The Colorado School Accountability Reports released this week looked fairly impressive, with officials boasting that 71,407 more students now attend schools rated “high” or “excellent” than did four years ago.
But, unfortunately, the report cards still need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Not all of Colorado’s students are enrolled in those high-achieving schools, and the achievement gap between whites and minorities is still too large.
Gov. Bill Owens and Education Commissioner William Moloney chose to put a mostly rosy picture on the SARs, even though far too many schools are still failing far too many children. They know this, of course, and want to reverse the trend. But first they need to admit there’s a problem with a system that told parents, with a straight face, that there are no unsatisfactory public high schools in Colorado. (Five charter schools across the state were listed as unsatisfactory.)
At least one in four Colorado high school graduates need remedial work, costing the state millions. The state ranks 48th in the country in sending minorities on to college. In some high schools, more than half the kids drop out.
All of that sounds pretty “unsatisfactory” to us.
And then there’s the “Safety and School Environment” category of the reports, which is mostly fiction. A student was killed at Montbello High School – in the middle of the cafeteria – yet the school claimed no fights or assaults all year. Last year, Jefferson County’s school district claimed there were 644 assaults and fights at its schools. But after seeing other districts fudging their numbers, Jeffco changed course and reported no fights this year. By allowing schools to fudge, that section of the report card is worthless.
Under Colorado’s accountability system, a school rated unsatisfactory three years in a row is converted to a charter school in the fourth year. But what about schools that bounce from unsatisfactory to “low” and back to unsatisfactory year after year? The system allows them to languish without intervention. Education officials are wisely pushing legislation for next year that restarts the clock for failing schools that have completely revamped their curriculums.
The number of schools rated “high” or “excellent” increased by 2.6 percentage points, to 42.9 percent this year, which is great news.
Plus, all of the information the state has collected is valuable in helping determine how our children can get better educations. Only a decade ago, there was no such data.
Colorado is on the right track in terms of testing and collecting data, but more work needs to be done.
