Principles
Children in Denver must have the opportunity to fulfill their potential through their experience in a high performing school. A+ Denver will aggressively and relentlessly focus the community on improving academic success for all public school students.
A+ Denver believes:
- All decisions and actions must put the needs and interests of the students over everyone else.
- The key to learning is effective teaching – A+ will work to ensure an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective principal in every school. Developing a superb teacher workforce must use both incentives and interventions.
- Schools require the sustained and effective investment of resources.
- Schools require clearly defined and measurable high expectations for academic achievement and conduct regardless of their students' backgrounds.
- Public schools must allocate and manage resources using evidence-based data management systems, linked to internationally benchmarked standards and assessments. Data must be transparent and accessible to educators and the public, especially parents.
- Resources should be aligned and deployed with the single-minded focus of dramatically improving achievement for all students.
- Accountability for success must occur at every level – the school board, administration, school leadership, teachers, parents and students.
- Excellence must be the norm. Failure is failure and mediocrity is unacceptable.
Join Our Campaign
A+ Denver will conduct a relentless campaign to build and improve Denver’s portfolio of high performing public schools which will provide a superior education. A+ Denver will hold our public schools accountable for implementing transformative reforms to turn around the low performing schools, close failing schools and open new schools, whether charter, contract or traditional. A+ Denver will work to develop a culture in Denver where transformative reforms and closing or redesigning chronically failing schools are seen as part of a positive and continuous movement of quality improvement.
A+ members will join together to stand up to special interests and political forces that seek to preserve a failed system. The difficulty of change pales in comparison to the devastating consequences for our current and future students if we do nothing. Action is an urgent moral and economic imperative.
