Author: Paula Noonan
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Will Colorado’s Trump-and-Polis-approved education grift-gift continue? | Paula Noonan
If President Donald Trump says it’s free money and Gov. Jared Polis says it’s free money, is it really free money? Both the president and governor claim the Great Big Beautiful Bill’s voucher for education scholarships is “free money.” The rest of us know there’s no such thing as “free money” in government programs. The…
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Grassroots-backed study an excellent basis for game-changing health care program | Paula Noonan
Nibble here, nibble there. That’s how the federal government and the state have set our nation’s health care policy. President Harry Truman’s effort after World War II to bring universal health care to the United States failed. Now we have what we have. There’s Medicaid and Medicare, two government-funded programs. In Colorado there’s also the…
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Taxpayer money squandered in conservative school districts defending selves from lawsuits | Paula Noonan
Elizabeth School District, with 2,666 students, has refined the art of wasting dollars on faulty lawsuits. Last year, the district lost an open meetings case when it imprudently failed to properly notify the public of agenda items. That suit ran up an $80,000 bill that could have been settled for much less. This month, the…
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Let’s find out who’s up to the gubernatorial task post Polis | Paula Noonan
Gov. Jared Polis is bold and his policies are bolder than bold. That’s the paraphrase of his State of the State speech to open the 2026 General Assembly and start off his last year in office. His sweeping review of his many accomplishments took some swipes at media who doubted his home-run-hitting prowess. He noted…
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U.S. careening off the rails under Trump’s stewardship | Paula Noonan
Does anyone in Colorado or the United States feel like life is anywhere near normal anymore? Our aberration is not from a pandemic. It’s from our government. It’s at war with us, the people. Let’s take Renée Good’s tragic fate. She dropped off her son at school. She stopped where ICE agents were standing on…
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Lack of accountability in state standardized testing system | NOONAN
The General Assembly kicks up its heels this month along with the National Western Stock Show. Both should offer some exciting bull rides. Last General Assembly produced one interesting bill on K-12 public education. It’s HB25-1278 on the education accountability system. It offers an opportunity for long awaited solutions to festering problems that affect use…
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Peddling poor pay at Casa Bonita, ‘South Park’ creators a self-satire | NOONAN
Trey Parker and Matt Stone of the now fabled show “South Park” took on a rebuild of Casa Bonita in Lakewood out of nostalgia for the pink colored restaurant-entertainment center on West Colfax. They also took on Paramount, the media conglomerate, over the “South Park” property, winning a $1.5 billion jackpot for streaming rights and…
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A not-so-merry Christmas season for concerned Commerce City residents | NOONAN
Happy holidays and keep your eyes and ears open for coming events in 2026 during the election season. As a heads-up, the closer government is to the people, the easier it is for small amounts of money to have big impacts. Take the recent Commerce City City Council election. For just about $175,000, local homebuilders…
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Confining pro-charter conditions destroying Colorado public schools | NOONAN
Our public school system is injured by a thousand cuts. At year end, our most dear institutions are confronted with a lawsuit over book banning, a lawsuit over termination of a middle-school dean defending books, districts threatening educators with termination, and authorization of a tax grab and land grab by two charter schools in the…
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Underlying design failures built into Colorado’s standardized tests | NOONAN
Third graders can’t read. That’s a common assertion. How do we know? Colorado’s CMAS standardized tests for third graders tell us. What the chicken littles who bemoan these tests scores, mostly individuals on the “pro school choice” and “voucher” side of the public education debate, don’t explain are the underlying design failures built into the…