Community Renewal Society

CPS officials on Tuesday mostly dismissed the conclusions by independent hearing officers that the district should not close 11 schools, without addressing safety concerns and questions about the academics at the receiving schools.  

Speaking on background, the officials said that the hearing officers--who concluded that CPS did not comply with state law and therefore should not close the schools--either did not understand or over-stepped their role.

Of 54 schools, hearing officers concluded that the following should not be closed: Buckingham Special Education Center, Calhoun, Delano, King, Mahalia Jackson, Manierre, Mayo, Morgan, Overton, Williams Elementary and Williams Middle School. In addition, a hearing officer said the closures of Stockton and Stewart should be delayed and that Bowen High School should not be forced to co-locate with a new Noble Street Charter School.

The hearing officers’ findings are not binding.

In a statement released later Tuesday, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said that the reports will be considered by Board of Education members. The board is set vote on proposals to close 54 schools and co-locate another 11 at their May 22 meeting. If approved, this will be the largest restructuring of a major urban school district ever.

“We are grateful for the work and dedication hearing officers have brought to this process,” Byrd-Bennett said in her statement.

Hope for opponents, but no guarantee

Given that the opinions were written by well-respected former judges, the reports could give new fodder to closing opponents and may bear weight on board members’ votes.  

CPS officials note that in the vast majority of cases, hearing officers simply concluded that CPS complied with the law. But the officers in other cases listened to impassioned pleas from teachers, parents, principals, aldermen and state lawmakers, and issued reports that indicated they understood their concerns.

Otis Taylor, principal of Buckingham Special Education School, says he didn’t know what to expect when he went to the hearing. He and parents told the hearing officer that the commute is too long from Buckingham, on the far South Side, to Montefiore School on the Near West Side. 

The hearing officer agreed, saying that the CEO “failed to consider pertinent information on the safety impact that the long commute will have on Buckingham students.” 

Taylor says the finding gives him hope. “I am glad it came out like that and I am optimistic.”

As is the case with Buckingham, in most scenarios the officers opposed a closing because they did not think the district had made sufficient transition plans that addressed academic or safety concerns.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll says the district was only required to provide a draft transition plan—which, as drafts, are works in progress and won’t be complete until mid-June. She added it was not up to the hearing officers to comment on the quality or feasibility of the plan.

But many of them did just that.

“Generalities and vague promises”

Hearing officer Paddy McNamara notes that “it cannot be emphasized enough how concerned the Manierre parents are about their children’s and their own safety if Jenner and Manierre are merged into one school.” The two Near North Side schools are such deep rivals that the basketball league realigned so that they don’t play each other, according to the testimony.

She decided “that CPS violated its own guidelines by failing to consider the unique circumstances of Manierre.”

Regarding plans for the closing of Morgan Elementary, hearing officer David Coar noted two deficiencies. First, the transition plan did not adequately answer the question of whether Ryder, set to receive Morgan’s students, could meet the need of special education students. Second, CPS did not tell parents enough about how safety concerns would be addressed.

“The safety of the youngest and most vulnerable children in the school system is a very serious thing, not to be addressed with generalities and vague promises,” wrote Coar, a former federal judge. “Violence is a fact in the city of Chicago and in the neighborhoods involved in this school closing in particular.”

Hearing officer Charles Winkler echoed these concerns. However, instead of opposing the closure of Stockton and Stewart, he suggested that CPS wait until the 2014-2015 school year.

Then, he asks these probing questions: “Will an understaffed Chicago Police Department be able to provide enough officers to assist the Stewart children? Will CPS hire a private security company to furnish properly trained personnel? Is there really enough time to get everyone up to speed so the 14,400 children from the closing schools are provided safe passage?”

Carroll says the school district is still working with the Chicago Police Department to firm up plans. However, the transition plans rely on what are called “safe passage workers” to make sure students get from school to home. Safe passage workers are adults from the community who stand on corners and watch students as they walk home, calling the police if they spot trouble.

Academic quality

Other hearing officers cited academic concerns. In the past, most displaced students have landed at schools that are not much better than the schools that closed.

One current proposal involves Overton and Mollison, both of which are Level 3 schools, the lowest possible rating given by CPS. Overton is slated to close, with its students sent to Mollison.

Byrd-Bennett’s guidelines say that if two schools have the same rating, the district can still consolidate, as long as the receiving school outperforms the closing school on four of the performance criteria established by the district. The performance criteria include ISAT scores and measures of academic growth, as well as attendance.

Under those guidelines, Overton qualifies to be consolidated into Mollison. Hearing officer Carl McCormick does not dispute that, but he does point out that the guidelines don’t lead to the ultimate goal—a better education for the students who are displaced.

“We must ask, is it relevant or significant that the higher-performing school is rated in the lowest academic level and is on probation?” wrote McCormick, a former Cook County Circuit Court Judge. “This is tantamount, using a food metaphor, to the promise of an omelet with a crisp waffle. Then what is actually delivered is broken eggs, whose contents are oozing out, and a burnt pancake.”

Rather than addressing McCormick’s concerns, in a formal written response, CPS’ General Counsel James Bebley wrote “the Hearing Officer substituted his judgment for the CEO’s in applying a different standard to higher-performing schools than the one expressed in the guidelines.”

As we enter the final stretch of the race to close down a record number of schools, the most ever in a single district at one time, we are extremely concerned about the patterns that are emerging in North Lawndale.

We find that capital costs used to justify closing North Lawndale schools have been inflated up to 3 times. Moreover, no capital projects are now in progress at the schools slated to be closed, and they are in excellent condition. We have also found, consistently, that CPS has misrepresented the amenities of the closing schools. In most instances, the closing schools have greater amenities than the receiving schools. For example, CPS has said that Pope and Henson don't have computer labs. Yet Henson has two technology labs, a library and a computer in every classroom, and Pope has a technology lab and a media center.

(Catalyst Chicago reported on the impact of closings in North Lawndale in the spring issue of Catalyst In Depth. Independent hearing officers have recommended against closing about a dozen schools, but none of those targeted in North Lawndale.)

Community residents have questioned whether the proposed school closings are providing cover for the Academy for Urban School Leadership, which operates turnaround schools, to consolidate its interests in North Lawndale. Bethune, an AUSL school, will close before being completely turned around. This will free capacity for AUSL to take over Chalmers, situated across the street from the northeast corner of Douglas Park. Pope, situated across the street from the southwest corner of Douglas Park, will close, and Johnson, which is an AUSL school, will assume its attendance boundaries. Johnson is situated across the street from Douglas Park on 14th Street. AUSL controls Collins High School, situated inside the park. After the dust settles, AUSL will control essentially every school in or around Douglas Park.

In addition, while Henson’s receiving school is Hughes, the new attendance boundaries are drawn such that the lion's share of Henson students will go to Herzl, another AUSL school. There are also connections to the current CPS leadership. Board President Vitale is the former board president of AUSL. CPS’ Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley is a former managing director of AUSL.

While we believe schools should be improved rather than closed, it should be noted that AUSL schools do not necessarily present better options. AUSL schools in North Lawndale have historically under-performed the North Lawndale Average.

More segregation?

School closings will also “re-segregate” the African American and Latino communities around Paderewski, and will not provide better opportunities for African American students. Currently, Paderewski is the only North Lawndale school whose attendance boundaries include North Lawndale and Little Village. Paderewski’s student population is 82% African American and 18% Latino. African American students generally live in Lawndale, north of Cermak Road, while the Latino students generally live in Little Village, south of Cermak Road.

Even though CPS has designated Cardenas and Castellanos as receiving schools for Paderewski, the new attendance boundaries for Cardenas and Castellanos are drawn such that the northern boundary is Cermak Road. Likewise, the southern boundary for Penn and Crown is Cermak. Effectively, Latino students will be sent to Cardenas or Castellanos, which are higher-performing, while African American students will go to Penn or Crown, both lower-achieving. Cardenas is Level 1 and Castellanos is Level 2, and both are nearly filled to capacity. Paderewski, Crown and Penn are all Level 3 schools, and Paderewski is the strongest of the three.

We ask that CPS put a moratorium on school closures until they can complete their master facilities planning process, mitigate any conflicts of interest and change any plans that could compound segregation.

Valerie F. Leonard

Co-Founder, Lawndale Alliance

According to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, the vast majority of teachers in the nation’s largest school districts took a pay cut or saw their pay frozen at least one year between 2008 and 2012. (The New York Times)

Independent hearing officers are opposing 14 of the school closings proposed by Chicago Public Schools officials, citing safety concerns and the district's failure to show students would be going to better schools. In some cases, hearing officers concluded that CPS violated its own closing guidelines or presented inadequate transition plans, especially for special education students. In many of these cases, hearing officers said the academic difference between a closing school and a school taking the students was marginal.v(Chicago Tribune)

INFLATED AND FLAWED: A joint analysis by WBEZ/Chicago Public Media and Catalyst Chicago has found that CPS' original cost savings estimates related to school closings were significantly flawed—based on outdated needs assessments inflated by estimates and riddled with mistakes. And, although CPS officials lowered their initial savings estimate by $122 million, their new projections are still based primarily on speculation regarding the current condition of buildings and needs.

A SKEPTICAL PUBLIC: The amount Chicago Public Schools says it’s going to save by closing down schools is being challenged by parents, school staff and aldermen across the city. And CPS itself recently admitted to overstating how much it would save from closing schools.

A WRINKLE FOR RANGEL: Blogger Kenzo Shibata says UNO charter network's CEO Juan Rangel should step down from the Public Building Commission that oversees construction of public schools and other government buildings. "It’s been well documented recently that UNO Charter Schools operated largely as a patronage trough for the connected. This news prompted Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to suspend state funding to the UNO charter network coming out of a $98 million state grant." (Chicago Now)

IN THE NATION

EVALUATIONS AND TEST SCORES: While Texas legislators and educators agree that better methods are needed for teacher assessment, the question of tying evaluations to test scores is a sticking point. (The New York Times)

DUNCAN ON DETROIT: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Detroit students Monday and told them better days are ahead for the city's troubled schools. (The Detroit News)

Reports published Monday night show that independent hearing officers do not think CPS has proved its case for closing 11 schools. The hearing officers said that CPS did not follow policies and laws in deciding to close Buckingham, Calhoun, Delano, King, M. Jackson, Manierre, Mayo, Morgan, Overton and Williams Elementary and Middle school. Also, a hearing officer suggested CPS delay the consolidation of Stewart and Stockton in order to address safety concerns. 

In addition, a hearing officer recommended against the co-location of Bowen High School with Noble Street.

The hearing officers cited safety concerns, said some schools were not higher performing enough to be a welcoming school and also that CPS should have taken special education students into account in their utilization formula. 

CPS will host a media call this morning. More information to follow.

CPS released this fact sheet in response to the officer's reports.

On the day CPS announced its list of school closings, students at schools slated to shut down received folders with letters to their parents stating that their school had lost enrollment, was partially empty and needed anywhere from $4 million to $37 million in repairs and maintenance.

District leaders repeated that argument, telling the media that CPS will avoid paying $560 million in capital costs over 10 years by shuttering 51schools—more than the savings in operating expenses. The argument has been used to justify the closings, the largest number ever at one time in a major district, as CPS pointed out the need to move old, expensive-to-maintain buildings off the books and cut a projected $1 billion deficit

But a joint analysis by WBEZ/Chicago Public Media and Catalyst Chicago found that the original cost savings estimates were significantly flawed--based on outdated needs assessments inflated by estimates and riddled with mistakes.

CPS leaders acknowledge that the numbers were not iron-clad and insist that the basic premise—avoiding major capital spending—is solid.

In its draft 10-year facilities plan, officials quietly lowered their initial savings estimate by $122 million, conceding that some of the changes were prompted by repeated questions from WBEZ and Catalyst.

Yet the new projections are still based primarily on speculation regarding the current condition of buildings and its needs.

The WBEZ and Catalyst analysis found these problems with the cost savings figures:

• A CPS official said that the new estimate of $437 million in capital cost savings from closings, down from $560 million, came as the result of updated building assessments. But only six of the 51 schools slated to close have had new assessments.

• CPS officials have added in a variety of expenses to the known needed repairs, such as modernizing labs, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and installing air conditioning--without conducting assessments to determine what the school needs or obtaining specific estimates of costs.  

• Major discrepancies can be found between the public information CPS has provided and the internal accounting of cost savings. The 10-year draft master facilities plan provided estimates for closing schools that are, on average, $3 million higher than estimates in the internal documents provided to Catalyst and WBEZ last week. CPS officials included the cost to upgrade schools, in addition to repair costs, despite plans to close schools.

 

“We are toast”

Principals, local school council members and community activists--and even aldermen--have been questioning the cost-savings figures since the district first released them. 

They believe the numbers were exaggerated to bolster the case for closing schools and say it undermines their trust in the district’s decision-making process—an already fragile trust that CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has said she is determined to repair.

One principal said he was worried the minute he saw the district’s estimate for repair and maintenance at his school.

“I thought to myself, we are toast,” said the principal. This principal, and others contacted for this story, said he has been warned by CPS not to talk to the press.   

A 2010 assessment put a $7 million price tag on repairs and maintenance at this principal’s school. However, the letter provided by the district for parents said it would cost more than three times that figure for repairs and maintenance.

Parents at Trumbull in Andersonville had a similar reaction. The letter parent Ali Burke received at home on March 21 said that Trumbull needed $16.2 million in maintenance and repairs.

“It is ludicrous,” said Burke, who serves on the local school council at Trumbull. 

Trumbull’s latest assessment from 2010 stated that the school needed $4.6 million in capital spending. No new assessment has been done since then. Internal documents provided to WBEZ and Catalyst show CPS lowered the projected savings after the March 21 letter, to about $11 million. The draft facilities plan put the cost to maintain and repair at $15 million.

Burke and other LSC members said they would think CPS would put out estimates based on an actual assessment and pricing based on bids. Burke asked CPS to provide an accounting for how it determined the costs, and CPS officials promised to bring one to a planned meeting with U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky. But the CPS official who attended “forgot” the paperwork, Burke said.

James Morgan, Trumbull’s president, is incredulous. “Where is your source, CPS?” he said.

Not a science 

Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, notes that predicting capital cost savings is difficult. Filado’s Washington D.C.-based organization focuses on educational facilities planning. “It is not science,” she says. “It is elastic.”

But Filardo, who has been assisting the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force, said that some of the numbers put out by CPS seem odd, especially given the latest assessments.

She points to Wentworth Elementary, a building that is slated to be shut down next year as students and staff relocate to Altgeld.

Between 2000 and 2010, CPS spent about $3 million at Wentworth for boiler repairs and campus renovation, among other work. The 2010 assessment stated that Wentworth needed $5.5 million more in work.

Then, this winter, CPS projected savings of $10.5 million in capital costs by closing Wentworth.

Yet given the major work done in the past 10 years, Filardo says it is hard to imagine what needs to be done. “It is probably an exaggeration,” she says.

Filardo has studied school closings in cities across the country and says it is not unusual for school districts to inflate savings, although often for operating costs such as salaries for laid-off principals, engineers and teachers.

A top CPS official, as well as board president David Vitale, say the adjusting of figures is not important because the basic premise remains. 

“Not having to worry about the capital maintenance is clearly something that will save us money,” says the official (whom the CPS communications office would not let be identified). “It is not a perfect science.”

Education quality also a factor

Vitale says CPS officials are trying to put out a lot of information and tackle many projects and so he would not be surprised if some of the information was not accurate.

“My assumption is that they made some judgments and some estimates,” he says. CPS board members have asked to be briefed on each of the proposed school actions.  By then, Vitale says he expects the school-by-school numbers to be accurate and it is important to him to be able to compare relative costs between schools.

However, with only six updated assessments, it is hard to see how he will be able to make apples-to-apples comparisons for every closing situation. Take Ryerson and Laura Ward in West Humboldt Park. 

The Ward building is slated to close. Ward does not have a new assessment, but the updated assessed need is about $6.6 million a year (including $3.3 million from a 2008 assessment, plus extra costs added in such as inflation, engineering and design). 

Ryerson, where Ward’s student and staff are to relocate, has an updated assessment that puts the price tag for capital spending at $7.9 million. 

Yet Vitale notes there are other factors to consider beyond capital cost savings.

“Because of our financial situation, we must use our buildings efficiently,” he says. He says he also will be looking at utilization and the quality of education in each building.

Dumas Elementary teacher Nadjea Butler-Wilson leads her 3rd-grade students in a lesson on reading a persuasive paragraph. The author believes his town needs a new library. Butler-Wilson wants her students to analyze his argument.

 “The reason he’s giving you is that the library is too small. How can you prove that? What is some fact about the library that will show it’s too small?” she prompts the class.

 “Some people think it’s too small,” one boy says.

But this is not the answer Butler-Wilson is looking for. She pushes the students to give facts to prove their point.  A girl suggests one, saying, “More people keep coming in [the library] and there’s not enough room.”

Learning how to construct written arguments, the goal of this lesson, is an important element of the new Common Core State Standards, set to begin phasing in next year. Last year, Dumas was one of 35 schools that became “early adopters” of the standards and were given money to pay for substitutes while teachers worked on model lesson plans aligned to the standards. The lesson plans became the basis for curriculum guides.

(Dumas and two other early adopter schools, Canter and Armstrong, are closing. The Dumas building in Woodlawn will stay open as children from nearby Wadsworth transfer over and the school is renamed Wadsworth.)

As CPS begins to phase in the standards, one group of teachers will have a particularly tough task. Teachers of young children will have to expose students to high-level ideas without relying on strategies that are not geared toward young children; for example, too much desk work that could easily frustrate them and, in turn, make learning more difficult.

In fact, many early childhood teachers have long resisted efforts to impose academic expectations on young children. The Common Core standards have re-ignited the debate, and the fear that tasks meant for older students will be “pushed down” to younger children.

But educators say that, with careful work, teachers can learn to adapt. At Dumas and other early adopter schools, preschool and primary teachers are striking a delicate balance, slowly incorporating lessons that teach Common Core concepts and skills to young children at a level and pace that are developmentally appropriate.

Principals also say young students can handle the Common Core, if teachers give them the right support.

When very young students respond to a topic by talking about their likes and dislikes, Dumas Principal Macquline King says, teachers refer them back to the text they have read. “We understand what you like, but what does it say in the text?” she explains.

Nancy Hanks, the principal at Melody Elementary, says that a lesson in which students look for details in a text can be made accessible to those who don’t write yet: Some students may write the details, some may draw them, and others may dictate them to the teacher, she explained at a Chicago Principals and Administrators Association panel.

“In raising the bar, [students] jump right up to it,” Hanks believes.

Hanks once saw students drawing pictures of dolphins after reading a book about dolphins, but realized that the pictures didn’t have specific details in them. So she told them to re-do the pictures. Some of the details the new pictures showed included dolphins’ spouts and dolphins coming up for air.

Rhonda Atkins, a preschool teacher at Dumas, says that meeting with kindergarten teachers and learning about the standards helped her align lessons with the expectations her students will face when they leave preschool.

Teaching students about counting money entailed getting a book about money that was appropriate for preschoolers, Atkins explains. “You talk about something preschoolers understand--has anybody ever gotten money for [their] birthday or for Christmas? Did you get coins? Did you get dollars?”

She also asked parents to count loose change with their children to reinforce the concept at home.

Other concepts Atkins introduces include shapes, ordinal numbers (first, second, third and so on) and writing.

“Children have been working on how to write sentences. My very high-level students are able to write paragraphs,” she says. “There’s only a few, but you try to push them further.”

Breaking down complex texts

Cardenas Elementary Principal Jeremy Feiwell says that having students read more complex material has paid off with higher test scores on the NWEA MAP assessment, which measures the ability to understand complex texts and is given to children as young as 3rd grade. The ability has “skyrocketed” among Cardenas students, Feiwell says.

Referring to evidence from the text is an important part of the Common Core, and Feiwell says even children as young as 1st grade can do it. Proof hangs on the wall of Maricela Aguirre’s 1st-grade classroom, where a collection of student work shows answers to questions about a story featuring animals, with evidence to back up students’ thoughts. “How did the pig outsmart the wolf? How do you know?” reads one prompt.

In a pre-K classroom, teacher Maria Morin reads the story “Thinking One Can,” an earlier version of the story that became the classic children’s book “The Little Engine That Could.”

But this story is read aloud from a teacher’s guide, with only one picture.  Morin tells her students it will be more challenging to listen to the story without looking at pictures to tell what is going on.

At the end, Morin asks students what lesson the story is trying to teach. After some discussion, she re-reads the sentence where the story sums up its moral.

Feiwell explains that Morin’s teaching shows two shifts spurred by the Common Core. First, Morin is showing students how to summarize main ideas using evidence from the text. Second, by exposing children to a story without pictures, she is helping them get ready to understand higher-level books down the road.

In Elizabeth Rickey’s 3rd grade class, students work through a play about the Greek mythological character Medusa, who was transformed into a monster when a goddess turned her hair into snakes.

“We were doing a shared reading of a play about Medusa, and we were looking at it through her perspective,” Rickey explains. She asked students taking on Medusa’s role to answer questions like “What do you think about the way Athena treated you?” and “Why do you think she changed your hair into snakes?”

“It’s a really challenging thing to put themselves in the character’s shoes,” Rickey says.  At the same time, they are talking about how to differentiate their own point of view from that of the author.

From basic arithmetic to understanding concepts

In 2nd-grade teacher Eva Verta’s room at Columbia Explorers Elementary, students practice counting, using math worksheets with pictures of manipulatives.

“Remember, I should be able to follow how you’re counting by checking your labels,” Verta reminds the students. She speaks directly to one boy: “You know what, Emilio? I cannot read your mind when I look at these labels. I can’t see how you counted. I look at yours and I say, ‘Hmm, how did you get 501?’”

With the Common Core, math must go beyond just getting the right answer. Students must be able to explain their thinking and demonstrate understanding—in this case, by labeling each item in the drawings.

Columbia Explorers is not an early adopter school, but has been incorporating the English standards for a couple years. This year, the school began to implement the math standards.

Principal Jose Barrera says that based on the school’s experience, redesigning lessons will be hard work.

“Nothing’s going to happen with CPS giving you this magic kit,” he says. “You have to take ownership, 1,000 percent.”

In 3rd-grade teacher Jennifer Ford’s room, some students practice multiplication tables on worksheets. Other children, working in groups, say them out loud using flashcards.

Before long, Ford gathers the whole class in a circle. Picking one number at a time, she has students surround her for an exercise. The first number she gives out is five.

One by one, each student in the circle reels off a math fact of his or her choosing that involves five:

“Five times one is five.”

“Six times five is 30.”

“You got it,” Ford says.

“Five times six is 30.”

“Five times ten is 50.”

Curriculum coordinator Beth West explains that one Common Core goal is to make sure students master skills “fluently” so they can use them with ease. In the earlier grades, this includes a sizable dose of mental math.

Terry Carter, who is leading Common Core implementation at the Academy for Urban School Leadership, says schools run by AUSL are focusing mostly on math in grades pre-K to 3. AUSL manages 25 schools and is slated to take on six more with this year’s school actions.

The schools are working with the Erikson Institute’s Early Mathematics Education Project on ways to make math concepts accessible and appropriate for youngsters.

As part of the Common Core, Carter says, students must be able to explain and demonstrate their thinking using manipulatives and visual models.

Children should also learn to persevere in solving tough math problems.

“The Common Core likes to see the endurance and stamina of children to be inquiry-based. Children are allowed to struggle with a problem rather than being told or funneled [to an answer with] teachers breaking down every step,” Carter says.

To learn how to make those changes, AUSL teachers are working in groups to practice lessons.

One teacher teaches a lesson in another teacher’s classroom while colleagues observe. Then, they analyze what went well and what went poorly, and teach a revised version of the lesson to a different class.

Not necessarily a disconnect

Sandra Alberti, director of state and district partnerships and professional development for the nonprofit Student Achievement Partners, is hopeful about what the Common Core could mean for early childhood teachers.

“What the standards do is signal to early childhood educators and everyone in the system that… these are a list of things kids need time to develop, play with, and explore,” Alberti says.

In math, Alberti says, giving students more time with the material can slow down instruction and allow time for deeper conceptual understanding.

Currently, most math teachers teach strategies and tricks students can use to get the right answer.  “That’s not math,” she says.  Some curricula focus on concepts but fall short at having students actually practice enough problems. But, Alberti says, “We shouldn’t make a choice between having kids get the answer right and having them explain their thinking.” 

With reading, she says, the most important piece of the standards is to challenge students to engage with material above their level because that’s how they will grow as readers.

“It’s very hard for (students) to catch up to grade-level peers when everything we give them has been scaffolded,” Alberti says. “If they’re not given a more complex text, they’re not going to develop a more complex understanding.”

At Dumas, Butler-Wilson says that the Common Core can be a good fit for early childhood because the standards ask students to use their imagination and ideas. 

Students can master the standards, she believes, “but it requires everyone to change the way they think about teaching and learning. It requires the teacher to be more of a facilitator in the classroom as opposed to being at the front [teaching] one lesson the same way to all the students. The standards can’t be reached that way.”

Butler-Wilson recalls a math lesson that required students to do a scavenger hunt for items of a certain length –a foot, an inch or a yard – and made posters of the results. The goal was to help strengthen their understanding of the concept.

“When they would think about an inch, they would think about the things they discovered in the classroom,” she says.

Elizabeth Najera, principal of Velma Thomas Early Childhood Center, also doesn’t necessarily see a mismatch between Common Core expectations and what students should be learning in preschool.

A team of teacher leaders in the school has identified what they want children to know in order to be ready for kindergarten. One thing that’s key, she says, is making sure teachers intentionally design instruction to build on children’s knowledge.

Teachers at Velma Thomas try to use open-ended questions to develop higher-level thinking skills, even in very young students, and Najera sees that as a good fit. 

“Some of the things that are in the Common Core, I think they are not too different from what we are doing already,” she says.  But a lot will depend on how the district changes its expectations for preschool teachers, she adds. “I guess we kind of have to wait on that.”

Early Childhood Resource Page: http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/early-childhood

Common Core Resource Page: http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/common-core

The Consortium on Chicago School Research surveyed 700 principals and assistant principals and 900 teachers in December about CPS' new teacher evaluation process and will do so again in May. CPS, however, would not authorize the organization to release preliminary findings. A district spokesman said the data are "too preliminary to be of any value."

An Atlantic article asks whether new CPS evaluations are proving a valuable tool or simply another drain on educators' time by focusing on the experiences of teachers and principals at three schools (John Hancock and Jenner and Robert Emmet Elementary), where the new teacher evaluation program was implemented this year. (The Atlantic)

IN SUPPORT OF TEACHERS: On Friday morning, hundreds of Lincoln Park High School students poured out onto the street, in a walkout in support of their teachers. Eight teachers recently learned they will not returning when the school is converted to a wall-to-wall International Baccalaureate. Before doing so, they presented a letter explaining why they planned to walk out. “We want to show that we do care about our education and we wish to have a say in it,” it read. “We have been informed that many teachers are being fired so that newer teachers can be hired and we don’t want to sit back and let CPS make a business of our education.” (WBEZ)

IN THE NATION

A NEW MAJORITY: Hispanics have passed whites as the largest ethnic group in Texas schools, making up almost 51 percent of public school enrollment. The influx of Hispanic students, many from poor families, has brought about many changes in classrooms, with more expected as that population continues to grow. (Dallas Morning News)

NOVEL CO-HABITATION: Two redbrick buildings in a gritty section of Philadelphia are being converted into apartments and offices intended to house teachers and nonprofit educational organizations in what the developers hope will become a cohesive community. When the renovation is complete, 60 percent of the buildings’ 114 apartments will be reserved for teachers, who will be offered a 25 percent discount on market rent — paying about $1,000 a month for a one-bedroom unit in a neighborhood where they typically rent for $1,300. (The New York Times)

Victoria Chou, the dean of the College of the Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago is retiring in August.  Chou has been dean of the college for the past 17 years.  She is also currently an interim executive associate chancellor for external and government relations.  Chou has been a co-chair of the Steering Committee of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, chair of the Governing Board of the National Teachers Academy-Professional Development School in Chicago, and co-chair of the Council of Chicago Area Deans of Education.  

Lisa Vahey, an education nonprofit consultant, is moving closer to family and to start a new job with Breakthrough Schools, a charter school network in Cleveland, Ohio.   Vahey is a former director of the Chicago New Teacher Center and of the New Teacher Network at the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago.  Vahey has also served as an area reading coach for Chicago Public Schools.   

Oliver Sicat, has been named CEO and president of Edvocate, the charter management organization overseeing USC Hydrid High School in Los Angeles.  Sicat is a former chief portfolio officer for Chicago Public Schools and the founder of University of Illinois at Chicago College Prep, a campus of the Noble Street Charters Schools.  USC Hybrid High, now in its first year, is a charter school authorized by the Los Angeles Unified School District and designed and built by the University of Southern California Rossier School.  Sicat is an USC alum.

Tony Anderson is the new board chair of Perspectives Charter Schools.  The current board chair, Larry Ashkin, will be become chair emeritus.  Anderson is a former vice chair and managing partner for the Midwest area of Ernst & Young.  While he was at the firm, Anderson build a corporate/school partnership with the schools.

Profits, rather than student outcomes, is clearly the main driver behind the rapid growth of virtual schools, says a report from the National Education Policy Center, with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. And although virtual schools have expanded rapidly in the last decade, there is little data to justify their growth.

CTU PLANS A 3-DAY: WGN-TV said it has learned that the Chicago Teachers Union is planning a three-day march later this month in city neighborhoods affected by school closings. A spokesperson said the march will be May 18-20, and the route will take them through 30 miles of areas impacted by school closings. During the march, the participants will be staying nights at participating churches.

SMALLER SAVINGS: CPS will only save $437 million in capital costs by closing schools, significantly less than the original figure of $560 million, according to the long-awaited draft of the district's 10-year master facilities plan. (Catalyst)

A MOTHER'S VIEW: Anjanette Albert, the mother of Derrion Albert, a Chicago student who was brutally beaten to death four years ago,  says Chicago Public Schools' decision to close dozens of neighborhood schools in June is a big mistake. (FOX 32)

PRITZKER GETS COMMERCE NOD: President Barack Obama announced Thursday his nomination of Penny Pritzker, a Chicago business executive and former member of the Chicago Board of Education, to take on the role of U.S. Secretary of Commerce, reports USA Today. Kristine Mayle, financial secretary of the Chicago Teachers Union, said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, that Pritzker "has worked to close schools and destabilize neighborhoods, and we hope she does a better job in her new position." (Education Week)

IN THE NATION
THE FAME GAME: A series of email exchanges between Cathleen Black, a publisher with no education experience who became New York City's schools chancellor, and city officials capture the anxious effort on her part to obtain endorsements from celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, designer Diane von Furstenberg, financial advice guru Suze Orman and actress Whoopi Goldberg. (The New York Times)

On page 36 of the long-awaited draft of the district’s 10-year master facilities plan is this revelation: The district will only save $437 million in capital costs by closing schools, significantly less than the original figure of $560 million.

The updated figure is the result of new assessments being done to prepare the final version of the 10-year master facilities plan, says CPS spokeswoman Kelley Quinn. Also, the $560 million figure included some mistakes that district officials have now corrected.

The district has not published a comprehensive facilities plan in years. The advocates who pushed for the state law that required CPS to create the plan wanted it to present a forward-looking vision for the district, outlining what each community has and needs for its schools. Instead, the draft for the most part is a reiteration of the status quo, with few details about new schools that might be planned over the next decade and little specific mention of charter schools.

CPS Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley said the draft plan won’t be finalized until October and district leaders believe that, through the community engagement process, the plan will become more specific.  

The plan does state that one of the district’s “beliefs” is that families should have high-quality options to choose from.  It also says district officials might push for more co-sharing of facilities—11 are planned for the coming year--to provide “additional options to families, without adding more buildings to our footprint.”

Though 54 school closings are in the works, the plan does not say exactly how shuttered buildings will be used. However, it notes that under-utilized facilities might become homes for health centers, early childhood programs and other auxiliary services for families.

Fewer students, less cash

Two common themes repeatedly stated by CPS as a rationale for closings are also repeated in the plan: The district has fewer students and not enough money. In fact, the document opens with a letter from CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett that repeats the argument, including the statistic that the city has 145,000 fewer children than it did in 2000.

Between 2011 and 2016, only four of 30 large community areas in Chicago are expected to see any population growth and three of those four are expected to grow by fewer than 60 school-aged children. McKinley Park is expected to have 396 more students.

Keeping up with basic repairs would cost about $350 million per year, but the district only expects to have a capital budget of between $100 million and $200 million per year.  Total maintenance of the current building portfolio is $4 billion.

Over the next 10 years, CPS is predicting even more decline. However, some neighborhoods are expected to experience enrollment increases, especially the Bridgeport-Chinatown area, Reed-Dunning on the Northwest Side and the Loop. Also, the North Side communities of Sauganash and Lincoln Park are expected to have more children enrolled in their schools.

Overcrowding solutions

CPS says it won’t try to solve overcrowding in schools adding new buildings, pointing out that the price tag for a new facility is estimated at $45 million and the debt service on a bond for that amount is about $3.7 million each year for 30 years.

“To put this into context, an investment of that magnitude could fund 50 additional teachers for 30 years to reduce our class size or provide new course offerings,” it says.

The plan says the preferred method of dealing with overcrowding will be boundary changes, to limit or prevent out-of-area students from enrolling in special programs, such as regional gifted programs. District officials would also look at consolidating schools into underutilized buildings or co-locating a part of the school in another building.

Only if all schools in the area are overcrowded, based on enrollment from the attendance area, will CPS consider building a school.

The capital plan for the coming year, however, does include money for one annex: Oriole Park, on the far Northwest Side will get a $20 million addition if board members approve the proposal.

Ald. Mary O’Connor, a principal from a neighboring school, and the LSC chairwoman Colleen Schultz spoke at the most recent board meeting to beg for more space. Schultz said her school and others around it are in desperate straits, with no room for lunchrooms, libraries and old modular units filled to capacity.

“I am ecstatic,” said Tim Riff, principal of Oriole School, upon learning about the proposal. “We have a lot of students in larger classes and it creates difficulty.”

Alternative schools, military programs, other specialties

Another issue not often discussed, but brought up in the draft master plan, is the high number of dropouts and students who are school but not on the path to graduation. Some 56,000 young people under 20 years of age in Chicago are in this situation, according to an analysis included in the plan. Currently, there is space for fewer than 7,400 students in alternative schools.

Cecile Carroll, a member of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force, says she thinks that the need should be addressed. But she said the future, final plan should include a vision on how to reduce the number of dropouts.

CPS also plans an expansion of junior ROTC and military high schools, which are called “service learning leadership opportunities” in the plan. CPS will add 10 junior ROTC programs over 10 years and three military high schools. The Board of Education has already approved an expansion of Rickover Naval Academy and Marine Math and Science Academy to include 7th and 8th grade.

The plan explains that there is “demand and overall interest” in these programs, with 5,400 applicants for 900 seats.

The plan also says the district will expand gifted, selective enrollment, IB, STEM program and schools, though does not offer up a number beyond what has already been announced. Several high schools will get extra career and technical education programs.

 

 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is amping up support for a Chicago casino by vowing that all revenue would go to city schools. Emanuel released a video Wednesday showing footage of students and teachers and ending with a promise that 100 percent of revenue would go to education. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

DEFICIT SPENDING CONCERNS: Chicago Public Schools released a proposed $162 million capital budget for its 2014 fiscal year Wednesday that officials said will focus only on the "most urgent needs and educational facilities," in light of a projected $1 billion budget deficit, but Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, expressed concern about the district spending money and issuing more bonds without a clear plan on how to solve its massive budget deficit. (Tribune)

CHARTER TEACHERS UNIONIZE: Teachers at one of Chicago’s largest charter-school networks — run by the United Neighborhood Organization — have voted to organize into a union. More than 400 teachers and staff at UNO’s 13 schools decided to join the Chicago Alliance of Charter School Teachers and Staff, known as Chicago ACTS, more than doubling its membership in a move national labor leaders hailed as key to their efforts to unionize charter schools. (Sun-Times)

IN THE NATION
PUBLIC-PRIVATE EXPERIMENT: Educators and policy observers are keeping a close eye on two controversial experiments in private management of public schools now unfolding in this western Michigan city and in the Detroit-area community of Highland Park. Citing chronic budget woes in the communities’ low-performing school districts, Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan last year declared a state of financial emergency and appointed an emergency manager for each district. The managers, in turn, hired two separate companies—Mosaica Education and the Leona Group—to run the schools. (Education Week)

ENROLLMENT-BASED BUDGET CUTS: D.C. schools chancellor Kaya Henderson and Mayor Vincent C. Gray say school-level cuts are necessary because of the system’s failure to meet enrollment projections. The system received per-pupil funding this year for a projected enrollment of about 47,000 students, but only 45,500 showed up for class. (The Washington Post)

UPDATED: Teachers at UNO charter schools have voted 87 percent in favor of joining a union, an Illinois Federation of Teachers spokeswoman said.

The announcement comes just days after scandal prompted the state to cut off capital funding to UNO charter schools, and it means the city's charter teachers union will roughly double in size. According to the Illinois Federation of Teachers, more than 20 percent of charter teachers in Chicago will now be union members.

Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (ACTS) began an organizing drive in earnest at UNO charter schools after the charter operator signed a “neutrality agreement” last March. On Wednesday, under the terms of the agreement, an arbitrator began tallied cards signed by union supporters to verify that a majority of teachers wanted the union.

Jessica Hanzlik, an 8th-grade teacher at UNO Soccer Academy, says that the drive to organize UNO teachers began six weeks ago when the school announced the neutrality agreement with Chicago ACTS.

For years before that, she said, ACTS had done outreach but not a specific organizing campaign.

“They always would periodically call charter school teachers to see if we were happy with our jobs, how things were going,” Hanzlik says.

The organizing drive has given teachers an opportunity to talk about “big-picture education issues,” Hanzlik adds, like strengthening the teaching profession and advocating for students.

Hanzlik hopes a union will help UNO put in place some kind of “peer accountability” system, such as peer evaluations. “Teachers feel a lot of pressure and accountability from above, and we want to start thinking about how to hold each other accountable,” Hanzlik says.

She says a union could also strengthen teachers’ voice in how the school is run, particularly when it concerns school climate.

“We have been working really hard to figure out how to help teachers feel a sense of ownership over their work,” Hanzlik notes. “I think that when this idea was brought to (UNO’s administration), they saw it as an opportunity.”

Historical roots

Emily Rosenberg, director of DePaul University’s Labor Education Center, says that teachers in charter schools are organizing for the same reasons as the public school teachers who first formed unions.

“It’s back to the 1900s,” Rosenberg says. “They don’t have any control over their working conditions, over their class size, whether they get positions they are supposed to get, whether they get raises, whether they get vacation days. This is just history revisiting itself.”

The biggest issue, Rosenberg says, is unfair treatment on the job. “It’s the very tentative nature of your work,” she says.

Before Wednesday’s card tally began, Rosenberg heard that “the cards are flying out of the hands of the reps” for teachers to sign and show their support for a union.

“This neutrality agreement has made all the difference in the world in terms of teachers feeling safe to go ahead and organize,” Rosenberg says.

Dan Montgomery, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, says that the agreement has been key to getting a foot in the door at UNO.

Without the agreement, recent rulings that charter schools aren’t covered by the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act mean that the union would have had to conduct a secret-ballot election after a campaign period during which both employers and the union can set out their perspectives.

“[Employers] will hire anti-union law firms, they will hold captive-audience meetings. Often they will intimidate or fire [teachers],” Montgomery says.

Union expansion uncertain

Chicago ACTS’ ability to unionize other charter schools may be limited for that reason. Years of legal battles have kept it from gaining a foothold at Chicago Math and Science Academy, and at Latino Youth High School.

An April 18 secret-ballot vote at Latino Youth, which was 10 to 1 in favor of a union, may put an end to the strife, says Chris Baehrend, a teacher at the school who is also vice president of Chicago ACTS.

“We’ve gone almost three years without a proper say in how the school is run, how the budget is run, having a salary scale. It’s dispiriting,” Baehrend says.

In Sept. 2010, Baehrend says, a majority of teachers signed union cards. But the school asked the National Labor Relations Board to intervene, claiming that the state educational labor relations law didn’t apply because Latino Youth is a charter school.

But now that the vote is wrapped up, Baehrend says, “we have our letter ready to demand to bargain” as soon as the results are certified by the National Labor Relations Board.

Baehrend says working conditions, turnover and firings prompted teachers to unionize. He says that a month after he was hired at the school in fall 2009, his pension match was cut, requiring him to fork over the entire 9 percent of his salary to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. His health insurance premium went up 50 percent. 

“We didn’t get any new textbooks,” Baehrend says. “We were taken to a place called SCARCE in Glen Ellyn--schools dump off old textbooks and educators can go there to pick them up. There were no computers for classroom use. The photocopier often didn’t work. It was like, how do you teach like this?”

He wants to see teachers represented on a committee that makes hiring and firing decisions at the school. He’d also like to see teacher-led professional development and more advance notice for teachers regarding whether their jobs will continue from year to year. In one case, he says, he was notified a week before school started. “We have lost so many great teachers because we don’t even know if we have a job,” Baehrend says.

Montgomery says charter unions may continue to grow.

“If people think that somehow the path ahead to better schools is to deprive teachers of the ability to organize, they are deeply misguided,” he says. “Unions will change the way they look, but you are never going to get rid of people seeking a collective voice in where they work, whether it’s Starbucks, Boeing, or schools. That’s the way human beings work--they want their issues addressed.”

Construction stopped Tuesday on a new, state-funded charter high school being built on the Southwest Side for the state’s largest charter-school operator, the politically influential United Neighborhood Organization, after the project’s general contractor said UNO has fallen behind in its payments for the work, according to the Sun-Times.

DANGER ZONES: Nearly half of the 1,054 youths murdered in Chicago during the past five years were killed within census tracts where schools are closing, according to The Chicago Reporter. But CPS says it's preparing safety plans to address potential problems related to gang turfs and street violence. Its Safe Passage program, which stations adults along routes that students take to school to oversee their safety, has been budgeted a nearly $8 million increase in funding next year and will be implemented at all of the receiving schools.

CHARTER GREEN LIGHT: A charter group's bid to open a school in McKinley Park cleared a big hurdle Tuesday, when the city's zoning board approved a switch to convert a vacant factory into one of the city's newest charter schools. "Everything is ready to go," said Salim Ucan, vice president for Des Plaines-based Concept Charter Schools, which operates 27 schools across the Midwest, including the Chicago Math and Science Academy in Rogers Park. (DNAInfo.com)

FROZEN MEALS: Dozens of Chicago Public Schools food service workers rallied Tuesday afternoon to call for an end to quickly prepared frozen meals that can be readied in smaller kitchens by fewer workers. According to Unite Here Local 1, which organized the rally, 25 percent of CPS schools serve prepackaged meals that arrive at the schools frozen. In a statement, the district said sites that serve frozen meals often "don't have full kitchens or their space doesn't meet code standards to prepare food." (Tribune)

CHARTER BARTER: Several area school district superintendents are asking parents and others to support legislation that would impose a one-year moratorium on the creation of new virtual charter schools.
The move follows the recent rejection by 18 suburban school districts of a proposed online charter school for children in kindergarten through high school. (Tribune)

GAME'S ON—AGAIN: The baseball game between Walter Payton College Preparatory High School and Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy was rescheduled again, this time for May 11. Last weekend, Payton's baseball team forfeited the originally scheduled game. Payton's coach William Wittleder told several news outlets that parents didn't want their sons to travel to Brooks' home field in the Roseland neighborhood on the city's Far South Side. (Tribune)

IN THE NATION
RHEE FINANCED: The Walton Family Foundation, a supporter of school choice and parent-empowerment causes, announced today that it would invest $8 million in StudentsFirst, a school improvement advocacy organization led by former District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The foundation's $8 million in funding, which will be doled out over the next two years, is an increase from the $3 million the foundation has given StudentsFirst since 2010. (Education Weekly)

Lametrios West has made a point to separate himself from the trouble around him. Despite heavy rain and steady cracks of lightning, the 14-year-old Kershaw Elementary School student made his way on a recent afternoon to the nearby Teamwork Englewood, a community organization whose after-school programs draw boys and girls from the surrounding area. Here, he holes up to “get out of the neighborhood.”

Staying out of trouble means closing himself off from the outside world. “It’s hard but I can do it,” he says. “By staying in the house, going to school, coming here. The only areas where I go is where I know people.”That’s going to be more difficult for young people like Lametrios next year, as neighborhoods throughout Chicago experience a massive reshuffling of students under a plan by Chicago Public Schools to shut 54 schools citywide.

In Englewood and West Englewood alone, six schools--John P. Altgeld Elementary School, Elaine O. Goodlow Elementary School, Arna Wendell Bontemps Elementary School, Elihu Yale Elementary School, Granville T. Woods Elementary School and Benjamin Banneker Elementary School--will close, meaning many students will have to travel across unfamiliar turf next year.

The danger Lametrios is trying to elude is grave. Nearly half of the 1,054 youths murdered in Chicago during the past five years were killed within census tracts where schools are closing. In all, these tracts only cover about a quarter of the city. West Englewood’s Goodlow Elementary had the highest number of young people killed within its tract of all the closing schools, with 37 overall. To the Southeast, Altgeld isn’t far behind, with 34 youth homicides.

Within this environment, young people have taken to forming cliques along neighborhood lines. The block where Lametrios lives, at West 64th Street and South Lowe Avenue, falls under the umbrella of the Black Disciples gang, but it is also run by a clique called “Lowe Life”--what his Teamwork Englewood mentor Michael Tidmore calls “a gang within a gang.”

Lametrios has some friends active in Lowe Life. “They be doing dumb stuff, so I don’t like to be around them ‘cause they do things I don’t want to do,” he says. “So if I know they’re [going] to do something, I would go in the house or something.”

But as Tidmore explains, despite his best efforts Lametrios faces the constant possibility of being indicted by geography. He lives on Lowe, meaning he represents his street, and to some degree its gang.
Tidmore presents Lametrios with a hypothetical scenario in which the youngster heads toward Paul Robeson High School, just one major block to the southeast. “Would those guys on Parnell [Avenue, one block east] connect you to Lowe Life?” Lametrios nods matter-of-factly. “Even though they might know [Lametrios is] not a part of that, just because he lives on Lowe, if they do something to him, it’s like they did something to all of Lowe,” Tidmore explains.

On a map, it seems what CPS is proposing to do is straightforward enough. The receiving schools are all nearby those that are closing--for the most part, within a mile radius. But in neighborhoods like Englewood, crossing from one block to another can mean entering enemy turf. The distance between Daniel S. Wentworth Elementary School and Altgeld is just half a mile, but it involves crossing South Halsted Street, which according to Tidmore is a major territorial dividing line.

In response to safety concerns, CPS has proposed measures to address potential issues. Its Safe Passage program, which stations adults along routes that students take to school to oversee their safety, has been budgeted a nearly $8 million increase in funding next year and will be implemented at all of the receiving schools. CPS has also said it will bus some affected students if their former school is more than 0.8 miles from the new location. But this will only be provided temporarily until current students have graduated.

Back at the Teamwork Englewood headquarters, Lametrios zips up his hoodie and prepares to leave. Like a typical teenager, he plans to spend his evening at home playing video games. But he isn’t your average middle-schooler. Fitting in with the in-crowd has no draw for him. “I don’t want to end up dead. I wanna do something positive with my life,” he says.

Next fall, Lametrios will remain at Kershaw for his eighth grade year, while elsewhere throughout Englewood, students from formerly separate schools will be merging. Lametrios says if he were one of them, he’d be worried about his safety. Again, geography is the main concern. “You could just be in the wrong place.”

 

--Angela Caputo helped research this article. It was originally posted on The Chicago Reporter’s “Chicago Muckrakers" blog.

As CPS prepares to close dozens of schools, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has promised that none of the keys to the shuttered schools would be handed over to private charter operators.

But the district is proposing 11 co-locations, eight of which involve charters moving into buildings with traditional neighborhood schools. The proposals have reignited fears among some activists, parents and even school staff--not only about the logistics of space-sharing but that the co-locations are just a back-door way of kicking out a traditional school.

There’s precedent for their anxiety: Co-locations in CPS have not worked out smoothly and have been marked by tenuous relationships between students and staff. In some cases, charter schools have taken over.

Still, concern about co-locations is not just about sharing buildings with charter schools. Teachers and parents at Marshall Middle School are also alarmed at the prospect of sharing a building with Disney Magnet 2 High School.

Beginning of the end?

Two high schools also appear to be in a particularly precarious position: Bowen and Corliss.

Both schools are in similar straits—located in tough South Side neighborhoods, struggling to lower dropout rates and raise test scores. Both have the building capacity for about 1,000 students but have enrollment of only around 500.

CPS proposes to have both Bowen and Corliss share buildings with Noble Street charter schools. Noble Street charters have an average of 50 percent of students meeting or exceeding standards on the Prairie State exam, compared to a district average of 32 percent. And though students do not take entrance exams for charters, Noble Street expects students to attend an orientation to pick up an application in order to be part of the admissions lottery (a step that critics say makes the charters selective, in comparison to neighborhood schools).

Noble Street leaders have not completely signed on to the co-locations yet and are still looking at the option, said Angela Montagna, the charter operator’s director of external affairs. A CPS official said charter schools could turn down the offered space, but won’t be offered alternative.

Chris Goins, slated to be principal of the Noble Street at Corliss, said he is recruiting students from the Pullman neighborhood and engaging the community to sell them on the school.  

Corliss Principal Leonard Harris said he doesn’t see Noble Street as a threat, but rather as offering more opportunity to students in the area. “I am not fearful,” he said. “Corliss is a good school.”

However, three teachers from Corliss showed up at a public hearing in April to voice their concerns.

Eva Dervin said she and other teachers want to know if the co-location is a precursor to a phase-out.  “If so, we should be told that at the beginning instead of being told two years down the line,” she said.

Mandy Walker-Edwards added that students who don’t meet the expectations of Noble Street will land at Corliss.

“Now, instead of us getting selective enrollment status like Noble Street, we will still be a [neighborhood] school,” she said. “We have to take whatever student at whatever academic status. It is like you are pitting one school against the other. One gets selective enrollment and you tell the other, take whatever [student] is out there.” 

“Nothing to help our students”

At Corliss, the principal is putting a positive spin on the co-location. But at Bowen, Principal Jennifer Kirmes talks about her trepidation at the prospect and her dismay at not being consulted before the plans were drawn up.  

The exterior of Bowen’s main building is a gracious, red brick. But inside, it’s age show. Some ceiling tiles are missing and paint is crumbling. The school will get some repairs because of the co-location, though CPS proposes to put Noble Street in an annex. Noble Street receives a lot of private donations and usually does a complete renovation before moving in, and Kirmes wonders how this will make her students feel.

Kirmes is also upset she was never consulted before the plans were drawn up. She recently won funding, through the city’s Ready to Learn program, to open a preschool in a part of the annex that once housed one. “It has little toilets and little sinks, so it doesn’t need a major renovation, just a little elbow grease,” Kirmes says.  

She plans to offer Bowen students the option of career education courses in early childhood, giving them the chance to do an internship at the preschool. The early childhood program will go forward, but Kirmes doesn’t have the money to renovate another space and doesn’t know where she will put the preschool if the annex is occupied.

Kirmes also points out a safety concern. Noble Street schools do not, as a practice, have metal detectors. The charter’s students will have to use a gym in the main building, and Kirmes says security staff are worried about students being in the main building without having been screened.

“I want to be cooperative and collaborative, but I also want us to survive,” Kirmes says.

Bowen recently experienced a dramatic shift in 2011, when it was consolidated back into one school after being split up into four small schools. Teacher Magen Kilcoyne points out that the current crop of juniors started freshman year at a small school, went to a consolidated school their sophomore year, got a new principal their junior year and now will face having a “completely remapped building.”

“It does absolutely nothing to help our students in terms of much needed resources and the overall quality of their education,” Kilcoyne says. “It does, however, tell them that they are not a priority and are very much dispensable to those at the top. What picture does this paint, when another fully functioning, [highly] resourced school takes up their space? It seems quite clear that this is just the first step in slowly destroying this public school.”

A third high school that will co-locate with a charter is Hope, which will share its building with a new KIPP middle school. Several Englewood residents attended public hearings to say they wanted KIPP to come to their neighborhood and no Hope representative came to oppose it.

Ironically, however, Hope used to have middle grades, with a 6th through 12th grade configuration. At that time, Hope was the highest-scoring school, at those grade levels, in the area.

When Englewood High School was closed to make way for Urban Prep and Team Englewood, Hope was turned into a receiving school for high school students and was stripped of its middle grades. Since then, its test scores have plummeted.

Not just concern about charters

Charter takeover remain the biggest concern among some activists and parents, in particular those at Wadsworth Elementary in Woodlawn.  CPS is proposing that the University of Chicago Charter High School-Woodlawn take over the Wadsworth building that both schools have shared for several years. The charter will take in 60 more students.

“Do you think it is fair for Wadsworth school to relocate to another building just because the University of Chicago wants to expand their charter school?” said Wadsworth LSC chair Pamela Jernigan, sparking applause at a public meeting in April. “CPS, if you really want to make a strong impact and impress us all, then put a moratorium on all charter school actions. They are only options and not solutions to the public school fiasco.”

Later, Jernigan said the experience of building-sharing has not been good. For one, it has provided a sharp contrast between a school that has a wealth of resources and one that does not.

From the day it opened in 2006, the charter school had a lab of brand new Apple computers. Students also had laptops. But up until last year, Wadsworth had a room of outdated computers, Jernigan said. “It sends the wrong message to children.”

Jernigan also doesn’t like the fact that Wadsworth’s students are being sent a few blocks west to Dumas, into an area along 67th Street that is considered more dangerous. “If it weren’t for the charter school, Dumas would likely be coming here,” she said.

But Shayne Evans, director of the University of Chicago Charter Schools, insists that the charter school didn’t request and doesn’t need the rest of the building, even with the additional students.  He also notes that he and the school’s staff have not assessed the rest of the building, nor have they inquired about how much it would cost the charter in facilities rent paid to CPS.

Though specific plans have not been developed, Evans says it might be better to build a new high school, rather than try to make an old elementary school work.

Yet Evans says he would like the school to enroll more students. As one of the few charters with an attendance boundary, the school got about 700 applications this year for a class of 160 students.

“We have a huge demand and we are trying our best to serve it,” Evans says.

One of our nation’s most enduring themes is that education and prosperity go hand in hand.  As we move deeper into a global economy dominated by knowledge, technology and innovation, and an increasing number of jobs require a postsecondary degree, educational access and attainment are more important than ever.

 So it should be no surprise that our failure to keep up with the rest of the world on matters of education poses dire consequences for our economy and national prestige.

Here are some important statistics: the U.S. ranks 14th in global college completion and by 2020, an estimated two-thirds of all jobs will require an education beyond high school.

We have seen a troubling trend for low-income and minority students — students who, in the past, have been left to fend for themselves.  This is particularly true for Latinos — who represent the fastest-growing, youngest demographic in the country. Thousands of Latino students, who have with the smarts and skills to succeed in college, aren’t even applying.  Increasing degree attainment among this particular demographic is essential, considering our nation’s goal to re-establish our place as the world’s leader with the highest proportion of college graduates by 2020.  As the U.S. strives for global competitiveness, training a new generation of workers is increasingly critical.

As a young man who grew up on the streets of the South Side of Chicago and today is a successful businessman, I have a particular appreciation for the importance of a well-educated, diverse workforce. I have seen the devastating effects of repeated cycles of poverty on those who can’t break it.  That’s why I feel so strongly that all students who are academically prepared for the intellectual demands of college — no matter their location, background or socioeconomic status — have a right to fulfill their potential.

I have known many Latino students, in particular, who have the academic potential to succeed in college but lack role models and resources. They need support and guidance. They need parents, teachers and schools that foster a college-going culture in the earliest grades.

If you work on behalf of students or feel your expertise could help to support traditionally underserved students, I strongly recommend that you attend “Prepárate™: Educating Latinos for the Future of America” from May 1 to 2, 2013 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. Hosted by the College Board, the conference will convene the voices and best practices of some of America’s most respected educators and advocates to improve academic success and opportunity for Latino students.  Teachers, counselors and administrators from high schools and colleges will address critical issues within Latino education and focus on successful strategies that include: creating opportunities for students to experience challenging high school course work that prepares them for college; strengthening students in math and science for STEM careers; and ensuring high school graduation and improving timely college graduation rates.  To register and for more information, please visit http://preparate.collegeboard.org.

We face, in no uncertain terms, a crisis that threatens our nation’s long-term health and prosperity; America’s success in the 20th century was achieved not only through the might of our arms but the dexterity of our minds.

It is our responsibility as parents, elected officials, administrators and business leaders to support each and every one of our students. We must be advocates and we must keep pushing our students to achieve greatness above and beyond even their own expectations. If we fail, our failure will become theirs. If we succeed, our success will echo for generations.

Martin Cabrera, Jr.

Founder, CEO

Cabrera Capital Markets

 

Parents United for Responsible Education are asking the state Executive Inspector General to broaden its investigation into the use of state funds by the United Neighborhood Organization Charter Network, according to a news release.

The initial complaint against UNO was filed by PURE and members of the Pilsen Academy local school council and parent community on Jan. 17, 2013. "That complaint called on the EIG to investigate how the politically connected organization has been able to amass $98 million in legislative earmarks and nearly $70 million in tax-exempt bonds without proper oversight of what seems like a complicated financial shell game," the news release said.

GOLDEN APPLE WINNER: TEAM Englewood Community Academy freshman English teacher Katherine Dube was the first of 10 2013 recipients of the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching to be announced this year. Gov. Pat Quinn, a media swarm, Dube’s family and a host of other well-wishers poured into Dube’s classroom Monday morning to make the surprise announcement. She was nominated by her principal. Each award winner receives a tuition-free, spring quarter sabbatical to study at Northwestern University as well as $3,000 in cash. (Sun-Times)

IN THE NATION
SHORT TIMERS: About half of the first-year teachers that Florida's Duval County Public Schools recruits are gone within five years, according to a study released Monday by the Jacksonville Public Education Fund. A combination of low pay, too much paperwork and a lack of voice in district and state education decision-making are the main reasons for the turnover, the study shows. (Florida Times-Union)

CORE CRITICISM: As public schools across the country transition to the new Common Core standards, which bring wholesale change to the way math and reading are taught in 45 states and the District of Columbia, criticism of the approach is emerging from groups as divergent as the Tea Party and the teachers union. (The Washington Post)

PRESCHOOL FINANCING FALLS: Spending on state-funded preschool dropped by more than half a billion dollars in the 2011-12 school year compared to the year before, creating a hole that some states are only now attempting to fill, according to a report out today from the State of Preschool 2012 produced by the National Institute for Early Education Research, based at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J (Education Week)

Torrance Shorter stands in the rain outside of Martin A. Ryerson Elementary School one recent afternoon in a last-ditch effort to keep the grammar school from being merged with the nearby Laura S. Ward Elementary School next fall.

As parents pick up their children, he slips fliers through car windows and encourages them to come out to a meeting that he’s helping to organize. He stuffs more fliers into kids’ hands. “Tell your momma to come to the meeting this afternoon,” he says to one pre-teenage boy as they locked eyes. “Right when you get home,” he adds as the boy walks off.

Shorter knows many Ryerson parents and grandparents. He and his wife live just across the street in the same house that he grew up in. “This is the grade school I graduated from,” the 6-foot-tall out-of-work cook says. Now, four of his own children attend the Humboldt Park school and he serves on its Local School Council.

Ryerson is one of 54 elementary schools across the city that is slated to close next fall. CPS officials estimate that doing so would save the district $43 million each year during the next decade. By consolidating schools, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett has pledged to pour more money into the new schools that will replace the shuttered ones.

But in many of the consolidated schools, the additional resources are likely to pale in comparison with what’s spent incarcerating people from the same neighborhoods, a Chicago Reporter analysis of more than a decade of Cook County criminal courts sentencing data found.

Take Ryerson, for example. It’s located in a census tract where the cost of incarcerating its residents will top $80 million, a Reporter analysis of felony sentences handed down in Cook County’s criminal courts during the past 12 years.

The majority of those corrections costs will be covered by state and county taxes. That’s more than twice the $48 million, in federal, state and city tax dollars, spent on educating students at Ryerson during that time, the Reporter and our sister publication Catalyst found in a joint analysis of CPS budgets and records maintained by the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court.

Add the incarceration costs for the census tracts where students from the other 53 closing schools live and the cost of those sentences amount to $2.7 billion, which is more than the $2.2 billion cost of maintaining the schools that are closing.

“One thing that virtually everyone would agree on is that they would rather have the opportunity to spend on education … than the necessity, or perceived necessity, to spend on corrections,” says Robert Coombs, a spokesman for the Justice Center at the Council of State Governments. For nearly a decade, the national nonprofit has studied how states can increase public safety while lowering incarceration costs so tax dollars can be reinvested in public programs like health care or education.

“It’s important to look at all of the money that’s being spent,” Coombs added. But he’s cautious about comparing the costs between school and prison spending because “People who are making those decisions are not always talking about spending the same money.”

CPS spokesman Dave Miranda says the way the school district operates is that “the state and city tell us how much money we’ll get and we have to make it work.”

Just about everyone who lives around Ryerson is tight on money, and Shorter says that the grade school has never been an exception. “Every year we have to hustle and pray to get football and basketball going,” he says.

He and other parents have sold snow cones, raffled off a 32-inch television and even gone “begging” for donations along West Chicago Avenue to help create activities that keep students busy after school. The problem, he says, is that few people have money to give. “Sometimes we say, ‘Hey, let us get a quarter--or $2.’”

Crime dominates the conversation as Shorter and I walk around Ryerson and nearby Humboldt Park blocks, where his kids and many of their classmates live. As we pass the teachers’ parking lot, he notes that a fence was recently put up, “not because they were stealing cars but because they were stealing parts off cars.” As he points out a series of trash cans and vacant houses that are known drug-stash spots, a stray German shepherd runs past through the alley and into a vacant lot.

Shorter has worked with police for years to identify problem spots in hopes of reducing crime. The neighborhood wasn’t always like this, Shorter adds. “As a kid, [parents] told you, ‘Don’t step on anyone’s grass. Don’t go into anyone’s house when we don’t know them.’”

“Now, the more we try to make it better, the bad element keeps it getting worse,” he says.

When I ask Shorter what he thinks about the incarceration spending, his response is swift. “Now think if you would have put some of that [incarceration] money in the school building at first,” he says.

At 39, he’s still seeing people that he grew up with struggle to get ahead because of past felony convictions. “I’ve seen too many young black men go from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse.”

Despite the neighborhood’s challenges, one thing that it has going for it, in Shorter’s eyes, is Ryerson. In 2011, it was one of Chicago’s higher performing schools, according to CPS performance data. Conditions started to unravel last year when the principal was promoted up the ranks within CPS, more than a handful of teachers quit and the YMCA afterschool program pulled out. “The school was gutted” by the time a new principal came in, Shorter says.

Despite the upheaval, he adds, “These kids come in everyday and perform their butts off."

In his eyes, the bigger problem with local education is that, while Ryerson has done its part to shape students, most will filter into Orr Academy High School, a low-performing school with a chronic dropout problem, which is roughly a half-mile away from the grade school.

“I don’t want my kids to go to Orr, but I can’t afford the alternative,” Shorter says. A son who’s about to graduate from Ryerson earned one of the coveted seats at Whitney Young High School next year, but the more than $2 it would cost each day to take two buses to get to the school, which is a little less than 5 miles away, is just too expensive. Charter school fees are too steep as well. “I told my son if something changes, Lord willing, he’ll go.” For now, “we just can’t afford it,” he says.

As Shorter and I walk back to the school, he bumps into his eldest son, an 18-year-old Orr senior, who stopped by to check in with his dad on his way home.

Shorter tells me that he’s seen too many of the boys that his son’s growing up with end up at the Cook County Jail before even making adulthood. “Some of them multiple times.”

Shorter’s fear is that by closing Ryerson young people will become more angry and disgruntled. “And eventually, they’re going to act out, and you’re going to lock them up.”

“You’re not just turning one school over to another school,” he added. “You’re hurting a whole community.”

--Sarah Karp, Catalyst Chicago, helped research this article.

The map below shows cumulative budgets of schools slated for closure in the last 10 years, and the amount spent on incarcerating residents in each census tract during the same time period.

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Catherine Sugrue, the sister of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader, Ald. Pat O'Connor, has been hired by the Chicago Public Schools to help with the controversial closures of dozens of schools, according to the Sun-Times.

O'Connor, a former longtime head of the City Council's Education Committee, said his sister is a contract employee without benefits and she is qualified for the job. Sugrue worked at CPS for 17 years before she became an education consultant.

CLOSURE CZAR: Catherine Sugrue holds the newly created title of CPS director of school transition, reporting to Tom Tyrell, the retired Marine charged with safeguarding 30,000 displaced students.

BASEBALL DUSTUP: A North Side Chicago Public Schools principal says internal leadership problems, not "racist tendencies," led to his baseball team forfeiting a game Saturday on the city's Far South Side. The explanation came after a series of media reports, which the principal says are largely inaccurate, said that parents feared for their athletes' safety on the South Side. (Tribune)

GAME OVER: Brooks College Prep’s baseball coach said Sunday he doesn’t want to play Payton College Prep ever again after a group of Payton parents refused to send their kids to the Far South Side school for a night non-conference game, citing safety concerns. (Sun-Times)

TEST CANCELLED: Chicago Public Schools cancelled a district-mandated standardized test last Thursday amid growing concern about overtesting in the system. CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett sent a letter to parents Thursday informing them that kindergarten and first grade students would not be taking the Northwest Evaluation Association test next week. Second-grade students will take a different version of the same test next week so that third-grade teachers can understand where they stand academically at the start of next year. (WBEZ)

IN THE NATION
UNHERALDED IMPROVEMENTS: In an Op-ed, the chancellor of D.C. Public Schools Kaya Henderson touts the improvements the district has been making under her stewardship that have generated little fanfare. "People must think that if we are not angering the community, clashing with unions, creating discord in our schools and making headlines, we must not be making change," Henderson writes. (The Washington Post)

COLLEGE LOAN CHANGE: The Obama administration has found itself at odds with a key voting block—college students and their advocates—as well as many of its Democratic allies in Congress, because of an important, if technical, budget proposal that could have significant implications for college access. In a move intended to stave off a doubling of interest rates on federally backed Stafford Loans over the summer, the administration is seeking to shift those interest rates from the current predictable, fixed-rate system to a market-based rate at the time of the loan. Right now, interest rates on subsidized Stafford Loans are set at 3.4 percent, but they're slated to jump to 6.8 percent in July, unless Congress and the administration act. (Education Week)

Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration has cut off funding to the state’s largest charter-school operator, the politically influential United Neighborhood Organization, over insider deals it says violated terms of a $98 million state grant, according to a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

TESTING SCRUTINY: Amid an escalating battle over standardized testing that included a “play-in” protest at CPS headquarters last week and a student boycott of the Prairie State Achievement Exam on Wednesday, CPS officials are undertaking a broad review of testing in the district. (Catalyst)

DUNCAN'S SECRET LOG: WBEZ has obtained a redacted copy of the "secret log" that former CPS chief Arne Duncan kept to manage requests by public officials and other connected Chicagoans seeking to get their children into the city’s elite grammar and high schools, many of which admit students only by test score or lottery. Recent figures show that at some of the schools there are 20, 30, or even 50 times more applications than available seats.

EXEMPTING THE YOUNGEST: Chicago Public Schools says it's taking a closer look at testing, for now removing assessment tests for kindergartners and first-graders this school year. (Tribune)

INTEREST WANES: The final round of public meetings over Chicago's decision to shut down scores of schools has often been sparsely attended and overcast by an air of futility. Community leaders say some people are simply burned out, while others feel their efforts are pointless after Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration decided to shut down 54 schools after months of protest and public engagement.  (Tribune)

IN THE NATION
SCHOOL SAFETY LEGISLATION: Education Week has compiled an interactive analysis of nearly 400 bills related to school safety filed in the days, weeks, and months after the Newtown, Conn., shootings, finding that legislators have proposed solutions that include arming teachers, adding guards or police officers, and shoring up the security of school buildings.

UNEQUAL TEACHER QUALITY: Less-experienced teachers and teachers with degrees from less-competitive colleges are often assigned to teach lower-achieving students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, according to a new report, "Systematic Sorting: Teacher Characteristics and Class Assignments" by Stanford University. Past research has shown that students’ academic achievement depends on the quality of their teachers, however not all students have equal access to teachers with experience. This then leads to an achievement gap largely affecting students of color nationwide. (BET)