1. NOVEMBER 2016 | 5280 | 115114 | 5280 | NOVEMBER 2016
CreditsTk
CreditsTk
In 1946, Harvard University and the National Education
Association battled over the best way to prepare stu-
dents for the real world. Life magazine tried to settle
the argument by investigating their opposing ideas
through the lens of Denver’s East High School. Seven
decades later, we revisit Life’s analysis to ask: How are
local schools preparing kids for life after high school?
BY SPENCER CAMPBELL P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y E H R E N J O S E P H S
Schools
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114 | 5280 | NOVEMBER 2016

2. NOVEMBER 2016 | 5280 | 117116 | 5280 | NOVEMBER 2016
SarahBoyum
If the 1940s version of the NEA
could’ve participated in this month’s
election, you can bet the union would
have supported the proposed mill levy that
seeks to raise $56.6 million for DPS.That’s
because in 1946, the NEA was “delighted,”
according to Life, by the bevy of vocational
courses available at East—and the millions
sought by DPS this month are earmarked for,
among other things, career-readiness pro-
grams such as CareerConnect.
DPS laid the foundation for CareerCon-
nect in 1976 when it opened the Career
Education Center Early College of Denver
(CEC), a vocational high
school in the Jefferson
Park neighborhood. At
CEC, kids not headed to
college learned to fix cars,
weld, or cook.Then, three years ago, DPS
received a grant to widely expand CareerCon-
nect, making the program available to all high
school students.
There are 10 pathways under CareerCon-
nect’s umbrella, from BusinessConnect for
future financiers to MedConnect for aspiring
doctors.These tracks are sprinkled through-
out 27 DPS buildings. Students follow these
tracks during their elective hours, taking
classes that lead to either industry certifica-
tions or college credit. Accordingly, enrollment
in CareerConnect jumped to more than 6,000
last year, up from around 4,000 in 2013-’14.
That boom might be short-lived.The grant
subsidizing CareerConnect’s growth dries up
after the next school year.This month’s pro-
posed mill levy would cover the tab indefinitely.
“We need to work hard to show our commu-
nity the importance of investing in education,”
DPS superintendent Tom Boasberg says,“and
the long-term payoff of that investment.”
It’s too early to put a dollar value on Career-
Connect—but it seems to be working for
17-year-old Citlali Barcenas, a first-generation
Mexican-American and senior at CEC, who
describes her journey through CareerConnect.
In the mid-1940s, East High hewed
much closer to the NEA’s philosophy. It
offered 176 vocational classes, from typing
courses to an off-campus auto shop class
provided through a partnership with the
Emily Griffith Opportunity School, a local
trade school.Today, East’s curriculum skews
more college prep, offering 28 Advanced
Placement courses and concurrent enroll-
ment opportunities through partnerships
with the Community College of Denver
and the University of Colorado system.Yet
the school still holds a well-above-average
position in Colorado’s educational land-
scape. In fact, the most recent Denver Public
Schools (DPS) report card rates the school
as “distinguished”—meaning it exceeded
district expectations. Not surprisingly, the
waitlist to get into East stretches to 180
students, their parents drawn in by extracur-
ricular activities, test scores, and likely, the
myriad specialized courses the school offers:
Where in 1946 East students struck a spoon
to understand conduction and discussed Alfred Hitchcock’s latest
movie in psychology, contemporary students are building robots and
reading graphic novels.“I don’t know that students have changed
much—kids are still kids—but the way schools operate has defi-
nitely changed,”Mendelsberg says.
While East is still among the best public high schools in the
state, there are 198 other primary and secondary institutions within
DPS and countless more along the Front Range.Which is why
5280 updated Life’s research project for 2016 by lifting some of the
recommendations Harvard and the NEA made 70 years ago and
using them to understand how local public, private, and charter
schools are readying pupils for college and careers.We discovered
that although educational weapons have improved (from eating
utensils to 3-D printers), the war pitting practical education against
classical continues to be waged in the Mile High City and beyond.
T
his past may, east
High School counselor
Elizabeth Roush was
thumbing through a stack
of old magazines inside
an antique shop in Castle
Rock when one of the periodicals attracted
her attention. Although some of the pages
had been torn free and there was a stain
on the cover, Roush snatched the issue and
delivered it to Andy Mendelsberg, East
High’s principal.
“I had heard of it but never seen it
before,” Mendelsberg says, pointing toward
that April 22, 1946, copy of Life lying on
a table inside his office. The cover bears a
black-and-white photo of a young woman
reading a textbook, her dark hair fram-
ing a smooth teenage face. The cover line
reads “Denver High School.” The vener-
able publication may have gotten the name
wrong—the young brunette was, in fact, a
student at East—but its reasoning for select-
ing the school for coverage was spot-on. Compared with other U.S.
high schools at the time, the City Park–based preparatory stood
“well above the average.”
East was the ideal setting for evaluating how a successful high
school was readying its students for reality. For some, that may have
been college. For many others, it was the workplace.The cover story
took aim at the philosophies of two competing entities: Harvard
University and the National Education Association (NEA), the
teachers union.The nation’s most august university called for more
emphasis on cultural and academic subjects—like, say, the study of
Plato’s Republic.The NEA, on the other hand, advocated for more
practical education that the grads who would not go on to college
could use in their careers.That meant, for example, eighty-sixing
geometry because it served little purpose for the four out of five stu-
dents who would not go to college at the time.
INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS ATTENDING
COLORADO PUBLIC PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS
(FROM 199,441 TO 899,112) SINCE 1946.400%
THEN
“Ever since John Dewey, in 1899, blasted the U.S. public-
school system for glutting students with academic subjects
and neglecting more practical courses, U.S. educators have
been fighting the war of practical vs. cultural education.”
NOW
Seventy years after Life magazine
published that sentence, the debate still
rages in the United States—and in Denver.
● Thanks to
CareerConnect,
Citlali Barcenas
is on track to
become an EMT.
● An East High School student appeared on the
cover of Life 70 years ago.
THEN
“East High School students have
their choice of 176 vocational
subjects, can learn to be beauticians,
radio repairmen, waitresses.”
NOW
DPS’ CareerConnect program
doesn’t make students wait until
college to choose a major.
NINTH GRADE All CEC
freshmen take four survey
courses to explore different
careers. The school placed
Barcenas in Construction
Technology, Early Childhood
and Elementary Careers,
Computer Applications and
Business Management, and
Health and Wellness.
“At first, I wanted to be
a chef. But health and
wellness opened my eyes.”
10TH GRADE Students start
out on chosen career paths
as sophomores. Barcenas
picked Culinary Arts in the
HospitalityConnect program
for her first semester class.
She took Principles of
Biomedical Science during
her second semester.
“Cooking is fun, but it’s not
something I could do every
single day.”
 BARCENAS’ PASSAGE THROUGH CEC
11TH GRADE Barcenas switched
to the MedConnect
program, enrolling in Human
Body Systems and then
Sports Medicine. She also
received a mentor from
the University of Colorado
Anschutz Medical Campus.
“We went on a trip to the
University of Colorado
Denver for a cadaver
lab. It was the greatest
experience. They showed
us where every single
organ was.”
SUMMER INTERNSHIP Barcenas
spent six weeks at Denver
Health Medical Center
shadowing the paramedic
division and an ER doctor.
“The reason I took the
internship was to make
sure [being an EMT] was
something I wanted to do.
And it was amazing.”
12TH GRADE Barcenas will
take Medical Interventions,
which explores medical
cases—such as the
diagnosis and treatment of
unknown infections.
“The teacher for Medical
Interventions and I started
together when I came to
[CEC]. I started to take all
of his courses...because
of the way he was
teaching them.”
GRADUATION Barcenas will
leave CEC with college-
level credit in CPR for
Professionals and Medical
Terminology, both of which
can be applied to future
EMT certification.
“I have two options:
go to the University of
Colorado Denver, then
get into medical school at
CU Anschutz, or become
an EMT. But I think I’m set
on being an EMT first.”

3. NOVEMBER 2016 | 5280 | 119118 | 5280 | NOVEMBER 2016
CourtesyofGralandCountryDaySchool(NassifandGreenwald)
To some, a school that caters to a single gender might seem
as quaint as the NEA patronizing women with makeup
classes. But Girls Athletic Leadership Schools (GALS)
founder Liz Wolfson firmly believes gender-specific education pro-
vides girls the chance to grow into successful women like Hillary Clinton—who, we should
point out, attended the all-female Wellesley College.“When girls graduate from girls schools,
I believe they have a better sense of who they are,”Wolfson says.
Don’t let the name throw you: Lincoln Park’s GALS isn’t exclusive to the lacrosse- and soc-
cer-loving set.“Brain science says movement boosts cognitive achievement—period,” Wolfson
says. A teacher might present students with a historical scenario, such as Columbus’treatment
of Native Americans. Students who agree with the Italian explorer go to the opposite side of
the room from those who disagree. Once there, each girl must state why she chose her position,
encouraging students from the other side of the room to cross over. Back and forth, they move.
Influenced by books such as Learning Like A Girl: Educating Our Daughters In Schools of
Their Own, which shows that during adolescence, girls begin to defer to boys in coed class-
rooms, Wolfson designed an environment that encourages female students to speak out. For
example, when a teacher asks a question, a girl’s impulse generally is to answer, but often she
first checks to see who else has raised a hand. A GALS educator knows this and might wait
a few beats until there are more arms in the air before calling on someone. (Boys, on the
other hand, are inclined to raise their hands before they know the answer; they trust they’ll
THEN
“Students should do own experiments.”
NOW
Graland Country Day School looks to nurture the
next Thomas Edison Elon Musk.
 BRAINCHILDREN
Three Gates-contest-
winning inventions
that earned patents.
● GALS students create
a chemical reaction,
adding sulfuric acid to
sugar to produce carbon.
The intellectuals from Harvard and the pragmatists from the NEA agreed on at
least one thing: Students don’t learn through lectures alone. So it’s safe to assume both
would approve of Graland Country Day School’s Gates Invention and Innovation Pro-
gram. Every year, the private school’s fifth-, sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders spend elective
periods or personal time conceiving, developing, and then, in March, pitching inventions to six
judges. Inventions the judges deem market-worthy receive the support necessary to try to obtain
a patent.“They learn the quickest way to success is to fail early and fail often,”says Andy Dodge,
co-director of the Gates program and chairman of the Hilltop school’s science department.
Started in 1999, the elective program has become hugely popular. In 2015-’16, only 14 of
Graland’s 71 fifth-graders didn’t participate. A few years ago, the school’s younger students
even lobbied administrators to be included.Third-graders, who were studying civics at the time,
drafted a “bill”that would’ve allowed them to participate in the Gates competition. (The princi-
pal has since incorporated invention-related curriculum into all grades.)
Sophie Goldberg empathizes with her younger schoolmates. She had been dreaming about
joining the program since she started at Graland as a kindergartner.When her time finally
arrived, Goldberg connected two umbrellas with a length of PVC pipe and—voilà!—invented
the Bi-Dry, an umbrella that provides twice the protection but can still be held by a single per-
son.The following year, one of the program’s instructors asked the students
to infuse a hint of altruism into their inventiveness, so Goldberg studied
gears and gravity to develop the Grav-wash-ity, a gravity-powered washing
machine for people who don’t have access to electricity.
This fall, Graland will
debut the 24,000-square-
foot Corkins Center.The
school spent more than a
year raising funds from par-
ents and other benefactors
to pay for the $10 million
on-site facility—and the
3-D printers, laser cut-
ter, and other high-tech
tools inside it—in order to
imbue the entire campus
with the sort of experi-
ential, self-sufficient, and
creative passion the Gates
competition has fostered.
“One of the highlights is
that teachers are there to
help you but not necessar-
ily give you the answers or
tell you what to do,” says
Goldberg, now a freshman
at East High School, whose
Grav-wash-ity earned a
patent.The end result, at
least for Goldberg, was
satisfaction she had never
before felt in a traditional
classroom. “It made me
very proud,” she says. “I
made that. It’s part of this
world now.”
come up with it later.)
Stalker Henderson sent his daugh-
ter Catherine to GALS as part of the
school’s inaugural class in 2010 (origi-
nally a middle school, GALS has since
added high school and will graduate
its first cohort in 2018). Now a senior
at George Washington High School,
Catherine serves as co-president of the
National Honor Society, stage manager
for the winter musical, and co-captain of
the cross-country team.“GALS allowed
her to recognize her abilities and her
voice,”her father says.
Quantifiably, things seem to be
working out, too. In 2016, 52.6 percent
of GALS students met or exceeded
expectations on the English portion of
the Colorado Measures of Academic
Success (CMAS) assessment test,
compared with 39.5 percent of all Cen-
tennial State test-takers. Furthermore,
31 percent of GALS pupils met or
exceeded expectations on the math part
of the exam; Colorado boys did so only
26.4 percent of the time.“Coed school-
ing has produced an inequitable system
for women,”Wolfson says.“So maybe
we should try something different.”
THEN
“N.E.A. believes that more girls would take
science courses, even chemistry, if they were
taught to make their own cosmetics.”
NOW
Every young woman at GALS studies
science—even chemistry!—but in a setting
that research suggests positions them for success.
● Sophie Goldberg
with her latest
invention, skis with
built-in skins.
THE DRIP DROP
Inventors: Sam Nassif and
Oliver Greenwald
Grade: Fifth
The product: This edible
ring wraps around your
everyday sugar cone to
protect kids’—OK, and
adults’—hands from melting
ice cream. This past April,
Nassif and Greenwald
pitched the Drip Drop
on Shark Tank, securing
$50,000 from one of the
show’s investors.
THE SCHNAP
Inventors: James Cobb and
Alex Kechriotis
Grade: Seventh
The product: Designed
for seniors with Parkinson’s,
the Schnap attaches to a
jacket’s existing zipper.
Wearers then bring the two-
sided, magnet-lined creation
together to fasten their
coats instead of
having to fuss with
temperamental zippers.
THE ALL CHAIRAIN
Inventors: Cailey Karshmer
and Lily Fox
Grade: Seventh
The product: Inspired by
Fox’s mom, who uses a
wheelchair, this knobby-tire
attachment replaces the two
front wheels of a standard
wheelchair so the user can
navigate rocky terrain.
Schools
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4. NOVEMBER 2016 | 5280 | 121120 | 5280 | NOVEMBER 2016
CreditsTk
CourtesyofFab(projector)
➡ GLASS RECYCLING
In single-stream recycling
programs like Denver’s,
glass tends to shatter
when it’s passing through
different stages of the
system. And because
it’s broken, workers
have a difficult time
separating the glass
from other recyclables.
Consequently, 83
percent of glass intended
to be recycled ends
up in landfills. That
disturbing stat spawned a
partnership between the
school and local nonprofit
Clear Intentions in March
2016. Every other week,
parents bring discarded
glass with them when
picking up their kids from
Mackintosh. Students and
teachers then deliver the
glass from the car line to
Clear Intentions’ glass-
only recycling station.
➡ MESSH KITS
Last year, seventh-
and eight-graders in
Mackintosh’s design
course were asked to
create a product that
would turn school
events into zero-waste
affairs. With the help
of their teachers, the
kids dreamed up and
constructed Messh Kits—
cutlery and nonbreakable
dishes bought secondhand
and stored in washable
mesh bags (so they can
throw the bags, dirty
kitchenware inside, into
the dishwasher). Parents
and students now use
the kits in place of plastic
utensils and paper plates
during school events.
➡ TERRACYCLE
Every grade at the school
collects nonrecyclable
items, such as Capri
Sun pouches and Power
Bar wrappers, and puts
them into bins from
TerraCycle, an East Coast
company that turns
them into plastic pellets.
Manufacturers transform
the pellets into benches,
garden beds, and other
plastic products.
What better way to benefit your fellow men (and women) than to ensure they have a
planet to inhabit in the future? In 2015, sixth-graders at Mackintosh Academy fulfilled
a class project by writing a grant to install solar panels atop the private pre-K through
eighth grade school in Littleton.That touched off an ecological arms race—one that has turned the
campus into what administrators call a “smart village,”a term typically used to define communities
in undeveloped countries that generate electricity through sustainable means. Here, a tour of the
Denver-area school that’s taking literal its charge to produce responsible citizens of the Earth.
Nine years ago, Denver-dwellers Tracy and Matthew Kin-
ner scoured the city for a kindergarten program for their
daughter and came back disappointed.Their neighborhood’s
public schools weren’t performing well, and the 13 private schools they
researched were overpriced.“Then I heard that someone on our block was
going to home-school,”Tracy says,“and I realized,‘Oh, regular city people
can teach their kids at home.’”
Today,Tracy teaches her ninth-grade daughter and seventh-grade
son using a variety of resources, including a formal math curriculum
from a free web-based nonprofit; writing projects
inspired by, for example, a particular era of music
history; and field trips to cultural institutions like
the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.“We
have tremendous flexibility to go and do whatever
we find interesting,”Tracy says. Outside-the-
living-room learning also combats the myth that home-schooled kids are
unsociable because they never learn to navigate playground politics.“My
kids have to talk to a much broader range of people,”Tracy says.That’s not
just a mom’s opinion; studies suggest home-schooled students have stron-
ger friendships and better relationships with adults.
The Kinners are far from the only urbanites turning to in-house educa-
tion: Last year in Denver,291 students were home-schooled,up 64 percent
from 2009.(Families who want to teach their children at home notify their
local school districts each fall.) These kids often seem to be more prepared
for higher education: Research from the University of Colorado Boulder
shows that Colorado students taught at home have a higher average GPA
(3.18) at college graduation than their classroom-taught peers (2.88).
Yet the Kinners’ biggest goal,Tracy says,“is that the kids don’t lose their
interest in learning.”To that end,the family has taken two recent road trips
through the South,giving the children a hands-on lesson in everything
from early colonial settlements to the Civil War.“We’re not really home-
schooling,”Tracy says.“We’re out-schooling.”—Hilary Masell Oswald
TECH-SPEAK
U.S. public schools spend
about $3 billion a year
on digital content. This
timeline shows how
educational technology has
evolved from projectors
to virtual reality over the
past eight decades.
THEN
“The end
product of the
educational system,
according to Harvard,
should be a respon-
sible citizen aware of
his duties and of his
fellow men.”
NOW
At Mackin-
tosh Academy’s
Littleton campus,
the school colors are
cherry red and lime—but the students
bleed a deep shade of
environmental green.
➡ SOLAR PANELS
Funded by a $98,000 grant
from State Farm Insurance, the
campus’ 97 panels save the
equivalent of 40,000 pounds of
coal per year—not to mention
shave $3,000 to $4,000 off
the school’s annual electric
bill. Those savings go toward
tuition for a kid who couldn’t
otherwise afford to attend the
academy. The program earned
its founders a President’s
Environmental Youth Award,
which should look pretty good
on their college applications.
➡ GREENHOUSE
The result of a $2,000 grant
through the Whole Kids
Foundation, Mackintosh’s
greenhouse provides lettuce,
arugula, kale, spinach, and
tomatoes that are sold
to parents during Friday
afternoon pick-up (the
profits, about $300 so far, are
reinvested in garden supplies).
The produce also helped feed
attendees during an event
last March that featured local
restaurateur Justin Cucci,
owner of Linger and Root
Down, who gave a speech
about sustainable agriculture.
➡ TERRACES
Middle schoolers studying
Peru’s Machu Picchu decided
the Incas’ ancient terracing
techniques would be a good
way to prevent the erosion
of a nearby hill while also
increasing the area available
for crops. Built by students in
spring 2016, the four terraces
offer 100 square feet of space
for salad greens, tomatoes,
corn, and pumpkins.
THEN
“Field trips and classroom discussions
help liven up schoolwork.”
NOW
The world is a classroom for the
metro area’s growing population of
home-schooled students.
1930s: Overhead projector
1959: Photocopier
1972: Floppy disks
1972: Handheld scientific
calculator
1972: Scantron
LATE 1970s: VHS tapes
EARLY 1980s: Lemonade Stand,
a computer game that
teaches basic math skills
1981: IBM’s personal
computer
MID-1980s: Dry-erase boards
1985: Oregon Trail
computer game
EARLY 1990s: PowerPoint
EARLY 1990s: Interactive
whiteboards
2010: iPads
2016: Virtual reality, for “field
trips” to the South Pole
● The Denver
Museum of Nature
& Science presents
myriad learning
opportunities for
the Kinners.
● Mackintosh’s Nathan
Hofer carries seedlings from
the greenhouse so they can
be transferred to larger
growing containers.
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5. 122 | 5280 | NOVEMBER 2016
One late-fall morning,
a pink glow from the east
shines through our car win-
dows as I drive my kids to school. I’m
nervously watching the clock (and
the traffic) when my then first-grade
daughter murmurs, “For each new
morning with its light/ For rest and
shelter of the night….” She trails
off, then says, “Mom? I guess Ralph
Waldo Emerson probably lived in
Colorado because I see the morning light he was talking about.”
I would love to say we regularly read 19th-century American poets around our house,
but the truth is our kids attend a classical school. Back when I began shopping for elemen-
taries, I discovered typical public school curricula tend to separate literature from its history.
Plus, new standards emphasize “informational texts”—like train schedules and recipes—
over literature. In contrast, classical education employs literature as a window to culture,
people, and ideas over time, providing a deliberate link to historical context and philo-
sophical impact. Pragmatically, exposure to good writing boosts vocabulary, provides early
knowledge of grammar, and bolsters speaking skills. All of which explains why, in 1946, the
high minds at Harvard pushed what Life called “the world’s great literature”so fervently.
But my favorite benefit of a curriculum rich in literature is loftier. Stories help
us understand our collective and individual humanity: Charlotte’s Web gives us a
view of self-sacrificial love. The Hobbit reminds us that courage isn’t the absence of
fear, but the ability to act in spite of it. Hamlet shows us the results of too much
Imagine you’ve passed all your
high school classes, cleaned out
your locker, and attended a four-
hour buzzkill of a ceremony to grab
your diploma.You’re ready for col-
lege…right? Well, if you graduated
from DPS, maybe not. Before students
who have graduated from Colorado
high schools can enroll in English and
math at Colorado’s public universities,
they first must achieve a predetermined
score on an assessment test—either
the ACT, SAT, or the College Board–
administered Accuplacer, which
evaluates basic abilities of community
college enrollees. A student who makes
less than 18 on the English portion of
the ACT, for instance, is labeled by the
Colorado Department of Higher Edu-
cation (CDHE) as “not college ready”—a stigma that previously could only be cleansed by passing a
remedial class at a community college.
In 2014-’15,the latest year for which data are available,the Centennial State’s remedial rate stood at
35.4 percent.Things were worse for seniors graduating from DPS: 53 percent needed at least one reme-
dial class.And while remedial classes have the best of intentions,stats prove that they often become tar
pits.Nationally,only four in 10 students actually matriculate through remedial classes.Plus,research
from the CDHE shows that many remedial students actually could pass credit-bearing college math
and English courses.That’s why,in 2012,state lawmakers passed a bill permitting public colleges in Col-
orado to bypass remedial course requirements in favor of supplemental academic instruction (SAI).
SAI looks a little different at every school. Simply put, students who barely miss the assessment-test
threshold are allowed to enroll in credit-bearing courses. However, they must also participate in some
sort of extra instruction while enrolled in the credit-bearing class—whether that’s individual tutoring
or a one-hour, once-a-week lab. So far, the CDHE has approved four schools and the Colorado Com-
munity College System to offer SAI programs.
Next month,the CDHE will release its first official study on retention rates for students in SAI pro-
grams.However,Metropolitan State University of Denver,which in 2013 became the first Colorado
institution to offer SAI,reports that in the program’s inaugural year,88 percent of SAI students passed
the school’s freshman English course—compared with 71 percent of all pupils (those deemed “college
ready”included) who took the class.There were similar results in MSU’s math courses.And those are the
kinds of dividends the CDHE hopes SAI will pay throughout the state.m
79%
(brooding) talk and not enough action.
Momentum for classical ed is strong. At
least eight such schools—including parochial,
traditional private, and chartered public variet-
ies—operate in the Denver metro area, four of
them having opened in the past seven years.“I
think more parents are realizing that our educa-
tion system today is sometimes a real gamble,”
says Nate Ahern, headmaster of my kids’school,
Lakewood’s Augustine Classical Academy.“So
they’re looking at other options. Classical edu-
cation boasts a multicentury track record of
brilliant results, beginning with Renaissance and
Enlightenment thinkers.”
And if Galileo had been required to take the
ACTs,chances are he would have aced them,
considering classically educated kids bettered the
national average in English by almost seven points
(27.2 compared to 20.4) and reading by almost six
(27.1 versus 21.4).For now,I’m just glad we have
children building solid grammar foundations
and vocabularies wide enough to say
what they mean—and the wisdom to
occasionally wonder at the morning
light.—Hilary Masell Oswald
 TURNING THE PAGE
Denver Public Schools
began a new English track
this year by rolling out
English I, II, and III for
freshmen, sophomores,
and juniors, respectively.
Most of those classes’
core texts are classic (read:
older than dirt) books—a
strategy the NEA would
probably have disapproved
of considering it felt that
1946 English courses
did “not include enough
contemporary American and
British authors.” Current
DPS teachers, however,
have leeway to inject more
modern texts into their
classrooms. One educator
seizing that opportunity
is East High School’s Todd
Madison, who outlines some
of the texts he’s teaching his
English III juniors this year
and why.
Selected Short Stories of
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1800s)
“Nathaniel Hawthorne helped
invent American literature. His
stories are really evocative and
often stunning. It’s good to
study these formative writings.”
Watchmen by Alan Moore
and Dave Gibbons (1986-’87)
“Students are familiar with
superhero stories now, but this
graphic novel also addresses
the 1980s in interesting ways,
touching on politics, power,
and corruption.”
Between The World And Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
“Coates is often called the
successor to James Baldwin,
and we’ll study his book for
using a letter as a storytelling
technique. But this book also
speaks to things that happened
18 months ago and forms a
contemporary conversation
about power and community.”
THEN
“The problem America faces today, declares Harvard, is
how to give a full and equal education to this amorphous
mass which now constitutes the high-school population.”
NOW
DPS certainly hasn’t solved this issue—although a new
program makes it so kids marked as “not college ready”
don’t fall behind.
THEN
“Grammar should
be taught by
conversation and by
reading good literature.”
NOW
Classical schools in
Denver agree with this
Harvard tenet, believing
there’s a lot to learn from
reading a good book.
THEPORTIONOFHIGHSCHOOLGRADUATESENTERING
THECOMMUNITYCOLLEGEOFDENVERIN2014-’15WHOWERE
REQUIREDTOTAKEATLEASTONEREMEDIALCLASS.
● East High School
student Josiah Peters
reads Ta-Nehisi
Coates’ latest book.
● Metropolitan State University of Denver was the first school
in Colorado to offer supplemental academic instruction classes.
Schools
ThoughtOF