Tom Boasberg (Denver Post file)
Tom Boasberg is about six years into his tenure as superintendent of the state’s largest and most scrutinized school district.
He can laud Denver Public Schools students’
He has behind him an overwhelming school board majority that backs his reforms – and ahead of him a challenging year as DPS and all Colorado school districts prepare for a battery of tough new state tests.
In an hour-long conversation Tuesday with Denver Post editorial board members and education beat reporters, Boasberg discussed a range of topics including the , the district’s latest state test scores, , and the intensifying debate over how much to test students.
Boasberg said DPS now qualifies as the fastest growing urban school district in the U.S. by a wide margin, with enrollment up nearly 25 percent in the last six to seven years. Roughly a quarter of that is due to population growth fueled by newer neighborhoods such as Stapleton, Lowry and Green Valley Ranch, he said.
About 5 to 8 percent can be chalked up to expanded preschool enrollment, Boasberg said. Most of the gains, however, he attributed to city families choosing to send their kids to DPS instead of private schools or suburban districts.
Much of that movement into the district is happening at middle schools, “the most significant change in the last eight or nine years,” Boasberg said. He mentioned district changes at what had been lower-performing traditional schools and the growth of charter school networks such as Strive Preparatory Schools and DSST Public Schools.
Yet secondary education continues to be a challenge for DPS-run schools. In the district’s , the list of the highest-quality schools, those ranked “distinguished,” was dominated by charter schools.
Asked about top-performing district-run middle and high schools, Boasberg cited Denver School of the Arts, East High School and Slavens School in southeast Denver. DSA is a magnet school that auditions its students and Slavens is a K-8 school.
Here are excerpts from the conversation with the superintendent:
On DPS student growth and families choosing to keep students in the district:
“I think it’s fair to say that for several decades in this country, there’s been the perception that if you are a middle-income family or a low-income family and you want the best education for your kids, get to the suburbs. And that is not true now. And we have great suburban districts … But our kids make more progress than any of those districts. Our kids who start low make more progress, our kids who start in the middle make more progress, our kids who start higher make more progress.”
On the Common Core standards and expectations to prepare students for college and career:
“The Common Core and the Colorado Academic Standards are a huge step forward for us as a state. They’re clearer, they’re deeper, they’re fewer, they’re more rigorous. They’re about problem-solving and real-world applications. They’re aligned from grade to grade all the way through college. In the past there was a sort of fuzziness across multiple grades. And I think our teachers tremendously appreciate the quality and clarity of the standards. There’s also a number of people that are scared. They’re rigorous because you start with, ‘What do you have to do to be ready for college and career?’ Every piece of our data is very consistent. When you look at ACT scores, graduation rates, remediation rates, success in college, far fewer than half of our kids are meeting that college- and career-ready threshold. But our state assessments, like other states in the country, have painted a more generous picture of our kids’ readiness for college and career. Our state assessments have been outlier data compared to all the other more meaningful pieces of data around whether our kids are truly ready for college and career.”
On the criticism that Colorado is over-testing students and spending too much time on testing – and concerns that new PARCC tests that begin this spring will eat up more time:
“The numbers that are being bandied about are preposterous. Your average fourth grader, with PARCC, will take probably about eight hours annually (of tests). That is one school day. Spread that over multiple days … I’d like them to be shorter. I think you can assess kids well in fewer than eight hours … I appreciate the concern. And clearly, again, I think some of the state tests could be shorter. But really, I think it’s a weapon to attack something else. I think it’s the weapon of choice for deeper concerns about should we as a state have statewide standards, and should we as a state have accountability that’s at the state level?”
On calls for local control over academic standards and assessments:
“There is really a sort of natural feeling for local control – ‘let us decide this stuff.’ But you know, I don’t know if I want my local hospital governing board (comprised of) wonderfully committed, dedicated, caring laypeople to be deciding what the medical standards should be at our local hospital. That’s local control. Nor do I think we should have 178 different school boards making up what they think the standards should be for kids and making up what they think the assessments should be for kids.”
