These posts are the opinions of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of A+ Colorado.
The bottom 5% of public schools in the country have chronic low-achievement and need dramatic change. This is one of the most important issues for our country and our state. There have been a few successes in turnaround efforts, but more often than not, turnarounds aren’t working. As Dr. Howard Fuller, former superintendent of schools…
Denver’s public education challenges are enormous with roughly half of Denver’s kids not graduating from high school. Of those that do graduate, few are prepared to succeed at the next level; 59% of Denver’s high school graduates require remediation in college. Most of these students will never get a college degree. As education becomes more…
Originally post on EdNewsColorado, July 5, 2011. Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org. Read article here. The A+ Denver citizens committee is about to get a makeover, with longtime Denver education reformer Van Schoales taking the helm of the organization later this month. By hiring Schoales, the A+ board and its co-chairs, Terrance Carroll (former speaker of the…
We, Denver’s Far Northeast Community Committee (FNECC), invested well over 1000 hours of volunteer time to engage in a process with Denver Public Schools (DPS), facilitated by A+ Denver, to explore options for school improvement in our community. We requested, and DPS provided, a set of best ideas for school improvement in FarNortheast Denver. We considered school turnaround options, testing them with our FNECC Values and Principles that were drafted and submitted to the Denver Board of Education in spring 2010. We actively sought and welcomed input from the community at all of our work sessions. In the course of this iterative work process, we drafted FNECC statements of benefits and challenges and developed a set of commitments for stakeholder actions that we believe will be critical for successful implementation. We, FNECC, submit this report to Denver’s Board of Education as they consider strategies for turnaround in Denver’s Far Northeast schools on November 18, 2010.
State of Denver Public School Reform, 2009