Denver schools making promising progress but troubling gaps persist, report says

Originally posted on Chalkbeat by Melanie Asmar on April 27, 2016

Enrollment and graduation rates are up in Denver Public Schools. On state tests last year, the district outperformed many others with similar numbers of low-income kids. More high schoolers are taking college-level classes and fewer graduates need remediation in college.

But DPS still has a long way to go to meet the goals of its five-year strategic plan.

Those are some of the findings from a new report by pro-reform education advocacy group A Plus Colorado, formerly A Plus Denver. It compares DPS's progress against its targets.

The report notes several areas where the district continues to struggle. For instance, ACT scores remain relatively flat. The graduation rates and state test scores of African-American and Latino students continue to lag behind those of their white peers. And in some neighborhoods, fewer than half of students attend high-performing schools.

Read the full report here.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Photo credit: Alan Levine, Creative Commons, Flickr.