(Editor’s note: This commentary originally ran in the Denver Post on June 2. Central Park Education News is posting it with the writer’s permission.)
Denver Public Schools has quickly fallen from one of the most successful urban school districts in the nation to one of the worst in Colorado.
Parents fear for their children’s safety. There are regular reports of weapons in schools, and fewer than one in five low-income elementary school students is reading at grade level.
Now is exactly not the time to give Denver Public Schools a billion dollars in new funding. The leadership of the district is running DPS into the ground.
It is shocking and inexcusable that there have been no significant changes in safety policies in the 15 months since the murder of East High School student Luis Garcia, or the preventable shootings of two school administrators. Weapons continue to be a major problem in Denver’s schools while the public has even less visibility into what is being done to address these problems. Students found with guns on campus are allowed to return to school with daily weapon searches.
Student achievement in DPS cratered after the pandemic and has shown no signs of recovering, while many other Colorado school districts have bounced back. Only 13% of Denver’s low-income elementary and middle school students are reaching math proficiency and the growth numbers for high school math are getting worse relative to most school districts in the state.
The district had slow but steady increases in achievement for all groups of students whether Black, Latino, White, non-low-income or low-income for over a decade. DPS is now moving in the opposite direction with achievement becoming worse for nearly every group of students on math and literacy since coming out of the pandemic.
Denver, like most large cities is losing enrollment because of rising housing costs, gentrification, and families having fewer children. The negative impact on student learning is compounded significantly each year as needed classroom dollars are diverted to fund many half-empty school buildings. Denver’s surrounding districts, Jefferson County and Aurora have stepped up to address this fiscal problem by “right-sizing” their districts through program consolidation and school closure, ensuring more dollars go to teacher pay, staff, and classroom supplies than underused facilities.
Given the school board’s fiscal mismanagement and inability to address this fundamental structural problem, it makes no sense to give the district more money. DPS must have a plan to address its growing fiscal problems before receiving more funding.
Yes, our schools are underfunded, and teachers are underpaid. Buildings need to be upgraded with air conditioning. But first we need to make sure student safety and learning needs are being addressed while the board effectively manages their budget. The district’s challenges will only be exacerbated by voters giving the district another billion dollars.
Despite last November’s election of new school board members with a clear mandate to have the district focus on safety, achievement, fiscal management while holding the superintendent accountable, little has changed, other than fewer drama-filled board meetings. There is no new achievement plan, strategy to bring spending in alignment with declining enrollment, or any effort to ensure the superintendent is accountable for student success. In fact, there is growing evidence the district’s downward spiral is accelerating with no substantive evaluation of the superintendent, senior leadership silenced, staff working in fear, and many of the best district’s best educators leaving.
Twenty years ago, DPS had falling student enrollment, declining test scores and less than half of low-income students graduating from high school. Thanks to broad and deep community leadership combined with in-depth media coverage of the challenges in DPS, the school board changed, and a series of superintendents were able to get the district on an improvement path.
Voters can demand the district address these clear problems before supporting the bond or they can allow themselves to be distracted by calls for needed air conditioning.
I’ll be the first to call for a billion-dollar bond once the district has stabilized its budget and enacted policies ensuring a safe quality school environment for all students with clear measurable targets. But until this happens, we need to say “no, not now.”
TO CONSIDER:
- 1 in 5 low-income students at grade level in reading and math.
- Academic growth/improvement for students of color and low-income students worse than most districts in Colorado.
- There has been no right sizing or consolidation of facilities despite student enrollment declines.
- District has allowed little or no transparency on safety, school performance or student outcomes.
- Effective school leaders have been pushed out (latest in long list of stories).
- District has focused on curbing (and sometimes closing) effective innovation, charter and district schools.
