Leadership and members of House and Senate Republican caucuses gathered on the west steps of the Capitol today to unveil a comprehensive education package --the first installment of their legislative plan for the approaching 2008 session.

The Republican legislators said their proposals offered innovative, yet realistic reforms that amount to higher standards, more options, quality teachers and greater safety for Colorado’s schools. Among the GOP proposals addressing those priorities: a uniform, statewide curriculum standard to graduate high school; a general proficiency exam before any student could graduate; a requirement to display English proficiency before a student could graduate, and a plan to reward and retain the best teachers through performance bonuses.

The lawmakers chided the governor and the legislature's ruling Democrats for failing to act on education and other key issues while deferring instead to a seemingly endless succession of blue-ribbon commissions and study groups.

"The most pressing problems facing our education system don't need more study.  They need action," Assistant Senate Republican Leader Nancy Spence of Centennial said.  "We are proposing practical solutions that really work for Colorado's schools."

Spence, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Education Committee, showcased two of her education-reform bills at the conference.  One of the bills would offer parents tuition assistance for special-needs children, and the other offered performance incentives to teachers.

She said that students with special needs are particularly vulnerable when their educational options are limited and that their parents ought to be able to choose a program, private or public, that addresses the unique challenges their children face.  Spence went on to say that school districts need to be empowered with ways to recognize, reward, and retain the best and brightest teachers, and her bill for performance bonuses will go a long way toward serving that need.

Senate Education Committee member Josh Penry, R-Fruita, will reintroduce a modified version of the high-school graduation-standards bill he carried with Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Genesee, in the 2007 session.  The bill, which originally required only math and science standards, has now been expanded to include standards for social studies, foreign language, P.E., health, as well as visual, performing and applied arts.

Last session the original math and science grad-standards bill gained final passage in the Senate, but went on to die in the Democrat-controlled House Committee on Education.

 “We (Republicans) in the Legislature are going to relentlessly push bold education
reforms this year and for as long as it takes,” Penry said.  “We are eager to work with the governor and Democrats in the legislature to enact these forward-looking approaches.”

Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, and Rep. Victor Mitchell, R-Castle Rock, announced their plan to create a high school proficiency exam needed to graduate.  Students would start taking the test in the 10th grade and each year thereafter until they pass.  If they do not pass it by the 12th grade, they are not granted a diploma. 

Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, and Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, said they intend to make sure that Colorado school children are able to demonstrate their grasp of the English language before they can graduate. 

The GOP’s plans were lauded by prominent members of the education community, some of whom were on hand for this morning's rollout.

"Colorado is falling further and further behind. We are now in the minority of states that are not engaging in education reform,” said Terri Hill executive director of the Fund for Colorado's Future, an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that advocates education reform.  “This set of proposals is encouraging because it would put us among the majority of states that are seriously attempting to reform public education."

Colorado State Board of Education Vice Chair Bob Schaffer welcomed the GOP effort.

"Republicans in the Colorado Legislature have proposed an innovative plan to help Colorado's school children,” Schaffer said.  “It's a plan that favors freedom over bureaucracy, taxpayers over tax collectors, and children over mediocrity.  It's the only serious plan by state leaders that offers an optimistic, ambitious way forward."