.png){kind=logo}
(Apr. 16) – The House approved a bill sponsored by Representative Lisa Cutter, D-Evergreen, that creates a media literacy advisory committee within the Department of Education. It’s important for Colorado students become more educated about the media and the role it plays in our society.
“As a country, our decisions are only as good as the information we take in to form our opinions,” said Rep. Cutter. “The media landscape has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Colorado’s students are facing the largest and most complex information landscape in human history.”
This effort will help enrich Colorado’s students and their overall learning experience. The bill creates a media literacy advisory committee within the state Department of Education that will work with a consultant to study media literacy, including best practices and available resources, and then report back with recommendations for the House and Senate Education Committees. Cutter hopes to sponsor legislation in the future using these recommendations to implement media literacy studies in elementary and secondary education.
“The goal of this bill is to ultimately provide educators with the tools necessary to help our youth better understand the world around them and be equipped to navigate it more effectively,” Rep. Cutter added.
At a March hearing on the bill, the Associated Press and Colorado Press Association testified in support of this bill, among others. A recent academic study shows that 82 percent of middle school students could not distinguish the difference between real news stories and advertisements. HB19-1110 passed the House Education committee on a bipartisan vote of 8-5.
The House approved the bill on a vote of 40-23.
The bill now heads to the Senate.