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Earlier in the 2007-08 school year, Manual High School was a high profile place. The school had been shuttered for a year by Denver Public Schools Supt. Michael Bennet because of its abysmal and declining performance over several years.
Closing the school, undoubtedly the correct decision(however unartfully handled), created a great deal of community backlash, which generated wall-to-wall press coverage. Eventually the fracas, and Bennet’s pedigree, attracted The New Yorker magazine, who sent the formidable Kate Boo to Denver to write a lengthy piece.
So when the school reopened in the fall, national TV crews showed up, volunteers flooded the place, and spirits ran high. Eventually,though, the spotlight turned elsewhere (Brittney, Barack, Bush, baseball…) and the Manual community settled down to the daunting task ahead.
What follows in this issue of HeadFirst Colorado is a look at Manual’s first year through the eyes of a teacher, the principal, some students, and an outside (though not necessarily objective) observer. There’s no sugar-coating here, nor should there be. Transforming an urban high school is a challenge so widely recognized as monumental that Bill Gates dedicated a sizable chunk of his fortune to an unsuccessful attempt to find an answer.
Perhaps some day we’ll locate the golden key to fixing high schools. But doing so probably will require asking some deep questions about societal priorities.
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