DPS graduation rate up; fewer quit school

Transfer number after eighth grade grows every year

Nancy Mitchell and Burt Hubbard

Published May 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Linda McConnell / Special To The Rocky

Former Manual High School student Ricky Escobedo poses for a picture with Roksolana Fajda after both graduated from South High School on Friday.

Photo by Ellen Jaskol / The Rocky

East High School seniors, from left, Martin Kimoni, Marshae Burton, Jarrod Jones and Isaiah Moody prepare to walk across the stage at their graduation ceremony Friday at the Colorado Convention Center. An analysis by the Rocky Mountain News shows that East is making the biggest gains in graduation rates among Denver high schools.

Denver Public Schools is graduating more students from its high schools in four years and is seeing fewer students drop out during that span.

But the number of students transferring out of city schools after they reach the eighth grade also is growing every year.

A Rocky Mountain News analysis tracking all 5,821 DPS eighth-graders in fall 2003 through four years of high school also found that:

* One of every six students who fell behind at least one grade level was eventually able to catch up, an apparent credit to DPS' expanded intervention efforts.

* East High School, the city's largest, made the biggest gains in graduation rates among all DPS high schools.

* The former Manual High School complex saw a steady stream of students leave the school each year before it was closed in 2006-07, and only 26 percent eventually graduated from a DPS school.

Some good news

The Rocky has tracked a group of eighth-graders through graduation - or failure to graduate - every year for the past four years, an attempt to see how well DPS is doing in its bottom-line goal of preparing students for graduation.

This year's study shows some good news, with slight gains made by students who have traditionally lagged in achieving diplomas.

That includes Hispanic students, low-income students and boys of nearly every ethnicity.

For Noemi Urena, that progress was visible in the form of the multicolored stole she slipped over her red East graduation gown last Friday.

It was the first time that members of the school's Latino Students Unidos wore a symbol - in a traditional Mexican zarape pattern - marking their group.

"That was the ultimate way to prove our presence at East, to wear our colorful stoles," Urena, 18, said. "It was a great feeling."

Of the 5,821 students in the analysis, the single largest number - or 35 percent - transferred out of DPS between fall 2003 and spring 2007. That's when the students would have graduated had they finished on time.

At least some of those transfers likely graduated from high schools outside Denver, but neither DPS nor the Colorado Department of Education keeps track of them.

The second largest group, or 32 percent, graduated from a Denver high school in four years. That figure is up slightly - 2 percentage points - over last year.

Dropout rates decline

But progress is most evident in the continuing decline in DPS dropout rates, which hit a four-year low of 22 percent.

Likely related to that decline is the study's finding that more students who fall behind in the course of high school manage to catch up and finish.

"This means we're getting better, which is good," DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet said Tuesday as he reviewed the data, "but we've still got a long way to go."

Programs aimed at helping students complete high school have mushroomed in the past two years, from summer academies for incoming freshmen to lunch-time, evening and Saturday classes to help older students catch up on class credits.

DPS estimates that nearly 1,950 high school students participated in credit-recovery programs this past school year, many based on self-paced computer work.

That's about one in 11 DPS high school students.

"I also think you can't underestimate the power of the Denver Scholarship Foundation," Bennet added, referring to its 2-year-old promise to help every DPS graduate pay for college or vocational school.

Slight gains found in the Rocky analysis are contrasted with continuing gaps, including:

* Hispanic boys continue to be the group least likely to graduate from a city high school in four years. Only 22.5 percent did so in the group studied this year, though that's up from 19 percent last year.

* Boys lag girls in graduation rates in every ethnicity, with the biggest gap - 10 percentage points - between African-American students. Black girls still graduate at higher rates than every male ethnicity, including white boys.

* Low-income students made slight gains in graduation rates again this year, with 29 percent obtaining a diploma in four years from a city school.

Even at East, which is showing the strongest progress among city high schools, such disparities among student groups linger.

But Principal John Youngquist believes the gains made at East are due, in part, to a plan that puts different kinds of students together in classes.

Three years ago, East began requiring all entering freshmen to take accelerated or "X" geography classes to expose all kids to honors-level material. At the same time, two English teachers began randomly assigning students of differing academic abilities to the same introduction to literature classes and teaching them all to the same high level.

Both initiatives are continuing and growing.

"We are better if we're all together," Youngquist said, "and what the hope, and the data, are telling us is more students, and more students of color, are independently taking on X and AP (advanced placement) courses."

Ignatius Dauchot, an English teacher who sponsors the Latino Students Unidos club at East, said he is seeing more "non-traditional" - minority, poor - students who want to stay on the honors track.

"I encourage kids to take that step and try something more challenging and outside their comfort zone," he said.

One apprehensive student took the plunge and "he really came into his own - it was beautiful," Dauchot said. "Other kids I ask to do it and no, they don't want to - they're not ready yet."

Urena, the East graduate who proudly wore the stole of Latino Students Unidos at graduation, will study business management at CU-Denver this fall.

Last fall, she wasn't planning on college.

"I was like, I'll get a job and I'll be okay," she said.

East teachers, including Dauchot, changed her mind.

'Always in your face'

"Mr. Dauchot, he was always in your face about your education," she said. "That's why I really liked East - the teachers there were always pushing us.

"Some kids ended up hating teachers because they would not leave them alone."

Other students found less to like about their schools.

The Rocky analysis tracked 333 eighth-graders who entered Manual High School in fall 2003.

By fall 2005, before DPS board members closed the struggling school for a year, only 152 of the 333 were still at Manual.

Those students then scattered to other schools and, eventually, only 87 graduated on time from a city high school last spring.

Ricky Escobedo is among the Manual students sent to other schools who struggled in their new classrooms.

"I was one of the best students at Manual," Escobedo said.

But midway through his first year at his new school, South High, he said he was struggling so much, "I was ready to give up."

But he didn't quit, and last Friday, he graduated from South.

Bennet, who was publicly tormented by Escobedo for the decision to close Manual, handed him his diploma.

"It took me a year, and it took me horrible grades last year to realize what was lacking at Manual," Escobedo said.

Of Bennet, he added, "I've already thanked him, and I've told him, 'I see why you did it.' "

Escobedo is enrolled at CU-Denver for this fall.

• May 29, 2008

  9:48 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  jacka writes:

  Bannet on right track, now Bennet must kick Union into shape to move into 2nd gear.

  Vote YES on Amendment 47, give all teachers the right to choose.

  Vote YES on 47 to bring a better environment to our teachers and students.

• May 29, 2008

  9:30 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  sisepuede writes:

  DPS needs to let their teachers Focus MORE of their Professional TIME AND ENERGY and Academic know-how on their students' learning and quit
  -stalling time with their contract
  -playing pea-shell games with taxpayer money.
  Teachers in classrooms make a difference.

• June 2, 2008

  11:30 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  kristen writes:

  Working for Goodwill Industries of Denver, I'm naturally very pleased with these results and I congratulate Michael Bennet and Denver Public Schools for their success in increasing graduation rates and reducing the dropout rate to its lowest in years.

  The article mentions programs that aim to help students stay in school and graduate. While we are well known in the education arena, there is little public understanding of Goodwill’s efforts to provide services to more than 15,000 students who attend 27 metro Denver schools, including East High School.

  Our mentors focus on education and future options for high school youth. The only local, high school-based program of its kind, Goodwill mentors are given platforms and activities that support student growth. We are known for providing flexibility in timing and location, and our staff helps create a collaborative partnership between mentor and mentee. While mentors are helping teens form a path to their future, mentees often have the opportunity to learn from the new generation.

  In the schools we serve, we provide classroom instruction, one-on-one support, and job opportunities to help teens stay in school, gain valuable life skills and become leaders in their communities.
  We are also a member of the Youth Mentoring Collaborative and want to congratulate our peers for their hard work as well. This effort increases the amount of mentoring provided to Denver’s high school students. The collaborative also offers mentors extensive training.

  We invite the community to visit www.goodwilldenver.org or www.youthmentoringcollaborative.org for mentoring opportunities in the community.

  It’s our hope to help make the graduating class of 2009 even more successful.

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