Archive for September, 2010
Grade Scales
I know we’ve talked before about the grading scales used in different schools – how a 90% might be an A at one school or a B at another.
In some somewhat interesting news, I was informed at an Open House at my son’s elem school that all of Area 2 has been instructed to use the traditional 90%=A, 80%=B, etc. I’m curious whether each area is setting their own? The same? And what the purpose is. (As a note, CPS has 21 areas – 17 elem and 4 HS.) In theory, the Area Office acts like “middle management” for the schools. They’re supposed to help the schools succeed by developing new principals, encouraging best practice, sharing good ideas, etc. The Area Officers are very well paid by CPS standards. I know that this past year, the Area Officers spent a lot of time focusing on measurment (AKA test scores.) I heard the principal at my son’s school and our neighborhood school commenting (OK, bitching) about the amount of time they had to spend on this topic. Notably, both schools showed strong gains in their test scores this past year. Maybe the pressure helped?
In any case, have we definitely determined that the grades used for High School admission are based on the percentile score and not the letter grade? If the letter grade is used, it’s an interesting tactic to potentially ensure that Area 2 students get a big of an edge over schools that use a stricter grading scale. If it doesn’t matter, why the policy?
Oprah doing a show on Waiting for Superman
Ok, how’s this for some good marketing for the movie?
Oprah will be doing a show about the movie, filming a show next week and is looking for audience members who have opinions about CPS (gee, I wonder if there is anyone like that around here?)
(Thank you to the reader who sent this in.)
https://www.oprah.com/ownshow/plug_form.html?plug_id=4582159
Class Size Disparities
I’ve been noticing the different sizes of Kindergarten classes being reported, and I saw that someone commented on the First Day of School thred about their child’s K class size being 34 kids with one teacher and no aide. I know many people are wondering how this happens when CPS “found the money” to keep class sizes at the previous 28 kids.
CPS uses a formula to assign a certain number of teachers to a school, something like 28 in the lower grades and 30 or 31 in the upper grades. One GIANT problem with this is that it assumes a nice even balance of kids across grades and actually defies the reality of CPS, which is that kids seem to leave as they age, not enter the system (maybe that’s just my perception though.) As a simple example, imagine a school with 9 grades, one class per grade. CPS ads up, say 30 kids per grade = 270 and they divide that by the 28/30 alloted to the school and assign exactly 9 teachers. It works out OK, although the lower grades are a little higher than 28 and the upper grades are a little lower than 31. But CPS isn’t going to send out another 1st grade teacher due to 2 kids and split the class into 15/15, right? Nor would that make sense.
Now, imagine that same school has only 25 kids in grades 6,7,8. That leaves 195 kids in the lower grades, say 32-33 per grade. The school still gets their 9 teachers, but how to divide them up? The lower grades are big and the upper grades are small, but there aren’t enough teachers to split any classes and again, CPS isn’t going to “give” the school new teachers just because some of the grades went over 28 kids. Now the question is, how big DOES a grade need to get for CPS to give them another teacher, even though the overall school formula doesn’t provide them with one. That, I don’t know.
So that is one way that schools end up with large class sizes. I’ve heard that schools in some of the highly popular schools, such as Edgebrook have gone up to 40 kids per class. This may be due to lack of space, I’m not quite sure. All I know is that the tipping point at which a school gets teaching help seems higher than it should be.
The grade size discrepancy problem often occurs as schools are in the midst of attracting new “clientele.” Schools who saw their enrollment decline are suddenly facing an onslaught of K kids and it disrupts the balance of teacher allocation. My neighborhood school set up a mixed-grade K-1 class to avoid big class sizes, but the parents of the 1st graders weren’t happy. Basically, when the teacher allocation doesn’t work, someone will always end up feeling screwed over. ALSO… CPS doesn’t make the final allocation until something like the 20th day of school, so often kids are in huge classes or changes are made a few weeks into school. (again, unhappy parents who have a beloved teacher yanked away from their child who has finally adjusted to starting school!)
I do wonder why teacher’s aides aren’t used more often. The tuition-based PreK’s use them (maybe PreK for All too?) I think the pay is around $12 and people need an associates degree? Jeez, would this not be a perfect job for moms with kids in school? Retired people? Even a couple floating aides per school could help out different classrooms as needed. Or one for 2 K classes to share. I mean, we all know it’s not a priority for some reason (money) but it sure would be nice.
CPS Data – ISATs online, No big CPS book printed this year
I just noticed that the 2010 ISAT scores are now available for viewing, which is like Christmas morning for data geeks like me.
Take a look here to find a school of interest:
https://research.cps.k12.il.us/resweb/PageServlet?page=schoolprofile&class=profile.SchoolProfile
Input the school name and scroll down to the ISAT over time Excel files. Without ELL are the scores that exclude English Language Learners (who by nature of language barriers, will likely bring down a school’s test scores.) For the whole school, look at ISAT Over Time with ELL.
Column G is Grade. For the whole school scores, scroll down to the rows that say 3rd through 8th grade combined and look at the row that says 2010. Columns I,J,K show the % of kids who Meet/Exceed IL State Standards. If you scroll to the right, you’ll see more breakouts. If you scroll down, you can find breakouts by race, gender, and free lunch status. Interesting stuff.
In other news, I just found out that the big CPS School guidebook (like the phonebook of CPS) will not be published in printed form this year, but will only be online. This is such a shame. I get it, but it can be handy to have it in a form where you can flip through page by page. I hope it’s redesigned for online usage, as it didn’t always translate well to the web. That will be ready in late October.
| 3rd thru 8th Grade Combined |
Homework
Can we start complaining yet? As I’m sure I’ve said before, I am conceptually in favor of homework, given that CPS has pretty short school days and big classes. I like to know what my kid is learning and whether he’s keeping up and I feel like all CPS probably need some one-on-one attention given the challenge of getting it during the day.
However. Yech. At least my son isn’t writhing in his chair any more. But I have a feeling the assignments will be longer and tougher this year. Not good for a slacker.
Yes, I know I always complain about his slacking and here is a perfect example. First night of school he tells me they need to bring in a bag with 5 items that represent things they like. He then proceeds to look downward to his art table and picks up the first 5 items he sees and finds a way to explain why he likes them. A pen. I like to draw. A nickel. I like money. A cartoon character cutout. I like that show. Etc. So he’s not a total slacker in that he was still intending to to the assignment. He just didn’t want to have to walk more than 8 inches to do so!
I’m cringing at the thought of 45 min per night at Edison. I am going to the school to protest, even though my child doesn’t attend school there.
I would say that those who are complaining about the curriculum so far to keep in mind that it’s only day 2. The first few weeks of school the kids will take the DIBELS reading test where the teacher can assess their skills. She/He also needs to get to know them and see what kind of work they can do. But then… I’d start the push for making sure that the entire class isn’t spending their day learning the alphabet, etc.
Focus groups on education news
If anyone would like to give your opinion on this (and I know a lot of you are opinionated!) you can contact Crystal about participating in an upcoming focus group. It sounds like they mainly have the Northside groups at 8pm open right now….(Tues night for high school parents, Weds night for Elem parents.)
We are looking for parents who would like to help shape a new Web site devoted to news about education in Chicago and Illinois.
Who are we?
The Chicago News Cooperative is a nonprofit group of journalists dedicated to public service journalism. We produce a twice-weekly Chicago Report for the New York Times, and will launch a new local news Web site in the upcoming months. We have been working with organizations such as the Neighborhood Parents Network for input in how we should cover schools.
What would we need you to do?
Participate in a small focus group. Share your thoughts on education news. We want to get your feedback on some of the projects we are considering so we can determine where to invest our reporting resources. You would be helping to shape this exciting new, first-of-its-kind, nonprofit news project.
The focus groups are scheduled for the evenings of Tuesday, Sept. 14 or Wednesday, Sept. 15. Sessions start at 5:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. and will last about 2 hours. To thank you for your time and involvement with the project, participants will receive a small gift card in appreciation.
If you would like to help, please email cyednak@chicagonewscoop.org with your name, email, a phone number where we might reach you and the ages of your children. Please indicate which of the four focus groups you would be available to attend. Also, let us know if a downtown location or a North Side location works better for you.
Thanks!
Crystal Yednak
Chicago News Cooperative
cyednak@chicagonewscoop.org
First day of school
Good luck and have fun on the first day of school. It’s so bittersweet adding another year to your child’s grade.
My normally reluctant son is actually pretty cool about starting. I’m sure after a somewhat isolated summer (with too much Club Penguin) he’s ready to get back to the business of trouble-making. He just informed me that he is “in league” (which I take to mean something like “in cahoots”) with Bart Simpson and Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. Good luck to his 2nd grade teacher.
I feel lucky to have him in a class with a teacher who parents have raved about, following 2 years of fantastic teachers in K and 1st grade. I feel like he’ll be in good hands, which is nice.
Report in with any funny stories or news. As people have mentioned in some posts, there’s been a little movement in the past week with kids getting offered spots at the last minute.
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