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(R) Trisha Calvarese
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February 17, 2011 11:55 PM UTC
37 Comments
The reason I think open enrollment has hurt Denver is that choices like this make it easier for parents like myself to just look for the good schools around town instead of having to deal with my home school. If everyone were forced to do so, I think parent participation would elevate these schools.
I have to admit feeling a bit guilty about taking advantage of open enrollment, but when push comes to shove, I can’t allow political correctness to prevent me doing the best by my children. (My home school has had expulsions – and it only goes to grade 5. Not exactly the kind of place I feel comfortable leaving the kids, you know what I mean?)
And I mentioned desegregation. Maybe it really doesn’t matter much now, but at least when I was growing up, I can’t imagine how different the experience I had might have been if they weren’t doing it.
First was No Child Left Behind. The second was the CSAP, which was Colorado’s assessment developed to answer the requirements of NCLB.
Because NCLB ties school funding to whether a school can “perform” over two years, it creates much higher stakes. It created an environment in which the curriculum really is structured around passing the CSAP. The problem is that it’s a really stripped-down curriculum, because all the CSAP tests is math, reading and writing (and science in the upper grades).
Focusing so much on the CSAP really does force achievement down, because then in order to address it, curriculum becomes way more scripted and lesson plans have to be followed more rigidly. This means that the teacher can’t stop and help a kid who’s struggling, because he/she could lose her job for deviating from the lesson plans or even trying to bring in other books or whatever to help a kid get back on track.
So then DPS schools really started looking bad.
But here’s an important point. When you compare Colorado kids to national scores using a test called the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), you see that Colorado kids really aren’t that far off. Here’s the 2005 Colorado NAEP results: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cde…
One very important thing pops out, though. If you look at page 14 in that report, the low income kids (kids getting free or reduced school lunches) regularly have a lower percentage of them scoring at or above proficiency in reading, both in 2003 and 2005.
This is saying that poor kids have a harder time. So as our economy suffers, it’s reasonable to assume that poor kids will not be able to perform. The more poor kids you have in a city, well…
You get the picture.
There are more reasons, but that’s enough to chew on for now.
And it should be said that you have every right to make the decisions that are the best for your kids. Don’t let anyone try to make you feel bad about that.
I was pretty familiar with these aspects. I don’t oppose testing in principle, but it sure sounds like its practice is bad.
Now, I had to take standardized tests in the 70s and 80s, and I gather that they weren’t used the way they are now. How were they used then? I imagine it was to measure schools the way they are now, but likely without any consequences for the underachieving ones. Is that true? Were there other major developments in testing?
This sentence lack credibility.
While I agree that standardized testing leads to “teaching to the test” and I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing, to say that teachers will lose their jobs for attempting to help struggling students is BS. In fact, I would argue the opposite: the best teachers do exactly that.
In many school districts–like DPS–they use a “canned” curriculum like Springboard. Many times these workbook-type lesson plans have to be strictly adhered to, and there are often district officials who sit in on classes to make sure that everyone, quite literally, is on the same page.
Workbook lesson plans can actually allow teachers time to work individually with students. There is a wonderful teacher at my daughter’s school who maps out individual learning planes for each student. She calls students up one-by-one to her desk for tutoring while the rests work on workbook activities. She tolerates a little more chaos than most teachers but nobody slips through the cracks. She’s not DPS, though.
They’re good in nearly any situation.
It’s harder to make a mediocre teacher good. Very easy to make one terrible. That’s the real problem.
Not that I have an answer! If I knew what tools to give each individual teacher to make them their best I’d tell you.
Hurray for the good teacher though! I don’t care where they are, they make me happy.
Read Teacher Sabrina’s blog: http://failingschools.wordpres…
and is getting a first hand lesson in extremes.
As you can kind of see in DD’s answer. It can’t all be NCLB or standardized testing because everyone has to put up with that. So this is code for “there’s plenty of blame, from the Board to the teacher, the family, even the kid, but we aren’t taking any of it.”
I suspect the only legitimate answer crammed in there is the rise of below poverty line children. I don’t think it’s that poor kids struggle because they are poor, or that it will necessarily become worse in the bad economy. Although I suppose stress could have an impact, I believe poorer families have children who struggle because the parents have less education.
As I’m writing I feel myself sliding toward a rant, but I’ll go with it. Denver has a huge population of non-native English speakers, or Spanish and that’s it**. It’s time for our schools to deal with this reality. For all the talk, I’m not seeing much improvement in this area. Unfortunately it’s become a political bullet point and therefore can’t see a realistic solution. Good for DPS and their political points, bad for the children who need the help and everyone around them.
**FWIW, I don’t have a problem with people not speaking English, nor do I think all poor people are idiots (my mother, the PhD, was a professional student for years and never had a degree usable in the real world). My point is that it’s hard to correct your kid’s work, or explain it, when you’ve never seen it or literally can’t even read it.
Like every other time I wade into this argument, I’m sure I’m being overly simplistic and pissed someone off, but it’s still a better summary than you’ve gotten so far. 😉
I figured it was complicated…
In Districts or schools where all else is equal, Hispanic and black students have worse scores and lower graduation rates.
Why?
I completely agree that lack of language skills is a huge issue. I understand the reluctance to require English language proficiency for graduation, but the students without English skills are doomed to 2nd class citizenship Or worse.
It’s just one of those issues where as soon as you say “everyone should know English”, someone calls you racist. For quality of life, learn it. To prove you’re American, give the person the dreaded finger.
The question about minorities in equal situations is a great one. Vicious cycle? Odd racial profiling? I always think of students when I see a profiling study on police. Apparently someday successful whites are everywhere, while someday successful minorities are only in the upper middle class. Minority officers tend to hold this belief more strongly than white officers.
How the heck would you fix something like that without ending counter productively? Is it even true for teachers? Why or why not?
Difficult. At least it’s sunny. Have a great weekend, MADCO!
There’s a difference between promoting “English only”, which has a lot of racist proponents and is in many cases just not appropriate for the children of immigrants getting dropped in to our public school system, and “everyone should learn English”, which we don’t seem to spend enough time doing.
There is, somewhere in that mess, a solution that will work.
It took me three plus years with a good German teacher to learn German well enough to use it in class most of the time. By the fourth year my classmates and I were conversing in German somewhat into the beginning of our English class. That’s four solid years of work, and it didn’t cover technical terms that would be required to discuss science. With a heavy immersion course, you might be able to shorten that. But in the meantime you have to keep teaching these children in other subjects or they’re going to fall behind, and that hurts their future just as much as if they hadn’t learned English.
There should be some way to get these students in to classes together where they can have the (bi-lingual) teachers they need, in an environment where they are encouraged to practice their English without being punished for falling back to their native language.
I know of kids who are fluent for their age in at least two languages by the time they hit elementary school. And I know of far too many adults who don’t see the worth of any language other than English. Humans are flexible – if they allow themselves the opportunities to be so.
My youngest niece (18 months) can clearly say about a dozen words in English and about three dozen in Spanish. Dora is her big sister’s favorite show atm.
Doesn’t seem like rocket science. Naturally is clearly the easiest way. I wonder why we don’t do it?
A woman I used to work for had a granddaughter in a bi-lingual school. Unfortunately I changed jobs right after she started, so I didn’t have the opportunity to learn about it. Anyone know anything about that? Private or public? Successful or not?
Some come in at elementary school, others show up their junior year. So how do you require English proficiency across the board in that respect?
Students must score at least 75 before they can graduate. It should be administerd in 10th grade, and annually after if necessary.
This problem is not unique to Denver. Nor to Colorado. And it is not unique to undocumented and illegal immigrants.
I get that there is no national language. I’m respectful of cultural heritage and native language affinity. I also don’t care, because that is not the point.
I’m in the market to buy a used car. I was in a used car dealership yesterday because I saw a car that might be a fit listed a price that was close enough to make me stop. The only person present was the mechanic – his Enlgish was not good enough to sell me a car. And while it is also true my Spanish is not good enough to discuss the (Swedish) car with any degree of confidence, I can go somewhere else to get a car. His opportunity is limited to dealing with other Spanish speakers.
If we are going to insist on publicly funded universal compulsory education, we have a duty to make it relevant. English language proficiency is as relevant as it gets.
If you have a graduation requirement for English proficiency, then you set up the newer immigrants for failure, simply because the schools haven’t had as much face time with the immigrant kids.
So if they don’t test out by 12th grade, how long do you keep them in school? Do you just un-enroll them if they can’t pass the exam? What about those kids that come to the USA academically superior but with weak English ability?
Is that what we want?
What Defense Denver says simply does not make any sense. The newer immigrant kids might fail, so fuck it, lets just not do it at all.
Fear of failure will never bring you to success.
First off, I am not sure what you mean by this:
There was a “deseg order” in which the court monitored DPS because it had segregated its students and the court ordered the school system to be desegregated. That court order was lifted in 1995. If that is what you mean, then you are right. But, segregation is illegal and so the ending of desegregation was never meant to allow a re-segregation.
There are three reasons I believe that DPS is a mess.
1) DPS has always discriminated against minority students. When the court ordered busing back in the 70s, there was “white flight” out of Denver. DPS lost the white affluent students who always did better. The consequence of the “white flight” was to leave a minority population in the system, whose below average achievement were the results of decades of racial discrimination and lousy education. They never caught up. Plus, incredible incentives were offered to keep the few white kids in DPS.
They were not educated as much as coddled…the so-called “gifted and talented” kids and x classes, etc., were for white kids. Plus, in a political move, it decentralized schools so that affluent schools had better facilities, etc.
2) Into this dysfunctional system, came an huge influx of non-English speaking children. Educating then is a legal mandate, but also an incredible burden for the system. This is the single most important reason that CSAP, etc. are so low.
3) DPS has been invaded by various reform and political groups, etc. who have tremendous influence and no accountability. They use DPS has a training ground and the kids as guinea pigs for their various agendas. For example, the latest agenda is to push for a constitutional amendment to the state constitution which would allow the mayor of Denver to take over the school system. I believe that this is why the “powers that be” are playing “lets you and he fight.” If public opinion gets fed up with the inability of the School Board to govern, it will help the campaign to eliminate the school board.
No parent with options should in good conscience, I believe, have a child in DPS.
Yeah, I wasn’t too clear. When I was going to school, there probably would have been lots of unofficial segregation because the neighborhoods were still pretty well deliniated along racial lines. For me, the experience of attending school with those kids was invaluable, and I hope it was positive for most of them as well. But maybe it wasn’t.
The court found that DPS deliberately reinforced the segregated residential patterns by assigning minority kids to minority schools. That is why the court ordered busing to correct the discrimination.
In 1994 or 1995, (the court order was lifted in 1995 and impacted the kids graduating in 1996) there were only ten African-American male students who graduated from Manual. So you decide it it was good for them.
I think that going to school with kids from different racial backgrounds was really good for white kids. I am an army brat and so grew up in an integrated environment, for which I am forever grateful. The necessary help to make up for decades of discrimination was never offered to minority kids in DPS in a systematic way.
those ten African American boys went while desegregation was in effect? If that’s so, then things when downhill fast – when I graduated in the late 80s, we had a lot more than that.
Now, one figure I saw somewhere shows that Hispanic students are much more likely to drop out than African Americans, so why do you think things got so bad at Manual for the black kids? Whatever degree of institutional racism there was doesn’t seem to be a likely candidate, and I don’t believe those reform groups were at work in the early 90s. (Could be wrong, of course, and all corrections and clarifications are welcome.)
Those reform groups were very active in the early 90s. One major change happened in 1988-89. The sixth graders who had been going to school in elementary school were moved into middle school. Parents complained about this move and feared its impact on their kids. it was a big agenda item for some so-called reformers, claiming the model would “solve” all the problems which kids were then having.
DPS did not monitor how this so-called “reform” impacted the students who were moved. DPS NEVER monitors these reforms. janet Singleton, a local journalist, did an investigative piece in the fall of 1990. It showed that the achievement rate went down and the suspension rate went up for minority boys, in particular.
The next year, DPS decentralized all the schools and let committees made up of parents, teachers and politicians/business people make major budget decisions.
These groups were not accountable and did not particularly have any educational expertise. But reform groups were all for this. DPS canceled summer school and the same amount of money which would have gone for summer school was spent to fund these “committees” and to train the participants in personal skills. A study was finally done years later that showed the committees had no impact on student achievement and they supposedly were redesigned.
So, the Manual kids did not have summer school access and also were moved into middle school at the 6th grade level. I think that impacted graduation rates. But there is no study to confirm that.
DPS is, IMHO, a really bad place for kids.
You hit it right on the money there.
This is the problem with the Montbello hostile takeover. They didn’t monitor what happened with the North High redesign, nor the Manual school closure, and it’s all being repeated at Montbello. Neither of the previous Tuskegee-flavored experiments worked.
It could be that since board members have term limits, there’s no institutional memory. It could also be that there’s no “lessons learned” studies done to bring new board members up to speed. Most urban superintendents don’t stick around anyway.
Sounds the like the community got to do what they wanted. Why didn’t it succeed? Or did it?
I defy you to define community. Community is a term tossed around, it doesn’t mean a gd thing. There is no one voice in a school or a neigborhood or even within a political party. Community is a gd myth. Why do we have elections and political parties, if all we have to do is ask the “community” what it wants?
There was no proportional representation on the committees. There were no votes – decisions had to be made by “consensus.” There was no accountability. Most importantly, the “business” or “community members” did not even have to be Denver residents. Why should a politician working in Denver and living in Littleton get to make a decision which impacts kids in one school in Denver? Particularly, when he/she did not know a gd thing about education? Money was wasted. But, it was another entre point for all those reform groups looking to run their experiments in Denver. It is much easier to deal with one school committee.
No, it did not succeed. When an independent study was finally done, years later, it failed to show any relationship in improving student achievement and the committees.
When state of Colorado evaluated schools in 2001 (?), Denver had 21 failing schools.
As to why it failed, the real question is who in the world would expect this to be a way to run a school? Why would it ever succeed.
I didn’t define the “community”, DD did last week in an earlier post as part of the argument about what to do for Montbello and other poorly performing DPS schools.
I think I may agree with you – who in the world would expect this to be a way to run a school? Why would it ever succeed.
I think if you give the community what they “want” – or what they think they want – you are not more likely to get improved graduation rates and college readiness. Even the “community” says that’s what they want, they don’t know how to make it happen.
There still are problems with the CSC model, in that if the community is in the least bit distressed, the district provides no oversight to whether it works. In some schools there is no functioning CSC, even though it’s mandated by statute. In others, they’re principal’s toadies that don’t challenge budget decisions, etc. Sometimes the CSC is given the budget to look at the night before it’s due at the district.
So with all that dysfunction, it’s no wonder that they don’t contribute to achievement. Community can handle it if the district also provides them with professional development too.
I honestly did not know that. The CDM was mandated by the teacher’s contract, not statute. Community was defined by using the word “community” in the contractual definition. Any third grader in any fair-to-middling school knows you cannot define a word by using the same word in the definition. That was a major clue that CDM wasn’t going to work.
I know that SIAC is mandated by state statute. Could you cite for me the statute and its definition of community for the CSC?
This is total jargon. I have no idea what you are talking about. Define any or all of those terms. Better yet, cite an independent study defining a “functioning CSC” and proving how it improves student achievement…in Denver Public Schools.
I think some really bright “consultant” decided to use all the terms used in family therapy and described in women’s magazines and apply it to school functioning. …..a perpetual rich field for “consulting” contracts….
We’ve been working closely with the board minority on this issue. The statute is C.R.S. 22.11.401, which begins:
A link is here: http://www.michie.com/colorado…
And sorry about the jargon. Meant to say that if the CDM wasn’t properly staffed or functioning, there’s no way for it to help achievement. That’s all.
One of the projects we’re going to kick off once our Northeast Denver members finish up with their current project is to start a citywide campaign to reform the CSCs. We’re going to model it after the work done in Chicago by the Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE). You can find them here: http://pureparents.org/
Let us know at info@defensedenver.com if you want to join the CSC reform task force. You’re pretty good at this DPS stuff.
Talks about “accountability committees.”
What is CSC? CDM?
However, what does SIAC do?
That kicked in immediately after I graduated. God, it looks like my timing (or rather, my parents’ – I’m their youngest) was excellent. And I’m glad I found other options for my children.
Nope, I don’t think this is a good idea. I like the idea of some kind of representation. But, accountability should rest with the elected officials and there is no way that this kind of committee has the expertise or the legal authority to hold anyone accountability. It is a political solution to an educational problem. Which is the hallmark of DPS. How much money is it going to cost to do a “District-wide” campaign to reform the CSC, or the Siac or whatever?
Denver has been following Chicago for twenty years…so far no good. Remember when Chicago schools each had an elected school board? That went well.