Dear Superintendent Bennet:
Congratulations. You’ve been selected to lead one of Denver’s most important institutions: the public school system. In many ways, your job is as important as the mayor’s, the governor’s or the City Council’s. The future of our city depends on quality public education, on recruiting and retaining middle-class kids to the district and continuing to improve every school.
Denver is a beautiful, livable and engaging city. It boasts strong neighborhoods, safe streets, great parks and improving economic conditions. Our city is remarkably free of racial tension – as the selection process you just went through exemplifies.
But there is a lot at stake because the demographics of the school district don’t mirror the demographics of the city. If that continues, Denver is at risk of becoming a city defined by rich empty-nesters, single creative-class itinerants and poor families with kids. It’s in danger of becoming a Potemkin village – fake and one-dimensional – rather than a city filled with people of all ages, incomes, backgrounds and interests.
There is no truly successful urban school district in this country. Many experts believe that’s because middle-class families are abandoning urban schools. Their exodus becomes inevitable when – despite great neighborhoods, safe streets, wonderful parks and cultural amenities – home prices are out of reach for too many middle-income families, as they are in Denver.
Any long-term solution to improve student achievement depends on housing and economic policy as well as academic theory.
Denver’s population is 566,000 – more than 50 percent Anglo, 10 percent black and 35 percent Hispanic. Just under 10 percent of Denver’s families live below the poverty line.
By contrast, DPS’s population of 74,000 students includes 19 percent Anglo, 19 percent black and 57 percent Hispanic. An estimated 61 percent of DPS families live below the poverty line.
Denver’s median family income is approximately $43,000. The median home price is more than $250,000 – at least double what a family earning the median income can afford.
So, Mr. Bennet, here’s a to-do list for your consideration:
1. Accelerate your listening tour so that you know what you’ve got and what you need. You know many of the city’s leaders, so be sure to spend time with the rank and file. Talk with parents whose kids are in the district and with parents whose kids are not. Listen for great ideas.
2. Do whatever it takes to ensure passage of ProComp (the teacher pay-for-performance plan) and of Referenda C and D, which are designed to restore fiscal sanity to Colorado’s budget policies.
3. Hire the best chief academic officer you can find. Your job is to lead; address problems like housing costs, early childhood education and negative perceptions.
4. Develop an appetite for healthy conflict. A kite won’t fly without wind.
5. Train your Board of Education to do what we elected them to do: make policy, not micro-manage. Their job is governance, not operations.
6. Expose board members, principals and teachers to the best practices available. Denver will have to choose from a full range of options with an open mind.
7. North High School’s redesign will be a litmus test for the success of every Denver high school. North must become an architectural and academic landmark, emblematic of the new DPS. Every school building should be a civic asset, a year-round center for students, their families and the community in which to learn, explore and excel with pride and confidence.
8. Join Mayor Hickenlooper in persuading the statehouse to pass legislation enabling joint funding of certain capital and operating costs. Don’t let the issue of who pays for toilet paper prevent every school from becoming a year-round community center.
In April, your predecessor, Jerry Wartgow, gave a speech to more than 1,000 community leaders. He spoke for 20 minutes without notes. He was more inspiring and optimistic than any leader I have heard in the past decade. He exhorted us to take pride in our schools. He was passionate about the depth and breadth of Denver’s community capital.
The future of this city depends on what you decide to do with that asset. It’s in the bank. It doesn’t earn interest unless it’s put to work. Use it. Spend it. Call on each and every one of us to help.
We’re counting on it.
Susan Barnes-Gelt served eight years on the Denver City Council and was an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.
