An independent investigation found that nearly half of Chicago’s charter schools are under-enrolled, but the mayor-controlled school board plans to open more. This will drain more students and resources from the public schools. Mayor Emanuel hopes to destroy public education as his legacy to the city.
The mayor’s hand-picked board will vote tomorrow on authorizing 31 new charters.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Amy Smolensky, 312-485-0053
Data Analysis Reveals Nearly 11,000 Empty Seats; 47% of Charter Schools Under-enrolled
Pending Vote for Opening 31 New Charters Likely to Have Devastating Impact on Many Chicago Public Schools
CHICAGO, January 20 2013 — In an independent investigation of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) data from the 2013-14 school year compiled by parent Jeanne Marie Olson of the Apples to Apples project, parent group Raise Your Hand has discovered that 47 percent of CPS charter and contract schools had student populations below the CPS threshold for ideal enrollment. This equates to 50 schools with nearly 11,000 seats sitting empty. The analysis also reveals a decline in overall CPS enrollment of 3,000 students this academic year. Despite this drop, the Chicago Board of Education could approve as many as 31 new charters over the next two years.
These revelations combined with tremendous CPS budget cuts, a one billion dollar deficit and the recent closing of 50 neighborhood schools, have parents and community members demanding a halt to charter expansion. Opponents to the charter expansion, which is scheduled to be voted on during Wednesday’s Board meeting, are outraged at the prospect of adding 31 new charters (10 of which have already been approved) while neighborhood schools continue to receive funding cuts that have forced elimination of critical teaching and support positions as well as fundamental education programming.
“CPS has been opening charters in the Austin neighborhood for years and cannibalizing district schools,” said RYH Board member Dwayne Truss. “It is especially offensive to me as a resident of Austin that anyone would propose a new charter in our community after the closing of four district schools last year due to a so-called underutilization crisis manufactured by the district.”
CPS has contended that they will open more charters to meet parent demand and relieve overcrowding.
Raise Your Hand member Jennie Biggs said, “CPS claims to face another near billion dollar deficit. They risk destabilizing all of our schools by this unwarranted expansion. Every type of school in CPS has wait lists and this myth that CPS must open more charters to meet parent demand is insulting as a taxpayer and a resident of a community that had schools on the closing list last year and now has a charter proposal. We must strengthen our existing schools or we face another even more students leaving the system.”
Link to Apples to Apples: http://cpsapples2apples.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/a-history-of-cps-enrollment-1999-2014-rough-draft/
About Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education: Raise Your Hand is a growing coalition of Chicago and Illinois public school parents, teachers and concerned citizens advocating for equitable and sustainable education funding, quality programs and instruction for all students and an increased parent voice in policy-making around education. http://www.ilraiseyourhand.org.
For a list of under-enrolled charters, contact:
Amy Smolensky
amysmolensky@comcast.net
312-485-0053
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What would happen if no one enrolled in these new schools? Funding is based on number of students, isn’t it? Wouldn’t they go under? Maybe the key is a massive public outreach to parents to explain how destructive these schools are both to individual students and to the community. Of course there will always be some who will enroll, but the lower we can get that number, the less financially viable the schools will be and eventually they will collapse of their own weight.
Well, since so-called reformers and charterizers lie about everything, perhaps they’ll take a leaf from Gogol’s Dead Souls, and just claim that the serfs, umm students, are present for accounting purposes.
After all, it’s The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time, and a little fib is justified by the Cause.
Could Ms. Smolensky please post the list of underenrolled charters here?
I second that request.
Ryan, her email included the list but I was unable to post them on my cell phone so I deleted them. Call her. Email her. She has names and numbers.
“(CPS) data from the 2013-14 school year compiled by parent Jeanne Marie Olson of the Apples to Apples project, parent group Raise Your Hand has discovered that 47 percent of CPS charter and contract schools had student populations below the CPS threshold for ideal enrollment. ”
The volunteer parents had to do the analysis? Is there no one working on that board who did any work, had any concern at all, of the effect of these reforms on kids in existing public schools?Why don’t those kids and their schools matter?
How many months has this board been exclusively focused on closing public schools and opening charter schools? Have public schools even been mentioned since the mass closing and the “safe passage” controversy?
I don’t understand why public school parents are paying these “reform” folks, I really don’t. I don’t see any benefit to kids in existing public schools.
Duggan, you don’t get it. The CPS board is in charge of closing public schools not helping them.
“The CPS board is in charge of closing public schools not helping them.”
One of the best one-line summaries of “education reform” that I have ever read.
Thank you.
😎
The Chicago Public Schools have been under mayoral control for nearly 20 years, since 1995, and the Board of Education is not elected. Every board member is appointed by the mayor, so they are his puppets.
What a fine counter school exit idea. Is it viable to mobilize the troops’ to do the required effort? Concerned community members and the teachers union may just be able to counter punch and stay the tide. Now wouldn’t be something to cheer about.
In reference to another thread from today, two of the new charters coming to Chicago are Gulen charters.
At the Wadsworth School when I was the Chair of the Local School Council for over ten years there. CPS taken and rent for $1.00 a year over 2/3 of the school building including classrooms. During this course of time CPS came back a year or two because we as the LSC would not stop fighting the take over took 6th to 8th grades from us and gave these grades to the UOC Charter School, because many of their students was transferring out going to other schools. This madness has to stop, we as adults who care has to make a stand in assisting those who do not have a voice concerning the levels of their education.
Darnell, I live in Woodlawn. Lets not forget the U of C’s use of eminent domain through the mayor’s office. They took your building. How many Woodlawn schools on the list stayed open vs. the Hyde Park power structure that got four of five saved?
Another day in Chicago. Make it fair and flip a coin for facilities. Heads, charters win, tails, public schools lose.
Dear Diane,
I am a reporter and anchor for CBS Local 2 in Southern California, working on a report on Common Core. Is there some way I might have a phone visit with you sometime over the next few days to get a few comments or insights from you regarding CCSS?
Thanks so much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Tom Tucker
tomt (at) cbslocal2.com
Tom, you can email me and/or read this: http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-common-core-ravitch/
What a crook
Good for Chicago (my town) KEEP YOUR KIDS OUT OF THE CHARTERS. They eventually have to close if they have no students (I hope…but who knows they way charters crunch the numbers).
I’m in Utah, but a charter in my area is WAY under-enrolled and still open. If you know enough movers and shakers, your charter school could probably stay open with no students at all.
when they close neighborhood public schools it practically forces kids into charters. Pretty sad.
Or you are punished with 35 to 40 per class. This is what the Trib calls school choice?
I think the number is up to a zillion and 1 times I said this and I’ll say it again. If you want to save public schools, design a better “mousetrap” as they say. Develop an assessment system that provides a snap shot and jumping off place for teachers, include fair but strong accountability, and take kids from where they are, sorta like this http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
If we don’t do that, public schools will continue to perish. I have been saying the same thing for 20 years. No one is going to buy an 18th century designed school system. It was broken long before the testing fiasco came about and the artificial testing of Common Core is leading the lemmings into the sea.
One more time with feeling, Get a grip, devise an assessment worthwhile and sell it. Pick theirs apart one bit at a time
Alternative forms of teacher evaluation have been stifled by the US DOE and the philanthropists who influence it. The Peer Assistance Review (PAR) model was/is used by a handful of districts most notably in Montgomery County, MD. It has successfully removed ineffective teachers from the classroom while promoting a culture of growth and collaboration. The model is based on the same five core propositions used by NBPTS – a process that is thorough and fair. The problem is these districts had to refuse RttT funding to put this system in place; since test scores aren’t a formal part of the process, Arne won’t endorse it.
Opposition to peer evaluation also comes from some teachers. Peer evaluation has been brought up several times on this blog over the last few years and has seen some spirited opposition by some posters who were concerned with a loss of collegiality.
People need only do a Google search of this topic on Diane’s blog and they will find that this is TE’s pat response, whenever the subject of evaluations that include peer-review is raised. Very few teachers have objected to peer-reviews here and, actually, the most salient opposition was not from teachers but from Bernie1815.
Cosmic Thinker,
While I find te’s comments often border on trolling, I’m going to be the fly-in-the-ointment here, and say that as a seasoned classroom teacher and union guy, I oppose peer evaluations, primarily because I think it’s a way to set teachers against each other and reduce solidarity (such as it is) in the schools.
I know that I’m in the minority here, and that it’s a lost cause, but I had no problems with the traditional teacher evaluation system of having an experienced, knowledgeable Principal Teacher – I know, I know, that’s a Golden Oldie – observe the class. A trained eye knows within ten minutes if they are witnessing good instruction in a classroom.
Part of the problem, of course, is that it has been explicit policy to hire know-nothing contract killers as public school administrators, who are put in place to destabilize and destroy schools and intimidate teachers.
The “demand” for new evaluation systems certainly didn’t come about because of a grassroots uprising among parents and teachers, no matter what Gates-funded fifth columnists like E4E would have you believe; rather, it was another fake crisis generated by the so-called reformers’ media and hype machine.
Should peer review be put into effect, teachers will come to regret it, as it will be structured with incentives to have colleagues, rather than management, play “gothcha.”
There will always be alternative opinions for any evaluation system. But peer reviews have broader support amongst teachers over VAM and testing. Peer review complements collaboration. Mentoring is a natural extension of peer review and a tried and true approach – think apprenticeship.
Trying to model students and teachers using top-down, mindless data-driven systems should be carefully examined. Data collection is terribly flawed. Bias is a problem. The models themself are unproven. Too many parameters are ignored.
The result of VAM is not better teachers. The system forces gaming. When I started in software development years ago, executives had the idea that we could VAM programmers by measuring lines of code written. The result was some of the most bloated programs imagined resulting in higher error rates and exponential increases in cost. Deadlines were missed. Those that wrote consise, elegant code were penalized.
Michael, Equal numbers of experienced teachers AND principals are on the PAR team in Montgomery County, MD. You don’t think that evens the playing field?
Cosmic Thinker,
I have little familiarity with the system in place in Montgomery County, so I may be wrong, but I remain skeptical about those systems leveling the playing field, because they are still proceeding from the premises of so-called reform, and will be structured, or will devolve in such as way as to lead teachers and administrators to give more unsatisfactory ratings than would otherwise occur.
I don’t think teachers should be spending their time looking for “bad teachers” among their colleagues. I think that’s the job of a professional administration that is subject to contractual restraints.
It’s like the PD we’re obliged to withstand on Common Core, Danielson (NYC’s new evaluation system), or every other bogus panacea that has come down the pike in recent years: we’re asked to form groups to discuss how to implement these programs, giving teachers the illusion that they are exercising their professional autonomy, when the reality is that they are restricted to the premises and parameters imposed upon them.
Perhaps we can choose to turn right or left, but we’re still trapped in their maze, receiving electric shocks or food pellets, as they choose.
It’s a neat trick, and in the current climate I don’t think peer review would in large-scale practice be much different.
Until there are smaller classes, adequate resources, an enriched curriculum for all students, and teachers having a real say in running schools, I don’t think educators should spend one minute being complicit in the hunt for “bad teachers” among their colleagues.
Michael, I understand your points and agree that the primary goal of an evaluation system should not be to fire teachers and that is what corporate “reform” models are all about. According to this NY Times article, the main aim of the system in Montgomery County is to help teachers improve their practices. If they don’t improve, they can then be fired by a panel of 8 teachers and 8 principals: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/education/06oneducation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Yeah, those outdated 17th century things like reading, writing, and arithmetic.
This confirmed what I knew was going to happen when they initially closed the schools. They want to privatize it all. When the Common Core rolls out in 2016-2017 in the Chicago suburbs, let’s see what happens when only 30% of those kids in the “leafy suburbs” pass the tests. The tests are designed to “fail” kids. Don’t forget that. Will they say, “The school you thought was so good is also a failure.” This is my guess. If they say this then the plan is to privatize the entire country’s public schools, and it just a matter of time. I hope I’m wrong about this. I know that the parents in the suburbs will be outraged. They are significantly more powerful than the inner city parents. It’s going to get very interesting in Illinois in the next few years. Being educated allows us to see what is happening, but we still have no power to stop it in Illinois or anywhere else.
The suburbs still have local control with elected school boards, so the people have a lot more say there than they do in city school districts that are under mayoral control (or state control), with their appointed puppet school boards.
Chilling testimony about Common Core from Wisconsin businesswoman Jody Lueck:
http://wisconsindailyindependent.com/disturbing-testimony-at-hearing-reveals-what-is-at-the-core-of-common-core-support/
Here’s some missing detail about the situation in Chicago. The new charters are being proposed to alleviate perennial overcrowding in a part of the city that had no schools closed due to under performance or under enrollment. Parents in these parts of Chicago have been complaining for well over a decade about the overcrowding and at last, after so many incompetent boards and so much incompetence in CPS leadership, the solution is a two-fer for the mayor and his deformer handlers, try to solidify support in an under-served but active and aware voting bloc by offering them non standard schools in non standard buildings. Yes, they will be putting these new charters in buildings that will have to be retrofitted for use as a school. Just an additional insult, FYI, many of the badly overcrowded schools in the part of town under consideration for charters have more than enough land on their campus for an expansion of their existing facilities. There has never been a plan for that, just an opportunity for an 11th hour screw over of the voters, shabbily labeled with the usual empty sales pitches. Rahm is hoping that the desperation of parents for non overcrowded schools will buffer the blow back. The next election for mayor can’t come soon enough. This time we should elect a democrat, not a corporate suit.
This is amusing in a way because it will all collapse spectacularly. I sense way to much worry amongst public school advocates of these charter schools. They are by and large a joke and rely on a perpetually high unemployment rate and desperate labor. Wait until the boomers retire in droves, wait until the economy picks up. They won’t even be able to find a college graduate.
I don’t think you would say this if you lived in an urban area where there are no more neighborhood schools in many communities anymore, because they’ve been closed and turned over to charter management organizations that are often charged just for $1 rent.
Those charters are usually staffed with 5 week trained recruits from Teach for America (TFA) who are eager to have the affiliation with the prestigious TFA added to their resumes. The funding for TFA’s growth by the federal government and corporate reformers has been ongoing and increased, to ensure a never ending stream of non-union “teachers” who will accept low pay, soon leave and not expect pensions.
The economy hasn’t “picked up” in 7+ years now – when do you think that might happen? I don’t think the boomers retiring is the answer – there simply aren’t enough of them to account for the massive unemployment we still have (which is a lot higher than the reported figures, BTW). With increased “efficiency” measures (each employee doing the job of 2-4 other employees) and with jobs being shipped to places where people will do them for $5 a day, the economy isn’t going to “pick up”. There isn’t going to be another jobs boom like the 90s. This is all intentional. Our overlords want us to be grateful for any job we can get, even it if’s part-time, no benefits, $8/hour and you have a master’s degree and a family to care for.
A couple of other facts I’ll be reporting to add to the Raise Your Hand discoveries about Chicago’s lies.
First, there is no “billion dollar deficit.” For two years, that’s been a talking point. But in fact, Chicago’s public school system had a surplus in its various “reserve” funds of between a half billion and a billion dollars at the end of its Fiscal Year 2013 (as of June 30, 2013). The audited financial report from that fiscal year was supposed to go to the Board in December 2013, as it has for 100 years (or more). Instead, Rahm Emanuel’s officials are covering it up by refusing to release their audited finances from the 2012 – 2013 school year. When the Board meets later today (January 22, 2014), it will be in the second month of the cover up.
CORE and the current Chicago Teachers Union leadership began analyzing the Board’s finances in the room where I’m writing this five years ago — two years before CORE won the leadership of the union. The document we began our study from was the CAFR (the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report). The reason for using the CAFR is that it is the only CPS financial report that actually contains facts — because it’s audited by an outside firm.
To our surprise, this year, for the first time since before the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, the Board is refusing to release the CAFR. The reason? The actual surplus — the total when all the various “reserves” are added up — negates those lies about the “billion dollar deficit.” How do we know that, even without the CAFR? The Board gets quarterly financial reports, and those showed the increasing reserves during the months when Barbara Byrd Bennett and CPS officials were lying, repeating the talking point about the “Billion dollar deficit.” This was during the months they were saying that in order to relieve the Board’s finances, the had to close so-called “underutilized” schools. Despite hearings at which more than 30,000 people testified against the closings (and challenged the “facts” Byrd Bennett presented), at its May 22 meeting the Board voted to close 49 of the city’s real public schools.
No sooner had they done that, than they turned around claiming that there was an “overcrowding” crisis. But — and this could only come in Chicago — the solution to “overcrowding” is to expand charter schools. Less than a year after the largest school closing in U.S. history.
One other small note: they’ve also been lying about the “success” of their charter schools. Most of Chicago’s charter schools, by the Board’s own measures, are “failing” under NCLB rules. But by Chicago rules, no charter school gets put on a “Probation” list. The city that gave the world Barack Obama and Arne Duncan continues to lie, cheat and steal from 400,000 children in the name of corporate “reform.”