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DPS reform plans draw opposition
Written by Nancy Mitchell on Nov 20th, 2009. | Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org
It’s interesting that “parent organizing” groups like MOP and Padres had no parents from northwest Denver groups affected as part of their speaking groups. MOP had staff speak (and Padres one parent not from Lake). Parents from Lake and other northwest Denver schools affected by the proposed plan were overwhelmingly opposed to the turnaround plan last night. Makes you wonder exactly who these groups are organizing and towards what purpose.
This story, incredibly, gives undue weight to post-hoc DPS numbers, supporting the viability of the district’s plan for Lake, and little weight to the real facts– not to mention the “numbers” story given by the staff at Lake last night. A story which does not support the long-term sustainability of the administration’s federal dollar chasing proposal…
For in the numbers lie the future of any middle school feeder plan for North Denver. Here’s what the district’s director of community engagement, Benita Duran, emailed me earlier, verbatim:
“Ø According to other data sources, it is estimated that up to an additional 400-700 MS-age students live in the NW region who do not attend any DPS school (sources: DRCOG, DPS, and census data)”
This huge range (plus or minus more than 50%) is what the district’s recommendation is based upon. DRCOG has said repeatedly that its numbers are not suitable for the projection of middle school cohorts. Nancy reporting has ignored this. Census data are, by turns, a decade old for the full census, and four and a half years old for the supplemental. Nancy reporting has ignored this.
DPS does no primary research of its own. Nancy reporting ignores this.
Mobility in North Denver, in the early parts of this decade, was in excess of 14% annually– as determined by own research using voter file and assessor data. Since my own business is highly dependent upon this, I am rather confident in this core number. Since the mobility was a principal driver in changing demographics — fewer children per H/H in households with children, higher income, etc., there is good reason why DPS does has about half a middle school’s worth of uncertainty in the numbers. And since mobility is key problem in student achievement in the Lake feeder pattern, you have to throw up your hands when reading this report. No independent authority would look at this mythical range, and come to the same conclusion.
As speaker after speaker said last night, DPS’s numbers don’t add up when it comes to the Lake proposal. And those numbers should not be Nancy reported so credulously. Somebody needs some partially proficient math.
One other thing. “Similarly, 644 children live within Skinner’s boundaries and attend a district middle school program. Only 186 attend Skinner.”
Skinner has an attendance of about 330. This reporting seems to indicate that half the school choice in. That’s simply incorrect. It also omits how many of the 644 attend a K-8 program. This needs serious fact checking.
None of the numbers reported in the story are based on projections of any kind, by the Denver Regional Council of Governments – DRCOG – or otherwise.
Instead, the numbers – 950 students living near Lake, 644 students living near Skinner – are based on actual home addresses of students as reported to DPS, according to David Suppes, the district’s chief operating officer, and Will Lee-Ashley, the district’s director of planning.
Students enrolling in Denver schools report a home address. District staff input the addresses and then “geo-code” them, looking at where students live versus where they attend school. According to Suppes and Lee-Ashley, 950 students currently living within Lake’s boundaries attend a middle school grade – 6, 7 and 8 – somewhere in DPS. Of those, 430 attend Lake. And 644 middle school students in DPS have home addresses placing them near Skinner but only 186 attend the school. Both schools also have students who live outside the area who choice into them.
DPS does use DRCOG and census data, among other sources, in making projections. Those projections for northwest Denver do seem to indicate several hundred more middle school students living in the area who are not enrolled in a DPS school. But they are not included in the story for obvious reasons. Projections are estimates at best.