Tag Archives: Colorado

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Are Socialists Taking Over Colorado And Beyond?

In Colorado’s June 2026 primaries, 29-year-old Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros unseated 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in the dark-blue 1st Congressional District, which consists largely of Denver residents. 

As the overwhelming favorite against her Republican opponent in November’s general election, Kiros, 29, is expected to be the first self-identified socialist to be elected to Congress in Colorado history.

“We just proved that if you organize the people, you can beat the organized money,” Kiros told Colorado Newsline after her win. “And we’re going to replicate it in races all across the state.”

Will they?

Before pundits and the public accept this assertion, let’s step back and examine what just happened in Colorado’s 1stCongressional District. 

The numbers suggest that the real victor was voter apathy, as in so many political contests across the country. Non-voters default to being led by the preferences of voters. That, combined with the creation of safe party districts, is increasingly turning primaries into the real elections. 

Bear with me now.

In looking at the 1st Congressional District race, it’s important to recognize that it was limited to registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters. There are 477,098 active registered voters in the district. Of those, 187,317 are registered as Democrats and 236,454 are registered as Unaffiliated voters. So, the number of eligible voters in the Democratic primary totaled 423,771.

But only 157,645 people, or 37.2 % of those eligible, voted in the primary. 

That translated into 83,855 for Kiros, 62,715 for DeGette and 11,075 for the Democratic party candidate, Wanda James.  In other words, the Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros won the primary with just 19.79 % of eligible voters, only a few more than would fit in the Denver Bronco’s stadium.

Overwhelming? A massive sign of a cultural shift? A rejection of a more moderate political climate?  I don’t think so.  

A similar situation in New York City is why caution is warranted in interpreting recent races.  

“Turnout in New York’s closed primary races is typically small—even Mamdani  won last year’s Democratic mayoral primary with less than 7 percent of the city’s overall population backing him,” City Journal reported. “Tuesday’s results do not prove, then, that the majority of residents in New York are hard-left socialists. They instead suggest that, since most potential voters remain politically apathetic, a small but well-organized machine like the DSA’s can deliver big results.”

There’s a parallel here with Democratic Socialist Janeese Lewis George’s victory in Washington, D.C’s mayoral Democratic primary, which has led some to declare her win a mandate. There are approximately 357,000 registered Democrats in Washington, D.C., making up roughly 75% of all registered voters in the District. Only about 38% of registered Democrats voted and George won with just 75,000 votes. A mandate? Hardly. 

So, calm down folks. 

This isn’t to say that the new socialist legislators in the House won’t be able to muck things up. 

As commentator Gerard Baker has observed, “The victory by “democratic socialists” and their allies in New York Democratic  primaries last week is a signal moment in the nation’s descent into political dystopia. Sure, we can overstate its importance. New York isn’t America. What passes for cool radicalism in Brooklyn’s Park Slope would get you a psychiatric evaluation in most of the country.”

In addition, if Democrats retake the House in November, their margin is likely to be slim and an enlarged cadre of disruptors will be able to challenge leadership. Republicans are also likely to try to tar the entire Democratic Party for its association with the Democratic Socialists. President Trump has already called the socialist nominees “godless” communists who are threatening the country. At a Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering, he urged religious conservatives to prevent a “communist” victory in the midterms,saying his pro-Christian policies would be reversed if Democrats returned to power. 

Hang on. 

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4-Day School Weeks: Dumbing Down Oregon Public Schools

Oregon seems determined to undermine academic success in its public schools.

With Oregon’s public school students already suffering from abysmal scores on national reading and mathematics tests, earning declining scores in civics and history tests, and with one in five students failing to graduate from high school in four years, Oregon seems determined to shortchange its young people even further as an increasing number of the state’s school districts are adopting 4-day school weeks (4dsw).

In the 1975-1976 school year, just one Oregon school district operated on a 4dsw, according to the Oregon Department of Education. By the 1986-87 school year, the number of 4dsw districts had grown to 7. 

Oregon now has the fourth-highest number of schools on a 4dsw in the country, with 137 schools across 80 districts opting for the shorter school week, according to EdSource. That’s roughly 11% of the more than 1,200 K-12 schools in the state. The majority of these schools are in rural areas, particularly in Eastern Oregon.[i]

The newest addition to the 4dsw in Oregon is the Imbler School District in Union County near the Blue Mountains. It recently announced it will be moving to a 4dsw in the 2023-24 school year. It will start with a two-year pilot program, after which the program will be evaluated. The Imbler School Board voted that “it was in the best interest of students and staff to move forward with the four-day school week.” 

Imbler High School graduation, 2022

According to the Rand Corporation,  an American non-partisan nonprofit global policy think tank and research institute, qualitative data supports the view that the  4dsw model helps attract and retain teachers. Families and students reported highly valuing the extra time that the schedule allowed them to spend together, and the data showed that, overall, stakeholders experienced high levels of satisfaction with the shortened week.

BUT, Is a 4dsw really “in the best interest” of students?

While a 4dsw is gaining adherents, research is showing that meaningful learning losses result. Less classroom time correlates directly with progressively lower test scores and academic achievement.

Data gathered by RAND researchers shows that even though student achievement at 4dsw districts was generally trending upward over time, this growth was not as large as what the 4dsw districts would have attained with a 5dsw schedule. In other words, there is mounting evidence that children in 4dsw programs fall behind their peer a little every year.

A comparison of English language arts and math test scores showed that students on the 4-day week have meaningfully lower scores, over time, when compared with peers on a five-day schedule. Students in elementary school and middle school that switched to a 4dsw schedule were the most negatively impacted by the change academically.

A six-state analysis, published in 2022 by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, found lower student achievement in four-day schools, with larger negative effects among Hispanic students, as well as in those in towns and the suburbs, as compared to rural areas.

A 4dsw “unambiguously hurts student achievement over time,” Christopher Doss, a RAND policy researcher, told the news site, Axios.

Rand also concluded, “Debates about 4dsw adoption should acknowledge that there is only weak support for the three main reasons that districts typically adopt the 4dsw: saving money, reducing student absences, and attracting and retaining teachers.”

The desire to save money, for example, is often a big motivator for choosing a 4dsw, a common assumption being that one less school day will translate into 20% of savings. RAND’s research concluded that most school costs—salaries and benefits—don’t vary by the length of the school week and that switching to a 4dsw would be more likely to save less than 5%.

A 4dsw doesn’t reduce absenteeism either. Kids who don’t show up consistently on a 5dsw don’t become more responsible on a 4dsw. A time series analysis by RAND found no statistical difference between the absenteeism rates of students in 4dsw districts and 5dsw districts.

So much for 4dsw.

[i] The shift to 4-day weeks has been occurring nationally, too. At the beginning of 2020 there were 650 U.S. school districts on a four-day schedule. Now there are 850, according to Paul Thompson, an associate professor of economics at Oregon State University who has done extensive research on the topic. The schedule is most popular in small, rural districts. In Colorado, which has the largest percentage, 124 of the state’s 178 districts (70%) follow a four-day schedule.

Addendum: Shifting to a four-day week didn’t help improve teacher turnover in Colorado, a new report finds. Nearly two-thirds of the state’s school districts operate on a four-day week, often in an attempt to recruit and retain teachers. But the schedule shift often isn’t enough to outweigh other reasons teachers leave, like low pay. Read also: Four-day school weeks have exploded across Colorado districts — and are setting students back, Colorado Sun.