Commission on Secondary School Reform

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October 8, 2004 Minutes

The meeting was held at the Adam’s Mark Hotel, 1550 Court Street. Members of the Commission in attendance were: Co-chairs Rev. Lucia Guzman and Dorothy Horrell; Commissioners Brian Barhaugh, Dana Bryson, Leanna Clark, Judi Diaz-Bonacquisti, Regina Groff, Maria Guajardo Lucero, Debbie Jessup, Christine Johnson, Steve Kaplan, Jesse King, Ginger Maloney, Rick O’Connell, Bill Ritter, and Penfield Tate; ex officio members David Barber, Jeff Buck, Ann Greenfield, and Mario Williams; Executive Director Patricia McNeil and Assistant Director Liz Aybar.

Observers included DPS Superintendent Jerry Wartgow, Assistant Superintendent Wayne Eckerling, Chief Academic Officer Sally Mentor Hay, School Board members Elaine Berman, and Theresa Pena, Chief Information Officer/Chief Technology Officer Ed Freeman; Leo Smith, Citizens’ Committee on Bond Expenditures; Carol Hanner, Denver Rocky Mountain News; Brooke O’Drobinak and Kelly Hupfeld, Public Education Business Coalition; Van Schoales and Mariah Dickson, Colorado Children’s Campaign; and Jeff Wein.

Dorothy Horrell opened the meeting by welcoming Commissioners and guests. Each guest introduced him/herself. Dr. Horrell asked for the approval of the minutes from the September 10 Commission meeting. The minutes were approved unanimously.

Dr. Horrell reviewed the agenda for the day: debrief Student Shadowing experiences and the October 7 Colloquium on High School Reform Models, hold second meetings of the Action Groups, and talk with Greg Richmond, Chief Officer of New Schools Development for Chicago’s Public Schools about Chicago’s Renaissance 2010.

Dr. Horrell then discussed important upcoming dates for the Commissioners:

November 4 = Student Forum (Commissioners should plan to be there from 1:00 to 2:30)

November 9 = Meetings with Professor William Ouchi, author of Making Schools Work,

o 3:00 - 5:30 = Chamber of Commerce Seminar

o 6:30 - 8:30 = Dinner with Dr. Ouchi and DPS Principals

November 11 & 12 = Commission Retreat (Nov. 11: 9:00 - 5:00, Nov. 12: 9:00 - 12:00)

November 16 & 30 = Community Forums (evening events)

Dr. Horrell described to Commissioners the process for debriefing their Student Shadowing experiences and their reactions to the Colloquium on School Reform Models on October 7. Commissioners divided into groups of four and spent 10 minutes discussing the Student Shadowing experiences, answering the questions: What did it feel like? What did you learn? What sticks in your mind? Staying in those small groups, Commissioners spent the next 10 minutes discussing the Colloquium, answering the questions: What ideas did you take away? What’s worth thinking about? What could be adopted for Denver Public Schools? At the end of the small group discussion time, Commissioners reported out their answers to the question, "What should every Commissioner know about your experiences?". Commissioners had strong reactions to being in schools. There was a huge variation in experiences. Responses included the following ideas:

Teaching and Learning

We saw quality teaching, engagement of students, and a plea from teachers for more resources.

We need to think about why things are the way they are- our suggestions need to be responsive to the roots of what creates the current situation.

Students know if a teacher cares about them and is invested in their work. That affects their views of themselves.

The students’ biggest frustration was that they don’t have enough books.

Students sometimes have life circumstances, like having to work to support their families, that serve as impediments to success in school.

Students feel that about 50% of the teachers don’t care and don’t want to be there.

Some meetings with the teachers did not have very many teachers who chose to be there.

Teachers are concerned about a lack of materials available and that the district mandates programs and uses school resources for those which diverts the school budget.

Schools that have a focus, or theme, or use real-world applications seem to have high levels of success with their students.

Some positives included: seeing teams of teachers in professional learning communities talking about student work and teaching practice. This also seems to be a good way to put pressure on less strong teachers.

It was difficult to witness the negative behaviors of some teachers.

There was good teaching- kids were engaged and positive relationships were clear.

There was a dichotomy between regular and "x"-classes. The numbers in the classes were different, the make-up of the students, and the relationships with the teachers.

Many people in the schools said classes were too big.

There were efforts to make time for 1-on-1 discussions with students, but these times were not always taken advantage of.

Saw IB teachers who were sarcastic with their students, but they were engaging the kids and relating the material to their lives. These classes also had mostly white students who were self-motivated.

Teachers need to be learning from each other interactively with critique and feedback.

There are a variety of teachers. Some teachers have high expectations and engage the students while others do not.

Some students have high levels of academic success in their backgrounds but have little motivation to push themselves. There is a lack of preparation and support for learning.

Class size is an issue but expensive to change.

Culture and Organization

There may be a future for a comprehensive high school. One size doesn’t fit all. We need to ensure that whatever type of schools we have, that we are ensuring there is rigor, relevance and relationships. Do we need a radical restructuring of the schools or change within the current structure?

There are lots of models and discussion about reform. It’s driven by leadership and cascades down into the culture. We need strong ongoing education for principals. Are we doing the things we need to do to create and foster strong leadership?

Block scheduling, if the teachers are trained in teaching for longer periods of time, can be a valuable tool to improve student learning.

Often heard blaming conversations- people blaming others for what is happening in the school.

There was distress from the administration about mandatory programs placed on them without also being given the necessary resources.

The issue of race is out there. You can see it even in the way teachers sit in the teachers’ lounge.

Students express that what is important in their lives is pressure around family, work, poverty, race, social issues (including pregnancy and drugs) that all press on students but they have no place to process these issues. Schools have little resources to help them do so.

All schools are very different with unique qualities.

Smaller learning communities tend to eliminate some extras a comprehensive school offers (like arts or drama). How do we maintain a wide array of choice and provide the ability to foster trust and relationships which is much easier in smaller communities?

Students say that they drop out of school because they didn’t do well in middle school or they have issues around family responsibilities, drugs or pregnancy.

Accountability

From the students’ perspective, they feel that if they are in low-performing schools that they are low achievers. That affects their views of themselves.

There need to be multiple ways to measure accountability-not just CSAP.

After groups reported out, Dr. Horrell asked Commissioners to write any of their reactions and email them to Trish and Liz.

Commissioners spent the next hour meeting with their Action Groups and focusing on what changes need to take place at the school level to ensure that every student who enters a Denver high school will graduate having mastered a rigorous and relevant curriculum in an environment that fosters strong, positive relationships. The three Action Groups are Teaching and Learning, Culture and Organization, and Accountability.

Commissioners Present: Chair Ginger Maloney, Lucia Guzman, Leanna Clark, Ann Greenfield, and David Barber. Guests included: Mariah Dickson, Carol Hanner, Sally Mentor Hay, and Brooke O’Drobinak.

Ginger Maloney, chair of the Action Group, began the meeting noting that the focus of the meeting was on what needs to happen in schools. Dr. Maloney brought up the question of whether or not we could teach teachers to show students that they care. A discussion followed in which Commissioners and guests asked questions such as, Do all teachers care? Can you teach others to care? Can you care about each student if you are seeing 170 in a day? A question was then raised about whether or not teachers feel cared about. The group expressed that there is a high level of distrust between teachers, administrators and the district. Teachers may feel that they are not given the resources they need. They are not given the base of what they need to be good teachers.

The group discussed the value of Professional Learning Communities noting that they help develop distributed leadership, recalibrate expectations for students because they look at student work, and recalibrate expectations for the teachers about the type of dialogue they are expected to have. In order for learning communities to work well, the leadership of the school must be able to work with them and help them use these communities for the benefit of the students.

The group discussed the power of each principal having a coach who could work with him/her on improving the teaching and learning in his/her school.

The group also discussed the kinds of experiences that could help enable teachers and principals to raise their expectations for students, including:

Giving teachers opportunities to observe classes in small groups and talk about what the teacher is doing and to see the student work produced and to talk about it. Although this is an expensive form of professional development, it is worth the investment.

Getting teachers together in small groups where they are comfortable learning together. The conversations in these groups usually need to start with outside facilitation but can move to being facilitated by group members.

Teachers need to continue with their development and principals need to be able to support and foster their development. That takes strong principals, and we need to do more to help train and support principals. Could there be a district-wide principal development program?

In thinking about how to make these changes at the school site, the concept of the franchise model was discussed in which a few things come from the central office, but that much is handled by the people in the schools.

In summary, the group plans to recommend that schools support the establishment and maintenance of smaller learning communities, which will raise the learning opportunities for teachers and their expectations of their students. Therefore, we need to focus on the role of the principal and rethink what types of support and training principals receive.

Commissioners Present: Chair Jesse King, Jeff Buck, Debbie Jessup, Rick O’Connell, Maria Guajardo Lucero, Brian Barhaugh and Mario Williams. Guests included: Theresa Pena and Jeff Wein.

Chair, Jesse King, stated the purpose of the meeting was to identify some recommendations that will result in a culture and organizational structure at the school level that will promote strong, positive relationships. The group spent some time discussing a number of the ideas in the draft paper for improving relationships at the school level. In general the group agreed with these ideas.

The group also discussed the conditions that need to exist for adults in a school if they are to create a culture of support for students. The group believes it is very important for positive conditions to exist for adults in a school. A draft of possible language to include in the Commission’s recommendations is as follows:

"In order to foster student success, adults in each school should work together in a trusting, caring, respectful environment where they have time to work and learn together and where their professional expertise is developed and valued."

The group will meet again at George Washington High School on Wednesday, October 27, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. to discuss what needs to happen at the district level to create a culture and organizational structure to support strong, positive relationships.

Commissioners Present: Chair Dana Bryson, Judi Diaz-Bonacquisti, Regina Groff, Bill Ritter, and Dorothy Horrell. Guests included: Wayne Eckerling and Kelly Hupfeld.

Dana Bryson reviewed the agenda, which was to focus on Accountability at the school level. She mentioned the challenge of discussing this prior to knowing what the Teaching and Learning and Culture and Organization Action Groups had decided.

The group reviewed the current system and agreed that the requirements are almost overwhelming. The comment was made, "If you focus on everything, you focus on nothing." There was agreement that a simple system that is focused on what you want to accomplish would be desirable.

There was some discussion of creating performance contracts with individual schools through which they would respond to district-wide goals and set measurement standards for their own goals. This was in response to the idea that one of the Commission’s recommendations might be to allow each school to develop and define a distinctive program and character.

Three areas were suggested as possible categories for accountability:

Student performance

Budget performance

Customer satisfaction

The group began brainstorming standards for all high schools. Items identified were:

Persistence of students from enrollment to graduation

Performance against standards, including CSAP

Tracking of post-secondary enrollment and graduation rates

% of students in AP classes and test results

Attendance (both being there and punctuality)

Student surveys

Parent surveys

Teacher surveys

Teacher turnover statistics

Further discussion will take place at the next meeting on Budget Performance. The group recognized the need to define these more clearly and to discuss how the information being collected should be used to improve academic performance.

Greg Richmond shared information with the Commissioners about Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 program and then opened the discussion up to questions. First he gave a background on Chicago’s Public School system. In the 1970s and 1980s, Chicago had a dysfunctional school system. In 1995, control of the school system was given to the Mayor who then named the top people for the district. Before that time people were working hard but seemed to accept that things would never be that good. The Mayor didn’t accept that. For him, there were no more excuses. Either people would deliver in their jobs or they would no longer have them.

The first CEO (Superintendent) the Mayor appointed was Paul Vallas. Three years ago, Arne Duncan took over. At that time the district decided to focus on literacy, human capital, and expanding educational opportunities. Attendance is improving. Three-quarters of schools showed improvement on standardized tests. Nine years ago half of the students were in the lowest quartile and now one-quarter are in the lowest quartile. More than one-half of eighth graders are achieving at national norms. CEO Duncan says that it could be easy to talk about the numbers and say Chicago is successful, but the flip side is that one-quarter of the schools are not improving. 100,000 students are not improving. One-half of eighth graders are not at national norms. The average ACT score is 16.9 which means that many students cannot complete a 2-step math problem; they cannot draw inferences from a paragraph; they cannot get into competitive colleges. Mr. Richmond acknowledged that these are sobering facts they are trying to own up to. As the district is working now, it continues to feed the welfare system, gangs and prisons.

After setting up the historical context, Mr. Richmond described the background and content of Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 program launched this summer. A few years ago, the district became more interested in charter schools. They actively asked people to apply and held workshops to show people how to put together a good proposal. They did it to get more good schools and had some success. Three years ago with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they started to move toward smaller schools on a voluntary basis. At this point, they have converted three big high schools into smaller schools and are currently working on two more.

Despite these changes, the district decided it needed to be more thoughtful and proactive in its activities. It needed a big plan. The district will open 100 new schools over the next 6 years. They also plan to systematically replace the lowest performing schools. There are four key components to the plan. 1. There will be small schools. 2. There will be a competitive process for starting new schools and reconstituting existing schools because they believe it will lead to a better result. 3. There will be a high degree of community participation. The proposals will go to a "Transition Advisory Council" made up of community members so they have a voice. In addition, all community groups (teachers, principals, families, and other interested parties) have the opportunity to submit proposals. 4. Schools will have a high degree of autonomy and be accountable for results. Each school will have a 5-year plan or contract that will be monitored every year. Every 5 years, the district will decide if the school is working well enough.

The high schools chosen for redesign will stop taking in new freshmen for two years. The district will put out a Request for Proposals for people who want to start new schools within the large schools. The large schools will eventually be phased out and become 2, 3 or 4 smaller schools. At the elementary school level, they are consolidating some schools and making the buildings available for new schools after one year. They plan to reconstitute about 20-25 high schools and 35 elementary schools.

Mr. Richmond emphasized that what is important is how they are starting schools. They used to have the central office decide where the schools would start, who the principals would be and what type of curriculum the schools would use. They are not doing that anymore. They will use the RFP process to provide flexibility and choice in these matters. The district will be responsible for renovation and new construction, for managing the RFP process and for holding schools accountable for results.

The large schools that have already been converted to small schools are better than they were before but they are not good enough. They made some mistakes early on because they were overly fixated on "small". A study from the business community said these schools were all created within the school system and run the same way. People within the schools were frustrated because they were not being treated well by the central office and not given the power to do the things they knew would work for their schools. Therefore, as the district moves forward it will maximize autonomy for all schools, even within the district framework (not charter or contract), by giving them their whole budgets and control over decisions about instruction. Mr. Richmond emphasized the importance of trusting educators in the building to do the right thing. The district’s role is to make sure it happens.

Mr. Richmond then responded to the Commissioners’ questions.

Question: Please describe how Chicago has made this plan happen. And, if you could do anything differently, what would it be?

Answer: The keys we had in place were a leadership team (CEO, Board and Mayor) who all wanted and were dedicated to change. Also, people in Chicago’s business community have been doing and talking about this in the form of charter schools. They have helped maintain a dialogue in town about the need to improve the schools. The response at the grassroots-level (community organizations and teachers) has been very positive. To help foster this support, the district had countless community meetings. Teachers longing for professional opportunities are excited about this process. It gives them the opportunity to work with others who share their ideas and take ownership of their schools. Still, there are some full-time professional opponents of anything the district does. The newspapers continue to focus on their reaction to the plan.

Question: Where is the district finding the human capital- the people necessary to lead well and teach in different settings?

Answer: They are mostly in Chicago. They live and work there. The district is not worried on the teacher side at all. Charter schools attract strong teachers and the teachers stay in those schools because they feel they are valued. However, finding leadership (100 principals to do this new kind of job) is a challenge. They are using the New Leaders for New Schools Program and doing some work with the business community for training for principals. The business community pledged to raise at least $50 million to support this change and the district plans to use some of this to help develop principals.

Question: What is the district’s relationship with the teachers’ union?

Answer: Last spring the union had a controversial election in which the incumbent lost but invalidated the results and called for a new election. Because of the controversy over the presidency, there was essentially no functioning union over the summer as the plan was announced. Now the union has a new president and the district just had a 2-hour meeting with the union. They raised some concerns (e.g. seniority), but the district sees them as a very important constituent and plans to work with them. In the model, there will be one-third district schools, one-third contract schools and one-third charter schools, but in reality the district does not care how these percentages break down. The district is encouraging the union to help them make the district model attractive to applicants.

Question: Have there been any university or private sector applications?

Answer: There has been one university with a school in the district for six years and others are expressing interest.

Question: How is the district thinking about accountability? What will that mechanism look like?

Answer: There is a fixation on measurable student results, but we need student performance outcomes. There will be one section that will look at some absolute performance measures and looking at the gains within a school. There will be another section looking at relative performance measures that will compare those to other schools.

Question: With each school in charge of their own budget, how will that affect staffing and the union?

Answer: Charter and contract schools are not employees of the district. All employee decisions are made by the schools. District schools must pay and staff according to union agreements.

Question: How are you talking and thinking about the schools that will not go through this change?

Answer: The district is focusing on all schools in other ways. They have literacy instruction initiatives to give helpful, solid support to teachers in the system. They have instructional offices in schools to support the literacy initiative. They also have a math initiative, early childhood education and after-school programs, and are working on teacher recruitment. To help with improving the teaching force, they have stopped their system of hiring teachers very late (in the summer). Now, the district is recruiting nationwide at universities, offering jobs early and does not cut positions during the school year. In the old process, the teacher bore the risk for inaccurate projections, now the district bears it.

Question: How much money does the district spend per student?

Answer: If all the money is thrown in the pot, it’s about $9,300. They are in discussions now about what schools will get.

Question: Do you use a weighted-student formula for giving money to schools?

Answer: The district is not on the verge of that. The financial office of the district is not into that idea right now.

Question: Was it difficult to get community involvement on the committees?

Answer: No. They had three times as many applicants as spaces.

Question: Are there common themes among the applications?

Answer: It is too early to know. The RFP was released 3 weeks ago and is due in November.

Question: Will the literacy program apply to the 100 new schools, too?

Answer: In 1989 the district had complete decentralization with no central office involvement. Now they have a literacy framework and will look for literacy components in the 100 new schools. People who run those initiatives want to see them required, but others say if the district is going to mandate what is going on in the classrooms, then why do this process. In general, each new school will need to persuade the district that they have a solid program in order for the district to approve it.

The Commissioners thanked Mr. Richmond for sharing his experience in Chicago Public Schools.

Meeting adjourned at 1:45 p.m.

Contact Information

• Liz Aybar
• elizabeth_aybar@dpsk12.org
• 900 Grant Street, #704
• Denver, CO 80203

• This page was last updated: Monday, November 8, 2004 at 10:27:19 AM
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