Overall, the percentage of the 2014 high school graduates placed into remediation in at least one subject was 35.4 %, a slight increase from the previous year of 34.2%. Of the 22,853 high school graduates who matriculated to college in Colorado, 7,472 students were not college ready, and required at least one remedial course…
— Colorado Department of Higher Education, 2015 Legislative Report on Remedial Education
An annual legislative report detailing the number and percentage of Colorado college freshmen who required “developmental education” also spotlighted continued longstanding gaps based on race. At two-year institutions, 82 percent of black students and almost 70 percent of Hispanic students required remediation course, mostly in math. The figures for those same racial groups at four-year institutions were 52.5 percent and 39 percent, respectively.
The report noted that freshmen who enter college still needing remedial classes are less likely to finish college, statistically speaking. About 40 percent of students who enter college, without being fully prepared for college, drop out during their first year. This is a slightly higher drop-out rate than among those classified in the report as “college ready.”
Much of the energy and ultimate focus of the Colorado education industry gets directed at college graduation. This focus is codified by its state standards, by its seemingly endless stream of tests and assessments, by its data management systems — in spite of the fact that only about 30 percent of high school graduates ultimately earn a college degree. (See this 2015 Daily Post article for more details about this issue.)
But for the young moms who have been working for the past 18 months on developing a charter school application for the Pagosa Peak Open School, the question of college graduation has not been the central focus — for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the school will open in the fall of 2017 as a public, tuition-free “elementary school,” serving grades Kindergarten through 4th grade. The plan is to add one additional grade each succeeding year, up to 8th grade by the fifth year of school operation.
High scores on college entrance exams will probably not be among the primary goals for children this young.
But we all realize that certain parents are already worrying about college admission as their child enters Kindergarten. For these parents, Pagosa Peak Open School might seem to be starting out with the wrong focus.
Here is the Mission Statement for the Pagosa Peak Open School, developed over the past 18 months:
Pagosa Peak Open School aims to inspire a passion and respect for learning, knowledge, character and skills, enabling our children to pursue their dreams and lead meaningful lives. Our children are nurtured and engaged through outdoor education, hands-on projects, and community involvement. Exploring subjects through participation in natural environment not only strengthens student achievement, but also inevitably supports community vitality and a healthy planet. The opportunity to observe, solve problems, and participate in real-life scenarios fosters life-long learners who are socially responsible and have a strong sense of purpose.
As we might notice, the phrase “college graduation” does not appear in this mission statement.
We see, instead, phrases like “meaningful lives,” “community vitality,” “a healthy planet,” “life-long learners,” and “a strong sense of purpose.” After 18 months of research, the volunteer board of the Pagosa Peak Open School has settled upon the idea that they want children to leave their school — and to enter adulthood — with a strong sense of purpose, and a commitment to making the world a better place.
How, in 21st century America, does a group of non-educators — rank amateurs, really — come up with an educational model that can fulfill such an ambitious mission?
Here in Colorado, a charter school is publicly funded using the same “Per Pupil Revenues” that fund our conventional school district schools. For Archuleta County, those taxpayer-generated revenues amount to about $7,500 per student, give or take. In exchange for this public support, a charter school must agree to address the same Colorado Academic Standards that conventional schools address — and to administer the same Colorado standardized tests administered by conventional schools. These tests are (for the time being, at least) based upon the Common Core State Standards as originally adopted by 46 U.S. states under pressure from the U.S. Department of Education.
Until the passage of the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015, the U.S. Department of Education had “encouraged” states to adopt the Common Core Standards by granting “waivers” to No Child Left Behind Act provisions, in exchange for statewide adoption of Common Core. The new ESSA not only replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, it also expressly prohibits the Department of Education from attempting to “influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of the Common Core State Standards … or any other academic standards common to a significant number of States.”
The number of states still using Common Core is something of a moving target. Some websites show the total as 46. The Common Core website shows the total as 42. Wikipedia lists only 37 states as having “formally adopted” the controversial standards.
The state of Colorado has adopted all of the Common Core standards, and included them in its Colorado Academic Standards. The standards include a range of academic subjects — including music, visual and performing arts, health and physical education — but the only subjects currently tested with mandatory statewide assessment tests are math, English language, science and social studies. Every public school in Colorado, including every charter school, must submit to using the same state government-chosen tests, at certain grade levels.
Colorado schools and school districts — and individual teachers — are judged and accredited based on its students’ performances on these mandatory standardized tests. But when the young mothers making up the Pagosa Charter School Initiative board began enumerating the core educational values that they shared as a group, “high scores on a computerized tests created by bureaucrats” was not at the top of their list.
The core values of this group of volunteer parents — admittedly, non-educators — were refined during the process of 17 school visits conducted in Colorado and New Mexico. The visits were funded, in part, by two grants awarded by the Colorado League of Charter Schools, an organization founded in 1994 and dedicated to helping Colorado charter schools get their doors open — and remain open.
Following those 17 school visits, the board summarized the education model they’d chosen to use for the Pagosa Peak Open School — based largely upon the models they’d witnessed in successful use at three of the school they visited: Jefferson County Open School, Crestone Charter School, and Santa Fe School for the Arts and Sciences.
In Part Three, we will look in more detail at the educational model that’s been chosen for Pagosa Peak Open School.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.