Colorado, which has a Democratic governor and voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, is more socially liberal than West Virginia, Oklahoma and other Republican-dominated states where teacher protests have erupted. But the state has a long anti-tax history. Voters enshrined strict limits on taxes and spending in the State Constitution in the 1990s, and four years ago, they roundly rejected a $1 billion proposal to raise income taxes to pay for all-day kindergarten and other education priorities.

On Thursday, as protesters waved signs declaring that “Teachers Make America Great!” and marched around the Capitol, some said they hoped the teachers’ movement would chip away at that history of fiscal austerity.

Stephanie Pierce, the parent of a third grader, a preschooler and a high school sophomore, did not vote when the $1 billion education bill came on the ballot in 2013. Because Colorado does not fund full-day kindergarten, Ms. Pierce said her family will have to pay $310 a month for her son to attend kindergarten next year. As she stood on the steps of the Capitol on Thursday, she said she now saw school funding as a top political priority.

“I don’t have specific political beliefs, but I do know the teachers need more,” she said.

Colorado’s economy is booming, but the state teachers’ union, the Colorado Education Association, says the state has shorted the education system $6.6 billion since 2009.

Half of the districts in the state now have four-day school weeks. Kerrie Dallman, the union president, said that the state’s low teacher pay has helped create a 3,000-person staffing shortage. Colorado teachers, she added, are working two or even three jobs, buying their own school supplies or turning to GoFundMe to pay for new textbooks.

“We are collectively fed up after years of doing more with less and being promised it will get better in the future,” Ms. Dallman said. “We can’t afford to wait anymore. The students in Colorado can’t afford to wait any longer.”