In a change that one lawmaker is calling a “paradigm shift,” Colorado’s school funding formula eventually could take into account how many students in each district are learning English or have disabilities that require additional services — needs with which state funding has not kept pace.
That’s a key component of draft legislation being presented Monday to a special committee tasked with rewriting Colorado’s 25-year-old formula determining how the state distributes money to school districts. There is widespread agreement that the current model is outdated and too often sends more money to well-off districts and less to poorer districts, with little regard for student needs. But changing it has proved politically challenging.
“We have spoken consistently and with unity about making the funding formula first, foremost, and completely about the students,” rather than about institutions like districts, said state Sen. Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican and vice chairman of the Interim Legislative Committee on School Finance, which has been meeting for three years. “That is a really significant change in language.”
THE GAZETTE
By ERICA MELTZER Chalkbeat Colorado
Dec 22, 2019