Author: Paula Noonan

Paula Noonan “Let’s Get Ready!” This is the headline for Gov. Jared Polis’ roadmap for governors across the nation to prepare kids — not for life, exactly, but for college and work. “Success” is the ultimate goal. “Success” means community well-being and U.S. economic competitiveness with education as the basis for this achievement. The governor’s roadmap…

Paula Noonan The Democratic races in the state primaries in June of 2026 will decide the elections for most statewide offices. The top competition is between current Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. There’s no time like the present to begin the analysis of who has the most promising record for…

Paula Noonan Trump’s goop has hit the fan and educators and students will feel the spray. The Trump administration is withholding $80 million from Colorado’s school districts. The withholdings affect important programs helping non-English-speaking students. That’s not a surprise. The lost dollars also impact teacher professional development and projects supporting students with disabilities. Let’s examine…

Paula Noonan In 1847, 116 Baptist ministers from the Boston area signed an anti-slavery manifesto. It was a 5-foot-long handwritten scroll titled “A Resolution and Protest Against Slavery” recently rediscovered at the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts archive. Jennifer Cromack, a volunteer historian for the archive, says the long-lost document “offers a glimpse into the…

Paula Noonan The Trump administration is giving us an advanced placement class in United States civics on the fly. We’re learning about the true power and authority of the executive, the limited power and authority of the judiciary except for the Supreme Court, the ignominy of Congress’s failure to stop President Donald Trump’s usurpations, and…

Paula Noonan It’s stirring when an election hustle is crushed in a hailstorm of citizen No votes. Slashing voter ice rocks crashed through Douglas County commissioners’ proposition to turn DougCo into a home rule county. Voters shredded the initiative into tiny bits with a 70% No to 30% Yes result. The collective, democratic vote-spike of…

Paula Noonan Douglas County, with its general political orientation on a slide rule from conservative Democrat to ultra-conservative Republican, continues to juice up core controversies in the state. It’s on the brink of deciding whether to have a local control county government or hold to its current status as a statutory county. It’s also the…

Paula Noonan Has President Donald Trump, like Julius Caesar before him, crossed his Rubicon? Caesar traversed the northern border of the Roman empire with his army in 44 BCE, breaking faith with the Roman Senate, breaking the laws of the empire and instigating a civil war that took down him and the republic. Trump’s actions…

Paula Noonan One wonders how the quartet of ‘smartest people in the room,’ all Democratic office holders, determines who’s the smartest person in the room when they’re in the same room at the same time. Do Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and Attorney General Phil Weiser play One Potato-Two…