Amendment 66 is the boldest measure on Colorado's ballot this year. The tax increase will go to preschool-12th grade education and will raise an estimated $950 million in its first year.
Coloradans earning less than $75,000 would see their tax rates increase from 4.63 percent to 5 percent. People earning more than that would pay a rate of 5.9 percent on any taxable earnings above the first $75,000.
The money would be spent in ways we believe is a smart approach to Colorado's achievement gap. It would hire preschool teachers for at-risk students. It would offer full-day kindergarten to all Coloradans. It is evenly applied to charter schools.
It also tackles the woeful inflation language in Amendment 23, which guts school funding during economic downturns. Per-pupil funding in Colorado steadily declined compared with the rest of the nation after the Taxpayer Bill of Rights was passed; it plummeted after Amendment 23.
However, there's talk of a challenge to the new teacher evaluation law that passed the Colorado legislature in 2010. Anti-66 groups point out that we are asking Coloradans for a genuinely sizable tax increase that will pay for teachers right at the moment the state's teacher union might be mulling a lawsuit to repeal the law that holds teachers to higher standards.
In our opinion the law, which will go into effect next year, strikes a balance between teacher evaluations and fairness to teachers. It enforces transparent, timely methods of evaluation -- including the academic growth of students -- and states that teachers must be afforded meaningful opportunities to improve.
The Colorado State Board of Education this week passed a resolution urging the Colorado Education Association not to file a lawsuit to repeal the bill.
Amendment 66 gives Colorado an enormous chance to reform and improve our state's schools, and tackle the achievement gap with gusto. Teacher accountability is a critical part of that.
We have long bemoaned how relatively simple it is to amend Colorado's constitution, which should be more of a steady framework of laws rather than a fluid document filled with conflicting measures. The urge to just dismiss any amendment unrelated to the most basic rights of all Coloradans is tempting.
But it wouldn't be right. Amendment 23 enforced a funding ceiling rather than a floor. That needs to be addressed, and Amendment 66 is the way to do it.
We have an incredible chance to build a world-class public school system in Colorado now. One that addresses the early education needs of all Coloradans, and one that takes a meaningful approach to the achievement gap between children from healthy economic backgrounds and at-risk children. One that recognizes our charter schools with equal funding status, and that recognizes students and families who move -- the money follows the kids, not the once-a-year headcount. Schools will have an even larger incentive for each and every student to succeed and remain in school.
A billion-dollar tax increase is a lot to ask voters to support. We acknowledge that, and lend our voice in support of Amendment 66.
-- Erika Stutzman, for
the Camera editorial board