Each year, the Colorado StudentAssessment Program, the statewideset of tests taken by students in publicschools better known as the CSAP,releases in late spring the results of the third grade reading tests. Thesecome out months before the other tests,and offer a look at student achieve-ment, and perhaps, the fallible meansof assessing it.We took a look at the performanceof North Denver’s elementary schools.Statewide, just over 60,000 thirdgraders took the test. Of them, over35,000, or 66% were deemed profi-cient, and 4,168 advanced, 7%.City-wide, Denver Public Schoolsstudents, were 48% proficient, 4%advanced.The numbers for North Denverelementary schools were a bit moredistressing.The best performing school wasEdison Elementary, where 75% of stu-dents were proficient or advanced, fol-lowed Sandoval — 68%, Brown — 60%,Centennial —58%, and Bryant Webster— 54%. Below the district averagewere Columbian — 41%, Garden Place— 35%, Trevista-Horace Mann- 35%,Cheltenham —31%, Colfax— 29% andValdez— 9%.More interesting, however, wasto take another step with the data.Edison had 15% of its third gradersrated advanced, more than double thestate average. Cheltenham had onestudent, or 1%, rated advanced. Theother schools?
Across the board, zerostudents rated advanced on the thirdgrade reading test.
Zero.Looking at it another way, out of 547 third graders in North Denverschools, just 13 were advanced, or 2.6%and twelve of them were in one school,Edison. In terms of the proficient rat-ing, 238 of the third graders wereproficient, about 44%, just a few points below the district average.It seems highly improbable thatnine elementary schools, with some 387third graders, would have not a singlethird graders would rate advanced.Using the statewide average, 27 thirdgraders out of 387 should have been
Have you been thinking aboutthat home renovation or improve-ment project but the current economicsituation has left you debating if youshould move on it or not? The City of Denver can help you make a favor-able decision to proceed and helpthe economy at the same time withits Home Renovation Bonanza sched-uled for June 1 through June 15. Thisspecial incentive, supported by theDenver City Council, will suspendthe construction permit fee for basicinterior remodeling of existing one ortwo family dwellings.The fee suspension is intendedto help with improving home ener-gy consumption (i.e., efficient waterheaters/photovoltaic systems) and toadd new value to older homes. These basic home remodel permit fees canusually rack up a sizable cost forlarger work projects. The City wantsto incentivize homeowners to com-plete those improvements in the nextfew months. Once a permit is issued,the homeowner or their contractor hasup to 180 days to complete the work.Extensions can be requested, but theyare not automatic. During the next sixmonths, the city hopes to increase gen-eral fund sales and use tax revenue, sofar lagging 10% from projections.I encourage homeowners to uselocal licensed contractors to bid yourproject and attempt to buy your jobmaterials from neighborhood suppli-ers and vendors. I argued in councilcommittee to extend this permit feehiatus beyond just two-weeks, butthe prevailing sentiment was to keepthe fee suspension at two weeks andupon evaluation, the City could pos-sibly re-introduce the program laterin the year.This permit fee suspension is ourattempt to locally restart the economy.The hoped for remodeling boost, cou-pled with the current Better DenverBond Program’s implementation of
North Denver
NEWS
June 5, 2009
mailed to14,136Homes
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4th of July Parade
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Hotel Monaco
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Pull-out Summer Calendarof Events
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Dining Detective -Bridgewater Grill
p. 23
Denver Foundation’s AnnualCelebration
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CSAP reading scores raisequestions, provide few answers
by Rick Garcia
The Highland Street Fair will fea-ture Rosie Flores, the alt-country, rootsrock guitar hero, this June 20th. Rosie’sreputation as a high-octane rockabillyand country star is well established,and recent accolades have only madeher musical bouquet fuller. June 2008found Rosie onstage at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, acceptingthe prestigious Peabody Award forher narration of the 10-hour docu-mentary radio show on the historyof Rockabilly, “Whole Lotta Shakin’”,produced by Lex Gillespie.The Highland Street Fair runs 10 pmtil dusk, the Saturday before Father’sDay, with three stages of music at 32ndand Lowell.Flores is known as a great song-writer, award-winning guitar player,and break yer heartstrings singer, hasproduced some of roots rock and rock-abilly most famous recording, includ-ing those Janis Martin.Critical raves from prestigiouspublications such as the Los AngelesTimes and Guitar Player magazine,an LA Weekly Music Award for BestRockabilly Swing Artist, a 2007 coverstory in the Austin Chronicle, and theproclamation of Rosie Flores Day inAugust 2006 by Austin Mayor WillWynn was topped off by an inductioninto the Austin Music Hall of Fame in2007. She was recently voted as one of the “Top 75 Greatest Female Guitaristsof All Time” by Venuszine.Denver’s biggest communitystreet fair kicks off hundreds of ven-dors and great food and cocktails, as
Austin’s Rosie Flores
headlines Highland Street
Fair
by the North Denver Newssee FEE on page 9by Guerin Lee Greensee FLORES on page 6see CSAP on page 2
010203040506070Unsat PartProf Prof AdvDenverStatewideNorth Denver
%Unsatisfactory%Proficient%PartProficient%Advanced
By percentage, 3rd gradersscoring in each of the four categories of the CSAP
June 5, 2009Page 2
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advanced, using Denver’s average, 16should have been.The math itself is daunting. But theprobability that the nine schools wouldhave no advanced students is tiny,according to an actuary we consulted.Each year, the folks who scorethe CSAP re-jigger the scoring scale,and finding a path through the CSAPdocumentation is a thorny thicket.Essentially, the floor for “PartiallyProficient” is 50% on the test, less thanthat earns an “Unsatisfactory.” Scoreabove 58%, and the student will berated “Proficient,” do better than 78%,and the result is “Advanced.”According to the ColoradoDepartment of Education(CDE), whichadministers and scores the tests, theCSAP is not normed, what many
Only two North Denver schools have “advanced”reading 3rd graders
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Frequency Distribution 3rd Grade CSAP
0501001502002503003504004501 23 45 67 89 111 133 155 177 199 221 243 265 287 309 331 353 375 397 419 441 463 485 507 529 551 573
would call “grading on a curve.”“The entire population of CSAPscores is large, and therefore will tendto be very much like a normal distri- bution, but again, the scores are notscaled to be normal,” according to BethCelva of the CDE.The entire statewide score distri- bution of 3rd grade reading CSAPs isshown on the chart on this page. Likemost measures of human traits, it fol-lows a roughly “normal” distributionor bell curve, centered upon a mean.High stakes testing— schools can be closed or have their staffs fired if they don’t perform well— has becomepart of the landscape in Colorado. Butclearly, using and understanding thedata is still a work in progress.And while the data can describewhere we are at, it doesn’t prescribe acourse for the future and leaves manyquestions unanswered.Among them must be why theschools in North Denver, while show-ing progress in getting students togood enough, aren’t pushing them to be great.
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by Guerin Lee Green
It was the Wednesday night beforeThanksgiving, 1986. Boulder was dead,dead, dead, most of the campus hadfled home for the holiday. I head-ed down to the University MemorialCenter, to the 3.2 bar in the basement(oh, the days of 3.2 beer) with GrantBeck and Joel Smith of the Boulder band Feedback. We were going tocheck out a band somebody had seenat some party— Big Head Todd andthe Monsters. Now, this wasn’t the BigHead Todd -- guitar hero and song-writer -- that most people know. Thiswas Todd Park Mohr, still picking up asax to rip a solo off, with mostly R&Bcovers and Stevie Ray Vaughn tunes,shyly fronting a band that Coloradowould come to love. There were maybesix people in the audience that night.Skip ahead twenty-two years. Myfour year old son has to pee. Having just navigated horrible Chicago traf-fic, I pilot the rental car to the parkinglot of a social club, scene of a spiritedshuffle board game, where he can vio-late laws prohibiting public urination.We’re just a few blocks from the subur- ban Chicago home of Big Head Toddand his family, and we’re headed for asleep-over, but he can’t wait. Post-pee,we pull into a driveway, and find theerstwhile rock star engaged in fixing achild’s bike and tending a grill.It’s been a long trip for Todd— sell-ing out Red Rocks, dates onthe David Letterman Show,platinum record sales, set-tling into legend status asthe biggest name to comeout of Colorado in nineties.Yet, he’s the same playerwho played the basement of the UMC, became Boulder’sfavorite band, and is still atit, reveling in a new role asparent of two boys, whiletouring, writing music andhaving authored a thought-ful podcast.It’s amazing to watchTodd playing with kids,including mine. As the adultsdrink wine, Todd is Kung-FuPanda’ing with my son. Mykids have no idea who Toddis. Just as they don’t actuallyunderstand when CousinBilly is on the radio (my wifeis Billy Corgan’s cousin), andthink it’s a typical experi-ence, they don’t quite relateto Todd as anything other thana father, even though they’ve seen himon stage at Red Rocks.And through my son’s eyes, I getto see one of my favorite artists, thesame way I saw a young guitarist twodecades ago. It is powerful testimonyto the nature of time and perspective.Big Head Todd and the Monstershit the stage a Red Rocks on June 6,in what has become a rite of summer.The band, who has toured relentlesslyfor two decades, crafted a sound that,more than any other single source, hasdefined the Colorado music scene.The musical adventure continuesfor Todd. “Over the last six monthswe have been playing a lot with hornsections. Red Rocks is lots of fun, witha five piece horn section. I’ve always been a fan of R&B and big horn sec-tions.” Todd says concert-goers shouldenjoy a three hour show. “It’s beenexciting for me to perform, and because
see Todd on page 9
Big Head Todd and the Monsters and Todd Park Mohr return to Red Rocks June 6
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