December 30, 2009
Competition For Federal Education Funding Forges Unlikely Alliances
(From The Denver Post, December 30, 2009)
By PETE COORS and STEVE SCHUCK
As Colorado competes for Race to the Top funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Coloradans of all stripes have come together to build a plan that will literally redefine the way we address one of our most intractable challenges -- how to better educate all our children.
When the interests of our kids, families, communities and businesses are on the line, we must subordinate our personal, historical agendas to the securing of their futures. The interests of our kids must trump partisan politics.
Colorado is applying for millions in federal funds to be used to transform our state's education system. Who can dispute the need to do so? Certainly not the low-income families whose kids are imprisoned in our worst schools and who account for the bulk of the 50 percent of Colorado's students who cannot read, write, add and subtract at grade level. Certainly not the businesses seeking well-educated employees. Is this a crisis? Does this call for dramatic and immediate attention? You bet.
Only because the need for education reform is so acute have unlikely bedfellows buried their differences on other issues and come together in support of Colorado's application for Race to the Top funding.
How important is winning this race to our families, to our business community, to our education community, to neighborhood and ethnic organizations, and to our political establishment? Enough to bring Democrats for Education Reform, Colorado Education Association, school administrators, Colorado Children's Campaign, Colorado Succeeds, Colorado Concern, Club 20, Action 22, Stand for Children, the governor's office, the state Department of Education, numerous chambers of commerce, and others under the same tent in support of what is best for our kids' futures.
Winning the Race to the Top is about more than federal dollars. It is about Colorado's economic competitiveness; it is about Colorado's families; it is about the half of Colorado's black and brown kids who enter ninth grade but who do not come out of the 12th grade.
The interests of our kids must trump partisan politics. Colorado is now in position to show the rest of the country our new, bold and innovative approach to improving the education of all kids, particularly those the system has been serving so poorly.
Thanks and congratulations to all those Coloradans who have put their collective shoulders behind this effort to demonstrate the creativity, dedication, collaboration and humanity that defines Colorado. Our mountains are high and majestic, and so is our commitment to better educate all our children.
Pete Coors is chairman of Molson Coors Brewing Company in Golden. Steve Schuck is chairman of The Schuck Corporation in Colorado Springs.
