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House committee advances task force to study and spread successful schools' practices
Summary
Lawmakers created a broadly composed task force to identify schools and practices that narrow opportunity gaps; sponsors said the group will recommend policy changes and practical steps while critics warned against duplicating past studies and urged clarity on outcomes and funding.
The House Education Committee advanced Senate Bill 170 to the Committee on Finance after a lengthy discussion about scope, membership and expected outcomes. Vice Chair Martinez and Assistant Majority Leader Emil Bacon described the bill as a bipartisan effort to assemble 18 diverse members — educators, community leaders and policymakers — to identify schools and programs that are producing strong results for students, especially in historically underserved communities.
Sponsors emphasized local control and said the task force is intended to learn from a range of models, not to mandate a single approach. They noted private philanthropy (the John and Janet Buckner Foundation was cited in committee remarks) and a fiscal note that accounts for limited CDE staff support. Witnesses from Ready Colorado, the Colorado Association of School Boards, Transform Education Now and the Colorado Children’s Campaign testified in favor, saying the group could surface practical policy changes, remove barriers to replication and recommend where state policy could support scaling effective practices.
Committee members raised concerns about duplication of prior studies, how success and metrics will be defined, whether the task force would produce actionable recommendations rather than a report, and how the effort would avoid privileging models that rely on private funding. Sponsors said the bill narrows the focus to examples of success, will include geographic and professional diversity, and aims to surface specific policy levers for legislative consideration.
The committee voted 8 to 5 to send SB 170 with a favorable recommendation to the Committee on Finance. Sponsors said the task force’s intended outputs include identification of non‑financial barriers to replication and a set of policy recommendations for state consideration.
