October 09, 2009 04:33 AM UTC

Connecting the Dots in the Denver Post

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• by: Great Education Colorado

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Once in a while a series of unrelated articles in a newspaper unwittingly tell a larger truth.  It happened Tuesday, with these headlines from the Denver Post:

Tax shortfall means cut in Denver preschool tuition aid

A 25 percent cut would be the equivalent of a $2 million hit that would impact 25 full-day classrooms that serve roughly 500 students, said David Suppes, chief operating officer.

There may be even greater cuts if the legislature pares funding for the state-funded Colorado Preschool Program that helps at-risk kids attend quality preschool programs.

Griego: Education achievement gap is a threat to Colorado’s future

. . . Colorado has the largest gap in the nation between whites and its next-largest ethnic/racial group (Latinos) among those with an associate’s degree or higher.

2006 tax change costs Colorado $60 million

In the last year of Gov. Bill Owens’ term, his administration enacted a rule exempting businesses from paying sales tax on most computer software, a departure from tax policy that so far has cost the state $60 million in revenue. . .

This year, corporations have obtained hefty sales-tax refunds – one firm received a $7 million check – at a time the state is grappling with massive budget shortfalls.

“I would love to know when it happened and who the entities are that pushed it,” said state Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver. “This is money that should be going to kindergarten schools.”

Connecting the dots:  

(1) Denver and the state of Colorado have recently made long-overdue gains in providing quality child care to at-risk kids.  Now that progress (still far from addressing the need) is in jeopardy because of budget cuts.

(2) Five, ten and fifteen years ago, Colorado provided precious little support for preschool or full-day Kindergarten.  Now, as Tina Griego’s column eloquently points out, Colorado’s achievement gap between white and Latino children is among the worst in the nation.  That is the nature of education: the degree of social justice and equality in our state 15 and 25 years from now, is being decided by the quality of education we are providing today.

(3) While we are talking about cutting the number of kids who will have access to early childhood education, one corporation walked away with a $7 million tax break that wasn’t even adopted by the legislature.  Lesson: let’s scrub tax loopholes before we scratch programs critical to children.

Finally, we can’t pass up the opportunity to point out how these dots connect to some others dots in Colorado’s school funding story over the years:

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