West High School teacher Nick Childers talks to LEAP peer observer Marianne Kenney.

On this spring day, however, there is an unexpected – or at least partially unexpected – guest. Marianne Kenney is one of Denver Public Schools’ 45 paid “peer observers.” She’s a former Cherry Creek teacher and passionate school reformer. She also helped write the state’s content standards in social studies as Colorado’s former social studies specialist.

It’s her job to unobtrusively watch DPS teachers in action and grade them against a grid of expectations. She is in charge of observing 70 secondary and 25 upper elementary educators. Today, the subject of her scrutiny is Mr. Childers, U.S. history teacher and Teach for America alumnus.

Kenney sits at a desk in a rear corner of the room, and flips open her laptop. Childers begins the lesson.

Welcome to the fish bowl that is teacher effectiveness in Colorado. Right now, one of the biggest fish in the bowl is Denver Public Schools.

DPS stands apart from other Colorado districts for its combination of size and magnitude of challenges. Seventy-three percent of its 80,000 students qualify for free- and reduced-priced lunch based on family income.  It also stands out because of the work and money it is pumping into LEAP, Leading Effective Academic Practice, the district’s pilot teacher evaluation program, which focuses as much – if not more – on professional development as it does on rating teachers. Other Colorado districts testing out new teacher evaluation models are Jeffco, Eagle, Harrison, Brighton, and Douglas County.

All Colorado districts will be required to implement some form of “educator effectiveness” measures after the passage of Senate Bill 10-191 two years ago. With the help of a three-year, $10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DPS got a jump start and created its own system.

“What sets us apart is how thoughtful we’ve been,” said Tracy Dorland, deputy chief academic officer for teaching and learning in DPS. “It’s not just a system of evaluation. It’s a system that respects the teaching profession.”

DPS test-drives teacher effectiveness  

Key to SB 10-191 are comprehensive teacher evaluations to  “provide a basis for making decisions in the areas of hiring, compensation, promotion, assignment, professional development, earning and retaining non-probationary status, dismissal, and nonrenewal of contract.” Most teachers now work under collective bargaining rules that place a greater emphasis on years in the classroom than results. Under SB 10-191, at least half a teacher’s evaluation beginning in 2014-2015 will be based on his or her students’ academic growth as evidenced by test scores and other, yet-to-be-determined academic measures.

With LEAP, DPS is also experimenting with peer observations, principal observations and student feedback. In addition, the district is piloting meetings between teachers and school leaders to discuss a teacher’s “professionalism” –  the things a teacher does that don’t always get captured during a classroom visit, such as relationships with colleagues and parents. Built into LEAP is support for teacher improvement: Books to read, videos to watch, online or in-person classes to take – all available to the teacher via Schoolnet.

“There is not a teacher out there in any classroom who doesn’t want to be the best they can be,” said former LEAP spokeswoman Amy Skinner, who is now working for the Colorado Department of Education as Race to the Top communications director. “It’s the hardest job in the world. You’re not doing it if you don’t want to get results for kids. (LEAP) is about giving them more of that support they’ve never had.”

LEAP began with a 16-school pilot in spring 2011, then expanded to 127 district schools this year — 94 percent of all district schools — resulting in 3,800 teachers going through the process.

A centerpiece of LEAP was the hiring of 45 peer observers – trained and experienced educators who have the knowledge and expertise in the same subject area as the teacher they’re evaluating. The $3.8 million price tag of the peer observers  comes out of the DPS general fund.

Under the old teacher evaluation system, teachers were rated “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory.” More nuanced  information was provided to teachers, but most ranked “satisfactory” nonetheless. Statistically speaking, the ratings didn’t add up. In 2007-08, DPS principals and assistant principals gave unsatisfactory ratings to 33 out of 2,185 teachers evaluated – or 1.5 percent. And that was actually one of the highest percentages of unsatisfactory ratings in any metro district, according to a report in Education News Colorado.

It remains to be seen whether a similar pattern will emerge with LEAP, which uses numerical ratings against four major areas: Positive classroom culture and climate; effective classroom management; masterful content delivery; and high-impact instructional moves, such as checking for understanding of content and language objectives or differentiating lessons based on ability.

A score of 1 or 2 means the teacher is not meeting expectations; a 3 or 4 means a teacher is approaching expectations; a 5 or 6 signals an effective teacher; and 7 is distinguished.

During the first of three evaluation windows this year, teachers were given numeric scores. In the second window, they weren’t. In the third, numeric scores were used again but the framework had changed. As a result, DPS officials declined to release any of the ratings at this time.

“Until we are able to show more data points, it is unfair to share the observation data,” said Skinner.

In the past, teachers also complained about inconsistency in how principals evaluated them. At one school, a principal might have said a teacher was “top-notch.” But at another school, a different principal gave the same teacher negative reviews. Politics could also become a factor. And observations by principals were not consistent and only happened once every three years.

“It was more about a relationship with an adult as opposed what you did with the kids,” said Pam Shamburg, a Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) representative on LEAP.

A look at peer observation

At first, many DPS teachers weren’t happy about unannounced visits to their classrooms by peer observers.  But LEAP

LEAP peer observer Marianne Kenney takes notes during her visit to teacher Nick Childres' U.S. History class.

staffers say teachers are warming up to the idea now that they’re getting used to the observers. Of the teachers who participated in LEAP observations in spring 2011, 81 percent reported they would be able to improve their practice based on feedback, and 74 percent said they would speak positively about the observation and feedback experience to colleagues.

This year, trained peer observers visited teachers at least twice, evaluating them against the original 21-indicator rubric and later  against a condensed, 12-point rubric. (Check out the revised rubric.)

Candis Hitchcock, 57, a veteran special education teacher at South High School, said she likes the idea of peer observations – even though she was skeptical at first.

“You’re going to be evaluated no matter what,” Hitchcock said. “It’s nice to have someone from outside come in. My observer was wonderful. She taught special ed, too. Just because I have all these years of experience doesn’t mean I know everything.”

But she worries about all the things an observer doesn’t see – like the time spent running a sensitive IEP meeting with parents, or carefully completing mounds of legal paperwork.

“I would love to be observed holding an IEP meeting,” Hitchcock said.

And she’s not sure other parts of her job are captured, either.

“It’s much more than academics,” she said. “I’m a counselor, a mother, a father, a feeder. I take time to be patient with kids if they’re upset. You can’t say, ‘You can’t do that – we’re doing math right now. You can’t cry.’ There are many things they don’t really see us do.”

Shamburg, though, said there are other teachers who have not been too happy about their peer observers – especially if the observers are young and brash and telling a veteran teacher how things should be done.

Building principals also play a key role as to whether teachers embrace the peer observations.

“You can feel it when you go into a building,” Shamburg said. “The (teachers’) attitude is mirrored by the principal.  They’re not always comfortable having a second eye.”

Childers’ number comes up

As for Childers, he knew he had one more observation this school year by Kenney. He found out five minutes before her visit. For the next 45 minutes, he would be watched closely.

LEAP peer observer talks to students during a recent teacher evaluation at West H.S.

A timer on a cord dangles from Childers’ neck – his way of making sure he stays track with his lesson plan, which he carries out with military precision. The 20 students sit in clusters, working silently at their desks. They draw pictures and write a sentence to go along with each of four vocabulary words: totalitarianism, fascism, Nazism, and militarism.

Many of his students are English language learners, so images are a key part of building vocabulary.

Kenney occasionally gets up and wanders around the room with her laptop. She listens in on quiet, one-on-one conversations. Sometimes, she asks students questions about what they’re doing, and why.

Childers watches his timer, then moves on to the next segment of the day’s lesson. He instructs students to write down the day’s “content objective.” Today, the objective is to analyze Hitler’s goals for Germany and the reasons for Japanese militarism. He shares stories about his own family members being persecuted in the Holocaust.

A follow-up visit

Kenney is back the next day over Childers’ lunch hour. This time, her visit is no surprise. This is the most delicate part of the LEAP peer observation process. Kenney has to talk to Childers about his teaching in a way that is non-judgmental. She has to keep her opinions out of it, and avoid “should” statements.

They talk about her earlier visit this school year and what he has worked on over the past several months based on Kenney’s first round of feedback. He says he has worked on creating “thoughtful” class groupings, and differentiating assignments. Both agree his classroom management skills are top-notch.

Peer observer Kenney meets with Childers a day after she visits his class.

Now, she has to deftly guide him to the conclusion she wants him to reach. She wants to see more passion about the subject matter, more creative ways to engage students in historical events.

“Not a moment is wasted in your class,” she tells him. “While working on things, you supported each kid, gave them feedback on their notes. I saw a difference from last class to this class.”

Kenney asks him to provide more context about the lesson she observed. She wants to know “the big idea.”

He talks about his students being able to write strong, 11-sentence paragraphs, support their opinions, and explain how facts or quotes support certain statements. His first answer is narrower than she wants it to be.

She tries a different tack: Say these kids are all married and have their own kids in high school. They’re now studying World War II. What would these former students – now parents -  say about what they learned in Mr. Childers’ class?

Childers pauses, then says students should remember the goals these countries had leading into World War II, the political motivations that led to war and connect them to current or future situations, such as the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Kenney wants more.  “In your heart of hearts, what’s really important; what sticks with them?”

“Half of my family is Jewish,” Childers says. “Half escaped; half didn’t. How can these things happen? How did totalitarian regimes come to be? …How can we make sure they don’t happen again in the future?”

In the end, Kenney encourages Childers to go deeper with his lessons. She offers him tangible ideas. She suggests he put students in the role of historian, have them pretend to be journalists on carrier planes when the atomic bomb was dropped. She suggests he have students think about whether they have ever felt repressed and without choices the way people living under totalitarian regimes may feel.

Then she asks Childers how she can do a better job as an observer.

He describes her feedback as “excellent.” He says he liked how she pushed him to think about the big idea, but he’s also a bit frustrated. Considering the amount of time in class and the fact that many students are well below grade level, is it more important to teach a student how to write a topic sentence or emphasize the big picture?

“I think they can do both,” Kenney says, before sending him a link to a book called Reading Like a Historian, along with some tip sheets.

Kenney recors her thoughts while conducting a class observation at West High School

For now, this observation is merely a way to help Childers improve. It has no bearing on his tenure status or movement up the pay scale. But, in 2014, it will – along his principal’s observations of him; a review of his professionalism, which includes how well he knows his students and their personal backgrounds; student test scores; and student feedback, which asks questions such as, ‘Are you always busy in this class?’ or ‘If you don’t understand something, does the teacher help explain it in a different way?’

What’s next for LEAP

The LEAP pilot will continue next year.

The district will use the revised rubric. Teachers complained the first one was too long, and sometimes redundant. The new one is more focused. The new framework also better integrates instructional technology and best practices for linguistically diverse students. Most importantly, Dorland said, the revised framework is now tied to the Common Core Standards. 

The length of the observation was also increased based on teacher feedback in the early pilot, from 30 to 45 minutes. Ratings summary sheets are now provided to the teacher in advance of the final wrap-up meeting with the observer to make the meetings as efficient and useful as they can be.

The principal observations have also not been as strong as they should be, with very few teachers actually having been observed twice during the year by a principal, Shamburg said.

LEAP staffers are now starting to put more work into the student outcomes side of the equation (i.e. test scores), to be piloted next year. The tricky part is what measures to use in non-tested subject areas, such as music, art or library.

For Shamburg, a former lawyer turned educator, adding test scores into the mix demonstrates how “politics has overcome common sense.” To the public, it seems straightforward to link test scores to teacher evaluations. But in DPS, for instance, a majority – or about 70 percent of teachers – do not teach classes in which standardized tests are administered, which means the district must figure out what other reliable assessments to use.

Unlike many of his peers, Childers said he supports the idea of linking student achievement to teacher evaluations – the most controversial aspect of SB 10-191 – with conditions.

“If you didn’t have that it would be like having a sales job and none of performance tied to how many sales you made. If there’s not any learning going on, then there’s not any teaching going on.”

But Childers is adamant that the focus needs to be on where the student starts out the school year, and the growth he makes while in a class. It is not fair, Childers said, to apply the same benchmark goals to all students without taking into consideration where they started the school year. Some of his students start off at a third grade reading level.

Another huge piece that needs to be worked out is how each piece of the evaluation will be weighted for each teacher.

“The pieces that will be in the new evaluation system aren’t all there yet,” Shamburg acknowledged.

In 2014-2015 when LEAP becomes the law, things will be different. While no one category would result in a teacher losing non-probationary status or being placed on an improvement plan, an overall score will ultimately be used to determine these and other decisions.  However, non-probationary teachers in the “approaching” category would maintain their status even though their overall rating is not in the “effective” range.

Then, there’s the continued cost of LEAP. The Gates grant runs through next summer. The  main ongoing expense is  the peer observers. There are sure to be debates about how to best spend the $3.8 million it took to hire them.

“We are being deliberately more responsive and more open,” DPS spokesman Mike Vaughn said. “ We want to think about this long and hard, and make sure we take the time to get it right…(People) complain about tenure. But there has not been enough attention paid to how broken the support system for teachers has been.”

My baby graduates from high school tonight. What a long strange trip it’s been. From magnet to home-schooling to charter school to online high school to one neighborhood school and finally to this last one – South High – my kid has experienced all the educational opportunities the first decade of the century has to offer.

In 1996 the magnet movement was in full swing. As I understand it, magnets were designed to lure children of all races into integrated programs that would then prove to the federal government that we did not need mandatory and costly busing. My white babies were lured into Denison Montessori by test scores, word of mouth, free ECE tuition and free buses that would take them to and from this school located at Sheridan and Jewell.

Free soon turned into $500 a month for tuition and at one point the school board debated ending the free buses to the magnets. This is the first time I stood up in a public meeting and squawked. Things change, I discovered, and not always in our favor.

After several bad years for my kid (my other kid had a marvelous time in different classrooms in the same school) I pulled my daughter out of school and began homeschooling. We turned to the children’s librarians in the downtown central library. They loaded my daughter up with a new stack of books each week, and she began her years of reading.

We practiced shaking hands while looking into someone’s eyes and offering a respectful and cheerful salutation. I found a remarkable math teacher on Craigslist, a man with a Ph.D. in engineering and a delightful way with children. We discovered a home-school acting cooperative run by Christians. “We’re not the wild-eyed Christians,” said the founder when I asked if our being hippy Jews might be a problem.

For gym my daughter insisted on belly-dancing, and I found a woman from Uzbekistan who taught my daughter how to dance well enough to open a show at the Oriental Theatre where over 300 paying guests hooted and hollered. My sister-in-law disapproved. I bargained with a French professor at Metro: if I signed up and paid for French 101, my daughter could attend as well. Another professor at Metro allowed my daughter to attend his Revolution and Reform class as long as she did the work. The entire family studied Revolution and Reform that semester.

Throughout the homeschooling journey, we tested. Although the state only requires testing every other year for homeschooling, I, and the four superintendents of our homeschooling endeavor – her grandparents – wanted some verification that what we were doing was working. We used the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and each year it confirmed she could read, write, calculate and find a city on a map. We used the Accuplacer to determine her post-secondary readiness in reading and writing and math. Finally her ACT scores showed colleges that she had not been just eating bonbons during her high school years.

As her academic needs outpaced my content knowledge, we enrolled in a part-time home-school charter school in Jefferson County. We became skeptical when they didn’t discuss the age of the planet in geology because it conflicted with the good book. We tried the online approach via a public online school. While this meets the needs of some, sitting in front of a computer all day did not work for my very social kid.

Many homeschoolers just skip high school and go directly to college, but my daughter wanted the high school experience. Part education activist, part Northside loyalist, I enrolled my daughter at North High School knowing that if she got in with the go-getter crowd and attended the classes with the teachers I had met who held high standards, she could get herself a decent education.

Part of that worked out well. She became friends with kids who had their eyes set on postsecondary success. She had some great teachers who helped her succeed. The 4 on her AP History exam is my proof, for you naysayers out there who might question if I know what academic rigor looks like.

But I could see that she was not reading or writing enough in the 10^th grade to be ready for college. At her fall parent teacher conference, I asked the English teacher if she was ever going to put a book into my daughter’s hand that year or if she would ever be asked to write an extended essay. “If you want your daughter to read books, you could have her read them at home,” she suggested.

“So you are asking me to home-school after she has been in school all day long?”

This led to an honors literature syllabus being approved for that year. But how in the world did a school with 33 percent of its students at or above in reading not have an honors literature course in the first place?

This exhausting exchange led me to review the Concurrent Enrollment laws. While DPS has created a system to allow 11^th and 12^th graders the opportunity to attend college classes if they proved academically ready, the law was written to allow 9^th through 12^th graders if the schools they attended did not have classes that met their academic need.

I walked this rule exception up the chain of command at DPS, and the district allowed her to begin taking college classes in the 10^th grade. This patchwork quilt of opportunities seemed to be working, but then my daughter suggested South High School in her junior year as an easier way to the same end result.

For those who only look at data points from CSAP, you might once again think I was a reckless mother for choosing a school that does not hold students to a high level. To these “one-test” data-pointers, I say come to see the next play produced by Jennifer Rinaldi. Attend the International Day when the new immigrants from around the world who attend South High show off their cultures. Visit Mr. Nichols chemistry class and see how he builds up academic discipline. South is not perfect, but it was close to perfect for my kid.

My baby is graduating tonight. Thank you to all of her teachers – the district teachers, counselors, administrators, DPL librarians, the Craigslist tutors, the home school cooperatives, my family and friends. Testing, parental involvement, rigor and relevance, choice – it all mattered on this twisted journey to tonight’s diploma.

About the author

Elisa Cohen is a mother, a graduate student in UC Denver’s School of Public Affairs, the editor of the North Denver Tribune, a former teacher at North High School and a future teacher at West Generation Academy.

Denver Public Schools leaders were releasing limited information about the investigation, including the names of the schools, which have been confirmed by other multiple sources.

DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said district staff conducted a “very thorough” analysis of 2011 assessment data for schools across the city.

“Where that analysis raised statistical concerns, we shared the information with the state Department of Education and asked the state to lead an examination,” Boasberg said. “I want to stress that the existence of this statistical analysis does not imply wrongdoing nor have we reached any conclusions.”

The Colorado Department of Education, though its legal counsel, the state Attorney General’s office, has hired a New York-based consulting firm to assist in the investigation. DPS is footing the bill. The same firm, Alvarez & Marsal, was hired in March to look into similar concerns in the Washington D.C. public schools.

“We do feel we have a duty to look further where we saw statistically unusual patterns, and that is why we asked the state to look into those cases,” Boasberg said. “Ultimately, the decisions on any potential consequences, if any wrongdoing is discovered, is for the district.”

Parents of students at the two schools were notified of the investigation and a districtwide communication to parents went out Tuesday afternoon.

Sources confirmed the analysis of DPS test results included an examination of erasure marks on student answer sheets. Results showed the two schools far exceeded district averages in the number of wrong answers erased and replaced with correct responses.

As part of their initial analysis, district officials placed testing monitors in a number of schools during the spring administration of the TCAP state exams. Last week, when third-grade reading TCAP results were released, both Beach Court and Hallett posted double-digit declines.

Beach Court dropped 40 percentage points on both the English and Spanish-language versions of the exams while Hallett, which did not administer the Spanish-language version, dropped 12 points. Remaining TCAP results will be released in late July.

Beach Court Principal Frank Roti has led the school since 2002 and Charmaine Keeton has been Hallett’s principal since 2008. Both principals were notified Tuesday of the investigation; DPS school board members were briefed Monday afternoon in closed session.

Beach Court has been the recipient of glowing media reports and district praise since 2005, when the high-poverty neighborhood school in Northwest Denver began posting strong increases in reading, writing and math.

In 2009, the district held a press conference at the school to announce DPS’ strong state test results and to applaud the work of Roti and his staff. The school also has received national praise, highlighted at NBC’s Education Nation event in 2010.

Hallett, also a high-poverty school, is a magnet program drawing students from across the district to its back-to-basics curriculum. The school was formerly known as Knight Fundamental Academy and its program was moved into the former Hallett Elementary building in Northeast Denver in 2009.

Both schools have recorded strong gains in test results, particularly Beach Court, which saw its reading proficiency rate rise from 40 percent in 2004 to 85 percent in 2011. Hallett’s reading proficiency hit 63 percent in 2004, dropped to the 50 percent range from 2005 to 2010 and then climbed from 50 percent in 2010 to 66 percent in 2011.

Beach Court is rated on the DPS performance report card as a “blue” or distinguished school, meaning it “exceeds expectations” and ranks as one of the district’s highest-performing schools. Hallett is rated as a “green” school, or one that “meets expectations” set by DPS. Both schools are rated “performance” by the state, its top rating.

It’s unclear whether additional years will be examined as part of the investigation or whether additional schools might become involved.

“This will not be a protracted investigation,” said Jo O’Brien, the state’s assistant commissioner for testing. “The due diligence on the data, initially performed by DPS, which was very thorough and very well done, has been confirmed and added to with the resources of the state’s larger metrics and methodology … We do not expect this to be long at all.”

O’Brien said it’s not unusual for a school or district to call and ask state officials to check out a statistical anomaly in the million-plus state tests administered annually. What is unusual about the data brought forth by DPS, she said, is “a level of severity that caught our eye.”

Tuesday’s action marks the first state-led cheating investigation at a Denver school, but it’s not the first time questions have been raised about gains in DPS.

Last year, USA Today conducted an analysis of reading and math scores in seven states, including Colorado, and found 69 Colorado schools where students moving from one grade to the next posted dramatic growth, or jumps greater than 99 percent of their peers in the state. Of that total, 29 percent were in DPS. Beach Court was on the list for gains made between 2006 and 2007.

But state assessment officials admitted Colorado leaders declined to pay for erasure analysis as part of their testing contract with CTB-McGraw Hill and their own statistical analysis did not flag those schools. DPS administrator Connie Casson said then that district leaders did not conduct systemic analysis of scores, such as what was done by USA Today, for potential cheating. She said they did look into incidents brought to their attention by staff in schools or by district instructional leaders poring over results.

In March, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a national look at cheating and cited DPS among districts with test score results warranting a second look.

“The accuracy of our student progress data is very important,” Boasberg said Tuesday. “Families … use the data to understand how kids are doing, and how much progress they’re making. Teachers use the data to inform their instruction, to know what to focus on, to know how to target their teaching, and therefore it’s very important that we have completely accurate information about how our kids are doing.”

Van Schoales, executive director of A+ Denver, a citizens advisory group to DPS, said the possibility of cheating is “incredibly disappointing and sad for the kids and families of the schools, if true.”

“It suggests that kids have a certain level of knowledge and skills that they don’t have,” Schoales said. “If you’re told in elementary school, you’re a good reader and writer and mathematician and you switch into another school and all of a sudden your scores drop, you could draw all kinds of conclusions that may not be right about why that is. The real reason why is because you don’t know those things in the first place.

“If you’re not self-aware about what you know and can do … then you’re really not in a position to get any better.”

Higher test scores can mean more money in Denver, where a performance-based system known as teacher and principal “ProComp” awards bonuses based on student growth and performance on state exams.

For example, a teacher enrolled in ProComp this year could earn bonuses topping $2,000 each if their students exceed district expectations on state exams or if their school is designated as a “high-growth” school or a “high-performing” school on the district’s annual report card.

Statewide, the full implementation of Senate Bill 10-191, the Great Teachers and Leaders Act, in 2014-15 will link student test scores with decisions about teacher and principal pay, retention and dismissal.

Because of those added consequences, as well as the state’s accountability system, which also relies heavily on the exams, O’Brien said the Department of Education this fall will debut enhanced test security policies.

Change is challenging.

Transition between the old and familiar to a new and ambiguous unknown is tough.

Just ask a literacy teacher trying to navigate the new Colorado Academic Standards.

In late April, on a spring day that felt more like summer break than second semester, more than 30 literacy teachers representing grades six through 10 in Aurora Public Schools left their students with a substitute. They gathered at the district Professional Learning and Conference Center and were joined by district leaders, literacy coaches and English Language Acquisition consultants as the newly formed Curriculum and Instruction Literacy Advisory Group.

The goal? To begin the curriculum redesign and revision process to transition and align literacy instruction to the new Colorado Academic Standards for reading, writing and communicating.

The day’s end result? A group of exhausted, wide-eyed, confused and bewildered teachers who left wondering how it’s all going to come together in time for transitional field testing on the first day of school in August.

True to Colorado’s independent pioneer spirit, the standards for Reading, Writing and Communicating are a blend of original state-created language and the national Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. The new standards address 21^st Century skill and readiness competencies, and include “relevance and application” language that outlines the possible real world uses and contexts of mastering a certain standard or skill cluster.

Totaling 170 pages when opened as a PDF, the new state standards are dense and daunting. Upon first read, the document is deterring to teachers who were sold on a pitch of “fewer, higher and clearer” standards – the original message from education leaders responsible for drafting the first version of the current document.

New standards are slated for implementation in 2013-14.

Faced with this timeline and a new state standardized assessment system looming in the not-so-distant future, teachers in Aurora Public Schools and across the state are rolling up their sleeves and giving the Colorado Academic Standards a close read. And a re-read. They are annotating, discussing and picking apart the document. You might say they are doing to the standards what the standards suggest they do with their students. They are “reading for all purposes.”

Which leads to the question, could teachers working through the standards serve as a model for the type of reading, writing and communicating work the document is asking of students? Could they use a not-so-user friendly document to practice 21^st century learning and thinking?

If they did, it might result in the following “What would a 21^st century learner do?” list of five tips to support other teachers:

1. Use available tools and information. Take advantage of the resources that live within the common core standards and the appendices as well as the emerging websites, blogs and curriculum resources popping up across the nation aligned to the standards.
2. Read the standards. Understand the content of your grade level standards as well as the big picture (the grade level above and below the grade you teach) and ask yourself: What is the recurring learning? The essential learning? What do the standards suggest that students should really know and be able to do at this grade level?
3. Think critically and creatively. According to the Colorado Department of Education’s website, “Standards are not the same as lesson plans or curriculum. They are the content understandings and abilities that lead a student to success beyond school.” Use what’s working in your classroom to transition to new standards and explore and experiment with new ways to engage your students in reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking. Use your practice to drive discussions about relevant assessments. Don’t wait for the assessment to dictate or smother powerful pedagogy.
4. Collaborate. You are not alone. Talk to your colleagues. Network with teachers beyond your building, district and state. Read the blogs, tweets (#Teaching2030, #CommonCore, #CCSS) and wikis of teachers across the nation who are undergoing similar transitions and pick their brains (virtually or in person) for best practices and potential pitfalls.
5. Take risks. The change may be inevitable, but the way teachers harness and leverage the change is not. Use the new standards as an opportunity to explore and play with your instructional practice to find new ways to make learning authentic and relevant for the 21^st century learners in front of you. See the new standards as a learning opportunity, not a political mandate.

Change is challenging. But it is also filled with opportunity and hope.

Let’s turn transition into transformative teaching and learning.

There is a lot of research evidence that ability grouping does not work (Bandura, 1997; Grouping Kids by Ability Harms Education, Two Studies Show; NEA: Research Spotlight on Academic Ability Grouping). Putting students with learning disabilities in special education classes is basically the same as putting them in low-ability ability groups. I have experienced the benefits of not being put in a special education classroom because of my learning disability.

When I was a young child, my mother read to me every night at bedtime starting as far back as I can remember, but I still could not learn to read until the end of third grade. In elementary school and what was then called junior high, I was enrolled in an alternative education school. I did not get held back any grades, and I did not get labeled “special ed” partly because that was in the 1970s and early 1980s and also because of the type of school I was in.

In fifth grade, my language arts teacher challenged me and my best friend to do a “sixth grade project” in fifth as well as sixth grade. My fifth and sixth grade language arts teacher knew that my best friend and I needed a push in the right direction. I caught up eventually in academic achievement, and I think I was very lucky to not get labeled “special ed.”

This label becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and limits your academic potential (The Balanced View: Ability Grouping). I am now in a doctoral program in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver, where I am studying research methods and statistics with a minor in educational research. In addition to statistics classes, I am taking curriculum and instruction classes in which I am learning about educational reform, policy and philosophy, and diversity in education.

Education is the one thing that can truly level the playing field. I think that education has leveled the playing field for me because even though as an adult I have been diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder, which is a learning disability, I have been able to make it into a doctoral program in my formal education, and I am about two-thirds of the way through my course work for my Ph.D.

In his book Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997), Albert Bandura, the self-efficacy expert, said that if lower ability students are allowed to remain in class with their higher ability peers, they will eventually catch up with their higher ability peers, and I think that is what happened to me when I was not labeled “special ed” and when my elementary school language arts teacher challenged me academically.

Students with learning disabilities should not be taken out of the mainstream classroom and put in special education classes because if given the chance, they will probably catch up with their non-learning disabled peers, and they won’t have their academic potential limited by pejorative labels. Also, contrary to what some people believe, learning disabled does not mean lower-than-average intelligence.

Merino High School students test items in the "indoor recess boxes" they prepared to keep elementary students active on rainy days. Photo courtesy Buffalo School District.

“I think we’re having an effect,” said Kevin Garcia, 16, a sophomore at Center High School, and a member of the school’s bullying prevention group. “When I walk down the halls, I hear people repeating our slogan: ‘Be a buddy, not a bully.’ I think things are going in a positive direction.”

Across the state in Merino, in Logan County in northeast Colorado, the rain just gave teachers a chance to test out the indoor recess boxes that the older kids put together for the younger ones.

“We had noticed that when the weather was bad, they would just stay inside and read or play games that didn’t involve much physical activity,” said Lynn Zemanek, family and consumer science teacher at Merino High School.

“So my students surveyed the elementary school teachers about what they’d like to have included. Now, on rainy days, they can pull out those boxes during recess, and the kids can do juggling, or have relay races in the halls, or other active stuff.”

Telling the story to Washington

Meanwhile, Helayne Jones, president of the Colorado Legacy Foundation, was in Washington D.C. last week to tell federal officials all about what’s happening in Center and in Merino and in more than a dozen other rural school districts across Colorado where innovative health and wellness efforts are blossoming.

Jones talked about the work of the Legacy Foundation and the Colorado Coalition for Healthy Schools’ Healthy School Champions Scorecard, which rewards schools and districts for implementing health and wellness practices. Last month, 32 districts from around the state were awarded a total of $42,000 as part of the Scorecard program.

“Almost half the scorecard winners were rural districts,” Jones said. “Colorado was invited to present at this conference because of our work for rural school districts. Anecdotally, there aren’t a lot of others doing this kind of health and wellness work for rural schools, especially in the Rocky Mountain West.

“Our goal is to have rural superintendents learn from each other,” she said. “So often, superintendents say ‘We can’t do that because we’re a rural school district.’ We try to show them that, actually, rural schools districts are doing this work.”

Among those who heard about what’s going on in Colorado are U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

“This is one of the first times they’ve taken the approach of having two Cabinet members come together to develop recommendations. It reiterates that these topics – education and health – should not be siloed,” Jones said.

“Colorado and the Legacy Foundation were invited because we’re gaining recognition as a national model for improving student outcomes and boldly talking about the connection between student achievement and health and how safe students feel in school.”

Students come up with ideas adults don’t

The Buffalo School District – home to roughly 300 students, including about 100 at Merino High School – is a case in point.

The Colorado National Guard brought a climbing wall to a recent health fair the Buffalo School District helped organize.

“We’re as rural as you can get,” said Zemanek, who serves as advisor to the district’s health and wellness committee.

What’s unique about the district’s wellness committee is its makeup: It is composed entirely of students. Zemanek is convinced that’s made a difference in the ideas they’ve come up with and implemented. Ideas like the indoor recess boxes.

“Another thing is music,” she said. “We stumbled onto playing music purely by accident. We found that listening to music reduces snacking because it addresses the same part of the brain. So during breaks, we play people’s favorite songs, from classical to rock. And the mood of the school has changed. I think adults might not have come up with that idea.”

Ditto for the water infused with lemon. When Zemanek took her students to a conference at a hotel in California last year, the hotel served water with lemon slices in it. The kids were awed.

“When we came back, it was something they wanted to do every Friday, just to increase the amount of hydration,” she said. “I don’t think adult would have come up with that, either.”

Other accomplishments by the district’s wellness committee include building a school garden and greenhouse, and writing the protocols required by the local health department to use the produce grown in the greenhouse in the school’s salad bar.

They also labored to insure that 50 percent of the foods served at the concession stand during sporting events are healthy choices, and they began a series of daily physical activity and nutrition challenges.

“Every teacher has x-number of students for the challenges,” Zemanek said. “I have 15 kids on my team. The kids push the teacher and the teacher pushes the kids.”

Kids chose to focus on bullying in Center

In Center, the focus has been on bullying.

“We have a peer group of students that meets all year long to address various health and prevention issues, and bullying is one of those issues,” said Katrina Ruggles, the prevention and health education coordinator for the 575-student school district.

“They’ve done a variety of things, and the high school students are in charge of everything, from snacks to curriculum. They created their own survey about bullying, and they’re using the information from that to create a social norming campaign.”

They found that 17 percent of students reported being bullied.

“It’s not that big of a thing, but it’s here,” said Garcia. “I’ve been bullied. I’ve been affected by it, and it hurts. I don’t want other kids to go through that. If I can make an impact with this campaign, then I’d like to do it.”

Creating learning laboratories for the state

Jones said the Legacy Foundation’s partnership with the Colorado Department of Education is key to promoting initiatives such as these, both in rural as well as urban and suburban school districts.

“In some ways, we help the department to have a learning laboratory. We create pilots to test out, get early adapters for the work the department is trying to get done statewide. We’re really a new breed of public/private partnership,” she said.

While places like Center and Merino are far removed from the Front Range population centers, what happens there is just as important as what happens in Denver or Jefferson County, Jones said.

“As a state, we have to focus on every child. We can’t focus only on the large population centers,” she said. “Education shouldn’t vary by zip code. Besides, a family in metro Denver today could be relocated and wind up in a rural school district tomorrow. Why should their quality of education be any different?”

Commencement ceremonies for Denver’s comprehensive high schools kick off tonight with George Washington High School graduates taking the stage at DU’s Ritchie Center at 7 p.m. North High School follows tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Magness Arena and South High School’s ceremony is Wednesday at the Ritchie Center. The list goes on from there.

Graduations are in full swing across the state. Ceremonies for Jefferson County’s larger high schools begin Saturday, with Golden High School seniors set to walk at 9 a.m. at the School of Mines.

Denver Scholarship Foundation officials are scheduled to announce a record number of graduates have been awarded scholarships today during a 10:45 a.m. reception at Bruce Randolph 6-12 School. Randolph’s Class of 2012 includes 35 scholarship winners, such as valedictorian Noemy Rodriguez, who will be attending the University of Northern Colorado to study math and secondary education.

Other scholarship winners include Karim Sanchez, who will attend Regis University to study physical therapy, and Antonio Castaneda, who plans to attend the University of Colorado Denver to study pharmacy.

All Bruce Randolph seniors have been accepted to college and awarded a total of $500,000 in scholarships, not including the scholarship foundation awards, according to a DPS press release.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado, is planning to unveil legislation at 12:45 p.m. today at Louisville Middle SChool that will end what his staff is calling the “pizza is a vegetable” loophole.

Polis will be joined by Ann Cooper, food service director for the Boulder Valley School District, as he seeks to reverse “Congress’ absurd recent decision to define pizza as a vegetable in federally-subsidized public schools meals,” according to a press release.

What’s on tap:

TODAY

Denver Public Schools board members have a work session at 12:30 p.m. at district offices, 900 Grant St. The timing of the four-hour session is earlier than usual because of graduation ceremonies in the evening. The agenda includes responses to budget questions from a May 7 meeting, discussion on decisions around the non-renewal of teachers and discussion about the renewal of innovation status for Manual High School and Montclair School of Academics and Enrichment.

TUESDAY

Aurora school board members meet at 6 p.m. in the Professional Learning and Conference Center, 15771 E. 1st Ave., Aurora. Agenda.

The Douglas County School District board meets at 5 p.m. in the administration building’s third floor boardroom, 620 Wilcox St., in Castle Rock. Board members have scheduled a two-hour closed session and will reconvene in public at 7 p.m. Agenda.

THURSDAY

Gov. John Hickenlooper’s Education Leadership Council meets 1- 4 p.m. in the new Metro State Student Success Building, 890 Auraria Parkway. Among other agenda items, the panel will start discussing its 2013 legislative agenda.

The Aurora Public Schools District Accountability Advisory Committee holds a public hearing on the 2012-13 budget at 6:30 p.m. in the Professional Learning and Conference Center, 15771 E. 1st Ave., Aurora. Visit the district’s budget reduction website.

The Denver Public Schools board holds a meeting at 2 p.m. and a public comment session at 3:30 p.m. at the district offices, 900 Grant St. Times are earlier because of graduation ceremonies that evening. The agenda includes votes on Manual and Montclair innovation renewals plus votes on several charter school contracts.

Good reads from elsewhere:

Farming out foreign language: Three foreign-language teachers in the Eagle School District are being replaced by an online program, the Vail Daily reports.

The EdNews’ Churn is a daily roundup of briefs, notes and meetings in the world of Colorado education. To submit an item for consideration in this listing, please email us at EdNews@EdNewsColorado.org.

Becca Bracy Knight is is executive director of the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. The center is funded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, a national foundation established by Los Angeles-based businessman Eli Broad.

The Broad Center describes its mission as “to raise student achievement by recruiting, training and supporting executive leadership talent from across America to become the next generation of urban school district leaders.” The center runs two programs, one to prepare high-ranking executives from the public, private and non-profit sectors, as well as the military, to become urban superintendents, the other to groom promising young executives to serve in high-level positions in school districts, charter management organizations and federal and state departments of education.

Knight, who oversees both programs, is a graduate of Stanford University. She served as a director at the Broad Foundation before stepping into her current role. before that she worked for Kaplan Learning Services, the Salvation Army and Partners in School innovation.

Rep. Tom Massey said, “There’s no question” that improving state revenues made the early childhood literacy bill and a no-cuts school finance act possible. Massey, a Poncha Springs Republican and chair of the House Education Committee, was at the center of most education debates this year. His name was on 38 measures, most of them related to schools or higher education.

Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins and chair of Senate Education, also cited a cooperative spirit among lawmakers, interest groups and others as key to the session: “Time after time, we came together.” Bacon was a key figure in Senate debates on the literacy bill.

What the session means to you

As a legislative session unfolds, it’s often hard to translate the legalistic language of bills into impacts on real people. And, as with most legislation, the effects of many 2012 bills won’t be felt until after state bureaucrats, school administrators and college leaders have worked out the details of implementing the new laws.

But here a high-level look at what this year’s education legislation will mean for parents and students, teachers and administrators, bureaucrats and others:

Young learners, parents and teachers – More than 20,000 K-3 students who struggle with reading will get additional, structured help – and a few of them may find themselves repeating third grade. Schools will be required to involve parents more closely in efforts to improve reading skills. Teachers in the early grades will have to learn some new skills for teaching literacy. All of this will flow from the early literacy bill, House Bill 12-1238 – see summary.

Counselors and troubled kids – An easing of zero-tolerance discipline laws will mean teachers, counselors and vice principals will have more flexibility in school discipline and will have to brush up on new techniques. Some students who otherwise would have been expelled or suspended likely will find themselves staying in school. And some administrators will have more paperwork to file tracking the impact of new policies. The original discipline bill, Senate Bill 12-046, had to be folded into another measure because of a parliamentary screw-up; read the summary here.

High school students – There may be more tests to take in the state’s high schools, given passage of a bill providing $1 million in state aid for districts to give Accuplacer skills assessment tests. The hope is the tests will give early indications of student deficiencies that can be fixed before kids get to college. This plan, originally Senate Bill 12-047, also had to be merged into another bill. See the summary.

Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs

Future students – There are still lots of hurdles to be jumped before Colorado has permanent replacements for the TCAP tests, but a bill requiring the State Board of Education to commit to one of two groups developing multi-state tests is one step down that road.

College students – Some students at state colleges and universities will be freed from the current system of having to take remedial classes before they can take for-credit courses. House Bill 12-1155 (see summary) will allow more targeted remediation for specific skill gaps while student take regular classes.

Future college students – In future years, graduates of Adams, Metro and Western state colleges will have the word “university” on their sheepskins, thanks to three name-change bills passed this year.

Adults who want degrees – The state is making a push to increase the number of Coloradans with degrees or certificates. Senate Bill 12-045 is supposed to make it easier for adults with some community college credits and some four-year credits to combine them and earn an associate’s degree. And House Bill 12-1072 is intended to create easier ways for adults to earn college credit for such “life experiences” as professional and military training.

Parents – There may be a bit more school paperwork to fill out because of Senate Bill 12-036, which tightens requirements for parent consent before students can fill out various surveys and questionnaires. Parents won’t have to worry when the Oct. 1 enrollment count day falls on a religious holiday; count day will be moved. But parents won’t be able to opt kids out of achievement tests, get a sales-tax break on back-to-school purchases, petition for conversion of low-performing schools or sit in on district-union bargaining sessions. Bills proposing all those things didn’t make it. And a State Board rule requiring parents be notified when school employees are arrested will expire because the legislature didn’t ratify it.

Teachers – Teachers with national board certifications will receive $4,800 stipends for working at high-needs schools via House Bill 12-1261. Two sets of regulations intended to implement the new educator evaluation system were ratified by the legislature, meaning that system as designed by the Colorado Department of Education is moving ahead. The legislature also provided CDE with some extra funding for implementation work.

Higher ed policymakers – A new law on regulation of for-profit colleges will enable the state Department of Higher Education to gather more information about enrollment, degrees granted and other data from those institutions. That in turn will provide a fuller picture of higher education in the state as policymakers try to increase the number of degrees and certificates granted. This was yet one more bill that had to be folded into another measure; read the summary here.

Charter school administrators – A bill setting uniform minimum standards for charter school applications and authorization (Senate Bill 12-061) passed, but a measure that would have encouraged districts to follow “model” standards of authorizing didn’t (House Bill 12-1225). And some charters may have an easier time qualifying for Building Excellent Schools Today grants because of Senate Bill 12-121.

Lunch ladies – If they haven’t done so already, kitchen administrators will have to get rid of foods with added trans fats under the terms of Senate Bill 12-068. But the measure is riddled with exceptions; get the details in this summary.

One issue is big every year

The state provides about two-thirds of K-12 operating funds every year, and the legislature sets the combination of state and local revenue used to pay for schools.

The recession and resulting state revenue drops forced the 2009, 2010 and 2011 legislative sessions to cut school funding. This year was a different story because improving revenues allowed the legislature to keep school funding stable at about $5.3 billion in 2012-13, an average of $6,474.24 per student.

“School finance was one of the victories,” said Bacon, a view Massey shares.

That doesn’t mean rising costs, such as for pensions, aren’t going to force individual districts to make cuts. But at the statehouse, there definitely was less tension around school finance this year.

Improved revenues also allowed lawmakers to keep higher education budget cuts to “only” about $7 million below current levels.

Get more information on school finance in the Education News Colorado archive and in this legislative staff document. And find out how much funding is allocated to individual districts in our database.

What didn’t get done

There was a lot of speculation early in the session that online schools and the BEST construction program would be big education issues. As it turned out, neither was.

Senate President Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, promised a bill to better regulate online schools but ended up not touching the issue, partly because of his focus on a jobs bills. Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, considered online legislation but ended up not introducing any. He had plenty on his plate, including membership on the Joint Budget Committee and sponsorship of the civil unions bill.

There also was chatter about legislation to tighten up the BEST program and perhaps cap its income from state lands revenues. A funding bill never got introduced, and a bill to change structural review procedures for BEST projects and to change the board was killed.

There also were predictions that the December 2011 court decision in the Lobato v. State lawsuit would hang over the 2012 session. But “Lobato” was a word that didn’t get uttered much. An amendment to fund a study of the cost of Lobato compliance was withdrawn, and a resolution urging legislative legal intervention in the case was killed. The case, of course, is on appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court.

Dead for this year

The most prominent education bill that failed was Senate Bill 12-015, the so-called ASSET bill intended to reduce college tuition rates for undocumented students. This year marked the sixth time such legislation has been attempted. Backers promise a new version next year.

In addition to bills mentioned above, here are some other education bills that were killed or hadn’t been considered by the time the adjournment deadline came.

• House Bill 12-1067 – Contribution limits in school board campaigns
• House Bill 12-1235 – Requirements for energy efficiency in new school buildings
• House Bill 12-1252 – Online posting of college and university financial information
• House Bill 12-1280 – Establishment of a Western Slope gaming hall with video gambling machines, partly to fund community colleges and scholarships
• Senate Bill 12-098 – Requiring CPR for high school graduation

Seven bills proposing significant changes in the Public Employees’ Retirement Association, which covers all Colorado teachers and many other public employees, either were killed or didn’t make it out of committee.

A lot of farewells

Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins

Here’s who’s leaving the two committees:

House Education (13 members)

• Massey (term-limited)
• Don Beezley, R-Broomfield (chose not to run)
• Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood (running for Senate against Summers)
• Judy Solano, D-Brighton (term-limited)
• Ken Summers, R- Lakewood (running for Senate against Kerr)
• Nancy Todd, D-Aurora (term-limited but running for Senate)

Senate Education (7 members)

• Bacon (term-limited)
• King, R-Colorado Springs (district changed by redistricting; chose not to run)
• Spence, R-Centennial (term-limited)

And several other members of both committees are running for reelection, so some may or may not be back.

See the full archive of EdNews’ 2012 legislative stories.