Denver has been opening new schools at a rapid clip in the past five years in an effort to boost achievement and sweep away failing facilities. It’s been a bold and fruitful effort that we’ve supported. But it’s also suffered from mixed results. And a new study from the Donnell-Kay Foundation is a fair appraisal of the good, bad and ugly.
The report, by Alexander Ooms, also urges the district to clearly define how it judges new schools. “Is the expectation for a new school simply that it should perform better than any school it replaces?” he asks. “Should the new school be considered a success if it has higher performance than the respective DPS or state average?”
We’d say the expectation should be that high or higher, an opinion Ooms shares. Otherwise, he told us, “I fear we’re taking kids who are horribly underprepared and making them slightly less underprepared.”
To DPS’s credit, the overall performance of 36 new schools (32 of which survive) has exceeded the academic growth of the state, according to the study. They also account for more than a third of all district schools with “substantial academic growth compared to the DPS average.”
If those data sound hopeful, they should. And they provide another refutation of critics who’ve spent much of the past five years trying to obstruct the district’s efforts to shut down or transform failing schools.
However, a finer-grained look confirms that progress is hardly uniform.
The greatest gains have been made by two growing networks of charter schools: West Denver Prep and the Denver School of Science and Technology. Take those two netw0rks out of the equation and “the remaining charter schools were largely undistinguished,” with academic growth below the state average.
Is that really acceptable in a district in which overall achievement remains lackluster?
The performance of non-charters varied widely, too, with the least impressive record found at schools undergoing a “redesign” — new staff in the same school. In fact, growth scores for such schools were essentially the same as for the district. As Ooms writes, “Denver’s most challenged schools, after a district redesign, virtually never outperform DPS averages. … These turnabout efforts need to be changed substantially or ended altogether.”
Like it or not, replacing schools is better than remaking them.
Fortunately, the data confirm that several non-charter “innovation” schools have performed well. This is important because impressively successful West Denver Prep and DSST can’t be expected to expand any faster than they already are while maintaining their quality. Other models must do their part in bringing “horribly underprepared” kids up to a standard where they can compete for careers and college with their better-off peers.
After all, that’s one of the historic promises of public education: that it provide a ticket to economic mobility to kids of every class.
