AV #228 - Learning together - low-performing high schools in the metro area

 

Collaboration – would a small group of schools – with common challenges – see value in teaming up?

 

A follow-up to AV #92 - Why not a regional recovery school district? (Jan. 1, 2013)

 

So much time has passed. Eight years. Eight graduating classes. A stubborn problem. Complex. Frustrating. But we do agree, don’t we, that we can do better than this? That we must? Or have we grown too discouraged? Do we now resign ourselves just to muddle along … another year with little progress? 

Eight years ago, in AV #92, I offered a New Year’s Resolution: “In 2013 Coloradans will make a determined effort to begin to turn around our lowest-performing high schools.” We might take a lesson, I wrote, from the success of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation (EDC) in bringing together key players from the seven counties around Denver. It had become, according to the EDC, “the nation’s first and only truly economic development entity … to represent the interests of an entire region.”

By the fall of 2012 Colorado’s School Performance Framework had provided accreditation ratings for each school in our state. Most every district in the metro area had at least one high school rated poorly - on Priority Improvement or Turnaround. In AV #92 I listed ten of them. Four had received that rating each of the first three years: Adams City High, Aurora Central, and, in Denver, Montbello and West High.

I suggested we bring these ten high schools together. Create a regional effort, I wrote, “a ‘new’ district focused solely on dramatic improvement for these high school students.” I pointed to three other states which had created “recovery districts” along these lines.  

No takers.

What has happened since then? Is it a good story? Would my suggestion, if acted on, have made any difference?

Three of the 10 schools I listed closed: West High, Montbello High, and Southwest Early College (which later became Early College of Denver, before closing).

Two, Bruce Randolph (6-12) and Sheridan High, were rated on Improvement or Performance as of 2015 and stayed there through 2019. Apparent progress. Although in AV #222, “The PSAT and SAT do not work well for perhaps 25% of our high schools,” I noted the rating for all PSAT/SAT scores at both schools: Does Not Meet.

One, Westminster High, lifted its rating in 2013 and 2014, but then was on Priority Improvement for three years, 2016-2018. In 2019 it was rated on Improvement—Year 3 on Watch.

Two schools came off the lowest ratings at times, but in 2019 were again rated Priority Improvement - Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts, or even lower, on Turnaround - Jefferson Jr./Sr. High.

And two schools, Adams City High and Aurora Central High, were accredited with one of the two lowest ratings for the 9^th straight year.

Perhaps my idea back in 2013 was foolish. Still, I hope it is fair to ask what could we have done eight years ago to support the five schools, those that did not close, and that continued to struggle to perform at even a satisfactory level? Most tragic, of course: Adams City High and Aurora Central. Since 2012 eight more classes have graduated from these schools – over 4,000 students. How many were “college and career ready”?

ACCREDITATION RATINGS:     P–Performance     IMP-Improvement      PI–Priority Improvement      TR–Turnaround

District	School	School Performance Framework – RATING	Final % Points Earned		Entering Year on PI or TR		School Performance Framework – RATING	Final % Points Earned	Year on    PI or TR
		2012		2012			2019	2019
Bruce Randolph (6-12) (PI again in 2013, then on Improvement 2014-2019)		Priority Improvement Plan		57.9	Year 1		Improvement	51.9
Sheridan H.S. (PI again in 2013, then on P or Imp 2014-2019)		Priority Improvement Plan		45.5	Year 1		Improvement	47.5
Westminster H.S. (PI again in 2016, 17, 18)		Priority Improvement Plan		43.2	Year 3		Improvement	42.3	YR 3 ON WATCH
Southwest Early College/ (became) Early College of Denver (PI again in 2013 and 2014, then on P or Imp until closing)		Priority Improvement Plan		50	Year 1		Improvement/ Closed after 2019	48.6
Montbello H.S.		Turnaround Plan		40.8	Year 3		Closed
West H.S.		Turnaround Plan		43.1	Year 3		Closed
Adams County 14	Adams City H. S.	Priority Improvement Plan		35.9	Year 3		Priority Improvement	35.5	YR 9
Aurora Public Schools	Aurora Central H.S.	Priority Improvement Plan		41.6	Year 2		Priority Improvement	35.2	YR 9
Jefferson County	Jefferson Jr./Sr. H.S.     (PI again in 2013 and 2017)	Priority Improvement Plan		45	Year 1		Turnaround	39.9	YR 1
Mapleton	Mapleton Expeditionary Sch. of the Arts (7-12) (PI in 2014, then on P or Imp until 2019)	Priority Improvement Plan		45.8	Year 1		Priority Improvement	48.2	YR 1

 

2013 to 2021 - What is different now

We have tried a wide range of approaches and we have sought numerous external partners. Adams City High and its district are now under management from MGT of America Consulting, LLC, in association with the University of Virginia Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education (UVA/PLE). Aurora Central High continues its “Turnaround Pathway” in a partnership with Mass Insight Education; the effort now also includes Denver’s Public Education and Business Coalition to provide more academic support. Sheridan High is all-in with the AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) system as a guide to its improvement. Westminster High and other WPS schools continue to focus on implementing competency-based learning with support from external partners AdvancedEd and Marzano Academies. And in DPS, both Abraham Lincoln’s “College and Career Academy” and Manual’s “Early College Model” also work with the University of Virginia-PLE. At Bruce Randolph, the first item for its Major Improvement Strategy and Action Plan (2019-20 UIP) reads: “Use Data Driven Instruction System.”   

What comes to mind? Haphazard? Jumbled? Random? Are we all over the map because … we still have no clear idea of what works? Throwing whatever comes to mind up on the wall—and hoping some of it sticks?

When $7 million in federal grants,[i] Innovation status,[ii] and opening more 6-12 schools achieve so little, I would not blame district leaders for throwing up their hands and saying: To be honest, we don’t have a clue.

Which might be the beginning of wisdom. To admit that we need help. To realize we cannot do it alone. To accept that the enormity of the challenge is beyond any one district to figure this out for itself.

It is humbling, of course, to say the challenge is too big for any one of us. But crucial, if we are to collaborate.

Collaborate - to work together with somebody in order to produce or achieve something[iii]

I say: let’s pool our resources. Ask the outside experts to sit down at the same table with all of us. Everyone at the Colorado Department of Education’s School and District Transformation Unit, having worked closely with many of these schools over the past decade, join us too. Are there lessons we have learned? Put them in writing. Share them. No need to force each school to search through a dark maze, alone, in the hope of finding a way out.     

Then let’s apply our new insights. We must do a better job of bringing dramatic improvement to our low-performing high schools - in this decade - than we did these past 10 years.

Here are 11 metro areas schools that might benefit from collaboration on improvement efforts:

District	School	2019 SPF Rating	Year on Accountability Clock
Adams County 14	Adams City High School	Priority Improvement	Year 9
Aurora Public Schools	Aurora Central H.S.*	Priority Improvement	Year 9
	Gateway H.S.	Turnaround	Year 5
	Hinkley H.S.	Turnaround	Year 2
Denver Public Schools	Abraham Lincoln H.S.	Priority Improvement	Year 5
	John F. Kennedy H.S.	Turnaround	Year 2
	Manual H.S.	Priority Improvement	Year 6
	STRIVE Prep - Smart Academy	Priority Improvement	Year 3
Jefferson County	Jefferson Jr./Sr. H.S.	Turnaround                         (PI 2012, 2013, 2017)	Year 1
Mapleton	Mapleton Expeditionary Sch. of the Arts (7-12)	Priority Improvement              (PI 2012, 2014)	Year 1
Westminster	Westminster High School	Improvement. (On PI previous 3 years; hence, On Watch.)	Year 3 – On Watch

In 2019 two Denver high schools, Denver Center for International Studies (at Baker) and South High School, were rated on Priority Improvement or Turnaround for a second year in a row, but this was mostly due to a lower rating on Denver’s SPF. On the state SPF, they would have been on Improvement.

Other metro area high schools on YEAR ONE on Priority Improvement on the 2019 SPF:

-in Denver Public Schools: Denver School of Innovation and Design & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College;

-in Jefferson County: Arvada High School;

-in Mapleton: Big Picture College and Career Academy.

Four other low-performing secondary schools in Denver will be closed after 2021-22: Collegiate Preparatory Academy, DCIS at Montbello, Noel Community Arts School, and West Leadership Academy. 

Obstacles to collaboration

Collaboration is hard. Books are written about the roadblocks to effective alliances. In fact, I recently edited one – by an old friend, Keith Gaylord, Alliances, Strategic Partnerships and the Power of Analytics: Gain Control, Reduce Risk and Accelerate Growth (2020).[iv] Much of his book is about the need for honest conversations, early on, to establish clear goals. As he reminded me: “It’s nice to say, let’s partner. But it is critical to ask: How and to what purpose? What is the problem we want to solve?”

At the district level, one obstacle is the conviction that we are so different from each other: we, in DPS (90,000 students) and Jeffco (80,000), have little in common with you, in Westminster (8,400) and Adams 14 (6,000). 

We hold different beliefs on the value of keeping schools small—Mapleton versus Aurora. Different beliefs, too, on choice; four of our districts authorize no charters.[v] We have, understandably, different priorities. 

We must not overlook the differences. But let’s be clear, “the problem we want to solve” is not our districts.

It is our schools. It is 10 or 11 or 12 schools that we want to improve. And soon. Sure, even there, every struggling school has a different set of challenges. But consider the commonalities, below.

        FRL - students on Free or Reduced Lunch          EL – English Language Learners         SC - students of color

Data from CDE’s pupil membership, fall 2020,[vi] and from CDE’s SAT test results, 2019.[vii]

District	School	% on FRL	% EL	% SC (est.)	SAT- Math
Adams County 14	Adams City High School	74.9	32.7	92	412
Aurora Public Schools	Aurora Central H.S.*	79.6	47.0	95	398
	Gateway H.S.	71.2	34.9	88	406
	Hinkley H.S.	78.0	36.8	95	424
Denver Public Schools	Abraham Lincoln H.S.	87.2	56.6	97	424
	John F. Kennedy H.S.	73.2	24.2	90	438
	Manual H.S.	76.0	27.2	95	429
	STRIVE Prep – Smart Academy	94.5	55.4	99	477
Jefferson County	Jefferson Jr./Sr. H.S.	88.3	31.6	90	388
Mapleton	Mapleton Expeditionary Sch. of the Arts (7-12)	64.9	25.1	85	446
Westminster	Westminster High School	72.5	24.7	87	431
STATE AVERAGE		40.2	12.9	47	496

The similarities among 11 of our lowest-performing schools tell me many of them can look at these other 10 buildings—and see their own school reflected back. That bodes well for one critical ingredient: trust.

The challenges of connecting to families in low-income communities, addressing the number of families where English is not spoken, appreciating the systemic racism that a majority of their students have most likely encountered – my guess is the school leaders, faculty, and staff in these schools would say: these are definitely among our chief concerns. They would look at their peers and say: You wrestle with these challenges every day too? Good to know. This is damn hard, isn’t it? Let’s talk with each other.

After a year with the pandemic, anyone else done with all this isolation! Let’s collaborate.

Endnotes

[i] During the Obama Administration the federal government provided School Improvement Grants (SIG) of over $7 billion.  Colorado received over $70 million of those funds.  (Later renamed as the Tiered Intervention Grants – TIG.) 

Several high schools referred to in this newsletter received significant federal grants designed “to substantially raise the achievement of students” (U.S. Department of Education – School Improvement Grants -    https://www2.ed.gov/programs/sif/index.html)

 2010-2013

  Montbello High - $3,388,350 (A Plus Colorado - Turnaround report, 2011 – http://apluscolorado.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Background-Turning-around-low-achieving-schools-in-Colorado.pdf)

2012-2015

  West High - $1,293,589  (email from CDE, March 11, 2021 – slight change from page 2 https://www.cde.state.co.us/sites/default/files/documents/fedprograms/dl/ti_a_stig_dps.pdf - $1,113,589)

“The plan to turnaround West High School has been underway since spring 2010 when west Denver community

Leaders met with DPS leaders to discuss the future of West High School…. Committee discussions led to the decision to phase out West High School and phase in two new 6^th-12^th grade schools collocated within the historic West High School building” (p.  34).

2013-2016

  Aurora Central High - $2,680,000 – (email from CDE, March 11, 2021)

[ii] Aurora Central High and, more recently, Abraham Lincoln.

[iii] Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/collaborate

[iv] https://www.amazon.com/Alliances-Strategic-Partnerships-Power-Analytics/dp/1792334109

[v] Adams 14, Englewood, Mapleton, Sheridan.

[vi] CDE – Pupil Membership - https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrent

[vii] https://co.chalkbeat.org/2019/8/15/21108632/sat-scores-are-slightly-down-in-colorado-find-your-school-s-2019-results