Alan Gottlieb

In Dougco, a new, conservative majority in the affluent, predominantly white district has fired the superintendent, in part over the contents of a reasonable equity policy that has nonetheless been sucked into the maw of the right-wing media’s hysteria over the often-mislabeled Critical Race Theory.

The Denver Public Schools board threw a big bone to the Denver Classroom Teachers Association last month by proposing to strip the school district’s 52 innovation schools of freedoms they’ve enjoyed from the teachers union contract.

Give the Denver Public Schools board credit for approving contract renewals for 16 public charter schools last week. Unfortunately, a couple of board members cast their votes while spreading misinformation.

Denver’s new school board got off to a bad start today by declining to livestream its first-ever meeting, a daylong retreat, despite positioning itself as the most community-responsive group of individuals ever to hold board seats.

I will never forget Dr. Bailey’s dogged persistence advocating for an issue she deeply believed in, and the moral force of not only her arguments, but her mere presence in meetings.

When the new DPS board is sworn in next week, Tay Anderson, without question, will become the most powerful member of that body, and its ideological leader.

Why did people vote this way? Did they like what they saw from the current board, which has had moments of dysfunction and in-fighting, muddled through pandemic disruptions, and drove out a superintendent of color who had been a career district employee?

What’s clear about today’s election is that big money backing various candidates believes the stakes are high. Why else would campaign contributions to Denver candidates directly and through Independent Expenditure Committees this cycle be approaching $2 million, and will perhaps surpass the $2.28 million spent in 2019?

A teachers union-backed Independent Expenditure Committee is going deeply negative in Denver school board races, with misleading claims and glaring factual errors.

From the beginning of school in late August through the end of September, DPS, (like school systems around the country) has experienced a significant spike in violence and drug violations in and around its schools. The Denver school board last year ordered the removal of 18 Denver Police Department School Resource Officers effective this school year.