Update on the UPK rules and curriculum. The Dems on the Colorado Senate Transportation and Energy Committee to rural Colorado: let them eat Starlink
Update on the UPK rules and curriculum.
I posted a bit back about the new state-mandated curriculum and rules regarding suspensions and expulsions for same (see the link below if you want the context).
I said in that post that I would update when I heard from the UPK program with an answer to my two questions:
Can you point me to the list of approved curricula and/or the resource bank?
Can you give me details on the "limitations and procedures" on suspension and expulsion?
I heard back and wanted to update. With regard to the first question, I got the below in the email(quoted with the original links intact).
"The Department is in the process of developing the Resource Bank which will include a list of approved curricula, so unfortunately we are unable to provide the information you seek. However, the Department anticipates broadly engaging stakeholders this summer (2024) to collaboratively develop the list of approved curricula. More information regarding this work will be shared on the Departments website on the UPK and Rulemaking and RAC webpages."
I followed up with a question about the best way folks could watch for this discussion to come up (in case they wanted to speak up at the stakeholder meetings). If I hear back, I will update, otherwise, sign up for updates on the UPK site above and watch your email.
In response to my second question, I got the below (again with link intact).
"Regarding your second question, please reference to the statutory language provided in section 22-33-106.1, C.R.S., to learn more about the limitations and procedures surrounding suspensions and expulsions."
I went to the section of the CRS (Colorado Revised Statutes) linked to above and took screenshots of the rules re. expulsions and suspensions and attached them as screenshots 1 and 2.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the bill that mandated these state rules. It's linked second below. Interestingly, the bill had bipartisan sponsorship (and, no, I'm not counting Senator Priola).
The allowed reasons for suspension and expulsion leave me a little concerned, concerned at the absence of a way for a school to deal with a student who is such a disruption as to interfere with the learning of others.
What if the student is such a drain on resources that the teacher can't teach? What if he or she is not a safety issue, but other students can't learn while the problem student is in the room?
I've written before with my thoughts on the usefulness and appropriateness of suspensions and I do not take something like expelling a student lightly. That is, I'm not advocating for quick and thoughtless suspensions or expulsions.
In fact, I've often reminded myself of what a former principal used to say: if doctors were like teachers, they'd only ever treat healthy patients. I see it as my job as a teacher (of non-college students) to try and help encourage young people to not act like fools and learn when they're resistant.
I can't force anyone to learn or to want to learn, but I did see it as my role to do a lot more encouraging, cheerleading, and attempting to convince when I taught high school. Knowing that kids get (in theory) more mature as they age, it's obviously appropriate to do even more of same with young ones. You don't boot troublesome kids at the first sign of trouble. You try to work with them.
At the same time, I have a responsibility to a whole room full of students. I must provide an environment where people can learn.
It is this tension that is the problem, the tension between trying to help someone and trying to prevent them from making it so others can't learn. I don't see how this tension is respected in these state-mandated rules.
In fact, it looks to me like this blanket rule removes a school's or a teacher's ability to try and navigate that tension in a way that's fair to the problem student AND the whole room.
That's a shame.
I'll update if I have more to share re. the curriculum. If you do end up signing up for updates, please share if you hear and I'll post.
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/the-numbers-on-energy-assistance?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb19-1194
The Dems on the Colorado Senate Transportation and Energy Committee (Sen Exum excepted) to rural Colorado: let them eat Starlink
Let's do some quick history first.
Back in 2022, see the first link below, Governor Polis tasked the Colorado Broadband Office with the goal of getting broadband internet to 99% of Colorado's residents using some of the federal subsidies Uncle Sam was showering us with.
A worthy goal: if you don't live in a rural area, I think it's easy to take high speed internet for granted. This isn't just a case of of wanting cat pictures or streaming music. High speed internet is opportunity, it's parity with other communities.
Fiber internet opens up economic opportunities, and it allows for an influx of new economic activity since it allows those that would be interested in remote work from the rural areas of this state the chance to move.
The economics here, the number of customers that would receive the broadband intenet at a price that everyday rural Coloradans could afford practically necessitates that the fiber optic cable broadband runs on lay their cable alongside existing roads, many of which are owned by CDOT.
And therein lies the problem. CDOT started off with huge prices to lay cable in their rights-of-way. Amid some backlash, they backed off a bit, but did something that they don't do with others: they required not just a one time fee to lay cable, but a yearly fee on top.
The bill linked second below sought to make the fees CDOT wanted more reasonable, to entice companies to lay their cable by only requiring a one-time fee. This bill sat for weeks and weeks waiting a committee hearing while some senate and representatives on the Joint Technology Committee held out for higher fees and the creation of yet another state enterprise. If you want more on that, check out the third link below to my earlier post.
Well after weeks and weeks and weeks of delay, the bill finally got a committee date. And it got shot down.
I think the quote by the tie-breaking NO vote (Senator Priola) that I got from the TSS article linked fourth below sums up the reasoning here pretty well.
"'I’m confident that the current proposal by CDOT [more below] strikes the right balance,' Priola said just before casting the deciding vote against SB 91. 'At the end of the day, industry can’t cost-shift on Colorado to the point where it doesn’t pencil out.'”
Priola's quote above dovetails pretty well with the emails I got from Rep Titone (also on the Joint Technology Committee) in response to my earlier open email. The overall thrust was that they felt the fees from the bill below were not sufficient, and the fiber companies wanted to put their costs onto the state.
I'm not so sure about this cost-shifting talking point and I also take issue with the implication here that this is some sort of perk that rural areas are getting.
It has long been the practice that CDOT asked for extra fiber to be laid for their own use in the past. Was that sort of cost-shifting a problem? I also question just how much cost is actually getting "shifted". The state will get its money with a fee to put the fiber in. What costs are there beyond that? How big are they?
As I mention above, it's easy to take what you have now for granted. If you have high speed internet, the perspective is different than if you don't. I have read (in the press and in emails) that fiber companies are not utilities and thus shouldn't have what they term some sort of special treatment.
One can live without broadband. There was a time when we likely said the same about electricity (and, yes, you can survive without that too), but yesterday's perk is today's utility. It's easy to downplay just exactly what broadband represents when you live where Priola and Titone do.
If you live in a rural area and need/want high speed internet and there's no cable, your other alternative is satellite internet like Starlink (hence the "if they can't get broadband, let them eat Starlink" above).
I thought you might be interested to get a look at the prices on Starlink so I put a PC Mag review of the service fifth below and I excerpted the plans/prices in the attached screenshot.
The monthly plan is not too much higher than what I pay out here in Sterling, but damn look at that equipment cost!
I wonder what, if anything, this bill dying will do to Polis' goal and what, if anything, he'll do about it.
https://broadband.colorado.gov/polis-signs-executive-order
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-091
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/aurora-water-insists-its-not-buy?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
https://tsscolorado.com/legislators-decide-right-of-way-access-will-come-at-annual-cost-to-telecom-firms/
https://www.pcmag.com/articles/2024-starlink-speed-tests-spacex-satellite-internet