This article was submitted by Gregory Hatcher, a 2009 graduate of the Denver School of Science and Technology, a current student at Colorado Christian University and a member of Stand for Children Colorado.
Change is hard and sometimes difficult decisions have to be made to improve outcomes for kids. Over the past few months we’ve seen how difficult change can be. In November of 2010 the Denver school board voted vote to turn around six of the lowest performing schools in the Far Northeast area, which were also among the lowest performing in the district. The vote turned out to be 4-3.
Of the four board members voting yes, one was Nate Easley. Easley is president of the DPS board and the District 4 representative, which includes the Far Northeast area.
Most recently, a small but loud group of folks tried to recall Easley for many alleged transgressions, one of being his recent vote on the FNE turnaround plan. With only 6 percent of students graduating from Montbello high school ready for college in a district with a whopping remediation rate of 55 percent, I don’t understand the attacks on Easley for taking a strong position to address this dire situation.
There need to be people rallying around the fact that thousands of families choice out of the Far Northeast area because the schools in their neighborhood aren’t meeting the basic standards for their students. When looking at the graphs that the Colorado SchoolView website offers, you will see that too many schools in the Far Northeast are failing to grow and achieve around math, reading, and writing standards.
I want to take this opportunity to encourage all decision-makers in charge of the implementation and turnaround in the Far Northeast to remember that too many students have failed and are failing in the current system. All families and students in the Far Northeast deserve and need better options. They need schools that are preparing them for college and life. They don’t need schools that fail students and leave them to a future of poverty or prison.
It’s troubling to me that the criminal justice system plans for jail and prison expansion based on 3rd and 4th grade reading levels. I ask that the adults making decisions within DPS and the community work to flip this percentage. It would be amazing to hear that the criminal justice system is using 3rd and 4th grade reading levels to determine how much to reduce jail or prison capacity in Colorado.
I’m a 2009 graduate of the Denver School of Science and Technology. I currently attend Colorado Christian University where I’m studying education, and I work with Stand for Children Colorado which is an organization focused on making public education better for all kids in Denver and Colorado. During my recent testimony in front of the DPS school board I told a personal story about the differences between the education I received at DSST and what my cousin received at Montbello High School.
My cousin is just as smart if not smarter than me but he had a very different high school experience. He was a lead on the drum line at Montbello and he can point to core classes, even math, where he was pushed on just because he could play a drum, and he wasn’t the only one that was passed along without learning what he needed to learn. So what happened when my cousin went to college?
He attends Metro State, but not on the “traditional” track. His first year at Metro he felt that he was constantly going backwards trying to catch up to the rest of his peers because Montbello did not prepare him. Consider the amount of money he and his family have had to pay for remedial courses. Consider the emotional struggles he had – so much so that he had to take time off. I ask you, how many smart students like him are dropping out of college. How many students like him are we pushing on the track to either poverty or prison?
I believe every student should have a fair chance of succeeding in college and life. Schools that produce results like DSST regardless of whether they’re a charter, traditional, or alternative should not be an exception, they should be the rule. I ask you, as adults reading this article today, what are you going to do to ensure students like my cousin have an opportunity to receive a quality education? There are too many students failing in the Far Northeast, and it’s not fair, it is an injustice.
I believe that if the families and communities come together around the changes in the Far Northeast then they can and will be successful. As adults we have to remember to keep kids at the center of our conversation because ultimately it’s their future.
I’ve chosen to work at Stand for Children and go to school to ultimately make public education better for all kids. Time is not on our side. When you see and hear that 94 percent of students graduating from Montbello High School are in need of remedial courses when entering college it should spark a fire in you and challenge you to work towards turning failing schools around.
Please keep in mind that I was one of the lucky students to get into DSST, but I always remember that none of my friends who applied had their numbers called. Thinking of those friends, my cousin, and the hundreds of other stories like these keeps me motivated to continue the work to create better high quality schools for all students.
Change is hard and sometimes very difficult decisions have to be made in order to improve outcomes for kids.
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Thanks for sharing your perspective Gregory. It’s both encouraging and infuriating.
I am the elder cousin of Gregory. First I am proud that Gregory continues to work hard to right the injustices that we see. Our faith and our family demand nothing less from us. Greg brings up a few issues that I want to comment on.
1. The gridlock that is caused because of adult issues and agendas, and the apathy of many is at the root of our struggles. The challenge, as Greg puts out, is that we must all stand up for excellence for all children. That’s the only agenda that matters. As the kids say, we need to squash the adult drama. Then and only then can we do what Greg says, “keep kids at the center of our conversation (and actions) because ultimately it’s their future.”
2. There should be outrage throughout the city! Dr. King said in 1963, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I believe that less than excellent education anywhere is a threat to excellent education everywhere. Folks in the SE, Central Denver, folks in green schools, and blue schools should be standing up outraged that in their city students are receiving less than an excellent education. It shouldn’t only matter that your kids are good. What about their peers? My kids are in great schools in the FNE but that’s not enough for me. All kids in DPS deserve great schools! Our grandfather, who saw and fought the civil rights struggle, has said of our current situation, “my generation would already be marching.”
3. Outrage alone is not enough! Purposeful action must be birthed from our outrage. We can’t just sit in our conference rooms or offices and write reports about what’s wrong. We need to, with a sense of urgency, intentionally begin to fix what is wrong, getting at the cause and not simply the effect.
4. I’m not putting the entire burden on DPS. We must own it as a community, as parents, as students. We know where we are bleeding out, and if we don’t, we need to be educated and equipped with tools so that we can stop the bleeding.
5. SEAT TIME PROMOTION. Our cousin, whom Greg speaks of, has a great gift. He is an amazing musician but he should never have been advanced, and he felt that he was, without the skills to be successful. Seat time is not enough. We need to be sure that students have the skills. Period.
6. Students should want more than credit for just showing up. A high school diploma should mean that you have the skills to be successful on the next pathway of life, college, career, or service to the country. It shouldn’t mean that you simply put in the time.
7. Success in the FNE and anywhere in DPS for that matter is dependent on schools, families, and communities working together and collectively demanding and delivering nothing but excellence for all students.
Courageous Greg! I think it’s your turn to pay for dinner! Love it when your younger cousins work.
Your column hit on a variety of important issues, one of which I would like to address: supporting a high-quality neighborhood school, albeit in the Near Northeast quadrant.
I am a fierce public school advocate with a four-year old. I have a deep desire to live an urban lifestyle, in an neighborhood that is mixed-income because I hold strong beliefs that housing policies are related to the success of our schools. Therefore, my family and I have chosen to live in the Curtis Park/RiNo neighborhood and we have enrolled our daughter in Gilpin Montessori for the 2011-12 school year.
When I moved to Denver six years ago, Superintendent Michael Bennet and his team were in the process of creating the Denver Plan. Within a year, part of that plan involved closing Manual High School. During that time, and the district made a promise to open a high quality Montessori school in our neighborhood as a symbol of his commitment to building a system of great schools to serve a deeply underserved part of our city (see http://www.denverpost.com/ci_5003387). For the past five years, I have kept my eyes and ears tuned to the changes in the neighborhood system of schools, specifically at Gilpin (our neighborhood school), especially after my daughter was born four years ago. A year ago I learned that there were plans to hire a new principal and that the school was part of the School Improvement Grant that DPS received to “turnaround” its lowest performing schools (this funding is from the U.S. Department of Education to the state of Colorado, then to DPS, read more here: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/sif/legislation.html and a new report on the this funding here: http://www.educationsector.org/publications/portrait-school-improvement-grantees).
With its SIG money, DPS and Gilpin have identified a series of initiatives that they will do over the next three years (2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13). One task was to hire a community outreach director, who has revamped the schools website, updates it regularly, secured the Whole Foods bag donation program at the Capitol Hill location, worked with Coffee at the Point to have a percentage of profits go to the school over a three-day period, and these are the things I am aware of as a future parent! All of our schools should be so lucky.
Supporting the lowest performing schools in our city (and our nation) is imperative and it needs to come from the entire community, not only parents, as Gilpin’s principal and outreach director know and are able to do. We need our local business owners, our neighbors, our extended families, and our formal and informal community leaders to extend a helping hand. I refuse to say that “teaching a kid to read” is an “easy” thing that our community can do (I for one have not been trained to teach reading), but I will say that reading a book with a child would be helpful. Here is a small list of other ideas: attend a play to see what kids can do; assist in a lunch room to teach kids to separate their trash into recycling and compost bins; volunteer for field day; organize a fundraiser to support a peace garden will teach our kids about how real food is grown. Show your support actively!
Come visit Gilpin on Saturday, April 30th from 9 to 12 to see some of the changes that have taken place over the past six years and to identify how you can contribute to Gilpin (or take what we know and apply it to your neighborhood school). You can “like” our school on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gilpin-Montessori-Public-School/181400675215900 or simply rsvp via phone at 720-424-7161.