During the legislative session, I think our favorite color is grey. When it comes to finding solutions to tough issues that face our state, we certainly favor it over black or white. We know that when we’re open to hearing the other side’s argument and finding common ground, we find better solutions that work for all of Colorado.
Here’s a few places that we see ourselves in the middle of those black and white views:
We believe you can reduce testing AND maintain high standards and accountability. As we grapple with reforms to standardized testing in our state, we want to underscore the importance of maintaining teacher and school accountability; holding teachers, students and school administrators to consistent and high standards; and assessing our students’ progress on a statewide, national and international level. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses is a critical part of life and, in this case, saves families money. Thirty-seven percent of Colorado’s high school graduates are paying for at least one remedial course in college because we didn’t tell these students they weren’t fully prepare in high school. House Bill 1323 puts into place the commonsense recommendations of the standards and assessments task force and achieves the objectives above. We support reforms like those in HB 1323 that retain the progress we’ve made to date while reducing the amount of time students spend taking tests. Those same principles are why we are aggressively fighting Senate Bill 223, which undermines the core of why we assess students and schools. While we do agree with its supporters that we can and should test students less, we have to have benchmarks to understand how we’re doing and how well our students will be prepared to compete in the real world. Please join us in showing your support by signing on to our letter to legislators to tell them why you value high standards and accountability in classrooms. More than 100 parents and civic leaders have already signed on.
We believe you can help bring back affordable multi-family housing AND protect individual rights. I’ve let you know before that in Colorado there is a shortage of affordably-priced condominiums. The metro mayors brought this issue to our attention, and we have convened people from across all sectors and spectrums, from affordable housing advocates to builders. We did that because we know when we bring together a diverse group we get better ideas. Sen. Jessie Ulibarri has taken those ideas to the Capitol and Senate Bill 177 has passed out of the Senate State Affairs Committee. Join our coalition in supporting a solution to this issue.
We believe there are leaders throughout the state who share our values. As a matter of fact, our Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation devotes itself to bringing together diverse leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors and instilling the principles of leadership that drive Colorado. We are so excited to announce the Leadership Foundation has selected Dan Lewis as its executive director. Dan is a former chair of the Leadership Foundation and for the past eight years, he’s overseen corporate reputation, public affairs, communication, corporate responsibility and employee engagement for the nearly 15,000 members of the Molson Coors team worldwide. He truly has spent his career putting into practice the leadership values we teach and we couldn’t be happier to have him on board.
Help us to keep Colorado working together on these important issues and remind people that compromise is a good thing—it can be a sign of respect and an openness to learning.
Kelly Brough is the president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.