Editor’s Note | August 2025

Education and Regulation

On Monday, I dropped my four-year-old off for the first day of school. Now in his second year of Colorado’s state-funded Universal Pre-K (UPK) program, he was greeted enthusiastically by his teacher and paraprofessionals before letting go of my hand and running inside—excited for three hours of learning and play with his friends.

The classroom felt warm and alive, with sensory bins, age-appropriate games and toys, quiet corners for decompression, and handmade decorations curated for her unique classroom. Every detail was carefully selected to create a sense of safety and belonging. As a parent, I could walk away knowing my son would be cared for.

But beneath their dedication and resilience, teachers are drowning. They are underpaid, under-resourced, and expected to give endlessly while receiving less every year. They spend their own money to stock classrooms. Cuts to substitute pay mean they can’t take a sick day without guilt and are often asked to forgo any personal leave. Class sizes grow, resources vanish, and burnout is a high risk.

This is not the fault of individual schools or even the Boulder Valley School District. It’s the direct result of Colorado’s “Negative Factor” loophole, which allows lawmakers to raid education funding to cover other priorities. The result: BVSD has been robbed of more than $1 billion.

And the attacks on education don’t stop at the state level. Nationally, Donald Trump has openly sought to dismantle the Department of Education, threatening federal funding that public schools rely on. If he succeeds, schools will close, teachers will leave the profession, and vulnerable students will be left behind.

He’s already shown his playbook. As president, Trump gutted the Department of Public Broadcasting—an intentional strike against independent journalism and cultural criticism he dismissed as “political bias.” In Colorado, the danger is already here: Nexstar, the parent company of Fox affiliates in Denver and Colorado Springs, has just acquired Tegna, the owner of 9News. Soon, Denver’s most trusted news source could be folded into a conservative media empire with 265 stations across 44 states. 9News, known for its investigative work, uncovering political shortcomings at a state level, is at great risk of losing its power in this takeover. Kyle Clark, an investigative journalist with 9News, gives a great explanation of how this takeover will lead to a monopoly of information regulation.

Education and media are linked. They are the two greatest tools we have to create an informed, empowered public—and the two institutions most under attack. Control what children learn, control what the public hears, and you control the narrative. That’s not democracy; that’s propaganda. On August 19, Trump even ordered an investigation into Smithsonian museums, complaining they placed “too much focus on how bad slavery was.” The goal is crystal clear: erase truth, erase history, and rewrite reality.

This issue of Yellow Scene is about resistance. We highlight the extraordinary educators who continue to show up every day as the system collapses around them. We celebrate our Colorado Press Association awards, proof that independent media still has power. And we name the threats: the billion-dollar theft from our schools, the consolidation of media into conservative empires, the political project of silencing truth.

Yellow Scene will not be silenced. We will not “balance” facts with lies. We will fight for education, for media, and for democracy itself. And we hope you’ll fight with us.

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Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.