Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg kicked a hornet’s nest last week when he announced that the city’s poorest and lowest achieving schools would no longer be the routine dumping grounds for direct- placement teachers.
Instead, Boasberg decided to spread that joy among all schools so that even the most highly ranked schools will get teachers that other schools don’t want. It was a courageous move — and absolutely the right thing to do for children.
Direct-placement teachers are those who have been let go by their schools but cannot find another job within the system. If they remain unhired by the end of spring, state laws say they are forcibly placed in another DPS school with an opening.
By placing them at, say, Bromwell Elementary in the Cherry Creek neighborhood, we can imagine the vocal reaction from parents — and that very well may be the point. Boasberg’s action will force a broader conversation about direct placement and, ideally, about state laws that govern the practice.
It would be great if the superintendent of this struggling urban school district got some legislative help, but so far what he’s gotten is stalling and what we see as capitulation to the teachers union.
Boasberg consistently has voiced strong feelings about the inequity of a system where direct-placement teachers end up in the lowest-performing schools.
The schools with openings typically are the ones with the highest poverty rates and big achievement gaps to close. So you have a system in which three-quarters of unassigned DPS teachers were placed in Title I schools during the past four years. Title I schools have high numbers of poor students and qualify for federal grants designed to improve education for disadvantaged children.
It is unfair to foist teachers who aren’t a good fit onto any school, but it is particularly cruel to put them into schools that already are struggling and where there is such great need for strong professionals who really want to serve in that school.
We had high hopes for the end of direct placement in Colorado, particularly after seeing the draft of a bill by state Sen. Michael Johnston, D-Denver, which would have eliminated the practice and enacted broad changes in the way teachers earn and keep tenure. It is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
The bill would offer a lifeline to struggling districts trying to change the culture in their schools. But so far those schools aren’t getting much help from Gov. Bill Ritter’s administration, which wasted an opportunity to push for teacher tenure and direct-placement reform by failing to include such legislation in Colorado’s bid for the first round of Race to the Top federal grants.
Instead, the governor created a commission that isn’t required to report recommendations until Sept. 30, 2011. That delay is what we see as capitulation to the teachers union, which bristles at any intimation that direct-placement teachers are ineffective. And by no means all are — but it’s not called the Lemon Dance for nothing.
We hope Johnston’s bill is introduced soon, and is given a fair hearing. Colorado’s children have waited long enough.
