For my family and me, public education is not just a high priority, it’s a lifelong passion. My mother, my sister and I have all spent decades teaching.
That’s why the looming cuts to school funding are so painful.
I’ll do everything I can to strengthen our schools—and I have both a
plan and a track record to prove it.
As speaker of the Colorado House, I partnered with a Republican governor to provide the only relief to our state’s fiscal mess in 28 years. I then teamed up with State Treasurer Cary Kennedy to create the largest investment in school construction in state history—a billion-dollar plan called BEST, or Building Excellent Schools Today.
Among the results:
- 525 new schools, serving some of the poorest parts of our state;
- billions of dollars for P-12 and higher education, health care and human services;
- a fix to TABOR’s “ratchet effect,” which had trapped state funding at recessionary levels.
We didn’t declare victory then, and we certainly can’t yet. Treasurer Kennedy and I went back to the ballot to create a permanent Savings Account for Education, a rainy-day fund for public schools.
While that effort fell short, I’m determined to keep up the fight. The downturn we now face could devastate public education and other critical services.
We need champions in Washington who will not only repair the damage Betsy DeVos has done but also protect our students and their teachers from even deeper hardship.
That’s a commitment I’ll take to the U.S. Senate.
Andrew Romanoff
PS: Join the conversation at tomorrow’s
Virtual Town Hall—12 pm MDT, Friday, May 15 at
andrewromanoff.com/live.
