Armed with a $300,000 infusion of cash, leaders from North High School and Padre Unidos two years ago set about to reform the beleaguered northwest Denver school through better teacher training. The idea was to align teacher instruction with state standards.
And it worked. North’s scores on this year’s Colorado Student Assessment Program tests jumped 7 percentage points in two key areas.
Unfortunately, the improved numbers are still unacceptably low, demonstrating the depth of the challenge. Not even one out of five ninth-graders are proficient in writing, and only 27 percent are proficient in reading. Only 1 of 10 are proficient in math.
Those numbers simply don’t mesh with the area’s increasingly high-tech job base in a changing, global workforce. An analyst with Denver’s Office of Economic Development recently predicted “serious shortages” in occupations that require science, technology, engineering and math skills.
In spite of the gains, the number of ninth-graders and 10th-graders proficient in writing and math at North is lower than in most high schools in the city. It’s leading some parents and advocates to warn that improvements aren’t coming fast enough. North High School may be a much-improved school over the last 10 years, but that does little to help the thousands who pass through its doors now.
No one wants to see North get the Manual treatment. With dismal test scores and hundreds of students walking away from the school, DPS shuttered Manual for this school year and plans to reopen it next year as a “premier” high school. Exactly what that means is still being determined.
Some 400 North students also have voted with their feet over the past four years and have walked away from their school.
In the face of Manual’s closure, North has received a groundswell of support from the community. That’s an impressive force for change and could be a key ingredient in DPS’s decision on North’s future.
Nothing has been proposed yet for North, where Principal Darlene LeDoux recently stepped down, citing health reasons. But discussions revolve around continued reform or a redesign. Reform means to press on with what’s already been implemented. A redesign essentially means all teachers would have to reapply for their jobs and a new principal could hire freely from the outside. (Some also have called for North to become a charter school.)
Current North teachers know they’re making progress. Reform, they say, takes time. It certainly does, but too many students slip through the cracks in the meantime.
The discussions being held are invaluable, and we’re glad to see North get the attention it so obviously needs. Unlike Manual, the community has been given ample warning that change is coming.
Manual and North certainly aren’t the only DPS high schools that need a jolt. Only 5 percent of ninth-graders at Montbello are proficient or advanced in math, along with 6 percent at West and 7 percent at Lincoln. It’s essential that DPS give those schools the same kind of attention as Manual and North.
