Inequity & Injustice in DPS?
by Ed Augden (community activist and retired DPS teacher)
According to the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, all citizens are entitled to equalprotection under the law. If one group of citizens is treated unequally, then those citizens’ rights areviolated. Do inequity and injustice exist in Denver Public Schools?
Why is all this important to the average taxpayer who doesn’t have children in DPS? Schoolclimate is one factor that determines where a future business might locate. Future residents, who dohave children, won’t move to an area where the school climate is perceived to be unhealthy, or even ifthey do, may choose another school district (e.g., Jeffco). A healthy school climate contributes to ahealthy business environment.
Linda Darling-Hammond, in The Flat World & Education: How America’s Commitment to EquityWill Determine Our Future, makes the case that the achievement gap between poor students and theirpeers is growing as the nation’s ethnicity changes from majority white to a diverse nonwhite. Mostforetelling, is her contention that the
