DFER Colorado commends the public statements made Wednesday by Governor Romer, Governor Owens and Governor Hickenlooper regarding Colorado’s high standards and assessment programs. Seeking to provide historical context on today’s current debate, this bi-partisan group of current and former Governors detailed what has been a point of consensus regarding what our children deserve from our public school system. Some highlights include:
“We feel, I can speak for all three of us, a tremendous obligation to make sure that our kids have the best education that they can have, that they have every opportunity to succeed in fulfilling their god given potential.” –Governor Hickenlooper
Governor Owens: “Today that system is under attack, our friends from both the left and the right for differing reasons, don’t want to test, don’t want to measure, don’t want to have accountability. This is stunning to me. I can’t believe that a state that invests hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, doesn’t have a vested interest in seeing how well our students are doing each year.”
“I just want to say to my friends on the left and the Democratic Party who are objecting to this– this is a civil right issue. Every family needs to know that their student every year is being held to a standard that families would want to meet in order to live the life they want to live. You’ve got to have fair adequate and appropriate testing to get that.” –Governor Romer
While all agreed that there needs to be a common sense solution around the testing burden, the three cautioned against, “throwing out the baby with the bath water,” as Governor Hickenlooper said. DFER Colorado believes this common sense solution lies in HB1323.
We loudly applaud the leadership of our Governors.
Jen Walmer
DFER-CO State Director