The United States Supreme Court helped end racial segregation in schools in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education by adhering to one important principle: separate isn’t equal in public education.
Apparently, the editors at the Durango Herald forgot this lesson when writing their opposition to Senate Bill 61 (Herald, April 4). The bill is a bipartisan proposal that would ensure that all Colorado public school students have equal access to public resources.
Currently, public school students attending charter schools receive about 20 percent less funding than their traditional school peers simply because they attend a different type of public school. SB 61 would help remedy that problem by ensuring school districts share mill levy override revenue equally with public charter schools that the district oversees.
The Herald’s editorial tried to downplay the importance of this issue by claiming that public charter schools “do not educate a large percentage of the state’s student population.” In reality, there are over 110,000 students attending public charter schools in Colorado, representing about 13 percent of all students. If you combined all of the public charter schools into a single district, it would be the largest in the state.
Charter schools are an established and successful part of our public school system. That’s why it is inexplicable that the state would continue to allow students attending those schools to face systemic discrimination.
Just as inexplicable is the Herald’s abrupt reversal on this topic. Just last year, this same paper supported a bill identical to SB 61 (Herald, April 12, 2016). The Herald urged support for the legislation and noted that “excluding students who have chosen an alternative educational model from local public funding is neither fair nor equitable.”
What changed in the last 12 months to make excluding charter kids suddenly fair or equitable? The only difference between last year and this year is there are thousands more students in charter schools.
Furthermore, since last year’s editorial, Durango voters chose to share their local tax dollars equally with charters. The Herald’s readership spoke clearly in favor of funding equity, but it appears the Herald wasn’t listening to them, or apparently even to itself.
Luke Ragland
Dolores
