The Need for Reform
Despite the progress that we have made as a district, we must face the sobering reality:
- Too few DPS students are proficient on the state’s reading, mathematics and writing measures.
- Not enough of our students are graduating from high school.
- In a district where a majority of our students are of color - 54% Latino and 16% African American - and 71% of all students are FRL, an unacceptable achievement gap persists between our African-American and Latino students and their Anglo and Asian-American counterparts.
While our growth confirms that we are on the right track, we acknowledge that we must significantly accelerate our rate of improvement and put far more of our students on the path to graduation and success in college and careers.
Study after study has made clear that the most important factor in closing the achievement gap is the quality of teaching. Our students deserve our best and we need to ensure that all students have great teachers.
DPS is committed to supporting all teachers in their quest to continually improve, yet our current teacher evaluation system is simply not good enough.
Teacher evaluation before LEAP:
- Unhelpful: Evaluations for most teachers don’t provide meaningful feedback or identify growth opportunities.
- Inaccurate: Only 38% of DPS teachers think the evaluation process provides an accurate assessment of performance.
- Undifferentiated: 99% of non-probationary evaluations produce a rating of “satisfactory.” That means both excellence and underperformance often go unrecognized.
- Infrequent: Most teachers aren't evaluated every year - they often go years without meaningful feedback on their performance.
The goal of LEAP is to provide meaningful feedback that will empower teachers to reflect upon and enhance their instruction so that every child in Denver has the opportunity to achieve at high levels. Change can't wait. Our teachers and students deserve it now.