The abrupt closure of Denver’s Manual High School has unleashed a mighty uproar. Officials believe the only way to create a culture of success at the school is to begin with a clean slate and rebuild the school one year at a time.
If public education is to succeed in Denver, what happens at Manuel for the next four years may be crucial for the whole system.
Denver is no longer a city filled with middle class families living in single-family houses with swing sets in the backyard. Though the city is experiencing healthy population growth for the first time since the 1960s, the demographics of that growth are very different than they were in the past.
In the last three decades of the 20th century, the United States experienced explosive job growth, but very little occurred in the private sector of urban cores. Technology, medical technology, software and professional services grew in suburban business centers while cities saw increases in service jobs and government employment.
Denver – like many other cities – redefined itself as a cultural mecca, an entertainment center, a place where abandoned factories and warehouses morphed into hip, urban lofts. Denver’s new economy is based on tourism, conventions and luring the creative class. We are banking on consumption, not production.
The little red schoolhouse down the street doesn’t serve the demands of this demographic. If we are going to serve today’s citizens and tomorrow’s, we’d better change some obsolete notions about K-12 public education.
Fact: Denver Public Schools serves 68,000 kids in 140 buildings. That’s a drop of 10,000 since 2002 and nearly 30,000 since its 1968 enrollment peak.
The per-square-foot average for each student in a DPS building is 179. Compare this to the Jefferson County average of 122 square feet or Douglas County’s 102 square feet per student.
Because the DPS general-fund budget includes less than 10 percent discretionary money, operating too many schools – many built before 1960 – is very expensive.
Fact: The DPS budget is broken. Consider these factors that all contribute to a gloomy future: declining enrollment; non-discretionary costs increasing faster than inflation; increasing retirement costs; increasing compensation costs that exceed revenue growth; and lower per-pupil funding compared to urban districts nationwide.
Fact: Traditional demographics are changing. Only 120 of the students at Manual are African-American – barely 22 percent of enrollment. By contrast, 54 percent of students at George Washington is black, more than 800 kids.
Fact: While the nature of the city is changing, becoming less family oriented, there still are many children who aren’t attending DPS schools. Remembre that district enrollment is about 68,000, but the number of school-aged kids in Denver is estimated at between 80,000 and 95,000.
Where are all those students going to school?
While the district needs to answer immediate questions like that and others, the real challenge for the school district and the city is to recast some fundamental assumptions about Denver and about its schools.
Are neighborhood schools truly serving Denver’s 240,000 households, three-fourths of which are childless?
Should DPS consolidate and strengthen its academic offerings into fewer, better schools in order to relieve inflexible or increasing operating costs?
If DPS is to increase revenue by increasing enrollment, drastic changes – like closing Manual – must be made.
It is unacceptable that only 61 Latino and 33 African-American students, out of the whole district population, score proficient or better on the 10th- grade math CSAP.
The achievement gap has been growing for decades, obscured by happy talk and quixotic attempts at reform. Denver is lucky to have a school board and administrative leadership with the backbone and vision to make comprehensive change.
However, the superintendent, his staff and the board of education cannot do it alone. The time for political squabbling is long past. What happened at Manual – the failure of nearly an entire student body of ninth- through 12th-graders – will eventually overtake most of Denver’s public high schools unless things change.
The gamble at Manual is less the temporary closure and gradual reinvention of a community asset than the challenge of raising and then meeting public expectations. What does quality education mean in the 21st century? It’s time to transform – not reform – K-12 education in Denver.
It is up to each of us – empty-nesters, business executives, seniors, single yuppies, creative hipsters, parents, grandparents and students – to decide what kind of city we want to be. Only then can we determine what the public school system that serves us must look like.
Susan Barnes-Gelt (bs13@qwest.net) served eight years on the Denver City Council and was an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña. Her column appears on alternate Sundays.
