Blog posts are the opinions of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of A+ Colorado.
A+ Updates In need of some summer reading? Catch up on local education facts from A+: The Outliers: The State of Colorado School Districts Start with the Facts: Aurora Public Schools Start with the Facts: Denver Public Schools News to Share Moving Forward on School Restart Following the closure of Greenlee Elementary and Amesse elementary,…
Originally appeared in the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Flypaper By Christopher Rom A short new report by A+ Colorado evaluates the recent gains of Denver Public Schools (DPS) in a way that education leaders elsewhere might beneficially heed. First, we see that more DPS students met grade level proficiency for Math and ELA in 2016…
This month, 50,000 Colorado students will graduate from high school, but more than one third—about 17,500 students—will not be college ready. Most Colorado high schools graduate some of their students ready for the next steps in life, but far too few high schools graduate most of their students ready to take on the challenges of…
Aurora School Board Director Cathy Wildman made multiple anti-immigrant statements at the Aurora Public Schools Board Meeting on May 15. The resolution brought before the school board should not have been controversial, Denver and many other school districts passed similar resolutions without controversy. The resolution, crafted by APS students and families convened through RISE Colorado,…
Could you imagine a city that didn’t closely track the value of every house to assess property taxes? This data is ubiquitous and drives both individual decisions (like home buying) and policy decisions around budgeting, planning, zoning, and transit. This information is available to the public and policymakers nearly immediately and is just a google…
A+ Updates Again, We Started with the Facts On May 9, A+ came out our latest report on the progress of student achievement in Denver Public Schools. Read the report today! News to Share Equal Money for All School Types Colorado took a huge step forward by passing HB 1375 which will, at long…
“We’ve managed to slip evolution’s leash now, haven’t we? We can cure any disease, keep even the weakest of us alive and one fine day perhaps we shall even resurrect the dead, call forth Lazarus from his cave. Do you know what that means? That means we are done, that this is as good as…
Last week, the Colorado State Board of Education turned its back on the 83,475 students in turnaround and priority improvement schools when they gave Aurora Central High School and HOPE Online a free pass to continue to continue to collect our tax dollars despite not educating our students. The Colorado State Board of Education…
Originally appeared in Education Post. Published online: April 14, 2017, as “Colorado’s ESSA Plan Doesn’t Quite Get All Kids Across the Goal Line.” As Colorado updates its accountability system to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), we have the opportunity to rethink how it provides both accountability and transparency. Unfortunately, the ESSA State Plan…
A+ Updates We Started with the Facts On March 22, A+ brought together community leaders for the release of Start With the Facts: Aurora Public Schools 2017, our latest report on the progress of student achievement in the district. After our 2015 report, If Not Now, the district took on some aggressive reform efforts, including…