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DPS looking for diversity, consults Jim Crow
By Andrew Flohr-Spence
spencand@mscd.edu

Denver Public Schools are undergoing a corporate restructuring. After many years wallowing in the mire of bureaucracy, the city chose a former businessman to be DPS superintendent.

Michael Bennet had no experience in education, child psychology, social work or any such typical prerequisites for the job; he was a debt-restructuring specialist.

After making his millions working for Denver business-mogul Philip Anschutz, he became Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff in 2003, and in 2005 he was put in charge of the city’s schools.
A fresh way of looking at the problems of the school system was needed; a businessman would make things happen. And Bennet, now two years into the job, has definitely made things happen.

The question, however, is if the changes benefit students.

He and his staff came up with “The Denver Plan,” a document establishing the goal of highly skilled instructors working with highly skilled and empowered administrators in a safe, orderly, enriching environment to pursue student achievement.

Needless to say, several of the city’s schools were not meeting the criteria. Many schools had nasty test scores, and dropout rates were shocking.

Manual High School had a dropout rate of more than 60 percent, and in North High School’s 2005-2006 10th grade class, only 69 students out of nearly 300 showed proficiency in reading. Only 14 were proficient in math.

Thinking out of the box, Bennet closed Manual for the 2006-2007 school year to give time to revamp from the bottom up. Perhaps because of the outcry over Manual’s fate, North High School only suffered a “redesign,” meaning a new principal was chosen and teachers had to reapply for their jobs. Last month, half of North’s staff was told they would not be returning in the fall.

Needless to say, Bennet’s moves have been welcomed by the affected neighborhoods like a tsunami.

School administrators tried to console people by saying that drastic action is needed, and change is never easy.

The issue not being properly addressed is: Why do the schools in question just happen to be those with the fewest white students?

A 2006 study commissioned by the Denver-based Piton Foundation found that in the 10 years since we stopped busing the rich kids into the poor neighborhoods, lo and behold, schools have resegregated, and the poor schools have seen a collapse in test scores and attendance. Apparently, there is a direct correlation between the number of low-income free lunches and scholastic achievement.

In response, Bennet explained that Denver does not need any mandatory effort to reintegrate things. He says we need to improve every school – an approach I think used to be called “separate but equal.” The thing that worries me is that we already tried that approach, and busing was ordered by the Supreme Court, because Jim Crow didn’t really work so well.

We may not have signs today telling who to go where, but the fact is some people cannot afford to move and they get stuck with bad schools. This is where the drastic action is needed. While all the fancy plans and radical redesigns may seem like big changes, until we look at the real problems, we will continue our slide back toward yesterday.