter, it's still important to speak up. I heard a legislator say once that he'd never heard from anyone that disagreed with his bill. Speaking up removes that excuse and it lets them know you're paying attention. If I can help you, please don't hesitate to ask.
https://mailchi.mp/libertyscorecardco/232-bills-already