Posts filed under ‘Uncategorized’
Mayor’s Education Town Hall Meeting Tonight 6:30pm on Facebook
I will be LIVE BLOGGING (live blogging, people!) tonight from the Mayor’s Town Hall meeting on education.
We’ll see what scintillating questions Chicagoans have submitted about CPS and what kind of spell-binding answers the Mayor will provide!
If all fates align, I will use a notebook computer (a notebook computer, people!) to make live comments in this post. Not sure yet if there will be snarky commentary. We’ll see what snacks are provided at the meeting first.
I know that CPS made an official announcement today about the longer day. I also had a conversation with a CPS spokesperson about it and will share some of that discussion later.
I’ve never watched anything live on Facebook so you’ll have to figure that one out on your own….
When I told my son I was going to a meeting with the Mayor, he asked if he “wanted to speak to me” because of the comments I made on the photo in the previous post. God, I hope not. I hear he actually has a good sense of humor.
More Longer School Day News
“Yo, wazzup little dude? Town Hall meeting Monday 1/23 at 6pm on The Facebook!”
http://www.facebook.com/events/137018049749136/
The longer school day issue is starting to bubble up in the press.
The Chicago News Co-op just covered the topic:
http://www.chicagonewscoop.org/longer-school-day-has-cost-cps-nearly-10-million/
I think this quote sums up my feelings perfectly:
Wendy Katten, co-founder of the parent organization Raise Your Hand, which favors a truncated longer day and has advocated for equitable school financing, said the district already has been “underfunding the five-hour-and three-quarter day.”
She added: “It’s not that more time wouldn’t be good, but I just think it’s unrealistic with the situation we’re in economically. It seems like ‘la la land’ to think that we can do this properly.”
Someone from my son’s school passed this along and says the comments are interesting too:
http://neatoday.org/2011/10/13/longer-school-days-that-work/
The Mayor’s Education Town Hall Meeting is Monday Jan 23rd at 6pm and I’ve been invited to attend and “live blog/tweet” from there (if I can figure out how.)
Don’t forget to submit your questions and VOTE on existing questions here:
I see that the Lincoln Elem people have gotten their question to the top:
#1How do you propose to deal with the high performing neighborhood schools that are overcrowded, for example Abraham Lincoln Elementary? Does your plan inlcude both short and long term solutions? The goal should be to expand on the success of these schools! (*I believe it’s clear that CPS hasn’t quite figured that out yet, right?)
#2Where’s the research behind the Ed policies you push (and why are you doing what Finland is doing?) (*Finland? do they happen to have a giant population of “at risk” kids to educate?)
#3Do you think the extended school day applies to everyone? Would you consider looking at the needs of each schools’ student population before implementing this policy? (*I like this one, but let’s really think about how CPS would decide which schools are in or out?)
Many of the rest are different twists on the longer school day and school closings. As I said, I anticipate hearing “Research we have from XYZ shows…” “Parents have told us….” “Portfolio approach….” “Prioritizing the budget….” “Moving kids to better performing schools….”
I’m not saying these comments aren’t valid statements, it just would be more FUN to get one shocker for the night from Rahm such as ” or “Yes, I’m asking parents to figure out 7.5 hours themselves, suckas!” Or “100 new gifted/classical schools coming soon!” Or “I am a golden god!”
Frankly, I’m still mixed about the longer day. If I thought my kid would actually learn more, fine. I just priced a math tutor today. $125/hour. I’m still laughing. If they keep my kid at school 7.5 hours a day and I still need to pay $500 to teach him math, that ain’t working. He’s still going to be 1 of 28 kids with 1 teacher trying to explain goofy Everyday Math, just for maybe 15 minutes longer.
If he gets to do some deeper, richer, interesting things at school, maybe that’ll make him hate Mondays less and it’ll feel fine. Maybe he’ll get some unstructured time where he gets to talk to his classmates socially an not get shushed (the beauty of our current 6.5 hour longer day with lunch/recess.)
I agree with those who feel that resources (ie longer day) should be directed at the schools with more “at risk” kids/low-performing schools. Do you really feel like it’s possible that CPS could implement this? Won’t parents at high-performing schools scream that their kids are somehow getting the short end of the stick? Will teachers want to work at the 7.5 hour schools? I think it’s a sensible solution, just not sure how parents would react. Also wondering how bussing will work if schools don’t have staggered start times. It’s just a lot to think about and I continue to feel like CPS is a do-it-yourself school system. Maybe I just have to accept that as a fact of life in a large urban district. I still can’t fathom living in the suburbs so I guess I have to find a way to make it work.
PROTEST
There is a group of parents at Mount Greenwood Elem and also organizing a letter-writing campaign. Feel free to join them or organize your own:
http://sixpointfivetothrive.org/
Let us know if your school has discussed the topic at all….
Longer School Day
I attended a meeting hosted by RaiseYourHand http://ilraiseyourhand.org/ to discuss the longer school day. They pulled together a range of people from different community groups in the city to discuss getting a larger group of parents to have a voice to CPS in regards to the upcoming proposed 7.5 hours.
RYH’s understanding is that this is likely a done deal. As I understand it, legislation was passed in Illinois that prevents teachers from bargaining on the length of the school day, so CPS can make this change. A teacher strike would require a vote of 75% of the union. No idea whether this is feasible/probable or not.
The other big question is whether schools will receive any extra funding to make this hapuioppen. At my son’s school’s meeting on the topic last week, the principal said he was going to request more positions from the board to run the school. I don’t have any confidence that he’ll get them, but I hope I’m wrong. CPS has said they’ll set up an incentive program for something like 30 schools who have the most innovative approaches to the longer day to get $100K each. The other 600 schools are on their own, apparently.
A parent from Skinner North (currently on 7.5 hours) reports while they ARE making it work, it is taking a lot of extra parent volunteer time to cover everything. They have that luxury (and hopefully can keep the momentum) — other schools may not have that luxury or option.
Teachers will be getting more prep time during the day, but it is being framed as collaboration time. Which is great, but when are teachers supposed to grade all their homework after working a 7.5 hour day?
The good news is that many of the different representatives at the Longer Day meeting want the same thing for our kids: Getting kids the learning they need (bring all kids up to grade level, give more richer learning to kids at/beyond the basics,) some enrichment, and physical movement time – both structured (P.E) and unstructured (recess.)
The question is how this is all going to happen? And without extra money? It feels like we’ve been told that we’re a do-it-yourself school system. CPS never figured out how to make it work, but supposedly if we all put our minds to it we can use 7.5 hours a day to make it happen.
This group, SixPointFivetoThrive, along with RYH are both pushing for a 6.5 hour day, rather than 7.5 hours.
http://sixpointfivetothrive.org/weqrrweq
CPS has some data they say supports the longer day. I don’t doubt it but I’m certain I could shoot holes in it easily and/or find data that doesn’t support a longer day — just because that’s how education research seems to work.
One point they make in their press announcement says “Research from Harvard economist Roland Fryer determined that instuctional time – measured as the time students were actually engaged in learning – and high-dosage tutoring were much stronger predictors of success. “
High dosage tutoring? Bring it on! More learning time, I don’t even doubt that IF IT IS DONE RIGHT. And that is the million dollar question. If CPS hasn’t been doing it right (I speak about the system overall, not indiv teachers) how does more of the same make it better?
A middle school teacher at our meeting said that his colleages felt that expanding the time in each class would help greatly. Perhaps that is enough. My son’s teacher said that she didn’t feel that the kids could sit and do math any longer than they are now. That probably is true as well.
There are a ton of good ideas that parents came up with at my son’s school for using the extra time, but most will probably require some extra staffing just as Skinner North is doing.
Obviously many parents have a general concern about their kids being in school that long and how to work in homework and activities. I will personally make a stink if my son has to do an hour of homework a night on top of that school day…. but unless the way he learns in school and/or the work time really changes, I don’t see how that would happen. Someone still needs to work with him on his math facts, projects, etc.
This has been a bit stream of consciousness but I feel like there are so many factors wrapped up in it (without even getting into the Union element yet.)
Someone on askchicago.org has submitted a question for Rahm’s town hall meeting about funding for the longer day. If you’d like to vote for it, click here and register. Again, I know what the answer is going to be “schools are doing it without extra money”… so I don’t know why I bother, but still.
http://askchicago.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Show-us-the-money/81657-17580
Ultimately, I net out being ok with the extra time if it is used wisely and doesn’t require an army of parent volunteers who are already busting it to raise money for the schools. I’d like to see some concrete ideas (I think CPS has these posted somewhere but require digging?) and some thought leadership from each school on how they can use the time wisely. Although I still object to getting up an hour earlier on cold, dark, winter mornings.
Please share you thoughts, to hopefully make mine seem more cohesive. I’m just grumpy about it, what can I say?
SE High School Enrollment by Elementary School *exclusive data!
Lane Tech Auto Shop 1940
I have some very very interesting data that HSObsessed was kind enough to pursue via a CPS contact. This has been blessed by them for external distribution, but unfortunately was somewhat time-consuming to create so it’s not an every-year thing.
This will show which Elementary Schools feed into the SE High Schools (and flipped flopped – where kids from some “prime” elem schools end up for High School.
As 2 fellow data lovers, we sat down together to look at the results to see what popped out as interesting. Some kid points:
-Geography plays a huge role. Even though kids CAN go anywhere in the city, there seem to be limits on how far they’ll travel daily for school.
*Northside pulls from Bell, Taft, Edison (not many south side students are attending NSCP, despite the Tier system)
*Jones from South Loop, Sutherland, Healy, Keller
-I was struck by how each school is a total “melting pot” of kids from so so so many different schools. We really matrix them up for high school. (not saying the schools are diverse, just that very few kids are going to high school with many kids they know from elem.)
-Many kids at the Academic Centers stay on for High School (most notably at Whitney Young.) If WY takes 550 kids each year, 110 are from the AC. Many of the Taft kids (41) went to Lane. And the Lane dynamic will like switch now that they have an AC.
-The Magnet Elem Schools show a strong presence in SE high schools. Not sure if this is because the kids have better scores (well, by nature, I guess they must) or if they have parents more willing to haul them around town.
-Lane Tech, so far, has been drawing more from Magnet and “high test score” schools throughout the city.
-Lincoln Park HS seems to be drawing kids from the “top” north side Elem Schools (obviously they have the IB program which causes some of that.)
-Lake View (included since we’ve been discussing it) is pulling from a wide range of schools, with maybe 8-10 kids from its actual feeder elem schools. Interestingly, the top feeder schools at LVHS are kids coming from west of the district (but still may have bus access to the school) which indicated the schools status as a sort-of-magnet, pulling kids out of districts that parents may consider unacceptable.
-Hawthorne Elem: Nice showing, looks like at least half the kids go into SE high schools.
Some examples:
North Side College Prep freshmen came from:
| BELL | 16 |
| TAFT HS | 14 |
| EDISON, T | 12 |
| LINCOLN | 8 |
| HAWTHORNE | 8 |
| BEAUBIEN | 8 |
Payton freshmen from:
| HAWTHORNE | 6 |
| EDISON, T | 5 |
| KELLER | 4 |
| LASALLE | 4 |
Whitney Young from:
| YOUNG AC | 110 |
| BELL | 15 |
| BEAUBIEN | 8 |
| LASALLE | 8 |
| HEALY | 7 |
Brooks from:
| BEASLEY | 9 |
| GALLISTEL | 9 |
| WASHINGTON, G | 9 |
| CICS-LONGWOOD | 6 |
The links are below. Feel free to offer up any other interesting examples or insights. I was left feelings kind of sad about high school: kids being dispersed across the city, friends being split up. I guess I’ve heard a number of times that by 8th grade, kids are ready to move on to a different crowd of kids since many will be coming from smallish elem schools and have been with the same kids since Kindergarten!
*please see a clarification on Bell from a parent there in the comment section.
SE High Schools’ Incoming Freshmen by Elementary School:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlEhAcy8TtnedGxudDlXeHg5bl9OWUk3S1k1RWxsMEE#gid=1
Where SE/Magnet Elem Students went to HS:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlEhAcy8TtnedFlCX3poMXJER2hLd3h3Um1NajBEMFE#gid=0
Thank you HSObsessed for getting this interesting data!
Rahm’s Education Town Hall 1/23 via Facebook
Here’s an opportunity to submit education questions to the Mayor and a potentially cool feature is that people can vote on the questions (and ostensibly the questions with the most votes will be “answered” during the meeting.)
Honestly, I get weary looking at the list submitted already — so many topics, all of which are very very important to certain people.
As a data person, I know that there is research to support basically anything you want related to education and I’m certain the mayor will have some good research-backed rationale for his decisions.
Since CPS was nice enough to send me this info, I’ll refrain from commenting on my level of enthusiasm for more “submit-your-questions” education sessions. Maybe we’ll be surprised and hear something that gives us the big “ah-hah” moment into understanding some of the changes coming down the pike.
Oops, I think I just commented.
In any case, the site was just put up live today, so now is a good time to submit your questions. Also, keep visiting to vote on the questions you want to hear about.
As I read through it, I realize that I can pretty much anticipate how each question is going to be answered by the mayor. Can you?
From CPS:
Wanted to let you know about an exciting event taking place on 1/23: Mayor Emanuel will be holding a live townhall about education in Chicago. He’ll be answering questions submitted and voted by Chicagoans online – check out the AskChicago website (which just launched a few minutes ago), http://www.askchicago.org/. Anyone can add a question for the Mayor, comment on a question, or vote for a question that they think is important.
Since it just launched, the forum is empty right now… Which means the Mayor needs you and your readers to help fill it up with questions about the most important education issues facing Chicago, from parental involvement to early childhood to the longer school day. Could you let your readers know that the Mayor wants their questions? Point ‘em to http://www.askchicago.org/
FROM THE PRESS RELEASE
CHICAGO – Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today that he will be holding a second live Facebook Town Hall meeting with Chicagoans, centered around a conversation on education, on January 23 at 6:30 PM; leading up to the event the public is encouraged to submit education-related questions and vote for questions to ask the Mayor at www.AskChicago.org. The town hall can be viewed at www.facebook.com/chicagomayorsoffice or www.livestream.com/chicagomayorsoffice. This past June, Mayor Emanuel became the first sitting mayor of a major city to hold a live online chat in which questions were submitted and ranked by the public.
“In our first live Facebook Town Hall and during the 2012 budgeting process, we saw Chicagoans come together in a conversation about issues facing residents across the city,” said Mayor Emanuel. “This second Town Hall is part of my commitment to creating a more transparent and engaged government that not only listens to the voices of the people, but also responds.”
Easing overcrowding at Lincoln with a possible phase-out of LaSalle
Thank you from one of our best field obsessers who tipped me off on this interesting story about the possible phase-out of LaSalle, one of the coveted north side Magnet schools. I didn’t realize that Lincoln Elementary was overcrowded. People are still moving into Lincoln Park? Everyone I meet these days lives in the Ukranian Village. I think we can foretell where the school problems will be occuring 10-15 years from now when all the UK Village young people procreate….
In any case, while I admire CPS’ willingness to problem-solve, ouch, it hurts a bit to lose South Loop RGC and now a well-regarded magnet school.
From WBEZ.org by Linda Lutton:
Chicago Public Schools is floating a plan to phase out one of its most popular magnet schools.
LaSalle Language Academy magnet school in Old Town gets 1,500 applications a year for around 70 openings.
Now, CPS wants to slowly convert the magnet to a neighborhood school that draws from the immediate area, one of the ritziest in the city. The school would take no new magnet school kindergartners in the fall, unless they already had a sibling enrolled in the school. Instead, the kindergarten would be filled with neighborhood children.
The change would relieve overcrowding at nearby Lincoln Elementary, where rising test scores have made the school a popular option for Lincoln Park families.
But LaSalle parents say the change would also dismantle their school’s diversity, achieved from 30 years as a desegregation school.
“You’re dramatically going to alter the nature and the demographics of the school,” says Tom Brennan, parent of two children at LaSalle and co-chair of the local school council.
Brennan says the proposal would be a particular loss to families from neighborhoods without great schools. He said families come from as far away as 85th and Escanaba and the Montclare neighborhood to attend LaSalle.
“They will not have diversity, a strong academic tradition, and other cultural, positive things that are not available to them in their current local school area.”
Observers and even some CPS estimates show enrollment at high-performing Lincoln and LaSalle schools would become overwhelmingly white. An internal CPS document obtained by WBEZ shows the district estimates LaSalle could shift from its current racial makeup of 33 percent white students to 63 percent white students.
The document estimates Lincoln Elementary would also educate a greater percentage of white students. Currently, 63 percent of students at Lincoln are white; 69 percent of students in what would be Lincoln’s new attendance area are white.
The plan would have violated Chicago’s desegregation agreement, which a judge ended two years ago. Since then, six more schools have become majority white, bringing the total to 25. The district overall is 92 percent minority.
CPS wants to add more magnet school seats at a school in West Town, LaSalle Language II, to compensate for those the city will lose at LaSalle.
CPS is presenting its plan to schools Tuesday evening. It wants the Board of Education to vote on the proposal in January or February.
Alderman’s Letter to the Community
- Students currently enrolled at Lincoln would remain at Lincoln.
- Students currently enrolled at LaSalle would remain at LaSalle.
- The new southern attendance boundary for Lincoln would be Armitage Ave. All the Lincoln attendance area below Armitage Avenue would become LaSalle’s boundary, beginning with incoming Kindergarten students in Fall 2012. Here is a map:
.
- For families living north of Armitage, there would be no change.
- For families living south of Armitage, Lincoln would no longer be their neighborhood school – it would be LaSalle. CPS will do a study to determine the number of siblings of current Lincoln families who live south of Armitage to decide whether such siblings will be allowed to enroll at Lincoln. If there are not too many, the siblings will be able to attend Lincoln. If there are too many, there may have to be a lottery among the siblings. CPS agreed that if any parents south of Armitage do NOT want to consider LaSalle as a potential school for a new kindergartener, they should get an application in elsewhere immediately.
- LaSalle would not have a new magnet enrollment for Fall of 2012. Instead, the Fall 2012 Kindergarten would be composed of siblings of those already enrolled and neighborhood children living south of Armitage. With each passing year, LaSalle would become less of a magnet school and more of a neighborhood school. CPS would make NO commitment to siblings of out of area children beyond next year’s class.
- CPS would make NO guarantee that LaSalle’s existing magnet resources, meaning its language program, would continue. A group of LaSalle parents have been trying for years to have a modest addition built to the school to offer ancillary space. Under the CPS’ proposal, this addition would not be built – but worse, as LaSalle becomes more of a neighborhood school, the very program that made it great would likely end.
Get involved with Raise Your Hand!
I decided it was time for a plug for the Raise Your Hand group here.
This CPS advocacy group was started by Wendy Katten and a group of other parents who felt that parent voices needed to be better heard in our city, and realized that there is more power in numbers and organization. They are a great group of “conscientious objectors” who focus on some key issues that they feel need to change in CPS. They helped parents worth with schools on getting longer lunch and recess, and they’re currently working on discussions about the proposed really long school day and required recess.
As you all probably realize, getting a voice in CPS is difficult and requires a lot of time (ie: waiting in line before a CPS board meeting at 6am to get your name on the agenda) and energy (showing up at meetings, emailing, talking, listening, organizing, writing, etc.)
One thing I greatly admire about this group is that amidst complaints that they “don’t represent all parents in the city!” they have branched out to talk to community groups and parents in a range of neighborhoods to get a broader range of input.
Their sane tactics have gotten the ear of CPS and they are often invited to meet with bigwigs and/or give their opinion to the local press. It’s a cool group to be involved with. Importantly, they need more people to help out, either at the high level, getting the word out to your own school, and even sending emails to politicians when they try to mobilize us. There are hundreds of thousands of CPS families – we should be having a stronger voice if we can band together! Occupy! Occupy!
Anyhow, I encourage you to get involved where you can for the sake of all of us and for your own personal satisfaction. The core group has paved the way for even more of us to make a real impact. Read this note from Wendy and email them if you think you might like to get involved….
FROM WENDY KATTEN:
Raise Your Hand at Your School!
Raise Your Hand is a parent-led coalition bringing people together across Chicago to advocate for an improved quality of education for all children in Chicago. We are working on various issues from improved and sustained funding to a well-rounded curriculum for all students that includes increased PE, recess, arts, etc. A collective parent voice has been missing in policy making and in the decisions that impact our children and schools.
We are looking for parent representatives to share information about our campaigns and get involved in the many issues that impact CPS students, parents and community. If you are interested in learning more, email us at info@ilraiseyourhand.org. You can stay informed by simply going to our website ILRaiseYourHand.org hit “Join Us” on and enter your contact info, you will receive a free monthly newsletter and periodic updates. We do not share your personal info with anyone. In addition to our website, many parents and teachers have found the Raise Your Hand facebook wall to be a place to share information, observations, and experiences. Content and posts change frequently and there is always a discussion regarding education in full swing. Feel free to jump in anytime with your thoughts and feelings or post a question or comment of your own.
If you’d like to get involved, let us know where your interests lie – we are looking for people to help with community outreach, research, legislative outreach, and fundraising. There’s a lot we can accomplish by forming a strong parent network across the city to advocate for our children.
School board member in Florida flubs standardized test
I know there is a ton going on in CPS these days with the school closings and re0penings and longer day and people protesting all of these. I am in the middle of getting ready for our house photo shoot (again, awesome Bungalow in the Waters district if anyone is interested…) so I don’t have time to organize all the info for a few days, but in the meantime I had some mixed reactions to this article about a school board member who took the disctrict’s 10th grade standardized test and didn’t do so well and is now calling the test crap. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If you click on the link about his comments and identify, it’s kind of interesting (and a wee bit defensive.)
As I try to teach my son geometry and he asks why he’ll need it later in life (ie what is a trapezoid?) I can’t give him a good answer. But does that mean that kids shouldn’t learn it? Or be tested on it? I recall the GMATs (test for business school) also having a lot of sorta useless math on it as well. Should we be teaching more “practical math? Don’t high school kids still have to learn the basics? What do you think?
From the Washington Post:
When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids
Update, 4:40 p.m. Tuesday:
Revealed: The school board member who took standardized test
Original post:
This was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.
By Marion Brady
A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.
By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.
He called me the morning he took the test to say he was sure he hadn’t done well, but had to wait for the results. A couple of days ago, realizing that local school board members don’t seem to be playing much of a role in the current “reform” brouhaha, I asked him what he now thought about the tests he’d taken.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.
He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.
“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.
“I have a wide circle of friends in various professions. Since taking the test, I’ve detailed its contents as best I can to many of them, particularly the math section, which does more than its share of shoving students in our system out of school and on to the street. Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession.
“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”
Here’s the clincher in what he wrote:
“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had.
“It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail “cut score”? How?”
“I can’t escape the conclusion that decisions about the [state test] in particular and standardized tests in general are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.”
There you have it. A concise summary of what’s wrong with present corporately driven education change: Decisions are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.
Those decisions are shaped not by knowledge or understanding of educating, but by ideology, politics, hubris, greed, ignorance, the conventional wisdom, and various combinations thereof. And then they’re sold to the public by the rich and powerful.
All that without so much as a pilot program to see if their simplistic, worn-out ideas work, and without a single procedure in place that imposes on them what they demand of teachers: accountability.
But maybe there’s hope. As I write, a New York Times story by Michael Winerip makes my day. The stupidity of the current test-based thrust of reform has triggered the first revolt of school principals.
Winerip writes: “As of last night, 658 principals around the state (New York) had signed a letter — 488 of them from Long Island, where the insurrection began — protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers’ and principals’ performance.”
One of those school principals, Winerip says, is Bernard Kaplan. Kaplan runs one of the highest-achieving schools in the state, but is required to attend 10 training sessions.
“It’s education by humiliation,” Kaplan said. “I’ve never seen teachers and principals so degraded.”
Carol Burris, named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, has to attend those 10 training sessions.
Katie Zahedi, another principal, said the session she attended was “two days of total nonsense. I have a Ph.D., I’m in a school every day, and some consultant is supposed to be teaching me to do evaluations.”
A fourth principal, Mario Fernandez, called the evaluation process a product of “ludicrous, shallow thinking. They’re expecting a tornado to go through a junkyard and have a brand new Mercedes pop up.”
My school board member-friend concluded his email with this: “I can’t escape the conclusion that those of us who are expected to follow through on decisions that have been made for us are doing something ethically questionable.”
He’s wrong. What they’re being made to do isn’t ethically questionable. It’s ethically unacceptable. Ethically reprehensible. Ethically indefensible.
How many of the approximately 100,000 school principals in the U.S. would join the revolt if their ethical principles trumped their fears of retribution? Why haven’t they been asked?
Good News! School Closings!
I don’t mean to make light of the closings, but I to had to laugh when I received an email whose content I knew would be about school closings (CPS had to announce them by today) and it was cheerfully titled “CPS Proposes Providing 7,800 Students with Access to Higher Quality School Options.” Now that is a positive spin on something we know that families hate – school closings.
I think it is certainly justified, as CPS makes a compelling case in this nice PowerPoint document. (This document has the really depressing graphs of performance by race.) Something has to change in this city and if there are under-performing, under-enrolled schools, closing them seems the way to go. I can’t seem to find a list of the actual schools though. I also wonder how some schools made it as turnaround and others were closed? I get the sense that these closing are the tip of the iceberg. I think there a lot more “low-quality seats” that are on the line in the city and many under-enrolled schools on the south and west side that may be closed over the next year or two.
In the comments section, I’ve included a thought-provoking point from a reader from another thread that is relevant here.
http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/The_Board_of_Education/Documents/BoardMeeting_October.pdf
FROM CPS:
Dear Friends,
Our goal at the Chicago Public Schools is to provide a high quality education for every student in every community so they can graduate college- and career-ready. However, we have fallen far short of that goal for too long. The facts are undeniable:
- Only 7.9 percent of our 11th graders last year tested college-ready.
- Despite some progress in the past decade, only 57 percent of our students graduated last year.
- There is a 44 point gap in achievement between African American and white high school students, while the achievement gap for white and Latino elementary students is 33 percentage points –123,000 students are in underperforming schools.
- More than half of all schools are on probation.
As the CEO of CPS and a parent, I find this simply unacceptable.
That’s why I’m making a promise to all parents and children in our school system that I will not allow this failure to continue. We can no longer accept a status quo that hasn’t prepared our students for college, career and life. We have no choice but to make the difficult decisions to boost student achievement throughout the district.
To that end, on Tuesday we announced the list of schools the district is proposing for turnaround to the Chicago Board of Education, and today we are releasing the list of schools (see www.cps.edu/qualityschools for list) being recommended for actions to help increase higher quality school options for our students. The schools on this list represent some of the lowest performing schools in the system and are being recommended for action in order to provide their students with the opportunity to attend higher performing schools in their communities.
Not only will these students have access to better schools, but we will also make investments in these schools to help make them even better to support student achievement. Additionally, CPS will take every necessary step to ensure the safety and security of students in all schools – paying particular attention to students moving into new schools. From art and music classes to afterschool and school safety programs to social-emotional supports, our investments will go above and beyond what’s been offered in the past to provide a solid foundation for a smooth and safe transition for all students affected by these actions.
We are announcing these actions after a lengthy and thorough process. Since releasing the guidelines that were used to determine these proposed actions, my team and I have hosted more than 40 community meetings with various groups of people, including parents, faith leaders, community organizations and local elected officials to get their input and guidance. We also conducted multiple walk-throughs of the schools proposed for actions to observe their climate and culture first-hand.
We recognize that for many in our community, the actions we are proposing may be difficult because of the deep, personal connections they have with these schools. However, we must be willing to accept that some schools simply cannot be turned around.
Every day we wait to provide our children with opportunities for higher quality schools, our kids fall further behind. In fact, some communities with historically low performing schools have seen little or no growth in student achievement for two decades.
The ultimate decision on each school action will be made by the Chicago Board of Education in the new year. In the meantime, over the next few months we will continue the dialogue on these proposed actions by engaging the community through multiple venues as part of our commitment to having an open and transparent process.
We thank you for your support as we work to provide every student in this city with access to a quality school in their community – and help future generations of CPS graduates prepare to thrive in their college and career.
Jean-Claude Brizard
Chicago Public Schools I CEO
Re-Invigorating a Neighborhood School – Hyde Park
I got an email from a parent who is working with a new Friends Of group that is trying to encourage local parents to consider Shoesmith Elementary in Hyde Park.
I know that many of us here often tell people to “consider your neighborhood school!” as an elementary option. I know first hand that “marketing” a school that hasn’t had a great reputation is a lot of work. An insane amount of work. (and by first hand I mean I saw others really busting their butts and I helped out when I could.)
After about 5 years, I STILL have not seen a school replicate what Nettelhorst did with the PR and the impressive grants and donations and art, etc. Other schools have done an impressive job at raising money. Alcott in Lincoln Park asks for around $1200 per year from parents. Other hold amazing auctions. Other get grants. But the donations from outside the school family community at Nettelhorst have always impressed me. If anyone knows how they did it (beyond what the book says, feel free to share.)
Obvious one of the key elements was “marketing” the school – finding out what parents wanted in a school and also “selling” the place and damn, if they didn’t knock that one out of the park. Chicago parents are a bit on the Sheeple side when it comes it schools. Nobody wants to be the first to test out a school, but once it’s been given the Gentrified Seal of Approval, suddenly the flocks hit. And it can be frustrating trying to get that first group mobilized. Again, this was key at Nettelhorst as well as my neighborhood school. A group of maybe 8 families finally said “we’re gonna do it.”
I’m not complaining, I’m just commenting on the patterns of enrollment I’ve seen where a school goes from under enrolled to jam-packed within about 4 years.
If you have any other schools with new Friends Of groups, feel free to post information here. Or if you have any thoughts on what was worked (or not) in trying to build attendance at a local schools, please share…..
She says:
I wanted to send you a flyer for our neighborhood school, Shoesmith Elementary. I recently joined a group called Friends of Shoesmith and we are making efforts to reform and revitalize this neighborhood school in hopes of making it a viable option for folks in Hyde Park (sort of inspired by the “How to Walk to School” Jaquiline Edelberg movement).
The school has a new principal and new administration and has decent test scores that have vastly improved in the past decade. The situation looks hopeful.
The Open House is this Tuesday, November 29th, from 9:00 – 10:30.
Recent Comments