And it's time to start talking about it.
For the last 10 years, Denver has been upheld as one of the most progressive cities in the country for reforming it's schools. Since 2007, the district has adopted many best practices that have made more high quality seats available to more kids and there are a lot of really exciting things happening in our district, but the reality is, there are too many kids being failed by our district.
According to the district's own measurement, the School Performance Framework,in 2017, 35,742 students in our district do not attend what they consider to be a "high quality school."
Currently, Denver has one of the largest achievement gaps in the country, only 26% of our students who receive Free and Reduced Lunch are reading and writing on grade level, compared to 64% of their more affluent peers.
1 in 3 of our low income third graders are reading and writing on grade level.
This is an emergency that we have been ignoring for too long and we, at TEN, are here to help parents raise these concerns and demand change. We believe in having honest conversations with parents about the quality of our schools and then working with them to build the power to demand a solution. For the last ten years of reform, parents and communities have been left out of the conversation about how we change systems for our children- but not anymore. Through providing parents with information on school quality, organizing skills, leadership development and research around best practices in schools, we hope to help our families fight for all of our children to get the education that they deserve.
This blog will be a space for us to highlight problems that are impacting our schools and our students and to create a dialogue aimed toward solution making.
It is time for 10 out of 10 students in Denver to have access to the education that they deserve. We hope you will join us in this fight.