I wanted to take this opportunity to address the concerns raised in recent media reports about the credit recovery at North High School.

The issues raised in the report are very serious ones, and we are actively investigating the claims and reviewing our overall credit-recovery procedures.  Should we find violations of our guidelines or ethical standards or the need to implement clearer or stronger policies, we will take action to ensure the integrity and rigor of that program and all of our programs.  We certainly recognize that for our diplomas to have value, our programs must be – and be seen as – rigorous.

In addressing the concerns about rigor, it’s important to take a minute to discuss the purpose of credit recovery and where it fits in our overall high school programs.

First, a word on rigor.  Over the past several years, the Denver Public Schools has significantly strengthened the rigor of its high school programs. The district has increased the number of credits required for graduation from 220 to 240 (the highest in the state to our knowledge) by adding a fourth year of math and additional lab-science requirement, among other changes.

We have nearly doubled the number of students taking and receiving college credit from Advanced Placement courses over the past five years, and we have also nearly tripled the number of students concurrently enrolled in college-level courses.

The percent of concurrently enrolled students receiving As, Bs, or Cs in these college level courses (and therefore college credit) is over 80 percent. And these increases cross all racial and socioeconomic groups. Our district also has posted double-digit gains in math and reading proficiency on state assessments over the past five years.

Our mission at DPS is to ensure that all of our students graduate high school and successfully pursue postsecondary opportunities and become successful world citizens.  This is an important mission in that it sets a high bar that requires that we implement a system district-wide that meets the needs of all of our students regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what their previous academic performance may have been.

Aligning mission to Denver Plan

This mission aligns with the 2010 Denver Plan goal of being the best urban school district in the country.  It says that we recognize and appreciate the diversity within our student population and the many unique needs of our students and we are making it our responsibility to construct a system that prepares all students for success in the college and career opportunities they seek.

In order to fulfill this mission, we need to acknowledge where we are currently (a roughly 53 percent overall on-time graduation rate/66 percent for traditional high schools); we need to understand the challenges that negatively impacted efforts to improve in the past; and we need to work to construct a comprehensive system that better meets the needs of the students we serve.

Doing this requires improvement in how effectively we educate the entire child from kindergarten through 12^th grade.  This includes raising the bar for all students in terms of academic rigor and expectations at all grades and at the same time implementing sufficient supports to ensure that students meet these expectations. We want our most motivated and successful students to know that they are noticed and appreciated, and that they will be challenged to reach their highest potential. At the same time we want our students who experience struggles to know that we expect them to be successful as well and will do what it takes to see that they too reach their potential.

This potential involves preparation for education beyond high school. Whether they be four-year universities and colleges, two-year community colleges or technical schools, or one-year certificated programs and/or military service, our goal is to prepare all of our students to enter these institutions having mastered the necessary standards and without the need for remediation.

In addition to implementing rigorous grading standards, we also recognize that we must have strong support systems when students fail to meet expectations or do not respond to the initial interventions by the classroom teacher and school leadership. Our students have a responsibility to learn, and we recognize that there are some students who have not mastered the study skills necessary to gain subject matter proficiency in their studies. In such cases, these students will earn failing scores and this will require us to provide more intensive supports to help them meet expectations.

Confronting tough challenges

Again, if we are to accomplish our mission to graduate all students and prepare them all to be postsecondary ready, we cannot give up when faced with these challenges. For these students, we will provide targeted support that helps them get back on the right path. These supports include, but are not limited to, interventions such as unit and credit recovery.

Unit recovery should be implemented as an on-time intervention after a student has not demonstrated mastery of content in a major unit of study while enrolled in a class. It consists of the collaboration between the classroom teacher and the student (with the support of school leaders) to re-take a unit that the student failed to master through the demonstration of competency on specific unit standards. This may occur in the classroom, online, or in a blended model.

Credit recovery, on the other hand, involves a student retaking a course they have previously failed. This is typically done in a blended learning environment involving online curriculum and assessments with instructional support provided by a teacher. We are partnering with APEX Learning on these efforts because of the rigor and comprehensiveness of their programs. Their programs are used across the nation in many urban districts to provide original credit, Foundational Courses, Literacy Intervention, Advance Placement courses and preparation, and unit and credit recovery. APEX is accredited by the Northwest Accreditation Commission and approved by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

In order to ensure the rigor of our credit recovery courses, the courses are each supervised by a teacher and the student receives individualized instruction as well as working online. Individual assignments emphasize the mastery of essential state standards, as in traditional courses, and students must demonstrate through assignments mastery of each individual unit before they can move on to the final exam.

To pass a credit recovery course, a student must obtain a score of 80 percent or better, which is 20 points higher than in a traditional course that has a required semester of seat time.  Students in a blended learning environment should be supervised at all times and all assessments should be closely monitored as expected in all classrooms. When taking tests and quizzes, students (except as may be provided for in an IEP) may not use of books, notes, web sites, or any other aids.

A thorough investigation

We are doing a thorough investigation of credit-recovery practices and auditing graduation transcripts at North High School to determine if these guidelines were not followed. To date, that investigation has determined at a minimum that there were serious deficiencies in following procedures and keeping records during the 2009-10 school year.

We will continue a thorough and comprehensive review of credit-recovery at North and ensure that the shortcomings at that school from last year are not repeated in other programs throughout the district. We continue to believe strongly in the important role that unit and credit recovery play in our schools, as they do in districts nationwide.

It has long been clear that the old way of requiring a student who fails a course to repeat it again the following year in the same classroom fashion that the student failed it the first time is ineffective and leads to a big increase in dropouts. Our data clearly shows that the highest number of student dropouts fell off track during their ninth grade year due to failing core classes. Data also shows that it is increasingly harder to get these students on track the longer they are allowed to remain off track to graduate. The solution here must be to ensure the rigor of unit and credit recovery offerings, not to do away with them.

We must also face the question, as Mr. Gottlieb points out: “Whether the pressure exerted on high schools to improve graduation rates tacitly encourages school administrators to juke the stats to make themselves and the district look better.”

We acknowledge that this incentive exists here as in many places elsewhere.  The incentive to make oneself or one’s unit look as good as possible statistically is true regardless of whether you’re measuring graduation rates, financial performance, academic achievement, or athletic performance. The problem of teachers and schools having incentives to pass students on to graduation by reducing rigor long predates and extends far beyond credit recovery.

The question then is, how do you deal with the fact that these incentives have existed, do exist, and will exist. The answer cannot be to stop measuring or caring about our schools’ graduation rates. For that is clearly one of the most important measures of a high school.  Rather, the answer can only be in the district having a strong combination of clear procedures, ethical practices, and strong action to address of any violations.

As part of this effort, I convened earlier this year a task force of teachers and school leaders to clarify and strengthen grading policies, with clear alignment to state standards. Grades should not be based on process elements, like attendance, but on demonstrated proficiency through multiple assignments and test on the elements of the state standards the course is covering.

Setting high expectations for all

Students who are demonstrating an inability to complete assignments as expected by teachers should receive immediate intervention or consequences, depending upon the reason for not completing the work. This may include mandatory tutoring classes before school, at lunch, after school, or during the school day. It may also mean shortening the student’s academic class schedule to include core academic classes and a favorite elective, and then providing targeted study sessions the remainder of the day, with very small teacher-to-student ratios focused on supporting students with the completion at mastery level of work assigned by classroom teachers.

We cannot allow our students to choose to fail and for them to believe that we will do nothing to prevent it.  Teachers are NOT to give students either full or partial credit for work they did not do. In fact, we have taken recent action to end a grading practice at one of our high schools that allowed teachers to give a grade of 53 percent to students who missed an assignment.

Missing work is to be marked as missing in the grade book, and interventions are to be implemented immediately to support students who need additional instruction to complete the task or to hold students accountable for completing what was expected of them by their classroom teacher. Like school grading and measurement policies, school makeup work policies should be communicated effectively to all students, parents, and other stakeholders and consistently implemented throughout the school without exception.

We are here as public servants in the field of education for the sole purpose of giving ALL of our students the skills and confidence they need to make their dreams come true. We expect a lot from them and from ourselves. We work hard to challenge, support, and inspire our students. We do not accept excuses for failure; we will not tolerate dishonesty in reporting student achievement; and, we will never give up on a single student.

The recent Westword article on Denver North High School’s manipulation of its graduation rates, the  belief that “juking the stats” likely spreads beyond a single school and a sage comment at the end of Alan’s post wondering what other Denver high schools were affected all indicate that this is a topic where rhetoric might benefit from a closer relationship with data.

At its crux, the question is if graduation rates tell us something meaningful about how district schools are performing academically. And it sure looks like they do, but not in the way one might have hoped.

For what the North debacle — and a previous yet related controversy over Lincoln High School — bring into question is twofold. First, does a high school diploma signify a reasonable, baseline level of student achievement; and second, is the rise in DPS’s graduation rate spread evenly throughout the district or is being used by some schools to mask a lack of academic rigor and proficiency.

To answer the first question, we need to see if there a pervasive gap  – particularly at certain schools — between a school’s graduation rate and the ability of its alums to read, write, and do math at grade level.  As one teacher at North commented for the Wesword article, are we reaching a point where someone could say “Oh, they went to North? They’ll give a diploma to anyone” – and for how many schools might this be an issue?

So here is a quick graph comparing respective 2010 graduation rates (data here) and 2010 average proficiency rates* (from CDE’s schoolview.org) at a number of notable, open-enrollment DPS high schools.

The red line indicates the trend; the schools above the line will have more students who graduate with solid academic skills; those below the line will have more graduates who lack basic proficiency. How far you are from the line shows the gap: well above the line pretty much guarantees a close correlation between graduation and at least a base level of academic ability; well below the line increases the likelihood that a diploma has little relation to academic skills.

What do we see? Joining North below the trendline and as prominent outliers are Bruce Randolph and MLK – both of whom have graduation rates within spitting distance of 90 percent, and yet proficiency rates that are but a small fraction of those numbers. Also below the trendline, but somewhat closer, are Kennedy and Montbello; while Lincoln teeters just above the line but with poor scores on both. And perhaps this will surprise no one, but is is exactly these schools who have had the most recent progress with graduation rates, and DPS has not been shy on trumpeting this data as a mark of success.

The recent increases in DPS graduation rates seem to be driven by precisely this same set of schools — all of whom lag badly in academic proficiency.  While both Bruce Randolph and MLK are graduating their first class and don’t have previous data, the other schools all have double-digit percentage increases from 2009 (North 21 percent, Kennedy 17 percent, Montbello 15 percent and Lincoln 14 percent), while the four schools with higher proficiency saw far smaller jumps (East 4 percent, GW 6 percent, DSST 8 percent, and  TJ 10 percent).

So, are these schools masking their poor academic progress with the easier task of boosting graduation rates?  Should we celebrate these schools for their progress with graduation rates (as President Obama did with Bruce Randolph), or question why few of their graduates are able to do basic academic work? Particularly for administrators (as the Westword article showed), it may be far easier to achieve — ethically or not — higher graduation percentages (and proclaim your school a success) then the more difficult work of driving better academic results. Should one obscure the other, or should the two go hand-in-hand.

Mind the Gap

To look at the same data a slightly different way, here is a table showing the same schools, this time ranked on the final column of a graduation-to-proficiency gap (the ratio of graduation percentage over average proficiency).

There is one school with a graduation rate significantly above the mean, and a proficiency rate significantly below the mean: Bruce Randolph.  North places second, and it is testimony to its low proficiency that they do so while still ranking significantly below the mean in graduation rate.  Montbello manages the largest gap with stunning inadequacy at both ends, including some single-digit proficiency scores and the second-lowest graduation rate overall. Lincoln and MLK round out the quintet of schools where the numbers look askew (with Kennedy pretty close behind). While it is a somewhat arbitrary line, a gap ratio greater than 2:1 is a good place for further examination.

Does this mean that some of these schools, along with North, are “juking their stats”? It’s not clear – many are also achieving higher than average academic growth (including Bruce Randolph and MLK) — but then again, diplomas are intended to indicate some measure of academic proficiency, not growth.  And, as Westword pointed out, North, Montbello and Lincoln all have full-blown Credit Recovery centers offering a different (and let’s be honest and say a far less rigorous) path to graduation. In many ways, in boosting graduation rates — and any lowering of standards to ease the path to a diploma as is clearly the case at North — these schools are probably digging their proficiency holes even deeper.  It means not just that these schools may fulfill the fear articulated by the teacher at North of awarding a diploma to just about anyone, but that the gap may increase still further.

And, perhaps more importantly, does it even matter if the heightened graduation rates are “juked” (with programs such as online Credit Recovery) or honestly achieved if they are not accompanied by increased academic proficiency? In 2010, DPS increased its graduation rate by 5.4 percent but saw a boost in overall proficiency of just 1.3 percent (and that was for all schools – I’d bet for traditional high schools the proficiency increase was probably flat).  If you were a school administrator, where would you put your efforts (and what can you better control)? And if you were DPS, to which measure would you prefer to highlight?

Is Graduation an Academic Measure?

For the larger issue is a point on which there is surprising disagrement: Is it the primary purpose of public schools to graduate students with a certain threshold of academic skill?

A surprising number of people – some of them friends, many of them reasonable – argue that, particularly in high-poverty urban schools, academic achievement is subordinated to other measures. Advocates of these schools would say that increased graduation rates means kids are not dropping out, are meeting other metrics of responsibility (such as attendence and basic class assignments) to earn passing grades, and are absorbing critical social and other skills that leave them more mature and better equipped for their lives after high school.  Under this rubric, it is an achievement to simply keep these kids in school at all.

Detractors would argue that the purpose of schools is not simply to warehouse kids in a safe facility and build social aptitude, but to impart some basic level of academic ability, and that allowing them to graduate without these skills may do more harm than good, particularly when many of these students — who have, after all, successfully passed their classes — have no idea that they are ill-prepared compared to many of their peers, and will quickly find that the demands of college or the modern workforce far outstrip their preparation. There is no second chance at K-12 education.

A related problem involves rising remediation rates – the percentages of students who go to college who are unprepared and have to retake classes at a high-school level.  As Alan pointed out just over a year ago, this is a state-wide issue, but many of these same DPS schools (North, Montbello, Lincoln) are again leading the pack. There is a good and reasonable debate on what these remediation numbers really mean, but at a minimum, the relative differences between schools is cause for apprehension.  And in looking at proficiency scores, we are talking here about something even more fundamental – not just if students are prepared to continue on to higher education, but for those who have decided to stop (or are unable to continue) their scholastic careers, do they have the academic skills that one might expect after 13 years of public education?

Several states now require some independent assessment for graduation. California, by way of example, has a High School Exit Exam, which survived a considerable legal challenge on its way to becoming law. When they first instituted the test, nearly 20 percent of seniors failed it. Recent classes have done better. This exam is hardly draconian: one gets eight chances to pass, the test measures English at a 10th grade level and Math at an 8th grade level, and it requires just 60 percent or less of correct answers to pass. But if you have a high school diploma in California, it has a set meaning – one that connotes something of value to both its student recipients and the employers who seek to hire them. Does a diploma in Denver have the same meaning?

For these diplomas are widely viewed as a critical and central measure of public education. In the most recent (and final) mayoral debate, both candidates criticized DPS’s current 52 percent graduation rate and singled out graduation percentages as an important metric they would track to better understand the success and progress (or lack thereof) of public education in Denver. Graduation rates were mentioned more times than any other single metric, academic or otherwise.

As moderator of the debate, I asked both candidates about the graduation problems at North, and if they favored an independent academic assessment at graduation (or at other points in K-12 education) so that a DPS diploma would indicate a certain level of academic achievement. Both candidates somewhat slipped past the question without answering it directly (hear the question and responses in the full podcast at 36:30 to 40:40 via link or download).

Asking for a higher graduation rate without also wanting to measure or interpret what it may mean is the norm, and not just for politicians. This is partly due to the heightened political climate of Denver’s education debate, where a reform-oriented administration pumps up some stats beyond what they may deserve, while any negative news is seized by defenders of the status quo as a way to criticize the superintendent and  weaken the administration and its reforms. This discourse makes rational discussion increasingly difficult.

But aside from the political theatre, the people who are harmed the most by the graduation-proficiency gap are the legitimate students from many of these schools who have worked hard and justly earned their diplomas, only to find this achievement largely debased both by the actions of their peers, and a system that — rightly or wrongly — seems to increasingly use the mantra of “multiple measures of achievement” to boost graduation and other metrics while undermining academic preparation and proficiency. This, after all, is the blunt narrative at the heart of public education’s problems: adults fighting each other to protect jobs and for political supremacy while kids suffer.

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* Note: It might be more accurate for a particular class to use 10th grade proficiency from 2008 (since this will be the graduation class in 2010), but I thought it was a more complete to look at the proficiency for the school overall, and also more fair if a school has had significant academic progress in intermittent two years.

• Charter schools and low-SES kids: Damned if they do, damned if they don’t? Matthew Yglesias
• Seven obvious things in education that are ignored. Washington Post Answer Sheet blog
• Eight reformer state education chiefs endorse NCTQ review of teacher prep programs. Teacher Beat blog
• Diane Ravitch is right to pop myth balloons about miracle schools (including Bruce Randolph) Flypaper
• Data-driven policymaking? In your dreams. Larry Cuban’s blog
• Big flaws in NYT piece on Gates Foundation influence. Rick Hess Straight Up

(These views represent the personal opinions of the author and may not reflect the position of the University of Colorado Denver or the University of Colorado system).

As we start summer – the real, post-Memorial Day, school is out, summer – it is worth reflecting on the near-term future of education funding in Colorado.

The legislature recently finished its session, which focused mainly upon budget cuts.  Both higher ed and K-12 took cuts, but in the end, these cuts were somewhat less than some feared (higher ed), or less than the original level of cuts (for K-12).  Remarkably, as the session ended, the fact that that cuts could have been worse seems to have been spun as mainly good news.

EdNews recently linked to new U.S. Census data that ranks Colorado’s per pupil K-12 spending (all revenues divided by number of students) as 40^th among the 51 states (including DC).  That 2008-9 data is now two academic years behind  – two years, by the way, full of deeper cuts in Colorado (and some cuts in some other states, too, to be sure).  Consistent with other data on this subject, the Census Bureau shows Colorado spending about $2,000 per pupil below the national average.

I will leave it to others to figure out more precisely what $2,000 per pupil could buy.  It would seem, in a single class of 25 students, even if only two-thirds of funds were spent in the classroom, it would buy $33,000 worth of extra instruction for the students in that single classroom – a para-professional, lots of useful technological aides, or whatever students need most.

As we look ahead to fall 2011, districts and schools will face the legislature’s budget cuts, and it will be interesting to see the reactions.  In the meantime, a few noteworthy events will occur.

First, the Lobato lawsuit, about whether Colorado’s K-12 funding is “adequate” under the “thorough and uniform” clause, should be heard in August.  While court decisions are somewhat unpredictable, it is possible that the Colorado Supreme Court will rule K-12 revenues to be inadequate.  Should they make that decision, the next step would be somewhat unclear – as courts have limited enforcement powers (not zero powers – the New Jersey Supreme Court, after several rulings on school finance, and legislative inertia and stalemate, eventually forced budgetary actions).

Second, State Sen. Rollie Heath’s (D-Boulder) proposal will likely be put on the ballot. Heath proposes to to roll back tax rates to the rates of the late 1990s, a period of a major economic boom in Colorado (yes, that rolling back involves a tax increase from current levels).

While passage may not be likely, no tax increase proposal in Colorado is ever likely.  There is a self-fulfilling prophecy element here as well – many potential supporters are not yet on board, because they fear defeat or believe that voters have “no appetite for new taxes,” but all that could look different in November, if the Lobato plaintiffs win, the economy continues to improve, and parents see the results of the latest budget cuts as their children return to school with larger class sizes, fewer programs, fees for buses, fees for extracurriculars, etc.

Third, the lawsuit against TABOR (the Taxpayer Bill of Rights), started by Herb Fenster, will move forward, now with lots of signatories from both parties.  This argues that TABOR has gutted the representative form of government for the state of Colorado.   While also perhaps a long-shot, there is logic to the argument.

I have previously proposed consideration of the hypothetical CIBOR –the Citizens Bill of Rights.  Under CIBOR, the legislature could not cut any programs that affect Colorado citizens (where cuts are defined in real dollar terms, per affected citizen), without a vote of the citizens.

Most people would say that CIBOR is ridiculous – how could the legislature be bound by such constraints, as it needs to balance the budget?  And yet TABOR pretty much does the same on the spending side.  So, as silly as CIBOR might seem, it is just the symmetrical, mirror-image of TABOR. In either case, the power of the legislature is substantially restrained.

Fourth, a committee made up of key foundations, non-profits, and other stakeholder groups is examining the school finance act, with a potential “reform and resources” agenda. While past legislative commissions on school finance, in 2005 and 2009, were unable to come to actionable consensus, perhaps this outside group can move such an agenda forward.

So, the legislature is done for 2011, but funding issues will continue to evolve.

Last week’s article in Westword about abuses in Denver North High School’s “credit recovery” program touched a nerve, and for good reason. It’s a textbook example of kids being used to make adults look better.

There’s no reason to believe the problems detailed in Melanie Asmar’s story are limited to North. In fact I’ve received emails from people at other Denver high schools alleging similarly questionable practices. And the New York Times wrote a national story about credit recovery abuses in April.

I’m sure most of the adults involved – heck, probably all of them – allowed and in some cases encouraged kids to cheat on credit recovery homework and exams thinking it was in the best interest of those kids. So many studies, after all, have shown that young people’s prospects improve significantly with a high school diploma.

If the diploma has been watered down to the extent that the credential becomes meaningless, though, then every graduate of North High School is hurt by this extreme manifestation of the “pobrecito syndrome” (as in “oh, these poor babies’ lives are so hard we can’t expect too much of them.”)

There’s also an element here of gaming the system for less altruistic reasons. Juking the stats doesn’t just happen in “The Wire.”  It’s exactly what happened in North High’s credit recovery program.

For those of you who haven’t read it, here are the main points from Asmar’s story.

• North began using credit recovery in 2008, when its graduation rate was 46 percent. The program allows students who have failed core courses to retake them online with adult supervision.
• By 2010, North’s graduation rate had jumped to 64 percent.
• Asmar uncovered information from sources and records showing that kids and adults gamed the system, thereby increasing pass rates. Kids used search engines to find answers or took tests repeatedly until they got the right answers and then passed those answers on to friends. Adult supervisors said North administrators “encouraged and even helped” kids find ways to pass online tests.
• North students in credit recovery could get a semester’s credit simply by taking the credit recovery final exam for a given course, which caused Asmar’s sources to wonder “whether they really learned anything at all.” Yet a senior DPS administrator, Antwan Wilson, was quoted by Asmar defending this practice.

There are many more depressing details in the story, but you get the drift.

It sure sounds like juking the stats to me. And, as in “The Wire,” while it benefits some people, it hurts others. In this case, it’s allowing students to graduate from high school without demonstrating in any meaningful way that they have learned enough to succeed in higher education or the job market.

The good news here is that plenty of caring teachers at North were outraged by the shenanigans and blew the whistle by calling Asmar. The bad news is that they resorted to this because they couldn’t get any satisfaction inside their own building. Westword found emails showing that one mid-level administrator at 900 Grant Street knew students were using the Web to cheat, and urged the school to block those sites during tests. But apparently no one from the district followed up, and North kept the sites unblocked.

Once Asmar brought the issue to the district’s attention, Wilson, DPS’ assistant superintendent for post-secondary readiness told her that the district would audit the transcripts of every North graduate over the past two years. But what will the district do with its findings? And what, exactly, can an audit prove?

It is incumbent upon the district to launch a major investigation into credit recovery practices in all its high schools. In the unlikely event that North proves to be an isolated case, the people found responsible should face harsh sanctions (Assistant Principal Nancy Werkmeister, identified in Westword as the administrator in charge of the program, recently retired, and the principal, Ed Salem, is leaving the district).

If, as seems more likely, the investigation uncovers similar problems in other schools, then the district needs to do a couple of things. First, it needs to tighten its implementation of the credit recovery program and write clear regulations about how credit recovery computer labs are monitored.

More important, though, the district leadership needs to do some soul-searching about whether the pressure exerted on high schools to improve graduation rates tacitly encourages school administrators to juke the stats to make themselves and the district look better.

Miraculously boosting graduation rates by giving would-be dropouts a meaningless diploma does no one any favors. And it sure as hell doesn’t make anyone look good. Quite the contrary.

Scandals of this sort call into question all the data the district releases trumpeting its improvement, and give fodder to the district’s relentless critics. Does DPS release the numbers without vetting them? Does it cast a beady eye and investigate suspicious jumps in test scores and graduation rates at specific schools?

I hope so. If district officials believe in statistical near-miracles, then (to borrow a parable I once heard) they are like the man who gains 50 pounds, can’t fit into his clothes, buys a much larger pair of pants, finds that they fit well and proclaims, “See, I’m in shape!”

Does it matter what Denver’s next mayor thinks or does about public education?

Does the mayor of Denver have on obligation to work to improve our schools?  To improve the opportunities for our kids—the majority of whom are in the Denver Public Schools?

(I do not believe Mayors Peña, Webb, or Hickenlooper felt any such obligation. So what is different about 2011 that we might answer yes to these questions?)

Or is all the talk by mayoral candidates on reform only that—mere chatter, a token tip of the cap to this issue—or even worse, a distraction from more fundamental issues—like addressing a $100 million budget shortfall—that are the responsibility of the city’s leader?

Readers of The Denver Post get a decidedly mixed message.

In his April 26 column, Mike Littwin wrote that schools were one of the major issues in the mayor’s race, but he was quick to remind us, in parenthesis—(“over which the mayor has little control”).  Vincent Carroll echoed this when he criticized the mayor’s race, as of May 4, for paying little attention to the city’s most pressing issues. Why? “Maybe the candidates were too concerned with letting us know their views of reform in Denver schools,” he wrote, before adding, “which the mayor doesn’t happen to govern.  It’s time they abandoned that dead-end theme and moved on for good to other issues.” And Joanne Ditmer began her May 27 column with this rebuke: “Sometimes it seems the candidates for mayor of Denver don’t live in the same city that I do.  They talk a lot about education, ignoring that it’s a Board of Education task.”

So should our next mayor use that political clout, or stay on the sidelines?  If the Post itself seems to waver, voters are putting education high on the city’s agenda.  According to the Survey USA poll in early April, the top concerns were: economic issues (31 percent), schools (25 percent), and budget (21 percent) (Post, April 15, poll of 588 likely Denver voters).

It was noteworthy, too, that candidates with the most tepid positions on education—Carol Boigon, Doug Linkhart, and Theresa Spahn—bowed out early and/or only earned single-digit support.  Some of them protested too much, methinks, harping on how they were NOT running for superintendent (as if we weren’t sure).  When they spoke of how the city could “join hands with DPS” and do more “to partner” with the district on recycling programs, for example, many turned away, certain that such tinkering in the margins was outdated—and no match for the challenges facing our schools.

In contrast, all three top vote getters insisted the mayor’s office could and would play a much bigger role.  And although James Mejia seemed nearly as eager to address education as Michael Hancock and Chris Romer, he remained lukewarm enough to win the endorsement of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.  Voters favored the two who sounded more certain that reform must go forward.

Here are three reasons we have should expect our mayor to be a strong advocate for significant improvement in our schools:

Leadership. How can one be called the city’s leader and not care about and speak to the unsatisfactory education too many kids experience, or the unsatisfactory results, in our schools?  How can one impose restrictions on the role of a leader—to say he or she must be silent, or quiescent, regarding the quality of education of 70,000 or more students in the city?

I realize some consider Mayors Michael Bloomberg, Richard Daley, and Cory Booker taking on their school system as a power grab, more about control than good schools.  There may be an element of truth in that.  But many of us applaud city leaders who tackle one of their cities’ most profound challenges.  We see mayoral control, not as trespassing on someone else’s turf, but as an act of leadership.  Times change.  Realities sink in.  This is what is different about 2011—in Denver, and across the country.  Big city mayors have connected the struggles of their school districts to the quality of life and future well-being of their communities, and they have chosen to act.

I know too we are not talking about mayoral control in Denver. Yet. Both Michael Hancock and Chris Romer have indicated they do not see today’s situation in DPS calling for such intervention, but neither have ruled it out in the future.  Good.  A useful shot across the bow.  I see leadership here.

Who decided education should always be exclusively the Board of Education’s responsibility?  Lincoln’s words apply, do they not? “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” Why restrict the mayor’s role and his or her voice by insisting on all that city hall cannot do?  I apologize for pulling out the trite phrase, but yes, maybe it does take a village.  It seems odd to sideline city leaders who rightly feel a moral obligation to pull more folks and resources and ideas together to address such a huge problem for the community.  After all, if this is “the civil rights issue of our time,” don’t we need all hands on deck

Taxes.   As a Denver homeowner from 1991 to 2003, my property tax bill often included this note: “58 percent of these taxes are determined by and collected for the Denver Public Schools.”  Residents send the majority of their annual property taxes to the schools.  But throughout that time I never felt the superintendents expressed my views, and seldom heard school board members who spoke for the changes I was rooting for.  It was natural to hope that there were other political, business, and foundation leaders who could challenge the school district’s reluctance (at best) to embrace choice and charters in the 1990’s, to allow more site-based management by principals and schools, to demand more accountability, to rethink its policy of placing teachers in schools.  But those voices were muted, short-lived, or isolated.  Most of my money was passing into or through the 900 Grant Street bureaucracy—about whose stubbornness and stumbles our mayors were remarkably silent.

Denver voters of late have had enough of this.  Perhaps someday soon they will have had enough of the school board itself.  Until then, taxpayers have good reason to ask the person they elect as the city’s leader to actively seek significant improvement of the system—one their tax dollars maintain.

Jobs. When we don’t have a school district we can be proud of, it affects the city’s future, as well as current efforts to interest potential companies to locate here.  The Post’s Jeremy P. Meyer wrote on the mayor’s race and jobs, and quoted the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation’s chief economist, Patty Silverstein.  “Do we have the workforce that they are looking for?” is a central question, she said. Among their considerations: “education spending” and “the performance of public schools (“For Denver’s next mayor, it’s jobs, jobs, jobs,” Feb. 20). Former Mayor Wellington Webb told the Post that when corporations or high-priced athletes look to relocate, “One of the first things they do is look at the school system. And one of the reasons they locate outside of Denver is because they don’t have to send their kids to DPS” (“Schools near top of syllabus,” April 17).

Neither Romer nor Hancock plans to follow the hands-off approach of their predecessors.  On April 24 Romer told the Post: “ … the education reform profile of the next mayor will determine whether we continue forward or not. There’s just too much evidence that a mayor who looks the other way will allow the process to flip and we just have to be on the ball, which means I will help recruit candidates [for school board, I presume]. I will walk for candidates. I will help fundraise for candidates who share a reform agenda.” (See Vincent Carroll’s wise warnings about the consequences in the school board race.)

Michael Hancock told the Post: “I’ll hold school leaders accountable, and look for efficiencies between the city and DPS, so dollars focus on student achievement” (April 17). Again, there are plenty of folks who wonder if a mayor can really do this.  Given our present structures, isn’t it voters who must hold the school board members they elect accountable, and isn’t it their job, in turn, to hold accountable the superintendent they choose—and through him, DPS as a whole?  Aren’t we inviting too many chefs into the kitchen when we ask the mayor’s office to hold all these folks accountable?

It is a worry, I agree.  And yet the current situation is scary.  We already have Denver’s progress at risk because a board could be at cross-purposes with the district’s priorities.  True, if we add a mayor who is keen to have an influence on public education, the situation could become untenable.  I can imagine a superintendent might feel he or she has one too many “bosses” to report to—and decide the only sane choice is to just walk away.

The bigger worry, however, is that we continue the pattern set during the 21 years I have lived in Colorado—where a school district with enormous challenges and inadequate progress is allowed to trudge along, while the individual we vote as our city leader plays silent observer, or (more condescending) unquestioning backer and defender, of a system that cannot graduate 60% of its students.  That is asking our mayor not to lead, not to take a stand on an issue critical to the well-being of the city and its future.

Tony Lewis, director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation, described it well in his look back: “What we have seen to date is mayors saying, ‘I support the superintendent, and I think he is doing a good job.’ But we have a bunch of failing schools. Have you heard a mayor yet say we should close those failing schools? Finally, we have candidates who are saying ‘This does affect the city’” (Post, April 17).

Failing schools surely deserve more attention (see Westword’s damning piece on North High, one of six Denver schools expected to receive $14.4 million in federal funding for turnaround efforts the next three years). The sad truth, though, is that so many schools are struggling.  By its own assessment, of the 132 in the district, the DPS 2010 School Performance Framework determined that nearly one-quarter —32—were Accredited on Priority Watch (18 schools) or Accredited on Probation (14).  Most schools (71) did not Meet Expectations.

So over half of the schools do not meet expectations, meaning—what, 40,000 students are in a school that falls below Denver’s own standards?  And we can’t expect the mayor to help?  I don’t think so.

“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.

• Diane Ravitch on Bill Gates’ negative influence over public education. Daily Beast blog
• The average college grad starts at $27,000 per year, if he or she can find a job.  Joanne Jacobs
• On a related notes, student loan default rates are rising fast. The Quick and the Ed
• Has Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss become the Lou Dobbs of education? Jay P. Greene
• Michelle Rhee and former union chief Parker: Strange bedfellows. Teacher Beat
• What’s the real difference between Bill Gates and Randi Weingarten? Dropout Nation