Denver City Wire

Heidi Ganahl, the Republican candidate for Colorado governor, questioned Democratic Gov. Jared Polis' priorities as he spends millions on electric school buses while more than half of the state's students can't read at grade level.

“Gov. Polis is spending $65 million on electric school buses when 60% of Colorado kids cannot read or do math at grade level," Ganahl said in a press release. "I’m all for electric vehicles, and renewable energy, but we clearly have bigger problems in this state. Where are your priorities Jared Polis and Joe Biden?”

Polis signed SB22-193 into law this year, which allocated $65 million in grants to help school districts transition to electric school buses, Colorado Newsline reports. Electric buses cost about $375,000 a vehicle.

"As the program continues to grow, the cost of school buses will go down. So, we don’t know exactly how much money it will take to replace every school bus," KC Becker, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 8 headquarters in Denver, said. "We’ll see over time, as we replace older ones, and as the adoption rate increases, just how the costs go down.” 

Polis estimates that it would take five or six years to replace most of the state's buses with electric models. 

“Electric school buses will help save schools across our state money, help clean our air and protect children's health and safety,” Polis said in a press release. “Our landmark clean air initiatives at the state level paired with the federal investments will help cut pollution and provide savings for schools, and we encourage school districts across Colorado to take advantage of this opportunity to lower operating costs and reduce reliance on expensive diesel buses to free up more money for better teacher pay and smaller class size.” 

Chalkbeat reports that at the start of the 2021-2022 school year, 46% of K-3 students in Denver were reading at grade level, a decrease from 56% from the previous school year, according to iStation literacy test scores. Only about a third of Black and Hispanic K-3 students in Denver were reading at grade level during the 2021-2022 school year. 

“This is something I believe we should be pretty concerned about,” Jessica Martin, executive director of assessment, reporting and data for the Denver School District. 

Martin notes that although teaching students to read can be challenging, “it’s even harder to catch up a student who is several years behind. And in this particular year, that percentage is now about a third of our students.” 

District officials point to pandemic restrictions and school closures as contributing factors for students' lower competency scores.

About 40% of Colorado ninth graders exhibit grade-level competency in math, a decrease from pre-pandemic numbers, CBS reports. For students in grades 3-8 statewide, 43.2% exhibited grade-level proficiency in English language arts, and 31.5% exhibited grade-level proficiency in math.

Ganahl defeated Greg Lopez in June's Republican primary and will face off against incumbent Polis in the November general election, according to Ballotpedia.