Posts filed under ‘High school’
Lakeview High School (Guest Post)
SE High School Principals under fire for discretion choices
Thanks to a couple readers who pointed out this article in the Sun Times. (reprint below.) Thank god someone reads the news around here! Anyhow, 2 principals at SE High Schools are being called out for using their discretion “inappropriately.”
One reader has suggested that parents voice their opinion to CPS over the bad-use-of-clout issue. I’m still forming my thoughts on it. My initial reaction is that it’s yet another reason Chicago is messed up. All the political back-scratching and favor-doing. It’s embarrassing to live here sometimes. But then, like I think about Blago, I’m sure these principals were doing what many have done before them. As the W.Young principal points out, she wasn’t hiding anything and nobody stopped her or told her it was wrong, so it must have been OK. Well, that thinking got us into the financial crisis, lady. But I get her point.
And to some extent I support the idea of principal discretion. Times are tough. If a family makes it clear they will support a school with money or time or creativity or ideas or something else good, might a principal be crazy to turn that down? Is it fair to people who have no favors to offer. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps fewer than 5% of the seats might make me feel better about it. Why not let some rich families buy their way, but funnel the money to a low income school? Just thinking out of the box here.
I know, I know. I’m the one who is usually all about fairness. I just think it helps schools when the principal can get some extra resources that are hard to come by. Will I be singing a different tune when my son is in 7th grade? Undoubtedly.
Oh, but I DO like the idea of a school inspector. Sounds like a reality TV show I’d actually watch!
ARTICLE
The Chicago Schools Inspector General has recommended that Principal Joyce Kenner be banned for life from hand-picking kids for admission to Whitney Young Magnet High — a punishment Kenner calls “ridiculous” and one officials have ignored for seven months, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
At the same time last May, Schools Inspector General James Sullivan also recommended that Lane Tech Principal Antoinette Lobosco be banned for a year from making so-called “principal picks’’ at her school — another suggestion yet to be followed by Chicago Public School officials.
Both recommended punishments are mentioned in the IG’s annual report released Monday that blasts controversial “principal picks’’ at the city’s elite selective-enrollment high schools as being riddled with clout. Young, Lane and their principals are not mentioned by name, but a source identified them to the Sun-Times.
For her part, Kenner said she has used her picks over the last 16 years to build Young into a powerhouse of talented kids and wants to be considered by the next mayor for the top spot of CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
“I want to be the CEO,’’ Kenner told the Sun-Times. “I’m throwing my name out. I have the background and experience to take us to another level.”
As for her recommended punishment? “That’s absolutely unfair and ridiculous,’’ Kenner said. “It is January and I have not heard anything like that. . . . Nobody is going to make me a scapegoat. I did nothing wrong. I followed the procedure for the years it was in place.’’
Both Kenner and Lobosco say CPS officials approved the 5 percent of students they were allowed to pick outside a strict formula based mostly on grades and test scores during the two main years in question — 2008 and 2009 —when new rules were established for such picks. More controls were added in March following an audit.
“We had oversight,’’ Lobosco said. “Why wouldn’t they have rejected my picks if I did something improper?’’
However, Sullivan said, CPS officials did not always know the “underlying facts’’ behind the principal picks they reviewed. And, Sullivan said, “The problem is, when you select somebody based on clout, you’re passing over any number of kids who don’t have clout.’’
The IG investigation questioned several Lane students recommended by Ald. Gene Schulter (47th), who could not be reached for comment. Kenner was criticized for picks backed by current mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), the late Board President Michael Scott, Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd), and other politicians. She also was accused of admitting basketball and soccer players whose academic records were lower than most Young students, a source said.
Kenner said she also took calls from people without clout and spread her picks among her coaches and even the Young violin teacher to build a wide range of talent at Young. Kenner said only one pick in 16 years failed to graduate from Young.
Although the IG recommended principal-pick bans back in May, sources said the possibility was discussed but not acted upon by CPS officials — at least not yet. Although the lifetime ban was recommended for what the IG called “egregious’’ abuse, punishment was problematic, sources said, as certain actions gave the appearance that the very highest levels of CPS condoned such inquiries.
Under then-Schools CEO Arne Duncan, who now serves as U.S. Education Secretary, the CEO’s office kept a clout-heavy log of callers about elite school admissions and a top aide vetted such calls. According to the IG report, of 69 students who were being tracked by the CEO’s office, 20 were ultimately enrolled, including six the IG “directly attributed to influence exerted by the CEO’s office.’’
The IG also found that politicians, CPS administrators and others contacted elite schools directly, bypassing the CEO’s log. Even the “Office of the Board improperly influenced’’ elite high school admissions and the principal-pick process “to give preferential treatment to politicians, public figure friends and others,’’ the IG found.
Duncan’s successor, Schools CEO Ron Huberman, commissioned an audit after federal officials issued subpoenas about possible clout admissions in July 2009. Afterwards, Huberman cracked down on the process last March but kept principal picks in elite high schools — even though the auditor recommended they be scrapped because they created “the opportunity for fraud or undue influence.’’
One person’s predictions for CPS High Schools (guest post)
I have some exciting news (exciting in the world of CPS blogging, that is.)
Someone contacted me about writing some guest posts on the topic of high school once in a while. I used to enjoy reading her posts on NPN and I know that the high school topic is one that is near and dear to our hearts so I thought it sounds fun. Reading her first post made me think “this is what I should be writing as a blogger!” but due to my current situation as a Single Working Mom Trying to Eke Out a Small Scrap of a Social Life (which would probably make a more humorous blog topic some days) I find my myself left with roughly 6 minutes a day to get into deep thought about schools — never quite enough to formulate coherent thoughts, let alone get them on paper and bullet-point them.
So, for all our reading enjoyment, I present the first official guest post that I’m certain will provoke some good discussion…… (and remember, we’re not fancy here. Feel free to treat a guest the same you would me, snarky comments and all.)
- Yes, this is even with the reduction of slots from 40 to 30 percent for top scorers regardless of socioeconomic tier. Remember that remaining slots will still go to top scorers, just that each tier slice will be slightly bigger.
- This upward trend is driven by more middle-class families who stayed in the city in the 1990s whose children are aging into the high school years, as well as more families leaving private schools for economic reasons.
- While many students across the city would be thrilled with an offer from Jones or Lane, there remain many parents who are fixated on things like ACT scores, and they won’t consider schools whose scores are less than some arbitrary level they have in mind.
- Luckily, admissions cut offs are rising (see #1), and so the academic aptitude of enrollees keeps going up, which will be reflected in upticks in ACT and other standardized test scores. For example, Jones’s average ACT score in 2006 was 22.0 but by 2010, it had risen to 24.8. (Take that, Glenbrook South, at 24.4!)
- Many kids will continue to be shut out of any SEHS in which they are willing to enroll.
- Schools like Nettelhorst and Burley will soon begin graduating big classes of eighth graders whose parents will seek out strong high school programs. This bodes well for the continuing strengthening of neighborhood high schools like Lincoln Park, Lake View and Taft. Other neighborhood high schools like Amundsen and Mather will follow.
- Nothing attracts middle class parents to a school like a special program that sets it apart from “the others.”
- This is what CPS did successfully at the elementary level, starting with the creation of gifted and classical schools, magnet schools, then magnet cluster program, then tuition-based preschools to get families in the door, and most recently “sister schools” (like Disney II), new Montessori schools, IB Middle Years and IB Primary Years programs.
- For high schools, this will be done with the existing IB Diploma programs, as well as the continued spread of AP and honors programs in more high schools.
- New specialty high schools like DeVry Advantage Academy and Chicago High School for the Arts will begin to attract students to niche interests like technology and fine arts.
- Will there be additional SE high schools built? Perhaps. Of the 9 SE high schools, 6 of them were established since 1999, which is a rate of about one every two years.
- Charter schools have historically served underprivileged children in underprivileged areas, and that’s a hard reputation to overcome.
- Charter schools admit by lottery, and so even though they may be accomplishing fantastic feats and producing upstanding citizens, their standardized scores will remain relatively low, and that will make it tough to attract a more diverse population.
Eric Zorn on the SE High School Process
Not for me, but for my 12-year-old son. He had made a short movie to fulfill a language arts class assignment and the film was due. But he couldn’t find a disc to burn the movie onto the night before, so he went to bed.
I shouldn’t be out here, dodging puddles, crossing busy streets.
I should be in the kitchen, reading the paper, having a cup of coffee and preparing to deliver the classic “Let This Be a Lesson to You …” speech when my son realizes that the DVD fairy didn’t come overnight to save him from the penalty associated with turning in an assignment a day late.
Yet instead I’m playing DVD fairy and preparing the feeble “Don’t Let This Happen Again” speech.
It’s the next morning.
I’m supposed to be working.
Instead I’m engaged in a complex e-mail negotiation involving my son’s teacher and his principal over the way a portion of a recent exam was graded. I’m building the case that he deserved five more points (and one higher letter) than he got.
And even though my appeal is successful, I have enough self-awareness to be dismayed that I’ve become an archetypal pushy, enabling father.
My excuse:
My son and his twin sister are in the seventh grade, “Hell Year” for students in Chicago who are hoping to win a spot at one of the city’s elite public high schools.
Historically, only about one in five applicants get in. They compete more or less on a point system — one third of their application score is based on their seventh-grade classroom grades and another third is based on the results of standardized tests taken in seventh grade. The final third is based on an entrance exam they take in eighth grade. And the average score for admitted students has been creeping up each year.
So could one DVD being turned in one day late or one dropped letter grade on one exam in one subject in March of 2010 cost him a place at one of the top city public high schools in the fall of 2011?
And is it necessary to pay hundreds of dollars to have him and his sister enrolled in a weekly, after-school program run by SelectivePrep, a 5-year-old local company modeled after businesses that prepare high school students for their ACT and SAT college-entrance exams?
Maybe not. But the stakes for being wrong are high. At the city’s top four public prep schools, 90 percent or more of the students test at or above grade level. At our local public high school — the default option — fewer than 20 percent of the students test at or above grade level. These same four elite schools rank in the top five in the state for test scores and regularly launch students to the best colleges and universities.
“The system forces 12-year-olds to deal with pressures that are worse than what 17-year-olds deal with” as they prepare for college, said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, a watchdog group. “And because the requirements seem to change every year, they never know when the ground’s going to shift under them.”
The “safety” schools for Chicago elementary pupils are either private or suburban, options that are expensive or disruptive at best, out of reach for their parents at worst.
Chicago has increased the number of selective-enrollment programs in recent years, but not nearly fast enough to meet demand or allay the anxieties of neurotic parents like me.
“The two-tiered system was created to keep advantaged families in the city,” Woestehoff said. “But the bigger it gets, the more harm it does to the neighborhood high schools.”
Long-term, she said, “the solution is to fix all the high schools so that, 15 years from now, anyone would feel comfortable sending their kids there.”
I believe this. Just as I recognize that no one is forcing me and my wife to raise our children in the city and that, unlike many parents, we have the luxury of enduring this drama by choice.
Short-term, though, the solution is soggy shoes, a fresh sleeve of blank DVDs and a guilty conscience.
LINKS:
An annotated version of this column — the director’s commentary, as it were — is posted here.
Chicago Public Schools Office of Academic Enhancement’s web page on Selective Enrollment High Schools
Trying to figure out what happened with SE High Schools
Can we discuss why the Tier system has had such an imapt (assuming it has) on the SE admissions process?
From what people are saying, kids in the upper Tiers (3-4? Just 4?) who had the grades/scores to get into an SE High School last year, aren’t getting spots this year. So the higher socio-economic background kids are having to compete against each other more directly, with more getting pushed out.
So it sounds like in the past, more lower-socio-econ kids were getting pushed out, due to lower scores. If this is true, then why is CPS scrambling to get kids from low-performing kids into the top schools?
If speculation is correct, the SE schools ended up looking a little too “rich”/white so CPS needed to balance it out.
Oh, why can’t they just publish the numbers for geeks like me? Need to understand…..
The Selective Enrollment numbers
For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s the talkworthy link from the District 299 Blog that reveals the test score distribution by Tier for the Selective Enrollment High Schools.
As you also may have read, CPS has decided to open 25 spots at each of 4 top high schools for kids at “failing” elementary schools. The top-performing kids at these schools have been invited to apply for the spots. Speculation is that the new Tier system ended up with too many whiteys in the top high schools.
One of the first things that surprised me was the narrow range between the average score (out of 1000 based on 7th grade grades, admission test, attendance) by Tier that gained admission. At Northside, the Tier 4 kids had an average score of 888 while the Tier 1 kids had 868. Maybe in reality that does give the Tier 1 kids a big advantage. But it’s good to see they aren’t exactly letting slackers into the school. Whitney Young has a wider spread of 836-869.
As I face a possible housing move in the upcoming year, I can’t help but think that if Ireside in a Tier 1 neighborhood, my son has an immediate 20-30 point advantage the year he applies to high schools. I would like to move to his neighborhood school area. Tier 4. Disadvantage. I’m thinking of living in a mobile home so I can move as needed for the best application strategy.
Let me know what you think of these number.
I don’t necessarily see the SE thing as a debacle. I’m OK that CPS is doing some experimenting and I’m also in favor of helping kids who are excelling despite being in schools/neighborhoods where the odds are against them. I would LOVE to see some follow-up stories on these kids over the next few years to see how they’re faring in the high schools and what they do beyond high school.
High school initiatitive – more info
For those of us who are conspiracy theorists, here’s some good news about this group. Keep in mind that it isn’t really a “group” unless people actually join up, go to meetings, and do actual stuff (rather than just hoping that a few parents fight to get us some better high school options.) The most success will come if more people join in the cause. In the end, we’ll be at the mercy of CPS and someone could bust their ass on this high school initiative only to find out that it will serve a certain OTHER part of the city or their own child won’t test in. This is why I’m still in favor of principal discretion. I mean come on, can’t a parent earn their kid a spot in a school in special circumstances?
Response:
I believe we are hoping to make an impact all over; however, we need many volunteers willing to take on various roles. This is a very daunting task but we are hoping to motivate large numbers of people to become active in showing strong community wide support for high school improvement. We have defined ourselves under the umbrella of these wards simply because it is where we live. In order to expand this dialogue, we are willing to share our mission and knowledge as people are willing to volunteer to become active in their own neighborhoods. At this point, we are thrilled that so many people are interested in addressing the issue.
North Side High School Initiative – More Info
I got further info on this group. As you can see, it’s basically still in the infancy stage – trying to figure out what the goal is and how best to proceed. I think it is pretty clear that there will be a high school crunch in the city down the road if people continue to opt to stay here. I think most parents would like to know there is a good, safe high school option that their child has a reasonable shot at getting into. Ideally that school would involve a child getting up at the crack of dawn and taking public transportation halfway across town as many do now. It’s also sad to think of our kids all going their separate ways when High School comes around, which is also the case now.
The million dollar question is how much capacity is needed, where, and how to decide who gets in. I don’t begrudge North side parents for taking the lead and wanting to work locally. I think that is how most of the best things happen in CPS. I don’t know that I’d be willing to bust my butt to get another Selective Enrollment high school built, knowing my kid has a million-to-one shot at getting in. Activism happens at a personal level. If anyone sends me a link to a group that is doing the same in any other part of the city, I’m happy to post that as well. Anyhow, here’s the scoop:
Thank you all for your interest in our group. Our mission statement is as follows:
We are parents concerned about solving capacity issues and creating/improving options for secondary education on Chicago’s north side.
Our short term goals have included data collection and member recruitment. Now that our group has grown, we are ready to assign specific tasks to volunteers. On Monday we are hoping to recruit people for the following tasks:
1) Organize small groups at public and private elementary schools on the north side (wards 32, 43, 44, 46, 47) to attend high school LSC meetings and CPS board meetings.
2) Develop our website.
3) Collect data from area high schools and compare/contrast with performance data from selective enrollment high schools. Essentially, we are hoping to “diagnose the problem” in order to create solutions for viable high school options. This will be a multi-step process. I believe the first step is bringing all the information together to understand the disparities between regular and selective enrollment high schools.
If interested, please let us know where you would like to help and we will have someone contact you.
If you read this before Friday at 2pm: Re future North Side high schools
I just got this via email this morning. If you have a minute, feel free to email Hub’s assistants.
I actually don’t know anything about this intiative specifically, but clearly it’s something we can all agree on.
I’ll try to find out more about it and report back.
Can you please cut and paste this message and send it to the two email addresses listed below– they are Ron Hubeman’s 2 asistants. We need to show CPS that there are a whole bunch of concerned taxpayers in Chicago who support improving public education. If we can get as many emails as possible to Huberman before tomorrow’s (Friday’s) meeting, we can demonstrate the size of our group. We NEED to show our numbers before tomorrow so start recruiting friends to send him emails. Copy and paste the mission statement in your email to your friends and ask them to use it in their email. The meeting is scheduled Friday at 2:00.
“I am writing to inform you of my support for the North Side High School Initiative. We are citizens concerned about solving capacity issues and creating and/or improving options for secondary education on Chicago’s north side. We are residents from the following wards: 32, 43, 44, 46 and 47.”
mnburgos@cps.k12.il.us
galicea@cps.k12.il.us
Attendance won’t count for Selective Enrollment High Schools any more
Wow, second big news item in CPS recently!
A couple people have sent me the following announcement:
Revised Attendance Policies for GEAP Schools and Selective Enrollment High Schools!
The selection of students for these three school types was previously based on a 1,000-point scale. The revised process will utilize a 900-point scale, consisting of points for previous year’s standardized test scores in reading and math (300 points); final student grades in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies (300 points); and student performance on the admissions examination (300 points). A revised rubric illustrating the specific assignment of points will be developed and available within the coming weeks.
If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Academic Enhancement at (773) 553-2060.
Attendance is important for the schools because they get funding based on it, AND the principals get “graded” on it. Our principal has REALLY stressed attendance repeatedly so far to the point that I will feel guilty if I let my son miss a day for a minor ailment. Or add an extra day onto a school vacation.
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