Governor says education best way to fight poverty

from The Denver Post

The jump in impoverished kids spurs a vow to treat school as an "investment."

By Allison Sherry

Gov. Bill Ritter on Tuesday called conditions for Colorado's 180,000 impoverished children "intolerable" and said his focus on education — preschool to college — is the chief way to get people out of a spiraling life cycle.

Responding to a Colorado Children's Campaign report released this week that showed the number of kids living in poverty increased 73 percent from 2000 to 2006, Ritter vowed to treat the state's education system as an "investment."

"It's not the only thing we need to do. It's the No. 1 thing we need to do," he said. ". . . If we don't make a commitment as a state to 3- and 4-year-olds living in poverty, then we're not going to see this turn around."

Ritter told policymakers and the media that it's easy to talk about policy and the lives of poor people in the "hallowed" halls of the state Capitol.

"They have faces, they have names and they have real struggles," he said.

The number of impoverished children in Colorado grew at the fastest rate in the nation, the report said. Researchers analyzed six years of census and community-survey data.

"This snapshot of yesterday is awful," said state Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, in a statement. "But we are going to make tomorrow much, much better."

Ritter pushed his education platform, saying he has already taken small stabs at correcting the problem.

Steps include 25,000 more 3-, 4- and 5-year-old slots for preschool and full-day kindergarten; a $65 million boost to the state's public colleges and universities; and health coverage for 50,000 more of the state's children.

Also, Ritter is peddling a measure — likely to go to voters this fall — that would devote $130 million more a year to college scholarships for low- and middle-income people. The money would come from increasing the taxes that oil and gas companies pay to mine in Colorado.

Still, Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien, a former president of the Colorado Children's Campaign, said there was more work to do.

There are some state constitutional restrictions, such as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, that would require voter approval to amend.

But O'Brien hopes to look into earned income tax credits for low-income people, she said.

"I'm going to sit down with the governor and talk about this," she said.