Author: Alan Gottlieb
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COLUMN: Why cheer Denver schools’ persistent mediocrity?
At last week’s Denver Public Schools Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Alex Marrero made an impassioned plea for everyone to celebrate DPS students for their performance on state standardized tests. He suggested that ‘critical friends’ in the community seemed reluctant to celebrate this. “If other folks are not going to celebrate our scholars, you can…
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Too little progress in teaching Colorado kids to read | Alan Gottlieb
Colorado school districts’ mission and vision statement rhetoric about all children succeeding will remain nothing but hot air unless and until they take more effective steps to solve the state’s reading crisis. That’s the inescapable conclusion reached in a new report by longtime educator Peter Huidekoper Jr. Colorado is not alone in confronting this crisis.…
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Dismantling ‘oppressive’ testing cheats students | Alan Gottlieb
“The country’s multi-decade commitment to results-based accountability for schools and students has badly eroded and may not be recoverable.” “One might think the acute learning losses wrought by the pandemic over the past several years and our inability thus far to correct them might jar policy leaders back to school and student outcomes as the…
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Denver schools rise to challenge of immigrant wave | Alan Gottlieb
Over the past couple of years, I’ve frequently used this space to level pointed and wholly justified criticism of the Denver Board of Education and the leadership of Denver Public Schools. So it seems only fair, and in the spirit of a new year, to praise the district for its handling of an unanticipated and…
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Smart first steps for Denver’s new school board | Alan Gottlieb
When Denver’s three new school board members are sworn in later this month, they have an opportunity to deliver some quick wins that would demonstrate to a disgruntled electorate that the board’s way of doing business will fundamentally change going forward. While it’s not unusual for newly elected officials to want to make a mark,…
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Voters give Denver schools a fresh start | Alan Gottlieb
Positive change is coming to the Denver school board, which we all ardently hope spells better days ahead for the district as well. It has been a rough two years for DPS, led by an inept and dysfunctional school board that could not get out of its own way. The three new members who will…
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DPS board, super were made for each other | Alan Gottlieb
Even a job performance review grounded in metrics can be meaningless, and the sugar-coated, recently-released evaluation of Denver Public School Superintendent Alex Marrero illustrates that point in glaring fashion. That’s especially true when you contrast the Marrero evaluation with the 2020 evaluation of then-Superintendent Susana Cordova, conducted by a board that shared three members in…
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COLUMN: Who should hold the purse strings at DPS? | Alan Gottlieb
The debate over how Denver Public Schools allocates money to its schools may not seem like the most scintillating topic to address less than a month before a pivotal school board election. But it cuts to the heart of differing philosophies about school governance and autonomy. Some members of the current school board have made…
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COLUMN: Denver schools put the spin on public outreach | Alan Gottlieb
Does the leadership of Denver Public Schools believe the general public is this easily fooled? Take a look at the recently released Annual District Report and it’s hard to draw any other conclusion. The editors of Pravda would be proud of this product. DPS should be ashamed. In 20 pages of glossy spin, the district…
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Denver school board insults public — again | Alan Gottlieb
It is sadly predictable that in the same week a bipartisan poll of likely voters showed widespread disaffection with the Denver school board, that same board decided to severely curtail the public’s one monthly opportunity to provide it with in-person feedback. Without a vote, the board announced last week that its monthly public comment sessions…