Aggressive schools to reap reward

Colorado must make progress in four areas of school reform to get a share of $5 billion in extra stimulus money — including data systems that track teachers’ performance back to their colleges, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told state officials during his Denver visit Tuesday.

Duncan appeared at two Denver schools with U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, talking with students and meeting with political leaders to explain how the state could be a contender for the money in a federal program dubbed “Race to the Top.”

Colorado’s proposal should outline the state’s innovation ideas in four areas: data systems, teacher quality, internationally benchmarked student standards and turning around low-performing schools, Duncan said.

“The business we should be in is scaling up what works as quickly as possible,” Duncan said. “Let’s take those lessons, let’s replicate them and move on absolutely as fast as we can with a sense of urgency. We have to get dramatically better as a country, and we need to do it as fast as we can.”

Colorado and Denver, where Bennet was schools superintendent until January, have impressed Duncan with political alignment to start education reform efforts.

“There has been real innovation and a sense of pride in what is happening,” he said. “We are looking to find a relatively small number of states who can lead the country where we think the country needs to go — push a very strong reform agenda, to be willing to challenge the status quo.”

Duncan visited two schools that have made headlines by exempting themselves from union and district rules on pay, time and hiring.

“Those schools are pretty much on the cutting edge,” said Andrew Rotherham, co-founder and publisher of Education Sector — a national education-policy think tank. “It sends a signal from both Duncan and Bennet that they are not running from reform and politically offensive things.”

At Bruce Randolph School, Duncan fielded insightful questions from a crowd of 200 students — urging them to stay in school, take tougher classes and recognize that decisions they make today will affect the rest of their lives.

“This high school journey should be a starting point,” Duncan told the school of sixth- through 11th-graders. “You should be thinking about that next step. . . . If you drop out today, you are basically condemned to social failure.”

At Montclair Elementary School, Duncan talked to a small group of children and was taken on a brief tour by principal Shannon Hagerman, who showed off the artwork on the school’s walls, including portraits of Duncan’s boss, President Barack Obama.

Duncan noted the feeling of freedom at both schools — where teachers have asked for and received autonomy to set their own schedules, work longer hours or teach on weekends or through the summer.

New Montclair teachers work without tenure protection, which means the principal can remove teachers who perform poorly.

“We all have to stretch and move outside of our comfort zone,” he said. “We are fundamentally trying to change the business we are in. Where you see that happening is in the two schools today. Everyone is doing nontraditional, innovative, creative things and, guess what, the results are pretty staggering.”

Montclair is too early in its experiment to have produced results. But Bruce Randolph was deemed one of the worst schools in the state a few years ago, and last year’s scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program showed it achieved the second-highest achievement growth of any Denver high school. Still, only 19 percent to 27 percent of kids were proficient or advanced in reading.

Duncan told the Bruce Randolph students that their academic growth was a testament to the longer time they spent in school — with after-school sessions, Saturday classes and courses during the summer for low performers.

“Feel free to boo me if you want, I think our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short,” he said. “Six hours a day, nine months a year doesn’t makes sense.”

Schools should be open 11 to 13 hours a day, six to seven days a week and 11 to 12 months of the year, Duncan said — providing arts, athletics, clubs and classes for parents.

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com