Last night, the Denver Public Schools board narrowly approved a turnaround plan for six struggling schools in far northeast Denver, including Montbello High, largely by hiring entirely new staffs or replacing them with charter schools. But first, the seven board members listened for hours as supporters and opponents of the…
A spear dissects the logo pictured above like Speer Blvd. dissects the neighborhood that takes its name…
Do you know from which country the U.S. of A. declared its independence in 1776? If so, consider yourself among the 74 percent of Americans who do. If not, consider yourself dumber than a first grader, which is when everyone learns about George Washington and how he commanded the Continental…
The Republican-heavy state Board of Education is going after a $3.2 million abstinence-only education grant that Governor Bill Ritter’s administration passed up in favor of a $3.9 million grant that pays for sex ed that teaches kids about birth control, too. So… if Colorado wins the grant, will school districts…
Yesterday, Colorado online students and their families gathered at the Botanic Gardens corn maze near Chatfield Reservoir to mark Red Ribbon week. There, they were rewarded for making a pledge to stay drug-free with a National Guard helicopter flyover and more. Get a feel for the festivities by checking out…
In February, controversial former CU professor Ward Churchill launched a new effort to win back his old job — one that brought him to the Colorado Court of Appeals yesterday. How does Churchill’s attorney, David Lane, think it went? “It’s really difficult to read tea leaves by questions asked by…
Although there’s a big difference between the terms “friend” and “Facebook friend,” the word “unfriend” is easy to understand. But what pushes Facebook users to unfriend someone? Christopher Sibona, a third-year PhD student at the University of Colorado-Denver, decided to find out — and his findings strongly suggest that Facebook…
Here’s one way to liven up a boring high school cooking assignment — spice up the recipe with a little weed. That’s at least one of the possibilities at play in a highly unusual incident at Montezuma-Cortez High School, where a teacher reported feeling “high” after sampling a smoothie four…
A third attempt to initiate a recall of controversial Denver Public Schools boardmember Andrea Merida has been given the go-ahead. The three southwest Denver voters who asked for the recall now have sixty days to collect 4,342 signatures from voters in that district. If they succeed, the recall will go…
The death by suicide of Denver Bronco Kenny McKinley, whose funeral today may be protested by the Westboro Baptist Church, has brought new attention to the subject of suicide in general. In many ways, that’s a good thing — but it also has drawbacks according to Denver Public Schools’ Kristy…
Last month, the DPS school board held a day-long retreat at the district’s Balarat Outdoor Education Center. The seven-member board is divided on many issues, with four members in the majority and three — including Andrea Merida, the subject of this week’s feature — in the minority. The retreat was…
Our latest feature story, “Andrea Merida’s Classroom Behavior Has Earned Her a Seat Apart on the Denver School Board,” profiles Merida, the controversial DPS board member who, in ten months on the board, has butted heads with administrators, stood up for teachers when no one else would, and survived two…
On Monday’s Oprah, host Oprah Winfrey spotlighted the new documentary Waiting For “Superman”, which examines charter schools and America’s troubled public-education system. Along the way, she opened her pocketbook and gave $1 million to six impressive charters — among them the Denver School of Science & Technology. Below, Bill Kurtz,…
Denver Public Schools board member Andrea Merida has shaken things up at DPS. In ten months, she’s butted heads with administrators, stood up for teachers when no one else would, and survived two recall attempts. Some think she’s too abrasive and divisive, and after failing to disclose that she was…
The jumble of words and pictures on the sign shown above indicate that University of Denver traffic engineers are firm believers in the use of picture puzzles to sharpen the mind. This roadway rebus is located on East Asbury Avenue between the Ricketson Law Building parking lot and the Coors…
Most CU fans suffered the Buffs 52-7 defeat to the University of California at Berkeley in agonized silence. But not Julien Lounis. As the Boulder Daily Camera reports, the CU student sent athletic department folks an invoice for the $401.40 he spent traveling to Cali for the game. Will he…
A second attempt to recall Denver Public Schools board member Andrea Merida has failed. The Denver Elections Division again rejected a recall petition submitted by three voters in Merida’s district because it contained numerous typos and legal flaws and was not in the proper format, according to a letter sent…
Denver Public Schools sure have changed. Gone are the neighborhood schools, with their traditional program of teaching the three Rs. Each has been replaced with a shiny new charter school that offers parents a wide array of options to suit their level of fear. The gun-in-the-backpack drill is just one…
An attempt to recall Denver Public Schools board member Andrea Merida failed yesterday when a petition to initiate the process was rejected by the Denver Elections Division. According to division spokesman Alton Dillard, the petition was not in the proper format. But one of the people behind the petition, Anita…
In mid-August, an Air Force Academy cadet survey showed statistically significant discrimination, harassment and the like against females, homosexuals, bisexuals and racial minorities, plus a considerable amount of unwanted religious proselytizing. But that info came from leaks; the Academy refuses to release all the data. Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder…
Nothing gets journalists more hysterical than perceived attacks on journalism. It’s no surprise, then, that an announcement the University of Colorado at Boulder was considering discontinuing its journalism school in favor of a new media entity prompted big play for panicky pieces implying that the move was another sign of…
Reeves Whalen didn’t mean to touch a nerve when he organized tonight’s panel discussion on Senate Bill 191, the controversial “teacher tenure bill” drafted by Senator Michael Johnston and approved by lawmakers earlier this year. But the lineup of speakers the personal injury attorney and active House District 5 Democrat…
