Initiatives

Why have we implemented the SPF?

For the past several years Denver Public Schools has relied on SAR and AYP ratings as the primary measures of a school’s progress or lack of progress. However, feedback from teachers, principals and parents has emphasized that these measures alone do not provide a complete picture as they only capture student performance at a given point in time and do not account for the progress made year over year. Denver Public Schools has responded to this concern by developing the School Performance Framework (SPF), which takes into account a broad range of measures, including the school’s actual AYP and CSAP performance in a given year, but also demonstrated improvement from one year to the next. In addition, the SPF measures each school’s academic performance relative to other schools with similar demographics. The SPF provides a more comprehensive body of evidence and a more informative view of how much of an impact our schools are having on their students from year to year.