‘A WAY TO SHARE BEAUTY’: The metro area mural scene is booming. P12
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June 21, 2018
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Progress benchmarks lag in DPS
Ambitious reading, writing goals unlikely to be met by original timetable BY MELANIE ASMAR CHALKBEAT.ORG
of the Stuggle of Love Foundation, said festivals are one of the largest fundraising drivers for her organization. She started the organization in 2008 with her husband, Joel. Struggle of Love works with low-income and underprivileged individuals who may not qualify for other programs. Hodge said the nonprofit frequently participates in festivals around Denver.
At the current pace of progress, it would take 13 years for the Denver school district to reach its goal that 80 percent of all third-graders be reading and writing at grade level. It would take black and Latino students up to three decades to reach that benchmark. That’s according to a new report by local education advocacy organization A Plus Colorado that shows Denver Public Schools is far from meeting its own ambitious goals on the timeline it set out by 2020, just two years from now. For example, the report predicts it will take 27 years for 80 percent of Latino third-graders to meet the literacy benchmark. For black students, the report says it will take 30 years. More than half of the district’s 92,600 students are Latino, and 13 percent are black. The district has tried a long list of new strategies, programs and initiatives to accelerate student growth — and they’ve paid off, to a degree. Denver students made more progress on state English and math tests in 2017 than ever before, and some achievement gaps narrowed.
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Matt Rouch & the Noise Upstairs played on the Main Stage at Civic Center Park on June 2 during the People’s Fair.
KAILYN LAMB
Summer giving expands at longtime festival The 47th annual People’s Fair took over Civic Center Park STAFF REPORT
Denver residents kicked off summer once again with the city’s longest running neighborhood festival. This was the second year that Team Player Productions organized
the People’s Fair. Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods founded the festival in 1972, but handed over event planning and production to Team Player in early 2017. CHUN still holds the permit for the event. Kristen Horpedahl, communications director for the People’s Fair, said that this year the company expanded on its bar programming. The proceeds from liquor sales benefited nine different nonprofits. The nonprofits brought in volunteers to run the bar booths at the festival. LaKeshia Hodge, co-founder
THE BOTTOM LINE PERIODICAL
“Cool gets rearranged about every 10 years. I was there in the 1960s and the 1970s, and they were not cool. You can have them.” Craig Marshall Smith, columnist | PAGE 10 INSIDE
VOICES: PAGE 10 | LIFE: PAGE 12 | CALENDAR: PAGE 6 | SPORTS: PAGE 15 VOLUME 91 | ISSUE 33