I was in Denver last week visiting my daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren.
Every morning we would sit around the breakfast table reading the Denver Post and the national edition of the New York Times.

What struck me about the Post was the number of articles related to the Denver Public Schools. This week the guidelines for The Race to The Top applications came out, but even before that, in Denver, you could almost touch the interest in school reform and the hope to get some of that money.

The Denver Public Schools gained attention a few years back when it the system and the teachers union adopted ProComp in which teachers pay could be supplemented by bonuses for student improvement, courses and workshops attended, teaching in a hard to staff school or in a critical area. Behind much of this was School Superintendent Michael Bennet, a non school related lawyer who has since been appointed Colorado’s Senator , replacing Ken Salazar who moved to Secretary of the Environment.



Bennet’s departure hasn’t stopped the DPS. They were semi-finalist for a grant from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help get ready to compete for federal funds. They didn’t quite make it but now they’re ready to pounce.

But wait. First there was a school board election that left the board with a pro union majority of 4 to 3. Would this mean an end to reform. Not according to a state senator and former high school principal who asked in an op-ed piece that we no longer define school officials in such oppositional terms and expressed confident that this new board was equally interested in getting Federal funds as was the rest of the city.

As a demonstration of DPS’ commitment to reform another article touted its plan to have charter school have the same acceptance requirements as any district school. Charters would have to accept interested families in their catchment areas . Hopefully this will better define charters as public schools with special administrative and staffing arrangements.

It was nice to see such widespread coverage of the schools. They do need it. In Denver over 30% of the kids attend private/parochial schools. My grandchildren are in that group.