Dec 14, 2021 | Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 14, 2021
Colorado Education Association Releases Annual State of Education Report
State’s Largest Union Also Releases 2022 Legislative Priorities
DENVER – Today the Colorado Education Association (CEA), with local leaders from around the state, released its annual State of Education report highlighting multiple challenges facing our state’s public education system in 2021 and beyond. The report, CEA’s first since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is based on publicly available data, news articles, cited research and surveys of CEA members from December 2020 and October 2021.
The report highlights three main problem areas that is fueling a crisis for Colorado public education:
Inadequate Funding
Colorado still ranks at/near the bottom when it comes to starting educator pay, wage competitiveness and per pupil funding. A near $10 billion shortfall via the Budget Stabilization Factor over the last 10 years is a huge hole in public education funding in Colorado.
Educator Burnout
Exponentially increasing workloads and bitter political vitriol over health, safety and history curriculum are causing intense educator burnout. An October 2021 survey of CEA members showed that more than half said that this school year is significantly or somewhat worse than last year.
Educator Shortage
The lack of funding, inadequate conditions and burnout has led to a critical educator shortage. As educators from across the state flee the profession, Colorado is struggling mightily to replace them. An October 2021 review of Colorado school districts’ websites shows that there are more than 3,300 open positions in our public schools – 1,125 licensed and 2,251 support professionals. Additionally, more than two-thirds – 67% – of CEA’s surveyed members in October indicated that they were considering leaving the profession in the near future. Alarmingly, this is a 27% increase from the 40% of members who said the same thing just last December. These educators most often point to their overwhelming workload and low pay as the reasons to leave and they are considering career changes and early retirement.
“The way we fund our public schools and value educators is unsustainable,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, high school counselor and president of the Colorado Education Association. “We are at a crossroads; what kind of state do we want to be? One where chronic underfunding short-changes our children and drives high quality educators to surrounding states, or even worse, out of the profession altogether? Or one that is proud of delivering an exceptional education to prepare all students in every zip code to follow their dreams and be successful?”
Today’s report also highlights CEA’s 2022 Legislative priorities:
Collective Bargaining
Collective bargaining provides a way for educators to have a genuine voice in advocating for their students and profession. The bargaining process is an opportunity for educators and school administrators to work together to identify and solve the problems and challenges facing our students, the schools they learn in and the educators who serve them. Educators’ working conditions ARE our students’ learning conditions. Colorado local public employees, no matter their service industry, should have the right to join a union and collectively bargain so they have a seat at the table and a voice in their workplaces.
Funding
Many students aren’t getting the education they deserve because teachers and support staff don’t have what they need – they’re overwhelmed with excessive class sizes, outdated textbooks, unfunded mandates and paychecks that often don’t even pay the bills. Certain politicians and wealthy special interests have balanced the state budget on the backs of Colorado students for years, creating a $1 billion deficit in public education funding over the past 10 years. We need legislators to commit to buying down the budget stabilization factor to give Colorado students and educators the resources they need.
PERA
Tens of thousands of educators have spent their careers serving students in our public pre-K through 12 education system. The Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) helps provide every educator the dignity of retirement security.. We need a commitment from the Colorado legislature on legislation that will honor the promises made by the state to educators that will ensure the viability and sustainability of PERA for generations to come.
Accountability Bridge
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted education in many ways. A pause in the Accountability frameworks for the 2020-2021 school year was a welcome recognition of the pressures the pandemic placed on students, families and school systems. There was very little debate among stakeholders and legislators about the pause, given the collective understanding of the limited assessment data that would be available to uphold the integrity of the process. Now we must have a thoughtful transition as we move from the limited and inconsistent data of the past two years back to fully implementing the current law. Without a transition, simply turning the accountability system back on is fraught with issues that will impact the integrity of the accountability system and could cause unnecessary harm to students, schools and districts.
“The last 21 months have been crushing for our educators and students and there seems to be no end in sight,” said Baca-Oehlert. “Our 39,000 members are ready to stand up and fight for the schools our students and educators deserve. Our voices will be the loudest at the Capitol come January as our students, educators and communities deserve nothing less.”
For the full report and for CEA’s 2022 Legislative priorities, please go to the CEA State of Education website.
CEA has set up a number of dates for the media to interview CEA President Amie Baca-Oehlert about the 2022 Legislative Session. Please contact Frank Valdez, CEA’s Director of Communications for any questions.
About the Colorado Education Association
The Colorado Education Association is the voice of 39,000 educators, working together in a strong union to ensure all students get the exceptional public schools they deserve, in every neighborhood across the state. As Colorado’s largest labor union, CEA works collectively with all education stakeholders to ensure Colorado’s standing as an excellent state in which to learn, live, work, and raise a family.
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Nov 1, 2021 | Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 1, 2021
Educators Pleased with Governor’s New Budget
Yet still concerned about education budget fiscal cliff in 2025
The following statement may be attributed to Amie Baca-Oehlert, high school counselor and president of the Colorado Education Association:
“There’s a lot to love for public education in the state budget released by Governor Polis today. Educators working hard every day to make every classroom a place with exceptional teaching and learning are pleased with the short-term priorities.
“Educators have been overwhelmed with the difficulties of teaching during COVID but the fact is we have struggled with chronic underfunding of public schools for more than a decade, resulting in impossibly large class sizes, outdated textbooks and paychecks that often don’t pay the bills. We are grateful that the Governor is allocating funds to help buy down the budget stabilization factor to alleviate some strain and provide universal preschool, giving our public schools a much-needed boost.
“While these are great first steps in prioritizing public education, we foresee some dark years ahead. In just three years, we will face an education budget fiscal cliff when federal relief funds run out, TABOR refunds go out and various tax reduction measures we expect to see from corporate special interests and the ultra-wealthy pass.
“So while we are sincerely thanking the Governor today, we want to stress to all Coloradans how important it is to get serious about providing long-term, sustainable funding for the public schools we all value.”
About the Colorado Education Association
The Colorado Education Association is the voice of 39,000 educators, working together in a strong union to ensure all students get the exceptional public schools they deserve, in every neighborhood across the state. As Colorado’s largest labor union, CEA works collectively with all education stakeholders to ensure Colorado’s standing as an excellent state in which to learn, live, work, and raise a family.
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Aug 25, 2021 | Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2021
Statement from Amie Baca-Oehlert, high school counselor and president of the Colorado Education Association (CEA), on the allocation of Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds by the Colorado State Board of Education:
“We want to thank the Colorado State Board of Education for listening to stakeholder input in deciding where to best allocate these federal funds. Commissioner Anthes recognizes that we are all in this together and the best way to ensure our students get what they need is to listen to parents, students, educators, and other stakeholders who want the best for our students. We look forward to continuing to partner and share the voices of educators, the professionals who serve students every day in the classrooms, as the federal dollars are received and implemented.
“While we’re excited about the additional funds our schools will receive in order to support students, it is a stark reminder that our state’s public schools have been drastically underfunded for the past decade. Having these additional federal funds would go much further for things like student and educator mental and emotional supports if our schools were fully funded to begin with. We can and must do better funding our public schools so that all students, and the educators who serve them, have the resources they need to succeed no matter the zip code in which they live.”
About the Colorado Education Association
The Colorado Education Association is the voice of 39,000 educators, working together in a strong union to ensure all students get the exceptional public schools they deserve, in every neighborhood across the state. As Colorado’s largest labor union, CEA works collectively with all education stakeholders to ensure Colorado’s standing as an excellent state in which to learn, live, work, and raise a family.
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Jan 12, 2021 | Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 12, 2021
Increasing revenue for Colorado public schools tops Colorado Education Association’s 2021 Legislative Agenda
State’s largest union of educators hopes to work with legislators to ensure exceptional teaching and learning in every neighborhood school
DENVER – Today the Colorado Education Association (CEA) released their 2021 legislative agenda, with increasing revenue their number one priority. The 2021 legislative session begins tomorrow with the same challenge facing public education since 2009: inadequate funding. This year is even worse with insufficient personnel and resources to deal with the global pandemic, when educators, students and parents all want classrooms to reopen. Legislators also still need to address the critical needs dating from before COVID-19, including attracting and retaining quality educators in Colorado, providing robust educator-led professional development that includes diversity, anti-oppression and equity training and giving educators the resources they need to provide students with a quality public education, no matter the zip code they live or the amount of money their family earns.
“The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t create the funding issues we’re seeing today,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, high school counselor and president of the Colorado Education Association.“This pandemic has revealed and exacerbated the public education funding crisis in our state with severe consequences to students and educators. Lawmakers have the responsibility to provide long-lasting, sustainable funding to Colorado students, their families and educators.”
Other CEA priorities for the legislative session include legislation to:
- Promote justice and equity that ensures the best public schools for our students, educators and communities
- Promote professional growth vs. punishment and high stakes testing in educator accountability
- Help educators achieve more time and autonomy to focus on the most crucial aspects of their job, specifically direct instruction, planning and student support
- Protect the health and safety of our students, their families and educators in the time of COVID-19
“The lack of funding is at the heart of all of our legislative priorities,” Baca-Oehlert said.“We look forward to working with lawmakers to craft successful legislation that gives educators and students the resources they need to learn, as well as the resources necessary for a safe, healthy in-person school environment for students and educators.”
CEA 2021 Legislative Priorities
About the Colorado Education Association
The Colorado Education Association is a membership-based organization that represents 39,000 Colorado educators. The CEA promise to our students and communities is that the members of the Association will lead the way in guaranteeing every student access to the best public education. By working collectively with all education stakeholders, we will provide the best public education for every student and assure Colorado’s standing as an excellent state in which to learn, live, work, and raise a family.
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Jun 16, 2020 | Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 16, 2020
Public education saddled with a $1.18 billion deficit as elected leaders fail to come to agreement on ways to increase revenue for public education
DENVER – Colorado’s 2020 legislative session opened with public education facing a $577 million deficit before the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 ballooned the deficit to an unprecedented $1.18 billion. The 39,000 members of the Colorado Education Association (CEA) engaged in record activism to ensure that legislators heard from front-line professionals about what our educators, students and public schools need, highlighted by the need to make educator pay, ranked 49th in the nation, more competitive and eliminating the budget stabilization (BS) factor by 2022.
In addition to addressing educator pay and eliminating the BS factor, educators called for legislators to support public schools and education professionals by:
- Reducing educator workloads and large class sizes
- Increasing mental health supports for educators and students
- Prioritizing public schools over private corporations
- Updating the educator evaluation and accountability systems
- Prioritize all working families and union values
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Colorado Legislature once again cut public education to balance the state budget by more than doubling the BS factor to $1.18 billion. As public education funding continues to be cut, the needs of students and demands on educators continue to increase.
“CEA had a strong presence at the Capitol this session. In response to the new limitations placed on legislative engagement, our members took action, standing up for public education via emails, phone calls and social media activism,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, a high school counselor and president of CEA.“We emphasized how this current crisis was not a singular occurrence. Public education has been in crisis for over a decade. We cannot afford to continue balancing the state’s budget on the backs of students and educators.”
Determined to address the inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic recession, CEA focused its efforts on policies that would provide more money into public education and provide educators relief by:
- Advocating for passage of an emergency tax relief bill
- Prioritizing classrooms over corporations by closing corporate tax loopholes
- Redirecting the money spent on high stakes standardized testing and the costly accountability system to support student needs
In the final hours of the 2020 session, House Bill 20-1420, Adjust Tax Expenditures For State Education Fund, passed but is nowhere near as impactful as originally introduced. The amended bill represents a watered-down version that will raise more than $100 million for public education versus the $750 million it was originally expected to generate over several years.
“It’s disheartening to have had several solutions that could have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in relief for Colorado students either killed or gutted,” Baca-Oehlert added.“If there was ever a time to find bold, creative solutions, it’s now. But the advocacy of our members did make a difference this legislative session and we will continue to advocate for funding solutions for the schools our students and educators deserve. We were encouraged that the legislature supported Coloradans by passing major bills including paid sick days, expanded unemployment insurance, whistleblower protections and a process to review the impact of COVID 19 on standardized testing, accountability, accreditation and evaluation.”
CEA thanks those legislators who were willing to bring forward bold and creative solutions this session. CEA members will continue fighting alongside public education supporters toward long term solutions, such as Initiative 271, that will provide much needed resources for Colorado students.
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