Education is core to ensuring that kids and adults have the skills and knowledge to be successful and pursue a meaningful life and career. It also strengthens our civic fabric—building understanding, connection, community, and our democratic society. As an educator and the parent of a high school student and college student, I know full well the positive impact that education can deliver for our kids and our state.
Colorado has a commitment to deliver high-quality public K-12 education and options for postsecondary pathways for every child and young adult in the state. I stand firmly behind our public education system—and I will champion the teachers and staff that dedicate their lives to educate and inspire the next generation. I will also oppose any efforts to privatize our system of public education, such as introducing voucher programs.
Together, we must face the barriers making it hard to navigate and access the education that Coloradans deserve. That means that we must ensure we have sufficient funding to support our schools. We also must support the teaching profession and strengthen more direct paths into it. And we must ensure postsecondary paths are affordable and yield the outcomes that learners and parents are investing in. Learners and families shouldn’t have to take on unrecoverable debt to receive a college degree. Nor should we allow “dead ends” from training programs. We can and will do better for our kids and young adults.
As governor, I will be a champion for our kids and for education at all levels so that all people have a chance to earn a quality education and receive the training and skills they need to be successful. And I will work hard on ways to pay our public school teachers more to ensure that they can stay in their chosen profession.
Investing in Colorado’s K-12 Schools
Last school year, 881,065 students attended classes in Colorado public schools, learning core skills like writing, reading, and mathematics. We owe it to these students to ensure they receive a quality education in a supportive and safe environment which also provides options for those needing remedial help and tutoring. Unfortunately, the data shows that we have much to improve on—last school year, for students in grades 3 through 8, 56 percent and 66 percent of students did not meet grade-level expectations in English and Math, respectively. This shows we still have much more to do to improve student outcomes after the COVID-19 pandemic set learning back for students.
To have a quality K-12 educational system, the state must be committed to paying for it. The 2024 elimination of the Budget Stabilization Factor—a budget-balancing effort in which the state underpaid its voter-approved commitment to fund our schools—was a major hurdle cleared. That the Budget Stabilization Factor took years to pay off shows the challenges that our constitutional restrictions impose on funding the most essential needs. As we continue to look to the future, we must ensure that future budgets are not balanced by cuts to K-12 education, and remain committed that the Budget Stabilization Factor never returns.
And while I support the state seeking innovative concepts and models to educate students, I will never support privatizing our schools or allowing profit-motives to undermine our kids’ education. And I will support no bill from the legislature that does so. That’s why I firmly opposed Amendment 80 which would have opened the door to vouchers and diverting limited public school funds to private entities.
Supporting Teachers
To have a world class K-12 education system, we must be able to recruit and retain teachers. And, teachers should be able to live in the communities where they teach. Yet, Colorado does not pay K-12 teachers enough to make a livable wage. Too many Colorado teachers make below $50,000 per year—in a high-cost state like Colorado, that’s unacceptable. And it isn’t enough to cover mortgage payments, rents, and groceries. In rural school districts, it has been reported that some average teacher salaries are less than $40,000 per year. This in turn leads to retention challenges, teachers lost to neighboring states with higher wages, and teachers forced to take on second and third jobs to make ends meet.
To keep qualified teachers in the classroom, Colorado must do better to raise compensation and support for educators. This requires a full slate of options—greater loan forgiveness options to reduce teacher student loan payments, supporting more public-private partnerships to build affordable teacher housing, promoting the state’s down payment assistance program for teachers, and getting more dollars to school districts dedicated to raising teacher’s wages.
As a starting point, we should make entering the teaching profession both supported and affordable. K-12 and higher education leaders have collaborated to design innovative programs that can be replicated across the state, particularly in the areas with the highest need. As an example, new teacher apprenticeship programs—like one through Colorado Mountain College and one through Cherry Creek School District and the Community College of Aurora—enable students to earn a degree through a work-based learning model. In these programs, teachers are paid apprentices in the classroom while also taking classes, gaining meaningful on-the-job experience for credit, and earning an income. Learners are gaining years of experience—up to 5x the classroom time of traditional student teaching programs—and are graduating with living-wage teaching jobs.
For all teachers dedicated to educating our young people, we owe them a good standard of living in the communities they serve. As governor, I will make meeting this challenge a top priority.
Elevating the Voice and Expertise of our Education Leaders
Some of the greatest knowledge about how we can improve education is held by leaders closest to schools and kids—in K-12, this knowledge comes from our teachers, school staff, administrators, and superintendents. In postsecondary education, faculty members, college and university staff, independent training providers, and student support organizations have unique perspectives on how best to support learners.
Colorado must bring more voices and insight from education leaders and parents to our statewide conversations on public policies that impact our K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. And, through more open dialogue and convening, we can share promising practices and models to adopt across different contexts. Such discussions could include, for example, what are the set of competencies and skills that students most need to develop, how to teach those competencies/skills most effectively, and how to teach technology literacy (including artificial intelligence skills) that will be necessary for our kids to succeed.
As governor, I will create an “Education Think Tank” and invite education leaders to provide their input on public policies, elevate shared challenges, and share bright spots and solutions in service of students. In combination with existing channels for feedback, we can amplify an active community conversation that leads to collaborative solutions.
I will also support programs to help teachers like existing ones offering down payment assistance and developing new supportive options for schools like offering roles to retired professionals for harder-to-fill jobs.
Supporting Civics Education in the Classroom.
Colorado values the role of civics education in the classroom which is a graduation requirement. With rising unawareness of how our government works and the importance of our civic values, this curriculum is more important than ever. As our country grapples with significant division and uncivil discourse, we must work together to ensure Colorado kids fully understand our system of government, our rights, the engagement it takes to maintain it, and the importance of disagreeing respectfully. I come back to a quote from Benjamin Franklin when he was asked by citizens when exiting the Constitutional Convention what sort of government was created. He responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Let’s aspire to a Colorado where our residents are proactively engaged and working to “keep” our republic.
School Safety
Schools should be places where kids and young adults always feel safe. Safe places are essential not only to protect the well-being of young people, but to foster an environment where learning can flourish. That’s why it’s unacceptable that 9 percent of high school students report having not gone to school out of fear for their safety—fear of harm either on school grounds or when getting to and from school. Whether school violence, bullying, gang activity, or illegal drug use—preventing these from occurring is essential to not only protecting student, teacher, and staff safety, but also protecting the learning environment to allow kids to thrive and to gain the most from their education. In doing so, we will look to support and scale up programs like the Cherry Creek Youth Leaders and School Support program that engages students at risk for youth violence and shows them another path.
Greater focus and support for the recently created Colorado Office of School Safety, and existing successful programs that prevent school violence like the Safe2Tell call line for anonymous tips, should be leveraged to ensure that all schools have the resources, information, and tools necessary to keep schools safe for learning.
Empowering Kids with Multiple Paths to Meaningful Careers
My jobs and workforce plan is built on the principle that there are many paths to meaningful careers and living wage opportunities in Colorado—high school, career and technical education programs, short-course credentialing programs, community college and university degrees, and work-based learning programs.
Our education system must celebrate and promote all paths to success and have a statewide strategy that supports these various postsecondary options with a coordinated approach. An important output will be to provide awareness and navigation so students and families can choose the best option for them. And as a system, we can design these postsecondary education options to be flexible, allowing for students to build upon their skills and “stack” experiences toward meaningful outcomes—whether that leads to credit for work, industry credentials, or a degree. As artificial intelligence impacts the nature of work, and the jobs of the future, having a more agile system of workforce skills development will be even more important.
To advance these efforts, we will work collaboratively with the business community in Colorado to ensure these paths lead to great jobs and careers here. As governor, I will invite employers to partner in talent development, empowering them to signal their needs, co-design programs, and work more efficiently with our public system.
Making and Keeping College and Postsecondary Credentials Affordable
Colorado is known as one of the most educated states in the country, consistently ranking as a top state for the high number of Coloradans that have completed postsecondary education. This is both a credit to our state and a challenge to ensure that those that pursue college degrees and certificates are not saddled with lifelong debt and crushing payments. State programs to support those with lower incomes to access higher education should be supported and bolstered—like the Colorado Promise program. This program provides a tax credit for out-of-pocket higher education expenses to students with lower family incomes. But with recent state budget challenges, this program must be protected to ensure it remains a path to success for those who can least afford higher education programs.
The state must continue to innovate to bring higher education opportunities within reach for all. One innovation is college loan forgiveness for students that receive a Colorado degree or certificate who commit to certain public service and critical jobs—like nursing, law enforcement, fire-fighting, paramedics and emergency response, and medicine—in Colorado communities with higher workforce demands, particularly in rural parts of the state. This innovation fits closely with our ColoradoCorps initiative, calling our young people to serve and supporting them in doing so.
And as students decide on academic programs to support their future careers, the state must do more to ensure that students take on student debt with full information on whether they will be able to afford future student loan payments. Greater transparency into the cost of a college or postsecondary education program alongside data on program outcomes and wage earning potential will provide students and families the information they need to make an informed decision for their future financial well-being.
Supporting Preschool and Early Education Opportunities
In 2023, Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program was launched—a major achievement for our state in which free part-time preschool is provided to 3- and 4-year olds. In the 2023-2024 school year, roughly 70% of all 4-year olds were supported by the Universal Preschool Program. This critical program sets up young kids for success when they enter K-12, and it alleviates a core financial burden from parents, estimating a savings of $6,100 per family. As successful as this program is, it has potential to do so much more.
Presently, the program provides 15 hours per week of funding towards a quality preschool for families. While this is a good start, the program should aim to provide funding for an entire school week—which provides not only more quality education for kids, but also needed stability for working parents. As governor, I will prioritize broadening the Universal Preschool Program providing greater support to working families.
And I will work with parents, preschool educators, and the Colorado Department of Early Childhood to ensure the program is responsive, flexible, and easy to navigate—and make any improvements to support the program’s efforts to provide A+ customer service.