Bessemer adopted the Lindamood-Bell reading program, which employs every strategy imaginable. Pueblo District 60 set up a reading clinic and buses in 40 students every morning and afternoon for three hours each, working at a ratio of one teacher per six kids. These are primo teachers. And teacher quality is the chief factor for student gain, as proven through acclaimed research by William Sanders of the University of Tennessee. As for minorities and poverty, Bessemer has 86.5 percent minorities and 84.1 percent receiving reduced-price or free lunches.
All children can learn.
If the child doesn't have his homework, we call the home. If they're not there, a parent coordinator goes out to the house. Chip Zullinger, new superintendent of the beleaguered Denver Public Schools, wants to engage parents, and he wants principals working as leaders rather than managers. Teachers, he says, must be empowered to use their own judgment in the classroom. But Zullinger's top priority is to refocus the district on the state test, which requires interrelated skills, rather than on the old Iowa Test of Basic Skills.