Where’s D11?

On February 27th, anti-reform Gazette reporter Shari Chaney wrote an article about the recognition that had been bestowed upon 39 Colorado schools by the Colorado Department of Education. This recognition was due to the fact that certain schools had done an outstanding job in closing the achievement gap between white and minority students.

D11 Superintendent Terry Bishop likes to discuss the fact that the minority population in D11 is increasing rapidly. He uses this fact as an excuse for why D11 continues to stagnate academically. Bishop is of the belief that minority children do not have the same capacity to learn as do white children.

While it is fashionable for public school administrators and labor union leaders across the country to blame a child’s skin color for his or her inability to learn basic academic facts, some schools are working to make a difference in the lives of children despite their skin color. According to the Gazette article, of the 10 schools in the Pikes Peak region that are closing the achievement gap, none of those schools are from D11.

This news is absolutely shocking. D11 Vice Superintendent for Something Mary Thurman has made it crystal clear that she cares. She doesn’t simply care, but she cares about children. Not only that, but Terry Bishop has expanded his central administrative staff to record numbers once again, even revitalizing the purple packet program to get even more old buddies onto the payroll. With all of these administrative geniuses running around the D11 grounds, how could D11 not be keeping up with such district powerhouses as D2?

How about the school board? Other than the constant bickering that takes place between John Gudvangen and Charlie Bobbitt at each board meeting, the board members are madly in love with one another. We were told that a school board that knew how to love was the magic cure for an ailing district. How can D11 be continuing to fail its constituents? Tom Strand promised us that if only he was re-elected, we would see ideas dripping from the dais each and every board meeting. Bob Null promised us that the community would be a better place if only the citizens would elect him to something – anything. Tami Hasling even asked a coherent question once and Sandra Mann hasn’t received a DUI enroute to a board meeting yet, so how could D11 NOT be making the type of progress that was promised us.

Notice what some of the districts are doing to improve the academic delivery in their schools. Teachers are actually collaborating over lunch in Widefield D3. Read your copy of the Master Agreement and see if your D11 teachers are allowed to do that. Some teachers are even collaborating while pulling hall duty, another no-no in your D11 schools.

“High expectations” are high on the list of common traits among improving schools, and that is where D11 is in trouble. Students at certain schools simply are not expected to do well, and they live up to their low expectations. Good grades are handed out for poor work, and kids are passed onto the next grade whether they have mastered the work in their current grade or not. At one of your “good” schools, Doherty High School, rather than enforcing rules and expecting students to behave, the administration painted lines on the walls that designate “academic areas,” the inside of these areas being where students really, really had to obey the rules or else…As one sharp student observed: “This is a school building; I thought the whole thing should be an academic area.” Not in this district, apparently.

As D11 prepares to pass the proverbial bucket to ask for more money to fund its increasing bureaucracy, ask yourself what it has accomplished with the ½ billion that it already has. Ask yourself why D3 and D2 and D49 can continue to improve while D11 continues to stagnate, even with a board that is all about the love.