Work I've done
Here you'll find a sampling of projects I've worked on, articles I've written, and organizations with which I've worked.
BOARDHAWK
In 2020 I created a commentary and news website called Boardhawk, focused on Denver Public Schools The November 2019 election yielded a ‘flipped’ school board, with its three new members skeptical of the direction the district had taken under its two previous superintendents, Tom Boasberg and Michael Bennet. The board flipped completely in 2021, becoming what one member termed a “union super-majority.” Since then, the board has been mired in controversy and in-fighting, which Boardhawk has chronicled more closely than any other local media outlet. The November 2023 election returned some semblance of balance to the board, with three new members. Boardhawk believes that there still has never been a more important time for responsible, community-centered journalism and commentary focused on how public education can best serve the students who need it most.
LEARNING SOCIETIES ARTICLE
Education Next published my article on learning societies, a bold experiment launched in 2022 by Gem Prep, an Idaho-based charter school network. Learning Societies are described by Gem Prep leaders as in a sweet spot between traditional schooling and at-home online learning.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR COLORADO TEACHERS
I wrote this report for the Keystone Policy Center on how two Colorado mountain school districts are grappling with the growing challenge of housing affordability in their communities. Many teachers cannot afford to live where they work, so school districts are taking it upon themselves to devise solutions.
THE MONTANA CHARTER SCHOOL LANDSCAPE
I write regularly for Bluum, a Boise, Idaho-based nonprofit. One of my recent pieces looked at the struggle to get a meaningful charter school bill passed and implemented in Montana.
FUTURE PUBLIC SCHOOL AT 5 YEARS OLD
Future Public School in Garden City, Idaho commissioned a report on its first five years, including its navigation through the Covid-19 pandemic. Future is a fascinating school, and the report aims to capture its unique approach and feel.
DENVER DISMANTLED
Education researcher Parker Baxter and I cowrote a lengthy article for Education Next chronicling how more than a decade of successful school reforms was quickly pulled apart by a dysfunctional school board, aided by local and national foes of the reforms.
CASE STUDY OF AN EXTRAORDINARY REPORTING PARTNERSHIP
I do consulting work and contract writing for Colorado Media Project. Here’s I do consulting work and contract writing for Colorado Media Project. Here’s a piece I reported and wrote on how a small town newspaper and a big city reporter uncovered the deep, nuanced story behind a police officer’s fatal shooting of a mentally ill man.
LEARNING OUTDOORS DURING A PANDEMIC
I wrote an article in September 2020, published in Flypaper, focused on what schools might do to move learning outdoors effectively, to decrease the risk of COVID-19 infections. I interviewed several outdoor learning experts abou the do's and don'ts of learning outdoors.
SUPPORTING STUDENTS IN CIVIL DISCOURSE
How can people from different backgrounds, belief systems, and political inclinations learn to respect their differences and learn from one another? I wrote this issue brief for EXPLO Elevate, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit.
CASE STUDY OF COLLABORATIVE JOURNALISM PROJECT IN COLORADO
Here’s a case study I wrote on a recent collaborative reporting project involving 15 different news outlets.
DENVER'S FIRST INNOVATION ZONE OF SCHOOLS
I spent time over two years tracking the formation and launch of the Luminary Learning Network, Denver Public School's first innovation zone." It was a fascinating, high-stakes process and I wrote this report, published in January 2018.
THE AGE OF AGILITY
The world of work is changing as automation and artificial intelligence continue to advance at a rapid pace. I co-authored this report for America Succeeds. It examines the trends, and discusses how our education systems must adapt to meet this new reality.
IMAGINARIUM REPORT
I helped the team at Denver Public Schools’ innovation lab, the Imaginarium, write a final report as the office was being phased out by budget cuts.
SCHOOL’S OUT
I engaged in a provocative thought exercise with a national group of education visionaries from Education Reimagined’s Pioneer Lab. The result was School’s Out, a ‘visualization exercise’ imagining how a radically redesigned way of providing education might look.
OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN
The Denver-based Donnell-Kay Foundation has been hard at work over the past two years on an ambitious plan to redesign the state's system of schooling. The ReSchool initiative, as it's called, is beginning to roll out its learning from two years of behind-the scenes work. DK contracted with Write. Edit. Think. to produce a report on a "learning opportunities" prototype program run in Boulder during the summer of 2015. This is the report I produced.
PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN
America Succeeds, a national education advocacy organization, contracted with Write. Edit. Think. to write an in-depth report about a Colorado law, passed in 2014, that mandates unprecedented financial transparency for school districts and individual schools. The law has far-reaching implications for educational equity and accountability. Read it here. The report was released in September 2015.
MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES
I still dabble in journalism, most frequently for The Colorado Trust. In 2019 I wrote an article about a charter high school in Denver that focuses on trauma-informed instruction, and another on a University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative that produces professional-caliber plays with all-inmate casts.
Articles focused on Educational Equity
Manual High School boundaries
In the mid-1990s, as a reporter for The Denver Post, I covered the dismantling of court-ordered school busing in Denver and the ill-fated return to largely segregated neighborhood schools. The most egregious example of poor decision-making on school boundaries concerned Manual High School, a storied institution that had been integrated by busing. That changed rapidly with the end of busing, and today, some former school board members rue the decision they made back in 1995. Read my story here.
East High School's achievement gaps
Denver's East High is the school district's flagship high school. It regularly sends its best students to top colleges, and savvy parents jockey and jostle to get their kids into the always overcrowded school. But the seemingly integrated school harbors yawing achievement gaps within largely segregated classrooms. The current administration is trying to close those gaps, but are their efforts sufficient? I wrote an in-depth story in 2014.
Northfield High School: An audacious experiment
Denver's newest comprehensive high school, which opened in August 2015, makes an audacious promise: All of its students, from varied backgrounds, will enter and successfully complete the highly challenging International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. Is this a pipe dream or an ambitious and visionary endeavor?
A rural Colorado district tries a new approach to discipline
Schools in Leadville, Colorado have reduced suspensions by implementing Restorative Justice practices. Read this story on the Colorado Trust website.
STANDING IN THE GAP STORIES
I'm one of the producers of Standing in the Gap, a four-part Rocky Mountain PBS documentary on segregation and achievement gaps in Denver Public Schools 20 years after the end of court-ordered busing. I've also written a series of articles on issues related to the themes teased out in the documentary. I'll add them here as they are published.
DPS' teachers of color shortage
Educators and academics say that having a teaching staff that mirrors the student body’s racial composition makes a substantial, positive difference for kids and schools alike. In DPS and other large districts, that's proving easier said than done.
Segregation in DPS: Once African Americans, now Latinos
The growing population of Latino students in Denver Public Schools remains alarmingly segregated from other populations of kids, particularly middle-class whites. This story examines the reasons as well as some attempts the district is making to attack the problem.