Addressing the achievement gap in Denver Public Schools

Re: “DPS stands at a crossroads,” March 18 Vincent Carroll column.

As a former teacher who retired from Denver Public Schools and currently serves as a guest teacher, I was not surprised to read that achievement gaps among student groups continue to grow. Although academic standards have been raised and new curriculums instituted, many teachers have expressed concerns that there has been a lack of adequate support to address multiple areas of student need.

In the last several years, the number of students with emotional/social and academic needs hase increased significantly. Schools are demanding more academic progress while failing to meet the needs of students with behavioral issues, stressful home situations, and learning deficits. Although DPS has instituted the Whole Child initiative to try to address these issues, programs and supports have been implemented in very few schools.

Perhaps more effective and widespread implementation of the Whole Child initiative, as well as more support within classrooms, would assist in helping every child succeed. Cindy Clearman, Arvada ●●●

Vincent Carroll’s contribution to the dialog on Denver Public Schools is narrowed to one topic: test scores. Any time you see “achievement gap” or “high- or low-performing schools,” your readers should be aware that the measure used for those words is a single point in time standardized test result.

While it’s the easiest measure of a school and a district, a standardized test score is also the most simplistic, and fails to take into consideration the society’s contributing factors to a child’s test performance. Colorado’s School Performance Framework is entirely weighted on test performance, and DPS’s Spotlight Scorecard is heavily weighted towards testing.

What if the final measure of a school wasn’t that single score earned in April, but were more comprehensive and involved the other 90 percent of the school year? Jonathan Wolfer, Denver