High school graduation rates hit a six-year high in 2016, both in Boulder County and across the state, in large part because more Latino and economically disadvantaged students were graduating on-time.
That’s a promising trend for poor and minority students, their families, our schools, our teachers, and everyone interested in educational equity. However, it’s important to note that graduation requirements vary by district, and in recent years with the help of technology, “e-credit recovery” courses have helped students catch up more quickly than they were able to in the past.
In the absence of any fundamental, systemic change, you have to look at these factors, said St. Vrain School District Superintendent Don Haddad. In his school district, approximately 90% of students at the traditional high schools graduate in four years. But because the district has both relatively high graduation standards and lots of alternative high school options for struggling students, the overall 4-year graduation rate is approximately 85%.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he explained. Overall graduation rates would be higher if school districts did not provide alternative paths for students needing more than four years to graduate, but these efforts really benefit our students.
The fact remains that many Latinos and students from low-income families continue to struggle mightily to earn their high school diplomas, here and across the state. They are far less likely than their peers to enroll in college and earn a four-year college degree. Those who do enroll in Colorado’s colleges and
universities are more than twice as likely to enroll in remedial courses.
This disparity starts early, and is glaringly evident by the third grade, when Latino and low-income students across Boulder County are less than half as likely to be reading proficiently as their Anglo and more affluent peers.
“The true measure of a school district is how well are you preparing your poor kids?” said Brenda Lyle, Founder and Executive Director of The Family Learning Center in Boulder.
A “no excuses” approach
Lyle grew up in the projects of Los Angeles. She knows what it’s like to have limited income, limited tools, limited access and limited opportunities.
Since founding the Family Learning Center in 1981, Lyle and her staff have provided 14,000 of Boulder County’s low-income,
culturally diverse children and families lifelong learning tools for self-sufficiency and success.
“(BVSD’s) stats are really great,” she said. “But if you break it down, poor and minority kids are not doing significantly better than anywhere else, because really this district takes credit for the work of parents. Our kids (at the Family Learning Center) don’t have those same resources, and so then our kids start internalizing that they are not smart. What we try to do with our kids is say ‘You’re not stupid. You don’t have the same outside resources as your more affluent peers.’”
Kids from poor families aren’t going on family vacations. They’re not being tutored. And so the job of The Family Learning Center is to fill in those gaps with a “no excuses” approach to helping students achieve master skills.
Many of Boulder Valley’s struggling students are offered free re-tests if they don’t pass the first time, and they are graded on an overly generous curve, Lyle said. “It’s that narrative where you tell kids they’re doing better than they are.”
Approximately 16,800 students in Boulder County’s two school districts qualify for free or reduced lunch. That’s one quarter of the student population. About one third of all students are students of color, and most of those students are Latino.
Their disparate outcomes start early, before they even enter school.
Skills mastery must start early
Roughly 29 percent of kids in poverty are not enrolled in any kind of preschool before they go to kindergarten, Boulder County’s Head Start programs estimate. That’s almost 2,500 preschool aged children in Boulder County per year. But at least that many more children in families living close to the poverty level are not enrolled in preschool, either.
Compounding the problem, only 29 percent of kindergartners in Boulder Valley School District attend a full-day program, a rate dramatically lower than the state average of 74 percent. St. Vrain Valley kindergartners attend full-day programs close to the state average, at 68 percent. The main difference is that St. Vrain offers full-day kindergarten and preschool at every elementary school. Boulder Valley offers full-day kindergarten at only eight of its schools, and does not offer preschool at every elementary school.
That means many minority and poor children are waiting until rst grade before they receive full-day instruction. By then, their teachers must work mightily to catch them up with their Anglo and more well-off peers, many of whom have beneted from six years of enriching early childhood experiences, including a college-educated, English-speaking home environment and shelter from the stresses of poverty.
Our local struggles with the achievement gap aren’t fundamentally different from what we see nationally. They stem from low expectations and a lack of master skills, Lyle said. “A child doesn’t have high self esteem without mastery. You’ve got to feel like you’re good at something, like you’re competent at something.”
Lyle sees a troubling trend across Boulder County, and in Boulder in particular: The high cost of living is quickly turning this into a place of “haves” and “have-nots.” “There is more hopelessness than I’ve seen in years,” she said.
More kids are getting into drugs, smoking pot, going to parties, she said. And she said she anticipates federal budget cuts that will gut every social safety net program, including afterschool programs. “They say there’s no evidence that any of these programs work, and yet there is evidence everywhere,” she said.
At The Family Learning Center, “We have extremely high expectations of our kids and of our families,” she said. “While we’re building up kids, we’re building up families. We’re letting parents know: You are the master of your child’s destiny. You have to be their case manager and know where you want your kids to be.”
by Chris Barge
