This excellent piece of reporting by Westword’s Melanie Asmar exposes some scandalous practices in the “credit recovery” program at Denver’s North High School. As a fomer North teacher says at the article’s conclusion:
“What sucks is that there are kids working their butts off for a diploma to mean something and there are kids getting diplomas from North who have earned every single credit on there plus more,” says Brown. “Then a bunch of other kids get the same diploma, and it devalues it.”
She adds, “I’d hate for…people to look at a transcript and say, ‘Oh, they went to North? They’ll give a diploma to anyone.’”
Watch for this story to change some practices at North and probably other DPS high schools.
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This is a pretty damaging piece that’s already resulted in the resignation of Nancy Werkmeister. Measuring schools based on graduation rates is a measure of the adults, not necessarily the preparedness of the kids. Without rigorous standards, our diplomas are being devalued and cheating our students.
Thanks to Westword for exposing this.