06 18 SEEING RED: REFLECTIONS ON THE EDUCATOR RALLY By Jill Farschman I recall some years ago overhearing a conversation between a barista and customer at my local coffee shop. The customer wanted to know what her child’s fourth-grade teacher was doing behind the counter making lattes. “Earning a little extra money while on summer break,” the barista replied with an eye roll and shrug of her shoulders. Despite a prevailing impression that teachers have boatloads of time off when compared with other professions, far from lounging around working on her tan, your average teacher is much more likely to be working additional jobs to make ends meet when between sessions. Teachers are five times as likely as the average full-time American worker to hold a second job, according to Vox. Adjusted for inflation, their average pay has declined in the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that enrollment in U.S. education programs preparing tomorrow’s teachers is down 35 percent in recent years, according to the Learning Policy Institute and CNN analyst Fareed Zakaria. Part of a national movement, the plight of school system funding and educator compensation was steadily gaining traction with modest wins in various states when Colorado entered the fight.
Colorado Teacher Rally
On April 27 the downtown Denver State Capitol grounds and Civic Center Plaza were flooded with a sea of red shirts. Teachers rallied and marched to protest what is seen as the state’s dismal track record of adequate educational funding and wages. It wasn’t officially branded a walk-
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Public school educators rally at the State Capitol on April 27 with three Colorado Education Association objectives: restore and increase education funding to help pay off budget stabilization factor, reduce or freeze corporate tax breaks until state education funding is resolved, support Initiative 93 - Great Schools Thriving Communities with increased school funding without major tax impact. Photo by Jill Farschman. out or strike, but it sure looked like one.
Funding
Our educational spending is constrained by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and other state constitutional amendments intended to protect us from runaway deficits plaguing so many other states. But these limits on spending may not keep pace with our burgeoning population growth or cost-of-living increases. As a consequence, Colorado is experiencing a significant educational funding shortfall.
Some of the Key Numbers
In addition, the Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA) has a $32-$50 billion unfunded liability. At press time, Senate Bill 18-200 (SB 200), passed by the General Assembly on the last day of the most recent session, was awaiting Gov. John Hickenlooper’s signature. According to the assembly’s website, the bill “modifies benefits, increases contributions, ensures alignment of contributions, service credit, and benefits, and makes CONTINUED ON 10
READY TO GROW FROM NEIGHBORHOOD ROOTS By Jerry Healey For some, community journalism is a passion. It’s never strictly about dollars and cents, but rather connecting people and businesses in a way that no other medium can. With one broad stroke, it can touch the lives of thousands of previously unconnected people. Community journalism tells the inspirational and positive stories that bring us together and, sometimes, the watchdog stories needed to bring about change. It’s the story about a new entrepreneur launching the business of her dreams. It’s the story
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about that boy around the corner who suddenly gets his shot in the music world. It’s about the simple things, too. A suggested apple-blossom-season bike ride. Free music in the park. A new gallery opening. We are storytellers, hoping to bind communities together by sharing their collective and individual joys, sorrows and challenges. This is what drives us at Colorado Community Media. And this is why we have decided to expand in Denver by purchasing the Washington Park Profile and Life on Capitol Hill. You know the newspapers, but you don’t know us. Colorado Community Media is family-owned. My
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wife and I are longtime Colorado residents who have been in the newspaper business since graduating from college and working for The Miami Herald in Florida, where we met. With 18 community weeklies, all but one of which are in the suburbs surrounding Denver, Colorado Community Media is the state’s largest family-owned community media company. We use the word “media” in our name because we provide news in all sorts of methods not envisioned when we started out in the business — webCONTINUED ON 9
ONE YEAR OUT, CANDIDATES START TO LINE UP FOR CITY COUNCIL
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