Filling Boasberg’s shoes at DPS will be no easy task

In 2005, as I began seriously contemplating the prospect of becoming superintendent of Denver Public Schools, I met with many people to understand what they believed was necessary to improve the future of the state’s then-second largest school district.

Their consensus was grim. They generally believed DPS was a broken organization, inside and out, destined to join the many urban districts across our nation serving only those families without the economic or social means to send their children elsewhere. In fact, as the Rocky Mountain

News would later report, about a quarter of all school-aged children in Denver did not enroll in DPS.

That fall, after I was appointed superintendent, my oldest daughter, Caroline, began her first year of kindergarten in DPS. My two younger daughters soon joined her. Two months ago, Caroline graduated from high school, joining one of the largest classes Denver has produced in decades.

Today, as both a DPS parent and someone who has had the chance to visit classrooms all over the country, I think it is important to mark the transformation of Denver schools that my successor Superintendent Tom Boasberg has led. DPS is recognized nationally for accelerating academic progress for kids, providing choice for families, and empowering teachers as leaders.

This stands in stark contrast to the DPS I encountered 15 years ago. When I first began weekly visits to DPS schools for faculty meetings, the mood was often despondent; teachers felt unsupported in their buildings; resources were threadbare, and student achievement was flat or down.

Thanks to Tom’s leadership in the years that followed, there is a lot of pride in Team DPS. To take just one example, this fall, nearly one out of every 10 DPS teachers is a teacher leader, spending half the day teaching kids and the other half leading teams of their colleagues. Our schools have become places for students to learn and also for teachers to perfect their craft. Educators come from all over the country to study the teacher leadership model DPS has created and take back lessons to their own school districts.

Denver’s students also began overcoming previous roadblocks to achievement. In 2005, Denver’s kids were scoring 25 percentage points below their Colorado classmates statewide in fundamental literacy skills. Some observers believed that these academic differentials were the natural outcome of Denver having a much higher percentage of poor children than the state.

Today, DPS’s kids have narrowed the gap with the state to just 3 percentage points and are on track to close it completely. Unfortunately, such progress is rare in the nation. In a study of nearly 300 U.S. school districts serving at least 25,000 students, DPS had the second-highest academic growth in the nation, according to the nonprofit Education Resource Strategies.

These growth rates have driven Denver’s graduation rate up by more than 60 percent. The number of African-American and Latino graduates has nearly doubled.

At the same time, families began to return to DPS. While many urban districts struggle with declining enrollment, DPS became the fastest-growing urban school district in America, adding nearly 20,000 children or almost 30 percent.

Also prior to Boasberg’s tenure, charter schools were new (and some fairly terrible), and Denver was unsure how to balance the need for innovation with our traditional models of public education.

While many other districts in the country have descended into holy wars over the role of choice and charter schools, DPS is now a national model of district-charter collaboration, with all schools working together to drive better opportunities for our highest-need kids and a single choice application process for families. For the past two years, DPS has been named the No. 1 choice district in America, in part as a result of the rigorous accountability framework developed by the district.

As Denver debates what our children need in their next superintendent, we should reflect on the progress that has been made under Tom Boasberg’s leadership. He has served as superintendent three times longer than the average urban schools chief. Over those years, he has led a committed corps of principals and teachers who are fighting every day to provide greater opportunity to more of Denver’s children.

Progress in DPS is always far from perfect, and the district has a long way to go. I expect the district’s work to evolve and change, but my fervent hope for our next superintendent is that she or he will possess Tom Boasberg’s unfailing ambition that every child, from every neighborhood and circumstance, should be able to fulfill their greatest potential. That is what our country needs.