(From The Denver Post, April 7, 2009)
By JEREMY P. MEYER
By taking the nation’s education secretary to visit two Denver schools undertaking significant reforms, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet aims to demonstrate why Colorado’s innovation should be rewarded with government cash.
But while Denver schools showed some encouraging improvement when Bennet was superintendent, there remains a question whether there is substance behind the buzz at Denver Public Schools.
The two schools Secretary Arne Duncan will visit today — Montclair Elementary and Bruce Randolph schools — have made intentional moves to free themselves from district and union rules. Duncan will be watching that kind of innovation as his department decides how to divide $5 billion in stimulus funds nationwide through a program called “Race to the Top.”
“This allows the secretary to point to something tangible that should be rewarded in this new world order,” said Joe Williams, director of Democrats for Education Reform. “People watched (President Barack) Obama run on a campaign of change. This is kind of an attempt to show people what that looks like on the ground.”
But at both schools, the reforms are in their infancy. One has had some modest success, but scores are still low.
No lengthy track records
Randolph kids last year showed improvement on the Colorado Student Assessment Program in all four grades on the reading portion of the test. But only between 19 percent and 27 percent of the kids were rated proficient or advanced.
In writing, two of four grades improved, and in math three of four grades improved with similarly low scores.
Montclair, which last month got approval from the state to become an innovation school — basically giving it charterlike abilities — has only started implementing its reform efforts.
Even if the statistics still reveal low scores, DPS has gotten a lot of applause for the effort.
Last month, the Council of Great City Schools published a 140-page peer-reviewed critique of the district.
The report, which was requested and paid for by the district, says DPS is “pursuing some of the most comprehensive and substantiative reforms of any major urban school district in the country.”
Denver’s achievement gains have been eclipsed in Colorado by only two districts — West Grand and Branson Reorganized — on CSAP tests from 2003 to 2008.
Yet only half of DPS students can read at grade level, 15.6 percent of DPS 10th-graders were proficient or advanced in math in 2008, and the district’s graduation rate remains at 52 percent — 23 percentage points behind the state average.
Bennet, who was superintendent from 2005 to January, and his predecessor Jerry Wartgow along with the school board are credited with starting and maintaining the reforms.
A look at the scorecard shows that under Bennet, DPS improved by 6.2 points in reading and 6 points in math using composite CSAP scores.
Looking to measure up
Comparatively, in Duncan’s first three years as superintendent of Chicago Public Schools — his job before being nominated for education secretary — the district improved by 4.8 points in reading and 9.1 points in math.
If Denver could match the rest of Duncan’s Chicago tenure, where reading improved by 25.2 points and math by 32.9 between 2002 and 2008, DPS’s status as a darling of the reform movement would be fully justified.
Denver has been recognized for its alternative pay system for teachers, its new performance measuring stick for schools and its board and administration that continue to push for ever more change.
Duncan last week outlined four essential areas of reform — a release that some interpreted as an indication of what might become Duncan’s yardsticks for deciding who will get the money.
Brad Jupp, senior academic-policy adviser at DPS, said the district has hit all of the measures.
“As a district, we are excited,” Jupp said. “We believe we have taken the steps in the right direction.”
Though the district still has a long way to go, Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien said the attempt to change is what is important.
That, after all, is what Duncan is encouraging, she said.
“They are trying, and that is really the nature of research and development,” O’Brien said. “Not everything works. But if you don’t try different things, you will never understand what works.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com Staff writer Burt Hubbard contributed to this report.