By Rudy Gonzales
Latino children continue to suffer the academic brunt of this ongoing pandemic. As a former K-12 Educator, I am particularly dismayed at the lack of resources and support for BIPOC students across Colorado. This pandemic has laid bare the stark educational inequities and disparities between students of color and their white counterparts. For Latino students, the pandemic has laid a heavier, negative thumb on the socioeconomic playing field that a good education almost always levels.
New 2019-2020 standardized testing results from the Colorado Department of Education showed white students outperformed Hispanic and Black students in math and language arts by more than 30-percentage points. These are core subjects essential to every child’s foundational education.
During the past 18 months, my organization has distributed over $2.1 million to approximately 2100 families across the Front Range who cannot access public benefits. Not one of these families spent their dollars on educational support for their children. These dollars went to housing, food, clothing, healthcare, and other more pressing needs.
It is now, with a special sense of urgency we can create a new normal as educational resources dwindled during the pandemic and the opportunity gap continued to widen for our students.
Prop 119 otherwise known as the Learning Enrichment Academic Program (LEAP), will help our kids ‘catch up’ from pandemic-fueled learning loss by providing financial aid so that families can afford after-school learning support such as internet, technology, tutoring.
Prop 119 helps take cost out of the picture by providing $1,500 in annual financial aid per student for out-of-school support, with priority given to those low- and moderate-income families.
Prop 119 is a first-of-its-kind measure that has been developed by education experts from across the state to help our students. It will increase equity and flexibility to help close the learning gaps so that students — particularly those of color, and those living in poverty — can advance their learning.
Our Latino community has been hit hard by the pandemic, now is the time to make a positive educational impact that will help our kids, our families, and our future leaders succeed.
Join me and dozens of other supporters of the bipartisan proposition in voting YES on Prop 119.
Rudy Gonzales is the Executive Director at Servicios de La Raza, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing and advocating for culturally responsive, essential human services and opportunities.