Schools Don't Fail, School Districts Fail!
Editor:

Denver citizens, parents, students, and decision makers have lately been inundated with a deluge of deception about the health and viability of the Denver Public School system (DPS) generally, and Manual High School, specifically.

The Denver School Board, the DPS administration and their apologists in the media have declared that students of color (78 percent of DPS students are Hispanic and African American) are failing to test comparably to white students on state CSAP tests because: 1)  the schools they attend in primarily minority residential areas are institutions that are incapable of reversing the inadequate performance of minority students on CSAP; 2)  that poor or low-income students can't measure up academically to more affluent students' testing achievements; and 3) that minority community apathy is a major contributing factor for the low test scores.

The office of the mayor, the new inexperienced superintendent, and the Board of Education members, who have presided over years of poor and declining test scores by minority and poor students in DPS schools, along with their "old-boys club" of paid consultants, foundation "experts," and government officials, have trumpeted these cop-outs endlessly. All the while they are spending more and more of the taxpayers' money ($1.3 billion in the 2005-‘06 school year) to produce fewer and fewer positive gains in comparability between minority and white students, and poor and affluent students. The minority achievement gap continues to grow.

Most cynically, The Board of Education, from Jerry Wartgow’s superintendence to today, promises Denverites a "world-class" system in which all students and all specific groups of students achieve at a high level. One wonders when this will occur, and what means they will employ to achieve this result given their history of failure.

In response to all of the foregoing DPS drivel, I offer my analysis.
First, in the case of Manual High School, its faculty and staff, the students and community, have not failed. DPS has failed them, and libels them as the scapegoats. The Board hires the superintendent, and sets personnel guidelines and policies for him or her to hire the supervisors of the operation of all of the schools. The Board of Education is accountable by law for the operation of all of the schools in the district, and must be held responsible for Manual High School's failures. The billion dollar system's administrators, under the supervision of the Board of Education, in the case of Manual High School and all other schools, plan the curriculum, employ and train the principal, the teachers, and the counselors. The superintendent and his or her staff hire or approve the hiring of all the operation’s contractors and consulting educators and specialists. They had the first and final responsibility for the operation of Manual High School, and must be held accountable.

The Board and administrators determined the enrollment boundaries for Manual High School, (e.g. who the students were), chose the books, educational materials, equipment, and school supplies which were available for conducting the school's operations in the context of a set of policies and procedures which they created or approved. They must be held accountable.

Finally, individual schools cannot be allowed to founder until they are past remediation. This was the case at Manual. The Board of Education and administrators allowed Manual to go into a sinkhole instead of orchestrating professional and community resources to correct the problems there. To the School Board and administration, and only to them, belongs the blame for the crises they describe at Manual High School.

Denver Public Schools have been criticized for years by many in the minority communities for its poor performance. The School Board has taken a head-in-the-sand attitude. The situation is now so extreme that it may take years to repair the system. The Denver Plan's shortcomings in the areas of citizen involvement and cultural competence are cause for further alarm.

The Board of Education has built a wall between itself and the citizens of Denver. Through procedural limitations at  school board meetings on who can speak, and for how long, and whether or not citizens' issues will be answered, the Board limits citizen input and its own accountability. Internal criticism is squelched by simply maintaining a "friends vs. enemies" environment and organizational culture which intimidates staff, particularly teachers. The wall must come down, and citizen trust gained by straight talk and responsiveness.

Schools don't fail, school boards fail communities. DPS had many options to deal with low CSAP scores at Ebert Elementary, Cole Middle School, Gove Middle School and Manual High School. However, all of these schools in the Northeast Denver community have been closed or diverted to other functions than K-12 education.

Does DPS leadership envision a school system with no inner-city schools? Is the funding for schools in the core city to be used to fund schools in the more affluent areas, with Black and brown students forced to leave their neighborhoods to gain an education? Will the CSAP gap be submerged by dispersing students from the inner city?

I answer the three excuses the DPS system has raised as follows:

• The schools that minority and poor students are attending in their neighborhoods are under-funded and under-staffed. The district has made little effective use of community resources and has low expectations for student achievement in these schools. DPS must make a greater investment of both money and expertise in inner-city schools. These schools can be and should be engines of community development, and community pride in the achievements of their children.
• Poor and minority students can achieve CSAP scores comparable to those of white students. The same students, pushed out of closed schools in the inner city, leave to enroll in charter, private and alternative schools and achieve higher scores on CSAP tests. Some current DPS programs, such as The Dozens Program, and the International Baccalaureate Academy at Smiley Middle School, have promise for improving CSAP scores for minority and low-income students, but need to be replicated in other schools.
• The minority community is not apathetic, just excluded. DPS has little credibility with many people in the Black and brown communities, for good reason. The leadership of DPS shows little commitment or ability to reach out to minority and poor citizens to help develop policy, participate in decision making, teach in the schools, administer programs, provide goods or services, or, in other words, help shape the education of children in Denver. Moreover, asking minority and low-income parents to solve the problems in DPS schools when DPS does not welcome them in other roles is insensitive and disingenuous.

Finally, individual schools don't fail; school systems fail. DPS slept at the wheel while schools in the system became places where children of color were not getting quality education, and now the DPS leadership wants to blame the achievement gap of minority students on the neighborhoods, the parents, and the students. 
Perhaps the appointment of high profile, former political leaders will assist DPS leadership in understanding the depths of the problem in our schools, and learn methods of outreach to the community for input on solutions. Significant change in philosophy, commitment, resources distribution, and citizen involvement is necessary to remedy past failures.
Lawrence Borom
Chairman, Black Education Advisory Council

Is President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Act Really The "No Child Left Standing" Act?
Editor:

President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education law should be re-labeled the "No Child Left Standing Act," if his latest proposed tax cuts are allowed to go into effect. It is unconscionable and irresponsible for the president to propose tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens while reducing after school program funding by $400 million, including $4 million in Colorado alone.

What is the president thinking? After school education programs are popular with parents and children and provide a safe, supervised, and supportive place for young people to spend their after school hours. Even before Bush's latest tax cuts for the wealthy were proposed, 44 Colorado communities who sought after school funding did not receive it. This means that more than 61,000 Colorado kids are already shut out of after school programs before the situation gets worse with the new Bush budget.

According to the national Afterschool Alliance, a recent study shows the profound impact that after school programs can have on the safety and behavior of teenagers. It found that teens who were unsupervised by adults compared with those in an after school program were much more likely to have committed a crime or smoked, drank alcohol, had sex or used drugs than the after school program supervised teens.

President Bush and Congress, especially Colorado's U.S. Senators Wayne Allard and Ben Nighthorse-Campbell, need to restore the funding to after school programs to support the millions of families who won't benefit from the administration's economic incentive plan.  The president is pulling the plug in Washington, and the lights are going out on our youth and families here in Colorado.
Bill Vandenberg
Colorado Progressive Coalition

Colorado Immigration Legislation A Model For The Nation
Editor:

Colorado legislators did this year what those in Washington D.C. could not. With help from Governor Owens, we passed a tough, practical and enforceable package of immigration bills that will be a model for the nation.

Employers who hire illegal immigrants will be held accountable. Public benefits will only go to those legally in the state. And come November, the people of Colorado will have a chance to send the federal government a strong message: Take action and solve the immigration problem.

Every year, more than half a million men, women and children successfully cross our borders illegally. Hundreds die trying.

Once here, most work for higher wages than they could earn at home, but lower than most American citizens would tolerate. They live on the fringes of a society that profits from their labor, finances their K-12 education and emergency medical care, and otherwise turns a blind eye.

This arrangement may benefit the migrants themselves, the businesses that hire them, and the customers they serve.  But it is impossible to defend on legal or moral grounds.

Reasonable people can, and certainly do, disagree on the most appropriate course of action. The special session was no exception. But like the debate surrounding Ref. C last year, cool heads and pragmatism prevailed. We put the needs of the state first and chose sensible solutions.

The leaders of Defend Colorado Now, which spearheaded the drive for a constitutional amendment, and Keep Colorado Safe, which opposed it, both describe the bills we passed as more effective and more practical than the proposed initiative that was rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court.  In a recent article, former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, chairman of Keep Colorado Safe, said he thought the Legislature produced a “balanced and productive solution to the immigration challenge.”

And a challenge it is, because even the most effective practical state laws are no substitute for good public policy on the federal level. The best long-term solutions to America’s immigration problems – greater economic development and political reform abroad, stronger border security and a more sensible naturalization process at home – are not in Colorado’s control.

During his opening-day speech in January, Gov. Owens said, “Regardless of what we do here in Colorado, the ultimate solution lies at the national level.”  We agree. The problem is our nation’s capitol has shown little interest in finding common ground on such a pressing issue. Meaningful immigration reform has taken a back seat to election-year posturing, including the delay tactics and distractions that go with it. Even for bright-eyed optimists, the prospects for progress appear slim.

But not in Colorado. This spring during the regular session, the Colorado General Assembly passed, and the governor signed, more legislation aimed at curbing illegal immigration than at any other point in state history -- and more than congress has managed to enact all year.

These new laws are designed to reduce the risk of forgery, to stiffen the penalties for human smuggling and human trafficking, to prevent companies that knowingly employ undocumented workers from receiving public contracts, and to improve cooperation between local officials and federal authorities. All of these measures enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

During the special session we took further action. Employers won’t become “immigration cops,” but they will be in charge of making reasonable, good-faith efforts to see that the people they hire are in the Unites States legally. If they don’t, there will be consequences.

To receive public benefits, you will have to prove your legal status. But everyone is still entitled to emergency medical services and K-12 education. These public benefits are mandated by the federal government. Immunizations, which are vital for public safety across Colorado, remain available.

This year, in two different sessions our state lawmakers gave Washington D.C. a blueprint for reform that’s tough, practical, enforceable and humane. This immigration package is a model for our nation.

Editor’s note: Jim Riesberg is the state representative for House District 50 in Greeley and Debbie Benefield is the state representative for House District 29 in Arvada.