Oprah gives $1 million to Denver School of Science & Technology
Denver School of Science & Technology has received a $1 million grant from Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network to help the charter school expand.
Winfrey on her show handed Bill Kurtz, chief executive officer of DSST, a $1 million check. Five other charter school networks got money, too.
“These school leaders are doing whatever it takes,” she said on the program that was aired on Monday. “We want to give you something to go back to your schools to make life better.”
The other schools that received Angel Network grants include Aspire Public Schools in California, LEARN Charter Schools in Chicago, YES Prep Public Schools in Houston, Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia, and New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy.
DSST now has two school campuses and plans to grow to five campuses throughout Denver to serve at least 4,300 students by 2020.
The high school now has a waiting list of about 500 students and the middle schools have a 200-person waiting list, Kurtz said.
Winfrey’s show was about the documentary film “Waiting for Superman,” which will be released this coming Friday.
The movie focuses on the state of public education in the U.S. and how American children are falling way behind their counterparts in other countries, even as school spending increases.
“Waiting for Superman does an outstanding job of outlining our country’s crisis in public education and the urgency with which we need to act on behalf of students nationwide,” Kurtz said. “DSST is very grateful for the support of Oprah’s Angel Network to help us expand in order to double the number of four year college-ready graduates from Denver Public Schools.”
DSST was one of six high-performing charter networks from around the country featured on the show as examples of public schools that are serving students well.
-By Jeremy P. Meyer
I’m glad to see a worthy school like DSST get the extra resources. However, as the parent of kids who’ve been lucky enough to attend similar schools, and having volunteered in some of DPS’ schools that have high populations of unmderprivileged children, I’m also concerned about the kids who are being left behind in unknown struggling schools that aren’t getting extra attention and funding they may deserve.
When trying to figure out what produces high-performing charters (and recent research shows that average charter schools actually under-perform compared to public schools), I’ve noticed that many of them get various sorts of private grants and funding like this – meaning that they have more money to spend per student than regular public schools, in addition to frequently being able to cherry-pick or self-select for better students with more supportive parents.
The answers aren’t easy, but the research shows that public schools, particularly in struggling urban districts, do relatively well given their level of resources and the difficult student populations; and that extra money, when well spend directly on education, does make a difference.
I’m thrilled for DSST and wish that such high-performing schools were the rule, rather than the exception. Unfortunately, I also believe that there is more than a grain of truth in the criticisms of the teachers’ unions, tenure, etc.
(At the risk of getting side-tracked, it’s fascinating that this movie lambasting teachers’ unions is getting the Al Gore/Michael Moore treatment from libs. But Republican Chris Christie tries to take on the Teachers Union in New Jersey and he’s a hateful fascist? Really? But I digress…)
Having said that, I can’t disregard the point made at the end of the article. The single most important factor in your child’s education is you- the parent. It is the environment you provide at home; the values you have instilled and continue to reinforce consciously and unconsciously each day. We need more schools like DSST, but let’s not pretend that the only things standing between a given child and college admission is a lazy teacher and a lottery ticket to DSST. It’s a little more nuanced than that, I’m afraid.
I know that’s not in keeping with the mantra of “it’s not your fault” that is the siren song of modern liberalism, but I don’t know that bigger government, higher taxes for school creation and more federal involvement are going to fix this one, folks.
The inconvenient truth is that the solution to this problem likely has to start at home.
“lousy teachers are protected by their unions, producing schools that fail children at an alarming rate”
Yep, tenure and unions, two destructive entities in this country. Unions have contributed to the outsourcing of jobs in this country whether you want to admit it or not — by demanding more and more from companies that simply can not afford it — jobs were eliminated here and sent overseas. What will help bring manufacturing back to America??? The suppression of labor unions. Just look in the help wanted ads. Tons of healthcare jobs and little or no industrial openings. So unless unemployed folks want to get retrained for the booming healthcare field, unions need to go away so companies bring manufacturing back to America. This country can not continue with bailouts and entitlement programs. The basic question at the end of the day is – do we want to create jobs or not? Labor unions are an outdated model and have outlived there usefulness.
While I agree that Unions definitely contribute greatly to the problem, eliminating them is not the solution. Even the THREAT of a Union in a workplace is enough to have a company start treating their employees better. (I’ve seen it several times)
The WORST teachers I ever had had tenure, but then again, the BEST teachers I ever had had tenure as well. There has to be a better way of doing it.
And lets face it, a charter school with “science and technology” most likely has a waiting list of HIGHLY MOTIVATED students waiting to get in.
As opposed to the average school with the average student who just wants to get thru the day.
It is unfair to compare the two.
Let’s not forget that DSST works on a model that they will not accept more than 45% of their student population coming from low-income families. Yet DPS has around 70% low-income students in the entire district. Why can’t DSST educate the same low-income population as DPS, if they’re so good?
One other thing: in charter-speak, “high performing” means high test scores. It’s all well and good to get kids to test well. It’s another thing to see what they’ve retained a year or two in the future. Education is not supposed to be about test scores only…maybe that’s why charters are notorious for trying to get test scores included on transcripts bound for a college application. Nice try.
And what about the kids that wash out of DSST? What happens to them? Clearly, it’s not a school for everyone. That’s not a public education, and yet your tax dollars are going to fund a school that clearly discriminates against poor kids.
As both my kids go to this school, I feel obligated to respond with a few facts.
Students attending DSST are from all neighborhoods across the Denver-metro area and are selected through a random lottery. There are no admissions criteria for students, nor is there tuition.
•45 percent of DSST students are economically disadvantages
•60 percent are Hispanic or African-American
•50 percent are first-generation college bound
But I suppose if making ignorant comments makes you feel better, then keep on posting.
Re: Pilgrim’s comment
I agree completely. The public school that my daughter attends is amazing. I am continually impressed by the teachers and staff there. The constant fund raising gets old pretty fast but I guess that is just the times that we live in.
Where I have to disagree is where you say that the schools that have a high population of underprivileged kids don’t get the funding that they deserve. I don’t have any stats on hand, but my guess is that they likely get more funding than the average school in a middle class neighborhood. The money just goes to fund different programs. There are some schools that have 80-plus percent of the kids on free and reduced lunch. More than 50% are English language learners. Just those two programs cost a huge amount of money. Think about how much more they could do for the education of all students if that money was spent in the regular classroom on the core curriculum.