The excitement of the president singling out a school in Denver for praise in his State of the Union last month has passed, and the education reformers have taken their bows and returned to the daily grind.
So maybe it’s time for a sober look at what Bruce Randolph School’s “transformation” has actually achieved — and what it conspicuously hasn’t.
According to President Obama, “Three years ago, (Bruce Randolph) was rated one of the worst schools in Colorado. . . . But last May, 97 percent of the seniors received their diploma. Most will be the first in their family to go to college.”
All of that’s true — as well as something to applaud.
Now here’s what the president didn’t tell you. Most of Bruce Randolph’s test scores remain deplorable. In math, the percentage of proficient or advanced high schoolers is only 12.7 percent; in writing, 15.2 percent; in science, 14 percent.
Only in reading is the news less bleak, with 44 percent proficient or better.
The district itself, in its “Stoplight Summary Scorecard,” describes the school as “on watch,” a status it codes cautionary yellow. And in terms of “postsecondary readiness,” the district bluntly concludes Bruce Randolph “does not meet standard.”
So are the students place keepers promoted from grade to grade without learning much? No, that’s not fair. Their achievement has been improving — and at a faster clip than most students who share the same challenging socioeconomic characteristics. If the students were merely marking time, their attendance wouldn’t be so high — at more than 96 percent, one of the better records in the city — and they wouldn’t bother to graduate.
Graduation should count as a big deal, admittedly — both for what it says to the world at large as it judges these young men and women going forward and what it implies about their persistence. But keep the rose-colored glasses on the shelf. Graduates with such abysmal test scores are hardly likely to become, for example, the highly skilled engineers, scientists and technicians this society increasingly needs.
And even if Bruce Randolph continues to outperform most schools with similar student bodies, it will never overtake, say, the Denver School of Science and Technology (proficiencies ranging from 53 to 81 percent), let alone a school like Cherry Creek (68 to 87 percent).
Reformers on both the left and right persistently downplay the relevance of culture, family structure and other background factors in student achievement — presumably because they are good-hearted optimists and because they fear being accused of harboring what George W. Bush called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Sometimes, though, stubborn evidence from schools like Bruce Randolph leaves the optimists sounding more than a little glib.
Superintendent Tom Boasberg, a huge fan of Bruce Randolph, tries to be both an optimist and a realist, conceding “we’re not where we need to be. This is not good enough.” But he rightly maintains much more can be done both at the school — “you have to keep raising the bar for these kids” — and its feeder schools, and that we have no alternative given the stakes involved.
After all, it’s not as if Bruce Randolph is alone with its challenges. Math proficiency statewide is barely 30 percent in 10th grade — a disturbing figure given the achievement gap between the U.S. and many developed nations.
“We haven’t been sufficiently rigorous across the board as a state or country,” Boasberg insists. “Rigorous in what we expect of our kids, of adults, of our schools.”
So thanks, Mr. President, for the compliment directed toward Denver. But the hard work, let’s meanwhile remember, has barely begun.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
