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DPS shifts gears on how it rates schools

New mode prizes student growth over test results

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 8, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Saylor Stephenson, a first-grade student at Steck Elementary, hangs onto a locker Monday while talking to Stacie Wentling, after-school program assistant. Steck was one of the schools recognized for its growth in student achievement.

Photo by Matt McClain / The Rocky

Saylor Stephenson, a first-grade student at Steck Elementary, hangs onto a locker Monday while talking to Stacie Wentling, after-school program assistant. Steck was one of the schools recognized for its growth in student achievement.

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Denver Public Schools' new way of measuring academic success shows that the best grade school in town is not Bromwell in chi-chi Cherry Creek or even the nearly impossible-to-get-into Polaris School for the gifted.

Instead, it is a small school near Washington Park that Daphne Hunter spent nine years building into a program offering traditional and Montessori classes.

"I was hyperventilating because I was so excited," Hunter said Monday after DPS released its new progress rankings and she saw Lincoln Elementary on top.

DPS' new school report cards prize growth in student achievement rather than results on state tests, which many educators believe to be linked more to family income than anything occurring in a classroom.

The rankings show that measuring Denver schools by growth provides a different picture. No longer are Bromwell, Polaris and Slavens - among the district's most affluent and whitest schools - leading the pack.

Goal: a year's growth

Instead, there's McMeen and Beach Court, two schools with high poverty and high minority rates. Lincoln, the top school, falls somewhere in the middle in terms of income and race.

And then there's Steck and Asbury elementaries, two schools in the top five for both growth and test results.

Chuck Raisch, Steck's principal for five years before retiring last spring, credits hard-working teachers who strive for at least a year's growth for every student.

"The minimum goal was a year's growth," he said. "If you were working with a kid who was three years ahead, it was still to get a year's growth."

The new rankings are based on up to 42 indicators, including academic factors such as state test results and nonacademic factors such as attendance. Growth measures account for 60 percent of the final rating.

Three measures compare schools of similar demographics based on poverty and ethnicity. The intent is to see how schools with like challenges are performing.

At McMeen, for example, students speak 20 different languages, with Arabic the most common after English.

"We look at the population as a positive, not a negative," said Principal Michael DeGuire. "The children who are English language learners may be different ethnically, but they are part of a diversity we celebrate."

DPS Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino said it's the first time city schools have been ranked by growth, so some principals may have been surprised.

'Make the reality better'

"Acknowledge the brutal facts, the reality, and make the reality better," Aquino said, paraphrasing leadership expert Jim Collins. "But first you have to acknowledge the reality."

It might sting that West Denver Prep Charter led all DPS middle schools in growth, including perennial top performer Denver School of the Arts. Or that the Denver School of Science and Technology Charter beat all high schools in both growth and test scores, including popular East High.

Monday's rankings are based on 2005-06 and 2006-07 data. Reports set for release in September will include 2007-08 results.

"The purpose of this is to make sure we are learning from each other," Aquino said. "If someone says, 'I work in a school with high free lunch rates and I can't deliver those results' . . . We can say, 'No, here in Denver, we have schools who are doing it.' "

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245

A new way to measure

DPS released its first school rankings Monday under a system that emphasizes annual growth in student achievement. It's a new way to compare schools:

Top schools by growth Top schools by test scores

ELEMENTARY School Address Poverty rate

1. Lincoln 710 S. Pennsylvania St. 43%

2. Steck 425 Ash St. 9%

3. McMeen 1000 S. Holly St. 75%

4. Beach Court 4950 Beach Court 89%

5. Asbury 1320 E. Asbury Ave. 52% School Address Poverty rate

1. Bromwell 2500 E. Fourth Ave. 9%

2. Polaris 410 Park Ave. West 15%

3. Slavens K-8 3000 S. Clayton St. 2%

4. Steck 425 Ash St. 9%

5. Asbury 1320 E. Asbury Ave. 52% MIDDLE School, address Poverty rate

1. West Denver Prep Charter 1825 S. Federal Blvd. 84%

2. Bill Roberts K-8 2100 Akron Way 63%

3. Fairmont Dual Language K-8 520 W. Third Ave. 90% School, address Poverty rate

1. Denver School of the Arts 7111 Montview Blvd. 14%

2. KIPP Sunshine Peak Charter 375 S. Tejon St. 87%

3. Slavens K-8 3000 S. Clayton St. 15% HIGH SCHOOL School, address Poverty rate

1. Denver School of Science and Technology Charter 2000 Valentia St. 38%

2. CEC Middle College 2650 Eliot St. 67%

3. South 1700 E. Louisiana Ave. 62% School, address Poverty rate

1. Denver School of Science and Technology Charter 2000 Valentia St. 38%

2. Denver School of the Arts High 7111 Montview Blvd. 12%

3. CEC Middle College 2650 Eliot St. 67%

Comments

  • April 8, 2008

    7:15 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    analytixman writes:

    Typical Educrats... if you don't like the way things are measured by standardized testing with rigorous standards, change the way you measure it so everyone looks better.

    If you examine what DPS has done, they are saying certain schools can not compete, so we will lower the standard for those schools and measure them within the the confines of less performing group. Wow, what a great approach, we soon will have even more mediocre schools.

    Can someone please help me understand why Educrats are so paralyzed by competition and the fear of excelling? Dumbing down the measurement is not the way to improve the scores. In this approach, DPS can now be the best of the worst!

  • April 8, 2008

    8:47 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    MAM writes:

    Just for a moment, forget about the complaint "DPS is fudging the numbers" and focus on the fact of what you are really getting from the current State's school rating system, for the average middle class family (most of us in the Denver area) who is looking for a school, using the information the State gives us to take advantage of the little school choice we have in the public school system.

    The State rating system is a disgrace, it is feel-good interventionism at its worse and it adds nothing of value to parents trying to choose a school. It feels good to send your kids to "the right school" because all the "right families" go there, but when I was looking for schools and talked to the "right families," my impression was that their real estate values were the highest priority on their school choice and their children's school reputation helped with that. Needless to say my kids ended in a different kind of school.

    What I want to know is that there are schools were my kids will learn as much as they can, and looking at individual growth tells you that better than ranking the schools. Excellent and high ranked schools, not only at DPS but in all Colorado districts, have an incentive to cash out on the work families do with their children BEFORE they go to school and OUTSIDE the classroom (reading every day, taking them to museums, traveling and volunteering with them, not watching TV, etc. or just talking, talking, talking with them) and advertising it as their own doing. Many of these middle class children are having flat growth in schools where administrators and the influential families, as I said, care more about what the school reputation does for their property values than for what their children are learning. Parents, many kids in those schools ARE NOT getting a year growth of knowledge and you don't even know it. You better do your homework before falling for the feel-good system we have in place now. And no, I am not a friend of the DPS crust, I am not a teacher, I don't belong to any union, I am not in welfare and I am not against testing children and using standards or benchmarks to assess learning. I just happen to wonder aloud.

  • April 8, 2008

    5:28 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    8thgradestudent writes:

    I'm an 8th grader at Morey and I went to Polaris for elementary school. While the former method of testing was abominable I don't think that this is much better. Last year after taking the second benchmark test our language arts teacher informed us that acording to the benchmarks our intelligence had actually gone down from the beginning of the year. Now, any rational person would know that while our intelligence levels might have stayed the same or have gone up, it wouldn't make sense for them to go down. What had happened was that we had gotten advanced scores (for the most part) on the first test, and so therefore figured that we didn't need to try on the second one, and as a result made mistakes that we knew better about because we considered it a waste of our time and didn't try. I think that instead of taking tests that favor some groups over others, the state should just allow the teachers to teach, which is what they're good at anyway.

  • April 9, 2008

    8:08 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    rationalmind writes:

    Analytixman has no idea what he's talking about. The CSAP scores measure the standards and show at what grade level any given child (and therefore any given school) is performing. What the CSAP does not show is growth. If a school takes a child in 4th grade, and at the beginning of the year that child is performing at a second grade reading level (two years below grade level) then during the year moves that child up to a third grade level, they have made significant growth. What the CSAP and the current method of School Report Cards reflect is that the student is still below grade level.

    This new method of grading schools takes into account the growth that individual students make during a year's time. It more effectively represents how a school is performing. It is in no way 'dumbing down' the standards or lowering the bar. Teachers work really hard in trying to move their students to the next level, and trying to move a child two grade levels (or more!) in one academic year is very difficult.