We’re tired of the dysfunction on the DPS board
A piece co- authored by the two of us will undoubtedly shock many people in the Denver education community because we frequently fall on opposite sides of the local education debate.
For example, Jeannie believes that the proliferation of charter schools is directly responsible for many of the challenges facing Denver Public Schools today. Alan sees charter schools as a net benefit to Denver’s families and students. Jeannie believes former superintendents Michael Bennet and Tom Boasberg did deep and permanent damage to DPS, with growing achievement gaps and too much emphasis placed on high- stakes testing. Alan counters that the district improved steadily, across all student groups, during their regimes.
But we, as Denver grandparents, are putting our differences aside for now because we agree on one key issue: DPS is seriously adrift, and it is time for the school board and the administration to get their acts together.
It’s irrelevant at this point to argue over which individual board members or district leaders are to blame for the current mess. The indisputable fact is that until the board can begin acting professionally, which includes providing clear direction to the superintendent, DPS will continue being a national embarrassment that gives the city as a whole a black eye.
No city in this country can hope to grow and thrive without at least a functioning public education system. Denver faces a host of challenges, to be sure, ranging from its failure to deal with the explosion in the number of people experiencing homelessness to crime to economic inequality.
But we believe that no issue is of greater consequence at this moment than the unraveling of DPS. To be sure, educators
across the city are performing heroically on a daily basis. But given persistent dysfunction at the top, those educators are succeeding in spite of rather than because of district leadership.
Who could blame anyone a year after the current Denver school board took office for saying they’ve seen enough to have concluded the situation is hopeless with the current cast of characters in place?
There have been multiple instances of dysfunction, incompetence, and unseemly infighting. The board more often than not has proved unable to perform its core functions.
Combine this mess with the inept moves and general tone- deafness of Superintendent Alex Marrero and his team and what you’ve got is a school district in crisis, and distracted from addressing its most glaring issues.
But hope springs eternal. So, rather than despairing, we are going to suggest some ways out of the current morass.
One glimmer of hope is that we have a school board election coming up next November, in which three seats are up. Elections have a way of focusing incumbents’ attention. It gives them an opportunity to reflect upon, if not their shortcomings ( that’s probably wishful thinking), at least their electoral vulnerabilities.
The public at large, as well as influential advocacy groups, need to make it crystal clear to the board that any incumbent who continues to feed the dysfunction without offering constructive solutions to the board and district’s issues will not be reelected.
They need to deliver those messages in stark terms beginning right now.
Next, individuals and groups on both sides of the Denver education ideological divide need to join forces, as we are doing here, to deliver a clear message to all board members, including those not up for reelection.
It’s a simple message: Your behavior is unacceptable. You are not serving our children. You are embarrassing yourselves and us. Get to work on what matters.
Surely there are enough shared interests that people passionate about public education can bridge their differences to deliver this message. It’s no exaggeration to say the future of the city hinges on its public education system improving, not spiraling into deep and permanent dysfunction.
Finally, Marrero needs to step forward and lead. This includes meeting one- on- one with his bosses, the seven board members, to tell them their behavior is making it all but impossible for him to get anything done.
Marrero has some public apologizing of his own to do as well. His mishandling of the school closure conversation last month left the district with no plan for addressing declining enrollment and related budget challenges. While some schools undoubtedly will have to close, it’s unclear how this will happen or when the decisions will be made. This uncertainty puts enormous stress on potentially affected communities.
Pressure on the district and board members over the lack of community closure conversations led six of seven board members to vote down Marrero’s ever- dwindling number of closure recommendations.
This provides a blueprint for how the citizens of Denver could force the board and the district to change course. Withering criticism from a diverse collection of voices could eventually prove too much for DPS to withstand.
People need to keep up the unrelenting pressure strategy across a host of issues. It is clear the board and the district aren’t going to fix themselves.
We’re going to have to show them the way. Or show them the door.