DPS touts CSAP growth over time

Don’t focus only on the current ranking of Denver Public Schools. Look, too, at how far they have come.

That’s the message Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg delivered to school board members Thursday night, discussing district results released Aug. 3 for the final year of testing under the Colorado Student Assessment Program or CSAP.

In an interview prior to the meeting, Boasberg said “I think the growth is extraordinary, when looked at across the state, and when looked at comparison groups, other districts throughout the state, and looked at in comparison to past periods.”

He added, “It’s very clear that the growth is not enough. I think, again, compared to any other district, the growth is extraordinary. But our growth needs to be faster and better, if we are going to reach our shared goals.”

Three seats are being contested on the DPS board Nov. 1 and with the election drawing closer, Boasberg said he believes it’s important the district stay on the same track it has been traveling under both his administration and that of his predecessor, now-U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado.

“The whole point of what we’re trying to do is to accelerate the reforms and break through the opposition and obstacles against the reforms, in order to accelerate that growth,” Boasberg said. “To the extent that we rip up all of these strategies and try to go back to where we were six, seven years ago, I think it would be disastrous for the students in Denver.”

Boasberg believes the latest CSAP results show significant achievement by DPS under the Denver Plan, created in 2005  – particularly as compared over the same period of time to other large districts and those that also serve high-poverty student populations. About 72.5 percent of DPS students are eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program, an indicator of poverty.

Specific achievements Boasberg is touting include:

  • A Median Growth Percentile or MGP of 53, making DPS the only district in the state with more than 10,000 students and with a poverty rate above 50 percent to achieve academic growth topping the statewide average. Typical growth statewide is 50.
  • A 9-point increase in overall Median Growth Percentile from 2005 – the first year of the Denver Plan – to 2011. No other high-poverty district showed an increase as great over that span of time.
  • Significant increases in Median Growth Percentile since 2005 in math (11 points), reading (8 points), and writing (7 points).
  • A six-year increase in the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced on state exams in math, reading, writing and science – which easily exceeds the statewide average over the same period.

“It’s a very strong statement of the kind of change that we have accomplished over these last six years,” Boasberg told board members Thursday night.

Strong growth, but not fast enough

The latest results are derived from the 15th and final year of the CSAPs, administered this spring. Next year, students will begin taking the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program as the state moves to new tests aligned to new academic standards.

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Bill Bonk, principal consultant for student longitudinal growth for the Colorado Department of Education, said of DPS, “They’ve got a pretty compelling case that, among large metro area districts, they are improving the most in student learning.”

Bonk added, however, that DPS is a district that very much needed to do so.

“Although Cherry Creek’s numbers don’t show this impressive increase, most of their kids are going to be proficient in these areas already, so you can argue that they didn’t need this urgency,” he said. “But there’s a lot of urgency for Denver. We need to see a growth gap between them, and other high-achieving districts, because they are far behind.”

Board member Jeannie Kaplan, while singling out East High School and Slavens School for their individual CSAP performances, said the rate of improvements in the district is falling short of expectations set forth in the Denver Plan, the district’s strategic reform plan.

“Honestly, I’m not responsible for the rest of the state,” she said. “I’m responsible for DPS, and I’m really concerned that we aren’t moving fast enough. To me, it’s almost as if we are replicating the status quo. I think something needs to be done to really shake things up, to get faster growth, and to minimize the achievement gap.”

Several board members called attention to the district’s failure to reduce the achievement gap between white, Hispanic and African-American students. For example, in this year’s testing, 77 percent of white students were proficient or above in reading, but that figure for African-Americans was 42 percent, and for Hispanics it was 39 percent.

“The achievement gap is the most troubling part of the report,” said board member Arturo Jimenez.

Falling behind on annual district goals

The Denver Plan lays out a number of specific annual district goals, including several tied directly to the students’ CSAP and ACT performance. They include:

  • The proficiency rate for grade level cohorts will increase by 3.5 percent in reading, writing and math each year.
  • The percentage of students scoring unsatisfactory will decrease by 3.5 percent in reading, writing and math each year.
  • The percentage of students scoring above the state median growth percentile on CSAP will grow by 2 percent each year.

The district scorecard for Denver Plan goals after the 2009-2010 school year was four goals met, four not met and one partially met. This year, of 11 goals identified in the updated version of the Denver Plan for which the data is complete, the district met five, did not meet four, and partially met two.

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The partially met goals this year included the grade-level cohorts showing 3.5 percent or more growth in proficiency in reading, writing and math. For 2010-11, that goal was achieved in writing – but not in math or reading.

Boasberg, with an annual salary of $198,450, is paid an incentive bonus based on goals met. He is also paid a portion of those incentives for goals only partially met.

According to district spokesman Mike Vaughn, Boasberg – who was named superintendent in January 2009 – was paid a $28,333 bonus under the incentive system for 2009-10. For the previous year, which he started as chief operating officer and finished as superintendent, his bonus figure was not available Thursday.

Boasberg donates any incentive pay he receives to the DPS Foundation.

Goals “ambitious” but “reasonable”

The fact that the district has not fully met more of its goals established by the Denver Plan does not lead Boasberg to question whether the goals that have been set are realistic.

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“I think we have high goals, and we should have high goals, and I think it speaks to the rigor of our goals that we can be the best-performing district of any size in Colorado, and still not be meeting all of our goals,” Boasberg said.

Bonk, at the CDE, specifically speaking to the established goal of 3.5 percent annual growth in reading, writing and math proficiency, said, “That sounds like an ambitious goal to me. I’d have to look at the history of districts and CSAP to decide if it’s realistic or not, based on what other districts have accomplished in the past.”

Subsequent research by Bonk showed that in 2011, there were 17 of more than 180 Colorado school districts in which the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading increased by 3.5 percentage points or more from the previous year. In 2010, there were also 17, Bonk said, and in 2009, 29 districts did so.

Board member Mary Seawell also defended the Denver Plan goals as being reasonable.

Referring specifically to the 3.5 percent annual proficiency growth goal, Seawell said, “I think it’s a realistic goal as we average it out over time. I’ve always felt that when you’re first making changes, the growth is going to be slower, but you can get to the point where it’s really going to accelerate over time.”

And, as for the broader set of goals in the Denver Plan, Seawell said, “If we’re not meeting those goals, we need to say, ‘What are we not doing right?’ It does not mean we shouldn’t revisit them and say, knowing what we know, should we accelerate, change or modify them in any way? We need to be open to those conversations.”