Announcements

Denver - For the fifth consecutive year, the Denver Public Schools has outpaced the rest of the state in gains on the Colorado Student Assessment Program-the state's standardized tests.

(Image caption: Beach Court students attend CSAP celebration on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010)

In addition, over the past five years, the district's median growth percentile has increased nearly 10 points in each of the three subjects to 55 in reading and 53 in math and writing.  Where five years ago, DPS students and schools were showing less academic growth than their peers across the state, today they are demonstrating significantly higher growth than similar students and similar schools across the state.  

View charts demonstrating Denver CSAP results | View  chart of top schools state-wide (credit Denver Post)

"We are enormously grateful for the hard work of our talented and dedicated students, parents, teachers and school leaders that has driven these gains," said DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg. "The sustained growth over the last five years is clear evidence that our reforms in the Denver Plan have us on the right path and moving forward.  Our challenge now is to accelerate those gains to meet our goal of closing our achievement gaps and having every one of our students on track to graduate from high school prepared for college or career." 

Read Denver Post article: DPS scores rise on CSAPs, continue to outpace state growth

On the 2010 scores, DPS' percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading rose by 3 points, to 50%; in math, the percentage rose by 2 points, to 39; in science, by 2 points to 27%, and in writing, the percentage dropped by 1 point, to 35%. The state's scores were flat in reading, up 1 in math, down 1 in science, and down 2 in writing. Since 2005, DPS students have also outpaced the state in math and reading, improving by 10 percentage points in each subject. They've also posted improvements of 7 percentage points in science and 5 percentage points in writing. 

"A gain of 10 percentage points means 8,000 more of our students have become proficient or advanced in each of these subjects," Boasberg said Tuesday at a press conference at Beach Court Elementary, which this year had the highest growth score of any school in the state of Colorado. 

"We are particularly pleased with the strong growth our schools demonstrated on the Colorado Growth Model, which measures how students and schools perform, compared to their peers with similar test levels across the state.  Almost three quarters of our schools outperformed peer schools across the state in reading growth, and the same is true for two thirds of our schools in writing and math," said Boasberg. 

The following is a list of the district's Top 10 schools in terms of growth scores. A score above 50 means the school's students are making academic growth at a rate faster than their peers across the state.

Top 10 schools --Sum of 2010 Growth Percentile Medians
	2010 Reading	2010 Math	2010 Writing	Sum	% FRL Students of School Population
Beach Court Elementary	92	86	96	274	96%
West Denver Prep: Harvey Park Campus	83	95	89	267	93%
West Denver Preparatory: Federal Campus	76	91.5	85	252.5	91%
Denver School Of Science And Technology	70	82	81	233	48%
Steck Elementary School	70	71	81	222	9%
Lincoln Elementary	78	71	71.5	220.5	40%
Cory Elementary School	64	77	74	215	10%
Force Elementary School	58.5	78	73	209.5	93%
Knight Fundamental	60	74.5	63.5	198	87%
Slavens K-8 School	63.5	69	65.5	198	9%

 "What is particularly striking about these results is both the extraordinarily high level of growth at these schools and the fact that we are seeing high growth in all regions of the city and in schools with widely varying demographics.  They are demonstrating convincingly that, with great teaching and great school leadership, all students from all socio-economic backgrounds can thrive in the classroom," Boasberg added. 

The gains over the past five years have been driven in part by the middle school years. Proficiency scores for DPS 6^th-8^th-graders have jumped 15 percentage points in math and reading, and increased 7 percentage points in writing.  

 "The steady, sustained progress across the district in all subjects over the past five years is very encouraging," added DPS Chief Academic Officer Susana Cordova. "It shows that the instructional focus of the Denver Plan has paid off. Now, we need to increase and accelerate the gains and close the achievement gaps. To do that, our two areas of focus are improving teacher effectiveness and instruction for English-language learners." 

In the past year, DPS has received a total of over $40 million in nationally competitive grants for programs that target these priorities-a $10 million teacher-effectiveness grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, an $8.2 million teacher-recruitment grant from the US Department of Education, and an i3 Innovation grant of up to $25 million from the US Department of Education to improve literacy for our English language learners. 

In addition to growth on the state assessments, DPS has other critical measures of growth for students: 

• 350 more graduates this year--an increase of over 12%
• Nearly doubled the number of kids in AP classes and the number of kids concurrently enrolled in college courses
• Enrollment is up--highest level of enrollment in past 30 years (nearly 80,000 students)
• Full day preschool enrollment has quintupled--an increase from 500 to over 2,500