News Release
September 12, 2005
Council Of Great City Schools To Begin Assessment Of Denver Public Schools Reform Efforts
Superintendent Michael Bennet today met with Council of Great City Schools (CGCS) executive director Michael Casserly to outline an independent and informed assessment of the district's current reform efforts. CGCS will send a team of its colleagues on Monday, Oct. 3 to begin the review.
Superintendent Bennet announced in August that he had asked CGCS to conduct a peer review of the district's academic capacity - assessing fiscal alignment, taking inventory of academic programs and services, and checking faculty and community perceptions about the alignment and quality of those programs. The CGCS work will be one input to the collective evaluation of the current state of the district's reform efforts.
The members of the CGCS team have strong curriculum backgrounds and credentials in mathematics, literacy, professional development, accountability, low performing schools and organization/management. All have experience in large urban districts.
The scope of work will be extensive. The team will look at most of the district's instructional programs and services. The work will lead to reviews of area offices, central and site-based academic committees, and such departments as Curriculum and Instruction, Early Education, English Language Acquisition, Extended Learning, Federal Programs, School Choice, Gifted and Talented, and Planning, Assessment and Research. Team members also will study the current professional development for principals and teachers.
The assessment is being paid completely with private sources and not by Denver Public Schools.
The Council of the Great City Schools is a coalition of 65 of the nation's largest urban public school systems. It works to promote urban education through legislation, research, media relations, instruction, management, technology and other special projects designed to improve the quality of urban education.
For more information, contact the DPS Communications Office at 720-423-3414.