News

Latina Initiative wants you to stay informed on the issues that matter to you most. Keep checking our "News and Resources" page for updates and important information!

If you have a relevant news story, please send it to lynn@latinainitiative.org and we will post it on our site!

Tenor of new DPS board may be seen early in first meeting, The Denver Post

Thursday, November 05, 2009

The true tenor of Denver's new school board may be revealed Nov. 30, minutes after new members are sworn in and the officers are elected.

The board, with three new members who won their seats in a feisty campaign framed as a battle of charter schools versus neighborhood schools, will be presented with a challenge.

Does it reverse a decision made minutes before by the old board about turnaround strategies for three district and three charter schools, which could be as controversial as closing the school programs and replacing them with charters?

Or does it move on to new business?

Reversal, observers said, would send shockwaves through the education community.

Read the entire article here!

Denver school-board election seen as neighborhood school vs. charters

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Voters on Tuesday shifted the balance of power on the Denver Public Schools board, creating a majority that is less sympathetic to charter schools.

The seven-member DPS board, heralded nationally for pushing academic and administrative reforms, now is effectively split 4-3 along ideological lines, with the minority supporting reforms pushed by Superintendent Tom Boasberg and his predecessor, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

Read the entire article here!

Report: Colo. missing mark on education, The Denver Post

Monday, November 02, 2009

DENVER—Colorado is one of several states reporting that its students have mastered math and reading skills when they don't meet tougher federal standards, federal officials said this week.

But Colorado officials say the comparison is misleading because they include different groups of students. They say Colorado fared well in other aspects of the same federal report.

The U.S. Education Department report, released this week, compared state achievement standards with the more challenging standards in the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress.

In Colorado, the widest discrepancy was in eighth-grade reading, where 87 percent of Colorado students met state standards but only 35 percent met the national mark, the report said.

To read the entire article, click here!

Denver car impound initiative has many foes, LAtimes.com

Monday, November 02, 2009
Reporting from Denver - Like their counterparts in cities across Colorado, Denver police decide when to seize cars from people they find driving without licenses. Sometimes they issue a ticket and let a relative take the car home; other times, they call a tow company.

But officers stand to lose that discretion as voters on Tuesday will consider a measure that would mandate authorities to impound vehicles driven by unlicensed motorists -- an initiative pushed by a local man who says law enforcement isn't doing its job of ridding city streets of unsafe, uninsured drivers.

"They talk about how police have better things to do. I don't agree. I think taking unlicensed drivers off the road is one of the most important things they can do," said Dan Hayes, 62, who wrote the initiative and collected enough signatures to place it on the ballot.

Opponents contend the initiative is a thinly disguised attempt to target illegal immigrants, noting that it would require police to take the cars of anyone suspected of being an "illegal alien."


Read the entire article here!

Previous 1 2