There is much debate in Colorado about how to improve our public schools. The stakes could not be higher. We suggest a simple principle to guide this debate: Every student in every neighborhood deserves a high-performing public school.
Based on this premise, we simply must focus on the quality of our schools first. Colorado school districts must aim to have more high-performing schools in every neighborhood (regardless of their classification) district, innovation or charter school.
There exists a false division between charter schools and “neighborhood” schools, or those serving a traditional geographic area and run by a local district. In reality, many charter schools are neighborhood schools, working closely with a community and the families that live there. All charter schools are public schools. In fact, they are every bit as public as traditional district or innovation schools.
The Denver School of Science and Technology and West Denver Prep are charter schools. They were the top two performing public schools in Denver last year and are proud to be Denver public schools.
West Denver Prep is an open-enrollment school that serves a representative sample of its neighborhood in Southwest Denver. Ninety-three percent of West Denver Prep students qualify for federal reduced and free lunch and 90 percent are Latino. West Denver Prep ranked second on the DPS School Performance Framework in 2009. It has posted the city’s highest growth scores among middle schools for three years in a row, and is the only “distinguished” school in Denver to serve more than 50 percent reduced/free lunch students.
The Denver School of Science and Technology is an open enrollment school with one of the most diverse populations of any school in Colorado. DSST’s student population includes 65 percent minority, 45 percent low income and nearly equal distribution of Hispanic, African-American and Caucasian students. DSST was the top performing public school in Denver and, most important, achieved the highest student achievement growth rates of any school in Colorado over the last three years.
Both DSST and WDP are proving that all students — regardless of ethnic, economic or learning background — can both grow and achieve at the highest levels.
The Denver Scholarship Foundation Report projects that among 4,164 low-income students who entered Denver public schools in 2004, just 187 will successfully pursue a four-year college degree. If West Denver Prep and DSST successfully build their projected networks, we could add 360 low-income students annually to this total within 10 years, a 292 percent increase. This is one of many reasons why charter schools are a critical component of improving public education.
Some argue that charter schools serve students who might already be successful, yet both of our schools are open-enrollment schools that admit students by random lottery. Some argue that charter schools do not serve a representative group of students with special needs, yet our schools both serve a significant population of special needs students and welcome more.
We do not believe that charter schools are the only path for students. Traditional district schools, innovation schools and alternative schools all have an important role to play. We should be encouraged that there are multiple strategies that our districts can use to ensure a great education for all students.
In the end, the debate about how to improve public education must focus not on the governance or management system each public school utilizes, but on the results that each teacher, school and district achieve for their students.
All Colorado students deserve nothing less than a high quality school in their community that will give every student the chance to go to college without remediation.
Bill Kurtz is founding head of the Denver School of Science and Technology; Chris Gibbons is founding head of West Denver Prep.
