This story by Erica Meltzer appeared on Chalkbeat Colorado on November 2, 2022. It has been edited for length. You can read the full article here.
Colorado’s State Board of Education split along party lines in two contentious decisions this fall. Republicans wanted to base Colorado civics lessons on the conservative American Birthright curriculum instead of on academic standards developed by Colorado teachers and community members. Democrats rejected the GOP effort outright.
Democrats also turned down an appeal from Ascent Classical Academy, siding with the Durango school board’s decision to reject a charter school that would have offered a classical education model based on curriculum from Hillsdale College, a Michigan Christian college.
The power to make these kinds of decisions — about what Colorado students should learn, when charter schools should open against the wishes of local leaders, and when low-performing school districts should lose some of their authority — are why observers across the political spectrum are calling this year’s State Board of Education races some of the most important on the ballot.
“Those who want to respect and uphold educator decision-making, our ability to teach an honest history, our students’ ability to be seen and represented — that’s at stake in this election,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, the state teachers union.
“The big thing is parental rights and parental empowerment in this state,” said Bob Schaffer, a former Republican lawmaker and head of Liberty Common Charter School in Fort Collins. “On balance, when you look at the totality of all the incremental decisions that are made … the themes are state authority versus parental empowerment. And that’s what will tip or not.”
Colorado is one of seven states with an independently elected State Board of Education. The State Board is growing from seven members to nine due to Colorado’s growing population. Four seats are on the November 8 ballot: two incumbents, a new seat in the 8th Congressional District, and a new statewide at-large seat.
In the at-large race, former Adams 12 school board President Kathy Plomer, a Democrat, is running against Republican Dan Maloit, a St. Vrain Valley parent who helped organize other parents in support of in-person learning.
In the new CD-8, representing Adams and Weld counties, Democrat Rhonda Solis, a former Greeley-Evans school board member and Latino community activist, is running against Republican Peggy Propst, who represented El Paso County on the State Board a decade ago and held a wide range of education jobs.
In the 6th Congressional District, representing Arapahoe County and southeast Denver suburbs, incumbent Democrat Rebecca McClellan is seeking a second term, while Republican Molly Lamar, a Cherry Creek parent and former teacher, hopes to replace her.
And in the 5th Congressional District representing Colorado Springs and El Paso County, incumbent Republican Steve Durham is running for re-election against longshot Democratic challenger Joseph Shelton, a campus security guard and LGBTQ community activist.
The election will determine whether Democrats keep the majority they’ve held since 2016 or whether Republicans take control. It comes at a time when education politics is increasingly polarized, as students and teachers are still recovering from pandemic disruptions, and as declining enrollment puts new budget pressures on many school districts.
The State Board is updating Colorado’s social studies standards to comply with several new state laws. The changes have divided the board, such as with the American Birthright proposal. Durham made changes to the Holocaust and genocide standards in hopes that students would think the Nazis were socialists.
Most of the debate concerns a 2019 law requiring the social studies standards to include contributions from ethnic and racial minorities and LGBTQ Americans. As Republicans in other states sought to restrict teaching about history, race, and gender, Colorado Democrats pushed in the other direction. But once draft standards were released, conservatives objected, calling the proposal divisive and suggesting it would require talking about sex.
The State Board has heard hours of public comment and fielded thousands of letters and emails. A standards committee already removed from the draft standards many references to race, racism and issues facing the LGBTQ community, resulting in a more generic document that state lawmakers say goes against their intent.
These changes are set to be finalized after the election but before the new board takes office in January. That’s turned the social studies standards into an election issue. Both Democratic and Republican members of the board plan to propose amendments, and the election results could send a message about public sentiment.
Lamar, the Cherry Creek parent and Republican CD-6 candidate, said the new board should make the final decision. She said labeling different groups leads to division, not inclusion.
As a bilingual kindergarten teacher in the Mapleton school district, “not one time did I know anyone’s sexuality. It didn’t matter,” Lamar said. “Not once did we talk about anybody’s race. It didn’t matter.”
McClellan said inclusion shouldn’t be a debate. “Humanity begins with basic acknowledgement of people’s existence,” she said. “We need to be inclusive, and we need to follow our obligation to the law.”
In CD-8, Democrat Solis supports reopening the debate if adopted standards aren’t inclusive enough. She was an adult, she said, before she learned that Colorado’s constitution was written in English, Spanish, and German, and a more diverse approach is one of her top priorities.
Republican Propst said she would move on, regardless of the outcome, but she also supports a much larger overhaul of state standards, including moving away from Common Core and promoting American exceptionalism. Propst also wants to “shift the focus from sexual issues back to basics.”
As a school board member, Plomer said parents of color told her how being nearly invisible in the curriculum affected their children, and she supports a more inclusive approach. But Plomer said she’ll respect the current board’s decision. Districts need to buy curriculum and train teachers, and the board has other work to do.
Maloit said he supports including diverse perspectives but worries about activism in the classroom and impinging on local control. He declined to answer a question about whether he’d seek to reopen the debate.
“We need a radical neutrality in the classroom, and I think our teachers can do that while still challenging our students,” he said.
Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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