Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial 

3/27/07 

      It is telling that opponents of state Sen. Josh Penry’s bill to raise math and science requirements for high-school graduation came primarily from the K-12 education community and their supporters in the Democratic Party, while those who deal with the end product of our K-12 public education system — universities and private companies — supported Penry’s bill.

      That support from the presidents of the University of Colorado and Colorado State University, as well as an executive with Lockheed Martin in Denver, was not enough to save the bill. It was killed in a House committee last week on a party-line vote.

      Too bad, that is, because Penry’s Senate Bill 131 was an important attempt to ensure high-school graduates are adequately prepared to meet the increasingly technical requirements of today’s society.

      Senate Bill 131 would have mandated that high-school students complete four years of math and three years of science to obtain a diploma.

      Furthermore, Penry identified $5 million a year in money from federal mineral-lease royalties that could be used to help smaller districts provide teachers to handle the additional classes, thus addressing one of the arguments from critics of the bill.

      Penry deserves credit for raising a key issue related to public education and shepherding it through the Senate. It’s something that ought to be reintroduced in future legislative sessions.