Students Tasnim Muhamed, 12, left, and Gloria Uwase, 12, work together on their research project. Sixth-graders in Alice Wilcox’s English Language Development class work on their end-of-quarter foreign country research project at Aurora Hills Middle School. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)
Re: “Aurora Public Schools failing, students lagging behind,” Oct. 7 news story.
Public education and professional sports teams are alike insofar as both require a significant expenditure of financial resources to succeed, but they differ greatly in the public’s acceptance of their deficiencies. If the Denver Broncos performed like the school systems in Aurora and Denver, there would be a general alarm accompanied by great demand for immediate improvement. However, failures in public education are accepted with indifference by the majority of Colorado’s tax-averse voters.
The dismal graduation rate of Aurora Public Schools, as documented in the “If Not Now” report, is yet another example of the result of grossly insufficient education funding which results from the state’s obsolete fiscal system now encumbered for nearly a quarter-century by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Frank Tapy, Denver
This letter was published in the Oct. 10 edition.For those wondering about the quality of teachers in Aurora, rest assured they are not falling short. As a University of Colorado Denver adjunct instructor, I have had the privilege of working with some of these dedicated and hard-working professionals for five years.
They walk into my class at 4:45 p.m. bedraggled and exhausted after a full day of teaching; they come with their satchels of papers to grade and their sack dinners from Panera or lattes from Starbucks grabbed on the run. But when they talk about their students, they become engaged and the classroom is filled with buzzing conversations about how the intricacies of language affect their English language learners. One of the course requirements is an extensive case study on language structures of an ELL student. Although this adds to their already full plates, the teachers dive in without complaining because they truly do want to help all of their students be successful.
Aurora parents — know that your children are in very capable and caring hands.
Lori Dubetz, Littleton
This letter was published in the Oct. 10 edition.
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