DPS Board Elections Part 2: Think Achievement Gaps Are Growing? Think Again.

80238 is examining the arguments made by "anti-corporate reform" school board candidates that the achievement gaps in DPS are increasing.   In Part 1 80238 showed that Denver Public Schools is experiencing a widening income gap or equity gap between students of color and white students, with income levels of whites growing and incomes for African American and Hispanic students on the decline.  The growing equity gap could explain or even justify growing achievement gaps, if indeed they are growing.

No one will argue with the fact that achievement gaps between students of color and white students in DPS are unacceptably large.  Denver is not unique, achievement gaps have been the driving force behind education reform for the entire 21st century. The question is whether reform efforts have had any impact on those gaps.

Closing achievement gaps is a tricky business.  Education reforms can result in overall improvements in student performance, even improvements in performance for different economic or racial groups, and still see achievement gaps grow.  For example, we can see improvements in student success for Hispanic students, but greater improvements for white students.  Student achievement can rise, but achievement gaps can grow.

Even those critical of the district have to recognize that improvements in student learning have occurred.  Those critical of the district have referenced a Center for Reinventing Public Education report showing Denver as having one of the higher achievement gaps in the country.  The critics don't recognize that the same report revealed that Denver achieved some of the greatest improvements in student learning relative to their own state,.  So indeed achievement is improving, but are all student groups benefiting?

To provide some insight into this question 80238 looked at the performance of students of color and white students on the state TCAP/CSAP exams in two areas:  3rd grade reading and 10th grade math.

3rd Grade Reading: All Student Groups are Improving and Gaps Have Decreased
Third grade reading is an important benchmark for educators. Research has shown that students who are reading at grade level by 3rd grade have a much greater likelihood of succeeding in K-12 overall.

The good news in Denver is that 3rd grade reading scores are on the rise and achievement gaps are declining, despite growing economic inequity in Denver.

When you consider that almost 90% of Hispanic students are in low-income homes and 82% of African Americans are low-income, it is somewhat impressive that improvements in reading scores have kept pace with white students, who have seen their family incomes rise.  There is no question that the gaps remain too large, but in the end it is positive to see growth on this very important indicator of student achievement.

10th Grade Math:  Students of Color are Improving, White Students Are Improving More
10th grade math was chosen because access and success in higher education is highly correlated with success in college-level math.  Students placed in remedial math, rarely earn college degrees.

All student groups have shown improvements in 10th grade math. In particular, Hispanic students have doubled the percent who are proficient in math. You may not think that means much when the baseline is 7.1%, but voters must remember Hispanics are far and away the largest population of students in the district. The 7% improvement in student proficiency among Hispanics means that 205 more Hispanic students in 2014 are proficient in math, than would not have been in 2008.  Still not impressed, well the 14% improvement in proficiency rates for white students only amounts to additional 134 students scoring at proficient in 2014, when compared to 2008 success rates.

The achievement gap has increased between white students and Hispanic or African American students, but students of color have made progress.  Unfortunately, the percent who are proficient is still abysmally low.

Are the reforms made by DPS and the DPS School Board a failure?  Well it depends on how you measure success. Students of color, while seeing their incomes drop and white students' incomes rise, are holding their own with regard to improvements in achievement.  The problem is that the gap remains far too large.

Now the question turns to whether reforms proposed by those challenging the incumbents can actually do any better.  Next time 80238 will look at the call for neighborhood schools.

2015 DPS Board Elections. Part 1: Achievement Gap or Equity Gap

The Denver Public Schools School Board Elections offer voters clear choices between candidates supporting the current DPS agenda and those who want to take the district in a new direction.  Denver is a target of outside campaign funding from groups who are "pro-education reform" vs. those who categorize themselves as "anti-corporate reform."  "Education reformers" are supportive of choice in education, particularly charter schools, and have been largely supportive of the common core state standards and the new PARCC assessments for tracking student achievement. Education reformers largely support Denver's current agenda. "Anti-corporate reformers" are critical of what they call the "privatization of public education" through the growth in charter schools and the use of standardized tests. In Denver, "anti-corporate reformers argue for changes in school choice boundaries to more "neighborhood schools" vs. attendance zones that are drawn across neighborhoods for the purpose of providing broader choice for neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-income families and students of color.

Over the next several days 80238 will look closely at some of the issues in the election and the arguments being made by those wanting a change in direction.

A primary argument made by anti-corporate reform candidate the district maintains is that Denver has one of largest achievement gaps among urban districts.  The evidence cited by reformers is a recent report by the Center for Reinventing Public Education.  Some candidates have argued that the district's achievement gap has grown from 2005 to 2015 during the tenures of Michael Bennett and Tom Boasberg as DPS superintendent.

To understand achievement gaps, you need to understand equity gaps between students of color and white families.

Growth in Enrollments Driven by Hispanic Students and White Students

Over the past 10 years, the Denver Public Schools have seen dramatic increases in enrollment.  This is particularly noteworthy for Stapleton residents because of the significant growth among white students.  However, it is also important to notice that the district saw a much higher numeric increase in enrollments among Hispanic students.

Economic Equity Gaps Between Students of Color and White Families Are Growing

As enrollments have increased, the district has seen economic gaps widen. While the percent of students on Free and Reduced Price Lunch among white students has not changed, students of color are significantly poorer than they were 2005.

This graph does not begin to capture the gaps in income between students of color and white students.  We know that in Stapleton alone white families are among some of the highest income families in the country.   In addition, we know that 87% of the 51,000 Hispanic students are low income and 82% of African American families are low income.

Bottom line is that in the past 10 years the gaps in income equity have grown due to dropping incomes among families of color in the district and the rapid growth in the incomes among new white families that have moved into the district.

Those that argue that achievement gaps are growing should consider the unique challenge of having to deal with widening income gaps.  

These changes are challenging the district to meet the needs of the growing high income white population AND the increasingly poor minority populations.   This has manifested itself in the battles over attendance zones and the demands of white families to have high quality schools near their homes.  Later we will look at the arguments over neighborhood schools and whether it provides any solutions.

Next we take a hard look at achievement gaps in the district.

No Vacancy: Is it too Late for Stapleton to be Integrated?

The Stapleton Development Plan created a vision for Stapleton to be an integrated community and the affordable housing plan ordinance agreed to by Forest City provides a blueprint for achieving housing diversity consistent with that vision.  However, construction to date has been so far off of the goals of the affordable housing plan that it may be time to ask:  Is it even possible for Stapleton to fulfill its vision of an integrated community?

As we discussed in our last post, the City of Denver entered into a specific agreement with Stapleton's master developer, Forest City to achieve specific goals for ensuring a diversity of housing options in 80238.  The following graph shows the specific targets for housing in Stapleton outlined in that plan:

However, as of the end of 2014 the actual distribution looks like this:

It is pretty clear that Stapleton is well behind its projected goals for rental housing and affordable housing in the affordable housing plan. When you combine the current distribution of housing with the fact that over 60% of new construction of for sale units are for homes over $400,000, it is easy to see why Stapleton is in the top 1% of zipcodes in the nation in terms of education and median income. 

The market rate for sale vs. affordable and market rate rental housing distribution is important because it provides middle income and lower income families the opportunity to live in Stapleton.  

So why hasn't SDC and Forest City not kept up with the goals?  It's not because of a lack of demand for rental housing. The current rental vacancy rate in Denver is at near historic lows.  According to the Denver Post, Denver has a rental vacancy rate of only 3.9%.  Consequently, rents are shooting up with the average monthly rent at $1145.00.  At that rate, a household with an annual income of $50,000 per year will need to dedicate somewhere between 35% and 40% of their take home pay to housing.  

These numbers beg a pretty serious question - Can Stapleton even achieve the goals for rental housing and affordable housing?  One thing is for sure - if Stapleton is to reach the goals, new construction is going to have to change drastically. 

According to The Big Picture document on StapletonDenver.com the overall plan is for a grand total of 12,000 homes - both for sale and rental in Stapleton.  With a little over 7,000 homes completed, Stapleton is about 60% of the way to reaching their target. 

If Stapleton is to achieve the goals of the Affordable Housing Plan - future construction will need to look something like this:

56% of new construction has to be rental units and 33% market rate for sale if Stapleton is to achieve the housing diversity goals.  Given current trends, it is hard to believe that this is going to happen. 

There is clearly money to be made building apartments and it goes without saying that there is plenty of demand for affordable for sale and affordable rental.  So the question is, why hasn't SDC and Forest City worked to meet this demand? It may be time to ask if SDC and Forest City can achieve the vision for integrated housing in the Stapleton Development Plan or is it time to declare failure and consider a new goal? 

As always, 80238 welcomes your thoughts.  Also, feel free to follow our facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/80238blog or on Twitter: @80238blog

Best Laid Plans: How Stapleton Became the 1%

As our first two 80238 posts have pointed out, Stapleton is in the top 1% of zipcodes in the country with regard to income and education and that Stapleton's demographics are in stark contrast to the surrounding Northeast Denver neighborhoods. So how did this happen in a community that was specifically designed to retain middle income families in the city of Denver and be integrated into the fabric of Northeast Denver?

One thing is for sure, it didn't just happen.  While the Stapleton Development Plan was just a plan, the management of the plan was and still is the responsibility of two primary actors, Stapleton Development Corporation (SDC) and Forest City, Inc. It has been the responsibility of these two organizations, one a public entity created by the City of Denver and the other a private company to serve as master developer.   The primary mechanism for creating the diverse community called for in the Stapleton Development Plan is Stapleton Development Corporation's authority to sell land to Forest City, that in turn would be sold to housing developers to build the homes that all Stapleton residents live in today.  Consequently, the diversity (or lack thereof) of housing in Stapleton is a direct result of the selling of land by SDC to Forest City and the extent that these exchanges have achieved the goals set forth in the plan.

The first and most obvious way to assess whether these two entities have achieved the goals of the plan is to look at the market rate sales prices for new houses built in Stapleton since 2002. This data is readily available in a report generated by Forest City for the SDC called A Comprehensive Snapshot: Where Housing and Affordable Housing Stands At Stapleton.   The latest update of the report came out in October, 2014 (the link is to the July, 2014 report - October is not online).

The following graph points out the obvious - it's expensive to live in Stapleton.  However, what the graph also shows is that it wasn't always this way.  In the early days there was a very wide price range - with the vast majority of houses being built between $200,000 and $400,000.  However, as the housing bubble built, prices rose precipitously to the point that today the vast majority of houses today are priced over $400,000.00.  

This rise in prices has essentially priced middle income families out of the market.  To illustrate this point, I found a mortgage qualification calculator online and did some basic calculations.  

I defined middle-income using Median Family Income as outlined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is used in the Stapleton Affordable Housing Plan. To create a modest range of income levels I looked at what families could afford who had incomes that were between the median family income for Denver and 80% of the median family income.   Why these numbers? Because in Denver City Ordinance 20010148, passed in February, 2001, Forest City and the City of Denver agreed that 10% of homes for sale would be made available for families that earn no more than 80% of median family income. 

Using these incomes, I entered what a family with good credit could afford with 10% down and an annual percentage interest rate of 4%, property taxes consistent with current rates in Stapleton and modest debt of about $500.00/month.  The results are as follows:

                                                        Family Income                 House Price

80% Median Family Income                $62,240.00                       $234,000.00

100% Median Family Income              $77,800.00                       $333,000.00             

The graph makes clear that the percent of homes put up for sale in this price range is quite small relative to all homes built in 2014.  In fact, The Comprehensive Snapshot Report reveals that the Stapleton Development Corporation (SDC) and Forest City are falling well below their agreed upon target of 10% of homes for sale qualifying as affordable with only 4.67% of homes for sale in the 3rd quarter of 2014 meeting this standard. In addition, only 7% of homes built in 2014 were priced between $200,000 and $300,000.  Meanwhile the percent of homes for sale that are priced above $400,000 has skyrocketed to 64%.  

With these current trends, we are pricing out many people who we all rely on everyday. Among them are people with the following jobs and average incomes according to Indeed.com:

                                            Average Income

Teacher                                  $53,000.00

Fire Fighter                             $43,000.00

Denver Police                          $63,000.00

Registered Nurse                     $63,000.00

Day Care Provider                   $53,000.00

Computer Programmer            $64,000.00

What is most striking is that it is completely within our power and SDC's authority to create more housing diversity in Stapleton.   This very topic was discussed at the last Housing Diversity subcommittee to the Citizen Advisory Board to SDC.  SDC could decide tomorrow to sell Forest City housing sites with smaller footprints, which would necessitate the construction of homes with lower square footage and consequently lower sale prices.  

Nowhere else in Denver does a community have the power to decide who can and can not afford a home in our neighborhood. Market forces rule the day in most of Denver. But because of the SDC, we can choose. Indeed Stapleton is Different.  

We always welcome your comments about this blog - the goal is a community conversation.  Thanks to everyone who as chimed in so far. 

Whole Foods and High Fences

So after one week of 80238 and our post on how Stapleton is in the top 1% of zip codes in income and education levels, I am proud to say that we have received close to 1,000 hits, but was disappointed that I only received two comments. However, of the two I did receive one from Christopher Gramkow caught my attention when he asked:

While the comment may have been tongue in cheek, it absolutely is a question that many in Stapleton have asked.  In fact, many in the neighborhood are beside themselves that plans for the new Eastbridge Town Center include a second King Soopers, rather than an upscale grocery like Whole Foods or a specialty grocery like Trader Joe's. 

Conversely, about a year ago if you took a stroll along 26th avenue, east of Westerly Creek and looked south you saw the old fence that divided Aurora and the airport with a sign asking a very different question:

There is actually one very plausible answer for both these questions, Stapleton is not only in the top 1% of zipcodes in the nation, it also borders zipcodes that are well below the national average in income and education. In fact, Stapleton might be one of the most socially and economically isolated zipcodes in the nation.

To help illustrate that point, let's go back to the Washington Post's Super Zip analysis and take a look at the zipcode on the other side of that fence - 80010.

You read it right, 80010 is in the bottom 10% of zipcodes in the nation with regard to education and income level.  Median income in 80010 is over $90K lower than 80238 and only 10% of adults have a college education.   While 80010 is an extreme example, the contrast with the bordering zips is still stark:

                                       Percentile 

Zipcode             Income and Education    Median Income     % Adults w/ College Degrees

80238                                 99%                   $122,817                          78%
80110                                 7%                     $31,248                            10%

80239                                 23%                   $44,597                            12%

80216                                 10%                   $31,073                            12%

80207                                 51%                   $51,347                            39%

80220                                 81%                   $63,207                            58%

The closest in percentile rank, 80220, has almost half the median income and 20% lower college degree rates than 80238, say nothing of the contrast with the other zips.   It is hard to argue with the statement that Stapleton is highly isolated from its neighbors, but as I said, it may be the most isolated zip among the top 1% of zips in the nation. 

For comparison sake, let's look at another super zip in the heart of the south, Birmingham, AL and zipcode 35223 where the income and education level are similar to Stapleton, placing it within the top 1%:

In Birmingham, the income and education levels in adjoining zipcodes to superzip 35223 are nowhere near as different as Stapleton and its neighbors:

                              Percentile

Zipcode         Income and Education       Median Income     % Adults w/College Degrees

35223                           99%                         $133,328                              79%
35213                           96%                         $94,302                                76%

35205                           44%                         $32,881                                41%

35209                           65%                         $47,544                                51%

35216                           70%                         $52,097                                52%

35243                           88%                         $71,779                                66%

35242                           93%                         $93,039                                59%

35210                           56%                         $53,136                                28%

In Alabama, one of the poorest states in our nation, the one and only 1% superzip has bordering zipcodes that are not much different than itself.   There is no question that there is severe poverty in Birmingham, but the people in 35223 don't see the contrast we see in the bordering neighborhoods of 80238.

I looked at other top 1% zipcodes in Minneapolis, St. Louis, New Jersey, Houston, etc. and none had as sharp a drop in incomes and education immediately outside its borders than 80238.

So, when we ask the question why we don't have a Whole Foods? It is probably because no one other than 80238ers can afford to shop there, making a Whole Foods in our neighborhood nonviable. Likewise, when we ask why the fence is still up between 80238 and 80010? Maybe it's because we feel more comfortable with it there. 

If the goal of the Green Book was to tear down fences and build a vibrant economy for Northeast Denver, we have to ask whether we are doing enough to that end.   Is it possible that the increasing economic vitality of our surrounding neighborhoods is in 80238's interest? Or do we believe that we need to build more fences to protect us from our neighbors?

80238 will begin to explore what we have done and are doing to realize the goal in the Green Book of an integrated community and what that might mean for Stapleton and Northeast Denver.

I encourage everyone who reads 80238 to chime in with your thoughts and comments.  I have removed the requirement that people register before commenting on the site in an effort to promote discussion.  So please tell me what you think and what other issues we should examine. You can follow the blog on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/80238blog or on Twitter @80238blog.

 . . .In case you were wondering, the 35223 zip in Birmingham, technically does not have a Whole Foods- but you can find one just down the road in 35243 in the Cahaba Village Plaza.