Colorado School Finance Partnership: Report and Recommendations. Financing Colorado's Future: Assessing Our School Finance System
Author: Colorado Children's Campaign, Denver.
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Educational Finance,Accountability,Stakeholders,Educational Quality,Educational Change,Teacher Evaluation,Federal Legislation,Public Schools,Partnerships in Education,School Business Relationship,School Districts,Educational Policy,Educational Innovation,State Policy,Policy Formation,Change Strategies,Outcomes of Education,Committees,Financial Support,Early Childhood Education,Preschool Education,Higher Education,Labor Force Development,Tuition,State Aid,Mastery Learning,Educational Equity (Finance),Student Characteristics,Special Education,Resource Allocation,Transportation,Delivery Systems,Taxes

Over the last decade, Colorado has emerged as a national leader in crafting innovative solutions for challenges facing its public school system. From implementing the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reforms to more recent legislation including standards and assessments for a preschool-through-college framework, school and district accountability and accreditation requirements and teacher evaluation systems tied to student performance, Colorado's education policies and schools are deeply focused on innovation and accountability. Despite this progress, one part of the state's public policies hasn't kept up; it has been nearly 20 years since Colorado revamped and modernized its school finance legislation. The state's School Finance Act (SFA) was last overhauled in 1994. While Colorado is strategically moving ahead on education policy reform, the issue of school finance remains largely unchanged and outdated in many areas. The Colorado Children's Campaign, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization with education expertise, convened a diverse group of education leaders, education reform advocates, elected officials and business leaders to form the School Finance Partnership (SFP or the Partnership) in the spring of 2011. The purpose of the SFP is to examine how Colorado currently funds its public schools and to propose innovative recommendations to the state's policymakers for a comprehensive overhaul of Colorado's school funding system. The Partnership seeks a defined connection between the student outcomes schools are expected to achieve, the resources that are provided to schools and how schools are funded to reach those targets. The SFP is made up of two committees: (1) a Steering Committee; and (2) a Partnership Committee. This paper presents the recommendations developed by the SFP which are the result of a full-consensus model, where all present members of the Steering Committee agreed to each recommendation and, ultimately, to the full set of recommendations. The recommendations were developed through intensive learning processes, including presentations from national experts and analysis of research about the current school finance structure and potential alternatives. Although bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders with a wide range of perspectives was a bold endeavor, the common values and goal the group established--providing a high-quality education for every student in Colorado--led to the development of a robust set of recommendations that the Partnership believes will lead to critical changes in the way Colorado funds its schools. A bibliography is included. (Contains 22 footnotes.)