In Colorado, a Tax Increase Referendum Is Tied to Improving Schools
Matthew Staver for The New York Times
Jason Medrano Garcia, left, and his classmates worked on a lesson at Alice Terry Elementary School in Englewood, Colo. Amendment 66 would make full-day kindergarten standard across the state.
By JACK HEALY
Published: November 3, 2013
DENVER — In one poor school district in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, students take classes in a bus garage, using plastic sheeting to keep the diesel fumes at bay. In another, there is no more money to tutor young immigrants struggling to read. And just south of Denver, a district where one in four kindergartners is homeless has cut 10 staff positions and is bracing for another cull.
For decades, schools like these have struggled to keep pace with their bigger and wealthier neighbors. On Tuesday, Colorado will try to address those problems with one of the most ambitious and sweeping education overhauls in the country, asking voters to approve a $1 billion tax increase in exchange for more school funding and an educator’s wish-list of measures.
The effort has touched off a fevered debate in a state that two decades ago passed one of the nation’s strictest limits on taxes and spending. It is emerging as the latest test of whether Democrats can persuade voters to embrace higher taxes by tying them to school funding.
Outside money is pouring into the state. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support gun control here, has given $1 million to the school campaign, as have Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation is one of the