Durango High School 2022 National Rankings gives Durango High a scorecard of #70 in Colorado, outranked by Ouray, Telluride and Aspen. Durango mathematics proficiency is 44%, science proficiency is 35% and college readiness is 50.8/100. Are we okay with average?
It can and should change. As an example, educator Katherine Birbalsingh served as the Tory government’s Social Mobility Tsar and, currently, serves as a chair of a commission focused on changing economic outcomes for poor British kids through education.
While working under a strict, holistic, child-centered approach, “The worse a child performed, the more they needed to be ‘nurtured,’ but how to instill a sense of personal responsibility when the rule is to ask for less, not more?” said Birbalsingh. “The progressive state system is failing our children. It is designed to make middle-class white liberals feel good.”
The mantra quoted daily by the students enrolled in Michaela, Birbalsingh’s school, is Rudyard Kipling’s poem entitled “If.” It is an inspirational poem of succeeding against all odds.
Michaela is ranked fifth in the United Kingdom with a 90% overall pass rate in key subjects. Eighty-two percent of its graduates go on to universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, and the school is ranked “outstanding” in all categories by Ousted, the UK’s federal school ranking body.
Most kids in Durango are not poor, but we are failing them. As parents it is our responsibility to vote for leadership change to ensure our children receive the best possible education. Shelli Shaw is the right candidate.
Rebecca Craddock
Hesperus
