Colorado PTA & Great Ed in the Post: Downturn is the Time to Invest in Education

Sunday’s Denver Post Perspective section features a Guest Commentary by Colorado PTA President Lynnn Huizing and Great Education Colorado Executive Director Liane Morrison, taking on the conventional wisdom that it’s time to start cutting education funding:

After decades of budget stress, the cuts to schools, colleges and universities resulting from the budget “savings” currently contemplated would be permanent and irreparable. There are no “do-overs” for the first-grader who couldn’t get individual attention because of growing class sizes and diminishing support services. Likewise, doors of opportunity will be permanently closed to thousands of Coloradans, if cuts make higher education less available or affordable.

The Post column included a version of the graph below, demonstrating that “Colorado’s [school funding] increases have been so modest that we are falling ever farther behind our neighboring states and national average.”

Huizing and Morrison conclude:

We stand on the shoulders of generations who made tough choices so that we could attain educational and economic heights they could hardly have imagined. Now, in the midst of this economic crisis, it is time for us to do the same.

Here’s a first step.Notably, in a coincidence of timing, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman made a similar point in today’s column: Education should help lead us out of recession, not fall victim to it.

Related posts:

1. Education “Undervalued” but not “Underfunded”? Great Ed Responds to Post Editorial
2. Great Education Colorado Endorses “SAFE” and “A Smarter Colorado”
3. Great Education Colorado Receives $30k Community Grant From Denver Foundation
4. Newsletter: Welcome to Great Education Colorado!
5. The media coverage of Great Education Colorado keeps rolling in