The reports in the July 30 edition of The Daily Sentinel regarding District 51’s Colorado Student Assessment Program spring 2008 scores are nothing short of appalling, and two threshold issues immediately capture our attention:

1. Comparison to state student score averages is not an appropriate benchmark for District 51 performance when those state averages show 50 percent proficiency in third-grade writing, 44 percent proficiency in fifth-grade science and 30 percent proficiency in 10th-grade math. Those state averages simply demonstrate that over half the schools in Colorado are substandard, and need prompt corrective attention.

Those averages are hardly the measures of success that any district should target for its own performance. The fact that District 51’s scores are below even those wretched statewide averages means it has even more work to do than the average sub-standard district in the state.

2. In the resulting discussions of District 51’s plans for remediation of this poor performance, which appears to extend across many grades and subjects, one has yet to hear that perhaps the district intends to raise performance standards for the teachers it employs.

Back in the day, one would expect a district that demonstrated systemwide failure to look first to its front-line educators as a significant part of the problem. Perhaps today that is unrealistic when the teachers are shielded by unions. If so, then the battle is already lost, because teachers who cannot be held accountable for their own teaching results are hardly likely to teach accountability to students.

JOHN CALDWELL
Loma

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