Redesigning Denver's Schools: The Rise and Fall of Superintendent Tom Boasberg

Autor/inn/en	Baxter, Parker; Ely, Todd L.; Teske, Paul
Titel	Redesigning Denver's Schools: The Rise and Fall of Superintendent Tom Boasberg
Quelle	In: Education Next, 19 (2019) 2, S.8-20 (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1539-9664
Schlagwörter	Superintendents; Urban Schools; Public Schools; Educational Change; Teacher Effectiveness; School Choice; Accountability; Empowerment; Equal Education; Educational Improvement; Administrator Effectiveness; Colorado (Denver) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Schulrat; Urban area; Urban areas; School; Schools; Stadtregion; Stadt; Schule; Public school; Öffentliche Schule; Bildungsreform; Effectiveness of teaching; Instructional effectiveness; Lehrerleistung; Unterrichtserfolg; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Verantwortung; Teaching improvement; Unterrichtsentwicklung
Abstract	In October 2018, when Tom Boasberg stepped down as superintendent of Denver Public Schools (DPS) after 10 years on the job, he was no doubt frustrated to see his longtime critics rejoice. What likely disappointed him most, though, was that some of his strongest supporters abandoned him, too. This article discusses how Boasberg redesigned Denver's traditional city school system from the ground up. Boasberg began his tenure by declaring Colorado's largest district and its centralized, top-down model for providing public education fundamentally broken. In the years that followed, the superintendent and school board implemented a wide array of unconventional reforms aimed at transforming DPS from a closed school system into a dynamic system of schools. Boasberg was a centrist, and he built a coalition based on pragmatism and a shared belief that change was a long overdue moral imperative. At the height of the national bipartisan consensus on education reform, he was its standard bearer, and, for longer than anyone before him, he made his strategy work. His lengthy tenure and the changes he implemented demonstrate that traditional school districts and their elected boards are capable of reinventing themselves. His work in Denver is a rebuke to those who insist that traditional districts are the "one best way" to provide public education--but it is also a reminder of how difficult it is to build an alternative model. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Hoover Institution. Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Tel: 800-935-2882; Fax: 650-723-8626; e-mail: educationnext@hoover.stanford.edu; Web site: http://educationnext.org/journal/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01