Test Scores, Graduation Rates Soar in Colorado After School Choice Expands

A school bus in a file photo. A bill introduced in Colorado would pave the way for schools to conduct annual mental health checks for students. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

COLORADO SPRINGS—In 2007, Colorado ranked 34th in the nation for education, according to a report from CNBC. And within the state, Denver Public Schools (DPS) was in the bottom 10 districts for English language arts and math. At the time, DPS was Colorado’s second-largest district; it has since become the largest.

In its 2006–2007 class, DPS had a 39 percent high school graduation rate, a dropout rate of more than 10 percent, and just 1,324 students—out of 73,873—matriculated at a college.

The school system’s 2021–2022 class had a 76.5 percent graduation rate and a dropout rate of 3.8 percent. Now, Colorado comes in at 21st place nationally for education, according to CNBC’s 2023 report.

U.S. News & World Report’s 2023 states list—which compares SAT and ACT scores, high school graduation rates, National Assessment of Educational Progress math and readings scores, and preschool enrollment—ranks Colorado at 12th place nationally for pre-K through 12th grade, and 4th overall for education. U.S. News first released its states ranking list in 2017.

“We are very pleased with the numbers that have been released today,” DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero said in response to the 2022 DPS numbers. “They display the hard work that our staff and scholars have been doing to ensure that every learner thrives and is ready for ​​career, college, and life.”

DSST Cole Middle School, in Denver, Colo. (Screenshot via Google Maps)

The striking improvement came about after DPS committed to a system-wide reform in 2008, according to a recently published report by the University of Colorado’s Center for Education Policy Analysis.

The strategy involved embracing school choice, conducting an annual evaluation of each school’s performance, closing low-performing schools, and creating new schools.

The resulting change from 2008 to 2019—the period that the study covered—was dramatic. By the 2018–2019 school year, the school system was outperforming more than 100 out of approximately 180 districts in Colorado in math. It had also risen to the 60th percentile for English language arts.

“Our results indicate that the reforms drove these improvements in student academic and graduation outcomes,” the report states. “Our findings indicate that the reforms also benefited student subgroups, as all statistically significant results were positive.”

The school system’s student population is 51.7 percent Hispanic, 25.3 percent white, and 13.7 percent black or African American, according to DPS demographic data.

Students get their hands dirty learning to make herb butter with the Charlie Cart Project. (Courtesy of the Charlie Cart Project)

Colorado state Sen. Paul Lundeen said DPS has been a leader in providing school choice, and that Colorado, in general, is open to alternative learning pathways. 

“I think you’re seeing the results of that in the information from that study,” Mr. Lundeen told The Epoch Times. “Having said that, we still have a long way to go, but ... expanded choice is our best hope for a positive pathway forward.”

Formerly the chairman of the Colorado State Board of Education, Mr. Lundeen is the Republican minority leader for Colorado’s General Assembly and sits on the education committee. He’s deeply passionate about local and parental control in education, school choice, and innovation.

School Choice

In a traditional school district model, where a student lives dictates where they'll go to school. However, a school choice model allows students to opt in to any school or district.

School choice was first implemented in Colorado in the 1994–1995 school year. It allows families to learn about schools, tour them, and submit applications to their desired district and schools; multiple applications to different schools are permitted. If the school has an opening, administrators will enroll the student, regardless of the student’s original district.

But that necessitates availability and schools that parents want to send their children to.

“What distinguished Denver’s portfolio strategy from nearly every effort before it and since is that it was the first time in American history that an elected school board voluntarily relinquished the exclusive franchise to operate schools within its boundaries while maintaining its authority to govern all schools in the district,” the Center for Education Policy Analysis report states.

“In doing so, the district rejected the model of singularity in favor of multiplicity,” explicitly prioritizing school choice, the report states.

Eaglecrest High School in Aurora, Colo. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

In 2008, Colorado also passed the Innovation Schools Act, allowing districts and schools to implement “innovative” ideas and practices and, specifically, obtain waivers for policies and rules that otherwise hindered their ideas.

The legislation gave designated Innovation Schools more autonomy over budget, curriculum, and approaches to teaching. It also allowed schools to hire teachers without a teaching license but enrolled in alternative teacher preparation programs. These freedoms are similar to the freedoms that charter schools enjoy, but the difference between an Innovation School and a charter school is that the district runs the Innovation Schools.

“Charter schools [and Innovation Schools] tend to employ more alternative teachers,” Mr. Lundeen said. “Teachers that will get their certification, their license over time.

“If you have a bona fide rocket scientist, who in the second chapter of her life wants to go back and teach students, she belongs in the classroom teaching math, teaching physics, teaching chemistry. And the charters welcome that type of individual.”

To receive “innovation” status, a school must submit a plan to the local board of education outlining its innovative practices and specify which laws or rules it needs to waive.

Similarly, would-be charter schools must submit a charter application to the local school district and the Colorado Charter School Institute board, which then reviews the application for approval or denial.

Bookshelves in a library in a file photo. (John Moore/Getty Images)

When DPS first implemented its strategy, the district had no Innovation Schools, and it had authorized fewer than 20 charter schools—charter schools were first authorized in Colorado after the Charter Schools Act in 1993.

By 2019, the district had authorized more than 50 Innovation Schools—the first having opened in 2010—and 50 charter schools. Together, those schools accounted for half of the schools in the system and served “almost half of all DPS students,” according to the Center for Education Policy Analysis report.

The school system also “closed, replaced, or restarted” 35 schools identified as in need of intervention based on performance assessments.

The strategy wasn’t random, the report states, but instead was “explicitly” modeled after what’s known as the “Portfolio District Strategy,” which centers on three primary levers for education, “choice for families, autonomy for school providers, and accountability for student outcomes.”

“Did the reforms launched by Denver Public Schools improve student achievement districtwide for the average DPS student? The answer is, unequivocally, ‘yes,’” said Parker Baxter, director of CU Denver’s Center for Education Policy Analysis.

Mr. Lundeen said that giving more choice to parents involves them more in their child’s education, while expanding teacher choice brings more high-quality individuals into the classroom.

“Choice of any nature that disrupts the failed—and it’s not I would even say, ‘failing,’ preexisting model, but the failed preexisting public school model—is positive,” he said.

Positive Impact

Mr. Lundeen said that charter and Innovation Schools embody the “Golden Triangle of public education: ... an enthusiastic student, engaged parent or parents, and an exceptional teacher.”

“Charter schools tend to promote that triangle instead of providing protections for a teacher who may or may not be the strongest, most exceptional, most enthusiastic teacher available,” he said. “Unions are about keeping people in the classroom because they’re union members. The unions are not about keeping people in the classroom because they are exceptional teachers.”

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen poses with children holding up signs promoting school choice, at the state's capitol building on May 30, 2023. (Courtesy Nebraska Office of the Governor)

In Colorado during the 2007–2008 school year, there were 141 charter schools serving approximately 56,188 students, according to the University of Colorado.

Today, there are 265 charter schools statewide serving more than 134,000 students, which accounts for 15 percent of total public school enrollment in the state, according to the Colorado League of Charter Schools. Additionally, there are 107 Innovation Schools, according to the Colorado Department of Education, and in the 2021–2022 school year, they served 43,811 students.

Colorado has the nation’s second-best public charter school laws, according to the Colorado League of Charter Schools.

“When given the opportunity, parents will find the best thing for the child. Parents are voting with their feet,” Mr. Lundeen said. “When I got into public policy and the education policy conversation in 2010, about 8 percent of Colorado’s public education students were in charter schools.

“Today, 2022–2023, about 16 percent of the students in Colorado public education are in charters. I think the biggest factor in improving academic outcomes for students has been school choice.”

Mr. Lundeen, who spent 30 years as a small-business owner, said there’s an understanding in business that the early adopters and late adopters shape the market or society.

He said the early adopters were quick to pick up the smartphone, for example, and the late adopters pushed the market saturation past 18 percent to 20 percent. Once 18 percent to 20 percent market saturation is reached, the industry transforms.

“In Colorado, we’re very near that critical threshold,” Mr. Lundeen said. “If we can push past 18 [percent] or 20 percent of the students in Colorado being served by choice in education, by charters and other alternative pathways, then that will transform the entire education system.”

Political Headwinds

A January 2022 report found that charter schools in Colorado “outperformed their traditional public school peers generally and among virtually all historically underserved student populations.”

The report, titled “Charters and school choice out West: Lessons and challenges from Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico,” stated that “new political headwinds from a ‘bluer’ state electorate could slow the progress charters have made in the state over the past 30 years.”

For example, in 2021, Colorado state Rep. Jennifer Bacon and state Sen. Tammy Story—both Democrats—introduced House Bill 21-1295, “Rebuttable Presumption In Charter School Appeals.”

The measure, which failed, would’ve disallowed a charter school from appealing to the state Board of Education when it disagreed with a decision made by a district.

Current Colorado law allows a charter school to appeal a board’s denial of its application. For example, in 2020, DPS delayed the opening of the charter school DSST Noel High School, but DSST immediately appealed to the state board, which found that the school system’s decision to delay wasn’t in the best interest of the students. It ordered DPS to reverse its decision.

If HB 1295 had been in effect, the school system’s decision would automatically be assumed to be in the best interest of the students, and DSST couldn’t appeal as it did.

Runners pass the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Oct. 20, 2019. (Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

When asked why there’s political pressure from the left against school choice, Mr. Lundeen said that it comes down to teachers’ unions and money.

“Unions push back because the unions are all about the unions and the union’s survival,” Mr. Lundeen said. “They’re not about the students. They’re not about parents. They’re not about academic excellence. They’re about surviving as an organization and surviving as a union.”

He said that when a charter school employs a teacher, that teacher isn’t required to join a union. As such, the union misses out on that teacher’s union dues. And unions, typically, are significant financial contributors to Democrats.

Mr. Lundeen was quick to point out that the Democrats coming out against school choice and charter schools in Colorado typically belong to the party’s progressive wing. He said that moderate Democrats “usually see the sense and positive outcomes of school choice.”

As for attacks that claim school choice hurts minorities, Mr. Lundeen said: “The accusations that choice is negative for black and brown children, negative for people that come from economic hardship, are patently false.

“The reality is, choice and charters are serving a larger percentage of black and brown children, and they’re doing it in a better way.”

In its 2022 study, the Colorado League of Charter Schools found that 51 percent of charter students were “of color,” while 49 percent were white. The student demographics for a traditional public school in Colorado are 45 percent nonwhite and 55 percent white.

It also found that 21 percent of Colorado charter school students are English language learners, compared to 16 percent of traditional public school students.

State Sen. Janet Buckner, chair of the Colorado General Assembly’s Education Committee, and state Sen. Janice Marchman, vice chair of the Colorado General Assembly’s Education Committee, both Democrats, didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’s requests for comment on education and school choice in Colorado.