Denver Public Schools’ plan to shutter Manual High School and reopen it as a “premier” school has caused some understandable anxiety among parents and students in northeast Denver. But the proposal is merely a pre-emptive move. The school was shutting itself down.
Manual was revamped five years ago and has struggled ever since, shrinking 47 percent as students voted with their feet. In 2001, Manual had 475 ninth-graders. Four years later, only 95 graduated.
DPS’s 2001 reform effort divided Manual into three separate “academies” on three floors. It was an ambitious undertaking for Denver’s lowest-performing high school, a school that’s struggled mightily since the end of busing in the mid-1990s. The intentions were good, but not much went right. In the past three years, not a single Manual student has scored “advanced” in essential subjects such as reading, writing or math.
With such poor student achievement, we’re glad to see that the new administration at DPS has decided to tackle the problem head-on.
Exactly why the “small school” experiment failed is an important discussion for another day. Today, DPS administrators must find ways to bolster the academic needs of Manual’s current students, who will come back together next fall as one school. But it’s for one year only. Those who don’t graduate will transfer into other high schools. And next year’s freshmen will be assigned to other schools, most likely West High.
In August 2007, Manual will open with just freshmen, and a new curriculum. Each year, a new class would be added.
DPS owes it to today’s eighth-graders, and current Manual students, to make sure their needs are met at a new school. Plans for an adult mentor for each of the 250 neighborhood eighth-graders sound worthwhile and promising.
Superintendent Michael Bennet has pledged to revive DPS fortunes, and he’s right to act forcefully. By starting with just one class in 2007, Manual can shed the baggage of past failures, and that first class can help set the tone and environment for future students. The next 18 months will be key; we hope Manual can regain its proud footing, educating a new generation to walk in the footsteps of alums like former Mayor Wellington Webb and award-winning author Ted Conover.
Meanwhile, as the rest of DPS watches Manual’s progression, staffers and students need to know that high school reform is more than just a one-school project. DPS, after all, has more than one under-performing high school.
