The report takes an overall gloomy view of the situation, concluding, “School districts, states and teacher preparation training programs have yet to establish what knowledge a new teacher should have to enter a classroom with some facility for applying data to improve classroom instruction. In fact, the field has struggled to incorporate data driven decision making into its program sequences.

“Today’s schools demand teachers who can comfortably understand and utilize — both individually and collaboratively — a full range of classroom and standardized data, whether the data relate to their own students or to all the students in their school. Preparing them for anything less is unfair to teacher candidates as well as to the many students they plan to teach.”

The study reviewed 180 undergraduate and graduate programs at 98 institutions in 30 states.

“Our overall conclusion is that while assessment is addressed to some extent in all but five of the 180 programs we examined, only six programs (3 percent) provide preparation that can be deemed adequate: four elementary programs and two secondary programs,” the report said, adding that 13 percent of programs covered assessment with partial adequacy and that 83 percent were inadequate.

Colorado institutions included in the study were Adams State College, Colorado Mesa University, Colorado State University-Pueblo and University of Colorado campuses in Boulder, Colorado Springs and Denver. Results were not broken out by individual programs.

Those six schools served about a quarter of the more than 13,000 education students enrolled at 18 institutions in 2011. (See this Department of Higher Education annual report for more information about teacher preparation in Colorado.)

The report rated schools on their training in three areas:

• Assessment literacy – measurement of student performance using assessments. “Only 21 percent of the programs in the sample cover literacy topics adequately, with an additional 21 percent doing so with partial adequacy. More than half of all programs have no, very limited or limited coverage.”
• Analytical skills – analyzing student performance data from assessments. “Less than 1 percent of the programs in the sample cover analytical skills adequately, with an additional 8 percent doing so with partial adequacy. The vast majority of programs (92 percent) have no, very limited or limited coverage.”
• Instructional decision-making – using performance data to plan instruction. “Fewer than 2 percent of programs in the sample cover instructional decision making adequately, with 7 percent doing so with partial adequacy. The vast majority of programs (91 percent) have no, very limited or limited coverage.”

The report drew its conclusions from reviewing the syllabi of education programs to try to determine if courses included instruction about assessments. Some 455 courses were reviewed, an average of 2.5 courts per program, according to the report. The study acknowledged that it may be over-weighted toward public institutions because course information was gathered through public records requests, which public institutions are required to honor but private institutions are not.

The report recommends more federal funding to provide incentives for schools of education, pressure by school districts on preparation programs and inclusion of assessment evaluation skills on state licensing exams.

The NCTQ is a prolific issuer of reports, primarily on teacher preparation, and it’s teamed up with U.S. News & World Report to issue a review of all U.S. teacher prep programs early next year. Its work has come under periodic criticism, particularly for its heavy reliance on syllabi to draw conclusions and for other elements of its research methods.

Last January the council released its fifth annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook and graded Colorado as average for its teacher policies. The overall “C” in the 2011 report is a jump from the D+ that the state was awarded in 2009. But the state got a D- for “delivering well-prepared teachers.”

The January report lauded Colorado for being one of 12 states where student achievement is the most significant factor in teacher evaluations – or will be when Senate Bill 10-191 is fully implemented. It also cites Colorado as one of only three states to earn an A for exiting ineffective teachers, noting state law prevents districts from basing layoffs on seniority alone and clearly says ineffectiveness in the classroom is grounds for dismissal, also part of 10-191. (See that report.)

A 2011 NCTQ report on student teaching programs gave high marks to the program at Colorado Christian University but called those at the University of Northern Colorado and Western State College “poor” (see story). Those were the only Colorado programs reviewed.

Former Colorado Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien chairs the NCTQ board of directors, and Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver and author of Colorado’s educator effectiveness law, sits on its advisory board.

The council is funded by such foundations as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Broad Foundation and the Denver-based Daniels Fund. (Disclosure: The Daniels Fund also supports Education News Colorado.) Get more information on the council from SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy.

Sandi Jacobs, a NCTQ vice president, discussed the group’s work during a 2011 Denver appearance at the Donnell-Kay Foundation’s Hot Lunch series. Listen to her remarks in our podcast.

Teachers will need to behave like students if the Common Core Standards are going to have any impact on student achievement.

Teachers will be able to seamlessly incorporate the common core standards into their everyday practice if districts give teachers: 1) differentiated time, 2) plenty of feedback, 3) and the opportunity to struggle with the new standards.

These three requirements are the same teachers use with their students. And just like students, or other professionals confronted with technical changes in their fields, teachers need to be afforded time and resources to build new capacities.

Differentiation, feedback and struggling are the hallmarks of learning.  This is true for all beginning and experienced learners, including teachers.  And yet time and time again educational institutions fail to provide these learning opportunities for teachers. For example, there’s the teacher sitting in a seminar on the importance of differentiation while the presenter assumes all teachers are at the same place when it comes to their understanding of differentiation.

Traditionally, professional development has been treated as a one-day lecture with no check for understanding, opportunities for practice, or feedback.  Teachers call this approach to professional development a “drive by.” What we need is more of what Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, calls “purposeful practice.”

For implementation of the Common Core this means we cannot just drop the new standards at the door steps of a teacher’s classroom and assume it’s all good to go.  Gene Wilhoit, one of the strongest advocates of Common Core and the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, one of the groups that spearheaded the development of the Common Core said: “The vast majority of teachers don’t have the skill set” needed to teach to the new expectations. They need support to improve both their pedagogical skills and their content knowledge.” How do we go about supporting teachers as they implement the new standards?

It comes down to time.  Time for teachers to collaboratively make the standards coherent – to decipher the myriad levels of standards. (I’ve written before about the Byzantine nature of the new standards.) This is what we ask of students when they are confronted with new information, or new vocabulary—put the information into their own language, make it their own.  For teachers, this will require districts to provide ample learning time. (A recent study showed that, on average, teachers spend 3 percent of their time collaborating – nowhere near enough time!)

Let me be clear that teachers will never be done “working” with the new standards. Teachers will need to continuously practice and monitor their work with the new standards.  They cannot assume that this will be the last time society’s expectations for students will change. What educators need to do is build in a systematic approach to their work that seeks and seamlessly incorporates change, including new standards.

The next step is to write assessments that will evaluate students’ understanding of the new standards.  This cannot be done in isolation.  Nor will the assessments be perfect immediately.  The point is to give assessments and then collaboratively benchmark the student work.  Benchmarking, where teachers identify student work that correlates to proficiency, gives teachers the opportunity hone their understanding of what the standards are asking of students.  The lack of consistency in identifying proficiency can bring the entire Common Core approach to a grinding halt.

Implementation of the Core will not be perfect at the start.  The learning will occur in day-to-day practice, just as it does for students in my classroom. We also need to, in the words of Michael Fullan, honor the implementation dip.

Fullan, who has written numerous books on transformation in education, challenges the myth of change: “Those who introduce the change (usually far removed from the implementation scene) assume that there will be immediate gains. It can’t be thus—by definition.” Fullan goes on to warn that “the costs to the implementer are immediate and concrete, while the benefits are distant and theoretical.” In other words, we need to give teachers time to make the new standards work.

But what can and should we expect of teachers in the implementation process?

The same that we expect of our students—a commitment to consistency and fidelity to the application of new knowledge. A willingness to take risks and learn from mistakes. And an understanding that teachers as leaders need to help colleagues get through the hard work.

Implementation of the Common Core gives educators the opportunity to model what we expect of our students. If done well I believe the Common Core can have a positive impact on student achievement.

Adjournment of a legislative session typically is greeted with universal relief as lawmakers return to jobs and families, bureaucrats can get work done without Capitol distractions and lobbyists start keeping normal schedules. And lots of people go on vacation.

But the respite is usually a brief one, and thoughts quickly turn to the next legislative session. That’s what happened late last week at a meeting of the Education Leadership Council, a group of educators, officials and business leaders that advises Gov. John Hickenlooper on education policy. See list of members here.

A key item on the group’s agenda was “2013 Legislative Agenda,” and the council broke into two brainstorming groups before getting back together to compare notes.

Here are some of the issues members came up with as possible grist for the 2013 meeting of the General Assembly:

• Tweaks to the educator effectiveness law and more funding
• Some sort of legislation on parent involvement, possible to co-opt another parent trigger bill
• Changes to the innovation schools law, which up to now has been used almost solely by DPS
• More funding for preschool and full-day kindergarten
• Another attempt to lower college tuition for undocumented students
• Handling of schools that face state intervention after five years of priority improvement or turnaround ratings
• Higher education admissions policies

“This is the first of many conversations we need to have,” said Christine Scanlan, Hickenlooper’s legislative policy director and a council member. She noted the administration will be talking to lots of interest groups about education policy, and the Hickenlooper’s TBD Colorado process also is expected to produce policy proposals. Get more information on that effort here.

She also noted that 2013 is not an election year, and “in off years, you tend to have more policy-based discussions.”

And since 2012 is an election year, Scanlan and others noted there will be lots of new legislators as of next January. Some estimates put that number at 30 to 40, and those folks will need a crash course in education issues.

“This will be a particularly extraordinary year with so many new people,” Scanlan said.

It’s official – Hickenlooper has signed House Bill 12-1245, the 2012-13 school finance act. Of course, there wasn’t any doubt, but the formalities have to be observed. The governor signed the bill Saturday at the Chaffee County Fairgrounds in Poncha Springs, not coincidentally the home of Republican Rep. Tom Massey, architect of this year’s funding bill. Check out our database for what the act means to individual districts.

A recent report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce takes a look at school boards and how the business community can influence them to make boards more accountable. The report uses 13 case studies, including Denver. Read it here.

The Sewall Child Development Center has honored four people with its annual awards, including Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, former Piton Foundation CEO Mary Cronin, executive director Kim Dvorchak of the Colorado Juvenile Defense Coalition and dance instructor Debbie Stark, who works with physically handicapped artists.

What’s on tap:

High school graduation season continues, with a long list of ceremonies scheduled for Aurora, Boulder Valley, Cherry Creek, Douglas County and Jeffco schools. Check district or school websites for details.

It also looks like a busy week for reports. The National Council on Teacher Quality on Tuesday will release a study on “What Teacher Preparation Programs Teach About K-12 Assessment,” and the Annie E. Casey Foundation on Wednesday releases a national report on children living in kinship families.

TUESDAY

The Boulder Valley school board has a 6 p.m. meeting scheduled at the Education Center, 6500 E. Arapahoe Road in Boulder.

WEDNESDAY

DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg will be hopscotching around the district as the school year nears its end, visiting a newcomers’ kindergarten class at Place Bridge Academy on Wednesday and dropping in on classes at Merrill Middle School, Fairmont Dual Language Immersion Academy and Westerly Creek Elementary on Thursday.

The state Capital Construction Assistance Board meets 1-3:30 p.m. at Green Valley Ranch High School, 4800 Telluride St., Building 2, Denver.

The Adams 12-Five Star board has a meeting scheduled at 7 p.m. in the Training Center at the Educational Support Center, 1500 E. 128th Ave., Thornton.

The Poudre school board has a 7 p.m. study session scheduled at the Educational Services Center, 395 South Pratt Parkway, Longmont.

THURSDAY

Douglas County School District and its teachers union are slated for another day of public negotiations, from 4 p.m. to midnight at district headquarters, 620 Wilcox St. in Castle Rock. Another five days of open negotiations kick off June 4. More info.

FRIDAY

Denver Public Schools board members are scheduled for a 2 p.m. retreat. No indication of location yet or agenda, but the info should be posted here when available.

Good reads from elsewhere:

Common Core debate: Speaking to a meeting of the Education Writers Association, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell defended the Common Core Standards against the current chatter that they’re a federal conspiracy to impose uniformity on the states. There’s been some of that expressed by a few Colorado Republican officials. Stateline has the details.

More for public college leaders: Median compensation for public college heads grew 3 percent in 2010-11, according to a survey by The Chronicle for Higher Education. Three public college leaders earned more than $1 million, according to this New York Times report. Median total compensation of all 199 public college presidents surveyed was $421,395.

Texas tuition tussle: The Texas university regents have rejected a resident tuition increase proposed by UT-Austin Chancellor William Powers, and Gov. Rick Perry also weighed in against the hike. The Wall Street Journal has the story. A similar mini-drama played out this spring with the CU Regents, who resisted initial administration proposals but ultimately approved a smaller resident tuition hike.

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

Earlier in my life, I studied modern American poetry.  One of the contemporary poets I really like was Dorianne Lux, who wrote the following.  To all of Colorado’s high school graduates – congratulations.

Books

by Dorianne Laux

You’re standing on the high school steps,
the double doors swung closed behind you
for the last time, not the last time you’ll ever

be damned or praised by your peers, spoken of
in whispers, but the last time you’ll lock your locker,
zip up your gym bag, put on your out-of-style jacket,

your too-tight shoes. You’re about to be
done with it: the gum, the gossip, the worship
of a boy in the back row, histories of wheat and war,

cheat sheets, tardies, the science of water,
negative numbers and compound fractions.
You don’t know it yet but what you’ll miss

is the books, heavy and fragrant and frayed,
the pages greasy, almost transparent, thinned
at the edges by hundreds of licked thumbs.

What you’ll remember is the dumb joy
of stumbling across a passage so perfect
it drums in your head, drowns out

the teacher and the lunch bell’s ring. You’ve stolen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library.
Lingering on the steps, you dig into your bag

to touch its heat: stolen goods, willfully taken,
in full knowledge of right and wrong.
You call yourself a thief. There are worse things,

you think, fingering the cover, tracing
the embossed letters like someone blind.
This is all you need as you take your first step

toward the street, joining characters whose lives
might unfold at your touch. You follow them into
the blur of the world. Into whoever you’re going to be.

from Smoke, BOA Editions, 2000.

About the author

Alexander Ooms is a senior fellow at the Donnell-Kay Foundation. He was the founding president and is a current member of the Board of Trustees at West Denver Preparatory Charter School, an appointed member of the Board of Directors at the Colorado Charter Schools Institute, a member of the Board of Directors at both the Charter Schools Development Corporation and the Colorado chapter of Stand for Children.

Beach Court Elementary students, shown in a photo from the school's website.

In 2009, for example, 76 percent of Beach Court fifth-graders scored proficient on state math tests. Just 29 percent of those same students scored proficient in math the following year when they entered sixth grade in a variety of middle schools.

By contrast, in Denver Public Schools overall, sixth-graders in 2009 scored 1 percentage point higher in math then they did fifth grade the year before – 47 to 46 percent.

In conducting the analysis, I-News studied student test score records obtained from the Colorado Department of Education. DPS has declined to provide any data or other information until after the state wraps up its investigation.

Earlier this week, Education News Colorado reported that Beach Court Principal Frank Roti has been placed on administrative leave while the state investigates testing anomalies at the school. Hallett Fundamental Academy is also being investigated. The I-News analysis of test scores did not find test score drops at Hallett similar to those at Beach Court.

Sources confirmed the district’s analysis of Colorado Student Assessment Program 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.

The I-News analysis of Beach Court scores found that:

• Between half and three quarters of fifth-grade students in 2007 through 2009 saw their math scores drop at least one level when they left the school and tested in sixth grade.
• Between a third and almost half of fifth graders dropped a level in reading  over three years of testing  and a level in writing over two years of testing after leaving the school.

As a result, the percentage of fifth-grade students at Beach Court achieving proficiency in math, reading and writing dropped by a half or more between 2009 and 2010 when they were sixth graders in a different school

I-News looked at how fifth graders who took the tests at Beach Court in 2007 through 2009 fared on the CSAP tests the next year when they entered a new school in sixth grade.   The analysis compared how the same students scored – unsatisfactory, partially proficient, proficient or advanced. Between one and three fifth graders each year did not have scores the next year as sixth graders.

The biggest declines took place between 2009 testing at Beach Court and 2010 tests in sixth grade.  Thirty-seven of the 49 fifth graders, or 75 percent, fell at least one level in math.  The biggest drop was from proficient to partially proficient. Twenty of the 21 fifth graders fell below proficiency when they took the math test in sixth grade.  In addition, 13 of the 17 fifth graders who scored advanced on math at Beach Court fell to proficient  or lower after they left the school.

For reading in 2009, 22 of 49 students dropped a level the next year and 25 of 49 dropped a level in writing. As with math,  the biggest declines were from scoring proficient at Beach Court to scoring partially proficient in sixth grade.

The declines bucked the districtwide trends.

For all DPS schools, 46 percent of fifth graders scored proficient or better in 2009 in math, rising to 47 percent when they became sixth graders in 2010.

For all of DPS, the percent scoring proficient or advanced in reading rose from 48 percent in fifth grade in 2009 to 54 percent in sixth grade in 2010. In writing, the scores were the same in fifth grade in 2009 as they were in sixth grade for 2010 – 41 percent proficient or advanced.

Earlier years

About half of the fifth graders who took math tests at Beach Court in 2008 dropped a level the next year. For reading and writing, it was about 30 percent of fifth graders who lost ground the next year.

Just under half of the fifth graders dropped a level after taking reading and math tests in 2007 at Beach Court. A break down on proficiency levels was not available for writing. Only scale scores were used in the data base analyzed by I-News.

I-News also  analyzed scores for Hallet Fundamental School, but the database used by I-News did not include scores to compare the 2010 and 2011 years that are the focus of the investigation. The analysis found that most scores stayed the same or rose between fifth and sixth grades.

Reflections of a former Beach Court teacher

Bernadette Lopez taught third grade at Beach Court from 2005 to 2008, when she left to join the teacher-led Math and Science Leadership Academy. Lopez has since left teaching to enroll in law school.

During her three years at the school, Lopez said CSAP tests were closely monitored. Teachers picked up their boxes of tests in the morning before testing and the boxes were immediately picked up after testing was over.

She also pointed out that no teacher had access to the tests for all of their students. That’s because of testing accommodations allowed under state testing rules. So students who qualified for extra time, for example, or other special circumstances would be under the supervision of a different proctor.

“I never had access to 100 percent of my students’ tests,” she said.

Lopez said she heard about the cheating investigation and “felt really bad for the teachers who have worked so hard … it tarnishes what we did.”

“When I was there, things were on the up and up,” she said. “I never saw anything that would be suspect.”

But she also noted, “I don’t know what happens after someone picks up the boxes” of tests – “you turn in your box … you never see it again.”

“It’s almost too bad the district made such a big deal out of the school – it felt like there was so much pressure to keep scores up,” she said.

Lopez said the second year she taught at Beach Court, 89 percent of her third-graders scored proficient or advanced in reading; the next year, the figure was 100 percent. “I didn’t even think it was possible for all of my students to do so well.”

Still, if someone were trying to cheat, why falsely create 100 percent proficiency, which could create suspicion, she asked.

Lopez and other teachers pointed out that Frank Roti, the Beach Court principal, did not always have the best relationships with teachers.

“If teachers were aware of cheating going on, it probably would have been reported,” she said. On the other hand, if teachers felt nothing would really happen to a principal, they may not have felt it would make a difference.

“You’re going to have different kids every year, your scores are going to fluctuate,” she said. “If there is something to it, the pressure got to somebody.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper was flanked by second graders from Aurora's Kenton Elementary as he signed the Colorado READ Act on May 17, 2012.

“It’s really a great day for young people in Colorado,” said Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, the administration’s point man on education. “”But we’re not done. We have a long way to go.”

The law, nearly a year in the making, is the most significant piece of education legislation to emerge from the just-completed 2012 regular session. It also has the distinction of being one of the few recent Colorado education reform laws to come with significant funding.

Several speakers at the signing ceremony referred to the long process it took to get to the final product.

“It certainly takes a village to write a bill to help raise a child,” joked Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver and a prime sponsor of the bill.

Here are the key features of the READ Act:

• Next school year districts will report to the Department of Education the number of K-3 students with significant reading deficiencies. The State Board of Education the will define what constitutes a significant reading deficiency for the purposes of the law. SBE has until March 31, 2013, to adopt the rules for the new program.

• The law is expected to cover up to 24,000 students. An estimated quarter of Colorado third graders don’t read at grade level.

• Starting in 2013-14 districts will annually assess K-3 students’ reading abilities with CDE-approved tests. The department is required to create a list of approved instructional programs and professional development programs that districts can use.

• Individual READ plans have to be created for students with significant deficiencies. The law also creates a process for parent, teacher and administrator consultation to determine each year if students should advance to the next grade. Parents have the final say for K-2 students. Superintendents (or designated administrators) will review the cases of third graders recommended for advancement and can decide to retain a student. Special services must be provided for third graders who are held back.

• The law contains protections and exemptions for students with disabilities, limited English proficiency or who have already been retained.

• The program will divert interest revenue from the state school lands permanent fund to provide about $16 million in per-pupil funding (about $700 per student) to districts working with students who have significant reading deficiencies. The law also includes some $5 million in funding to be used for CDE administration costs ($1 million) and for professional development grants to districts. So total funding in 2012-13 will be about $21 million.

• Districts receiving the per-pupil funding will be required to use specific interventions, such as enrollment in full-day kindergarten, summer school or tutoring.

• The law abolishes the existing Read-to-Achieve grant program and uses its remaining funding for the new grant program.

Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs / File photo

The original concept called for mandatory retention of lagging third graders, but that plan was quickly dropped in the face of widespread opposition.

As passed by the House, HB 12-1238 had a “preference” for retention, contained only $5 million in funding and also would have required services for a second group of students, those with just “reading deficiencies.”

Low funding and some of the bill’s language didn’t sit well with Senate Democratic leaders, and the bill was significantly amended. More funding was added, the bill was refocused on a smaller group of students, some of the more detailed requirements for parent consultation and notification were streamlined and retention language was softened.

Democratic Sens. Rollie Heath of Boulder and Bob Bacon of Fort Collins were key figures in crafting the Senate compromise, in consultation with Massey.

Several speakers at the ceremony highlighted Heath’s role in the bill. Garcia said Heath “reall helped keep us on track … and come up with a bill we all could fully support.”

The Senate sponsors were Johnston and Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial. Hickenlooper advisors also were heavily involved with the READ Act from the beginning.

Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton

The READ Act is the swansong for some lawmakers who have been key players on education legislation for years. Massey, Bacon, Spence and Solano all are leaving the Capitol because of term limits.

The board heard more than three hours worth of speakers during an afternoon public comment session, and most of them were there to talk about possible plans to open a West Denver Prep High School somewhere in northwest Denver. Several of the options the district is considering involve co-locating the proposed new charter high school on the North High School campus. West Denver Prep Highlands Middle School already shares campus space with North, albeit in a detached building.

North supporters expressed concern that putting a separate charter school within their building would limit North’s potential for future growth, and said they are loath to do anything that might derail recent, modest  academic improvements at the school. They brought with them a petition signed by 600 people requesting the board not co-locate West Denver Prep High School at North.

Jenny Davies-Schley spoke of her desire to send her child to a traditional comprehensive public high school with a broad array of sports, academic and cultural activities. She said she fears that if North must share its facilities with a charter school, students living in the neighborhood who want to attend North may one day find there’s no room for them.

She also said she fears putting two schools in the same building would harm the North’s culture.

“What I heard loud and clear at the community meeting is there are a lot of West Denver Prep families committed to their school,” she said. “But I also heard they hold North in very low regard. That’s a problem. Putting a culture together in schools where there is no respect, we’ll have problems. We’ll have to revisit that next year and the year after.”

Supporters of West Denver Prep, on the other hand, brought with them 328 letters of intent from parents who say they would send their children to the charter high school if it were located in the neighborhood.

“Since it opened, hundreds and hundreds of students who go there have discovered they are academically capable,” said Marie Sierra, parent of a West Denver Prep middle school student. “I want an opportunity for my son to continue his education in his neighborhood.”

“They don’t need to get on buses and drive long distances,” said Joshua Smith, principal at West Denver Prep’s Harvey Park campus. Smith rejected options that would place the charter school at Remington or Del Pueblo, recently closed school buildings that are empty but are farther away from the northwest Denver neighborhoods where most WDP students live. “Placing the high school at Remington or Del Pueblo would be unjust.”

Original story starts here: West Denver Prep’s request to open a high school in Northwest Denver drew hundreds of neighborhood residents to a community meeting Wednesday night, packing the auditorium at Smedley Elementary to overflowing.

Northwest Denver residents jammed into the former Smedley Elementary auditorium Wednesday to hear and debate possible options for opening a West Denver Prep High School in the neighborhood.

On one side of the room were fans of the charter school, which currently has four middle school campuses, including two in Northwest Denver, all of which consistently rank among the most distinguished academically in the DPS system. They want to see that sort of option available to high school students as well.

On the other side were fans of North High School, the community’s beleaguered public high school that has endured years of failed reform efforts, but that supporters believe may at last be on the road to redemption. They want to see North’s new principal, the highly-regarded Nicole Veltze, given the time and resources needed to turn the school around the way they say she did Skinner Middle School.

Many said they fear charter schools – particularly those sharing a campus with a non-charter – absorb space and resources that the non-charters need to thrive.

And at the front of the room: DPS officials trying to manage a roomful of parents, students, staff and community members whose emotions were running high, and see to it that all felt that their concerns were being heard, and that all understood the options confronting the school board as it weighs the pros and cons of where to put a new school.

Some of the options involve putting West Denver Prep High School onto the same campus as North.

Lack of trust an obstacle

It was apparent that those three groups – Denver West Prep supporters, North High School supporters, and DPS officials – were unsure about one another’s motives.

“I hope we can have some trust as we go through the agenda,” Yana Smith, director of regional community engagement for DPS, told the packed house at the start of the meeting. “You can push back respectfully. That’s welcomed. It’s not our intention to stand here and talk AT you for the next two hours.” No yelling, no name-calling, respectful listening – those were the evening’s ground rules.

Some parents explained why they sent their children to West Denver Prep and would never send them to North. Others explained why they sent their children to North and why they felt every parent ought to consider doing so. North alumni extolled the education they got. Current North students extolled the education they are getting. Most agreed they hoped this dispute wouldn’t turn neighbor against neighbor, but feared it might.

Two-and-a-half hours later, after facilitators had roamed the room with microphones allowing many – but not all – of those who wanted the speak the chance to do so, Smith drew the meeting to a close. “I can’t say it didn’t go the way I had hoped,” she said. “Anytime there’s such a division between perspectives, emotions, options, priorities, having purposeful dialogue is challenging.”

School board to weigh options over the next month

Those who are interested will get another bite at the apple today when the Denver school board hosts a public comment session, starting at 3:30, as part of its regularly scheduled meeting. And another community meeting is planned for May 30 at Smedley.

On June 4, the school board will hear presentations from all those applying to open new schools in the fall of 2013– West Denver Prep is one of five new schools seeking to open in or near northwest Denver – and on June 7, district staff will present its recommendations to the board. There will be time for more public comment on June 14 and possibly on June 18. The board will vote on the applications on June 21.

Here’s the background, and the facts the school board will consider when deciding what to do.

Pros and cons to every scenario

Over the next four to five years, the district expects to see about 400 to 500 more students enrolling in North and its feeder schools. The existing elementary schools in the area are full. But there’s some space available at the middle and high school level.

Another consideration is the number of students who live in the area, but choose to go to school elsewhere. School officials calls this the “capture rate,” and North’s is quite low. There are 1,366 high-school-age students living in the North boundary area who attend school somewhere in DPS, but only 824 of them attend North or one of the small alternative high schools nearby.

That means that roughly 500 high school students who could be attending North have chosen to attend another DPS school, and officials estimate an additional 400-500 high school age students live in the area but don’t attend any DPS school. That’s a total of 900 to 1,000 students who live within North’s boundaries, but who choose not to enroll there.

Antonio Esquibel, executive director of West Denver Schools, reassures participants at a community meeting that DPS fully supports North High School and principal Nicole Veltze.

Enter West Denver Prep SMART High School, which projects it would eventually enroll 500 students. Another proposal, for Four Winds Indigenous, an expeditionary learning school with an indigenous-based curriculum, projects it could serve 200 high school students in the northwest area.

DPS officials estimate that the North campus – including the 1913-era building that West Denver Prep Highlands Middle School currently occupies – could accommodate a maximum of 2,070 students. North’s projected enrollment for fall is 1,254, and WDP’s Highland campus middle school projected enrollment is 314. That leaves space for 816 more students.

Thus, one proposal before the school board is to co-locate North, WDP Highlands Middle School and WDP high school all on the North campus. That’s an attractive option financially because it wouldn’t require much in the way of new construction, North’s central location is highly desirable, and the campus is already well-equipped to meet the needs of high school students. On the downside, that doesn’t leave much room for North to grow. The school presently has 940 students. Under this proposal, it would be able to accommodate up to 1,110, but more than that would be tight.

West Denver Prep middle school might relocate

Option 2 involves moving WDP middle school to Remington, an elementary school at 4735 Pecos that was closed in 2008, and letting WDP high school take over the 1913 building at North, plus just three or four classrooms in the main building, and having the two high schools share the gyms, cafeteria and library. That option provides space for North to grow, but it’s more expensive, and Remington is so far away from other schools that students would most likely have to be bused there.

Option 3 involves putting the WDP high school at Remington. That has the advantage of giving the high school its own independent facility, and the Remington building is in good condition. But Remington was built to serve as an elementary school, so remodeling it to serve high school students would be costly.

Option 4 would bring Smedley, which closed as an elementary school several years ago, back into play. Smedley, 4250 Shoshone St., which has a capacity for 447 students, could house WDP high school, or it could house WDP middle school. Either option would be  costly, however. Among several limiting factors: The school doesn’t have the space to create the parking required for a high school and  it has no playing fields.

Or WDP high school or WDP middle school could open at Del Pueblo, another school that closed in recent years. But Del Pueblo’s location – at 7th Avenue and Galapago Street – puts it out of northwest Denver, and with a capacity of just 311 students, additional construction would be required.

Also on the table is a proposal to move either the WDP high school or middle school into Skinner Middle School. Skinner has been held up by some advocates as a model of a neighborhood school turnaround. Data from the Colorado Department of Education show that in 2011, an average of 42 percent of Skinner’s students were proficient or advanced in reading, writing and math CSAP tests. That’s up from 32 percent in 2008. And the school’s median growth percentile 58.7 percent in 2011, up from 54.3 in 2008.

Skinner is a large building, and it would be especially well-suited for the middle school students, but adding a second middle school on the campus could constrain Skinner’s ability to grow.

So none of the options are without drawbacks. And community members on Wednesday had some suggestions of their own. Among them: Converting the now-empty St. Anthony’s Hospital into a high school. Or making whatever arrangements are selected only temporary, and building a new school. Or aligning North’s curriculum more closely with West Denver Prep’s, so the two schools could, in effect, become one.

Residents plead for more time

Or doing nothing, at least not yet. “We have the right to ask for more time,” one parent said. “June 21 is not time enough for anyone to present an answer that will succeed. And we’ll have to revisit this again and again if we don’t take the time now to make this work.”

Already, a new neighborhood organization calling itself Choose North Now has formed to lobby against any proposal to co-locate an additional school at North.

“For too long the district has subjected North to almost-yearly reforms, leaving the curriculum and staff in disarray,” said David Diaz, a former North teacher and coach, and neighborhood parent. “Now that proven leader Nicole Veltze is in place as principal, we need to give her the space and empowerment to build the high-quality school that our diverse neighborhood deserves.”

Choose North Now has launched a petition drive to encourage the school board not to mess with what supporters hope will be strong growth for the venerable high school.

“We could be aligning the curriculum at North and West Denver Prep. We could do that, and it’s free. And we could have the school we all want, and it’s North,” said Mike Kiley, a parent of two school-aged children and a leader of the group.

The University of Colorado created an economic impact of $5.3 billion in 2011, according to a new study done by the Leeds School of Business on the Boulder campus.

That activity was generated by $2.6 billion in direct spending. Here are some other findings:

• Student spending was estimated at $501 million, 63 percent generated by Boulder students.
• The university received more than $793 million in research funding from federal, state and private sources.
• CU spent $246 million on construction projects last year, created an economic benefit for $478 million.
• The university system was the third largest employer in the state, with 27,483 faculty, staff and student workers. The total payroll was almost $1.2 billion.

Read the full study here.

The Colorado Community College System recently released its own economic impact study, which estimated those institutions have an overall economic impact of $3 billion a year (more details here). The Colorado State University System last did an economic impact story in 2009 – read it here.

In the current era of state budget cuts state colleges and universities regularly try to tout their economic importance in legislative testimony and marketing materials.

Christina Gonzales has been named associate vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students at CU-Boulder. Gonzales is currently associate dean of students at the University of California, Berkeley.

What’s on tap:

Gov. John Hickenlooper will sign House Bill 12-1238, the Colorado READ Act, during a 12:15 p.m. ceremony in the west foyer of the Capitol.

The governor’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.

A good read from elsewhere:

More diverse advocacy voices: Our partners at EdWeek have a detailed and interesting look at how relatively new advocacy groups such as Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform are changing the education policy discussion. Both are active in Colorado, including on such state-level issues as education effectiveness and early childhood literacy.

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

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.

Nick Childers talking to students about the causes of World War II.

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. The average peer observer salary is nearly $64,000.

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 Childers' 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.

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.

Peer observer Marianne Kenney records her thoughts in Nick Childers' U.S. History class at West.

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.