Later this month, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education is scheduled to decide the future of Denver’s school quality measurement tool. The School Performance Framework was launched in 2008 using a color-coded system that rates schools from “distinguished” or blue, to “accredited on probation” or red. Critics, myself included, argue that this framework is not reflective of what is really happening in schools and has become “weaponized.” It became the currency by which DPS determined which schools would be shuttered, and the framework dis-incentivized collaboration and sharing of resources.
A committee met this past year to reimagine the framework for measuring school quality. I served on the committee and we came to an agreement on three recommendations.
First, replace the existing School Performance Framework (SPF) and cede to an already existing school rating framework run by the state to fulfill the state and federal requirements regarding school accountability.
Second, create an online dashboard to inform the public about whole child measures, including school climate, culture and additional academic measures not captured in the state’s framework.
And third, launch a continuous improvement cycle to support schools.
In May I was alarmed to see a small but vocal faction urge the board to vote against recommendations two and three.
While I understand that there is a lack of trust with DPS, I felt this group grossly misrepresented this truly “community-led, district supported” effort. Those same voices have perhaps not yet comprehended that passing only the first recommendation would tragically put the district back where it started: having a color-coded system of rankings based on test scores. Beyond that, it would derail the community’s call for equity by depriving Denver families of the types of information and empowerment they have demanded for years.
A recent study led by University of Colorado professors and researchers Antwan Jefferson and Plashan McCune found that Denver families of color rely upon a range of sources when seeking the best educational fit for their children, including information from the district and schools, but also from personal experience and their community. The research concluded families of color find the information DPS provides is insufficient — they want to know more. What is the school like? And how does it reflect our community context?
Over the course of the next school year, the Denver community will be invited to engage in designing the dashboard and the improvement process for schools, an endeavor that will naturally be informed by the work done on the next Denver Plan. Examples of measures the committee suggested for the dashboard include: the amount of teacher and parent voice in school-based decision making, district support regarding mental health staffing, ICAP completion rates, and staff diversity and experience.
The dashboard will shed light on institutionalized racism by providing the community access to data showing the rate of suspensions for Black and Latinx students, schools’ successes and failures at supporting teachers of color, and data from students of color on how safe and supported they feel in their school environment.
The recommendations for a dashboard and improvement cycle are intended to paint a more robust picture of each school. These are not intended to be punitive or add parameters for triggering state and local accountability requirements. Rather than fuel competition, our hope is that it will promote collaboration and mutual responsibility between schools, the district, the superintendent and board. The dashboard will repudiate the rankings of schools that fed the mindset that “we are better” and “they are less.”
To ensure this, the Board of Education can put guardrails into their board resolution by creating stipulations that this new information shall not be weaponized. One of the most powerful pieces of the new dashboard would be the school narrative which would provide schools the unprecedented opportunity to provide context for their data.
It’s clear that Denver doesn’t want its school quality measures to be mechanisms of shame. It’s also clear Denver parents don’t want to return to an era where it was impossible to know how well schools were serving all kids. We can create something all of Denver can endorse. Let’s get to work.
Karen Mortimer is a Denver Public School parent who served on the Reimagine the SPF committee. She is also a parent leader with Together Colorado.
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