Fred Klonsky has reported on the vote to organize a union by teachers in one of Chicago’s big corporate charter chains.
He reports here that charter students too are asserting their right to be treated with dignity. The students in the Noble Network, Chicago’s most politically connected corporate charter chain, are pushing back against abusive “no e causes” policies. The schools in this chain are named for the billionaires who fund charters, including billionaire Governor Bruce Rainer and Hyatt Hotels billionaire Penny Pritzker, who was Obama’s Secretary of Commerce. High school students can’t be bullied the way young children can. Even if they have been taught for years to be compliant, they can’t help but ask questions. My partner, who was a high school principal, always says she loves adolescents because they have an innate sense of justice.
The students expressed their demands:
We, the students, parents, families, staff, and community members of the Noble Network of charter schools demand that CEO and Superintendent Michael Milkie and the Noble Board of Directors meet the following three demands all across the Noble Network of Charter Schools.
1) Petition to Abolish the Bathroom Escort Rule
We, the undersigned, hereby demand the abolishment of the bathroom escort rule.
The student body agrees that the bathroom escort rule is unnecessary and comes with many pushbacks. We believe that:
Bathroom escorts fail to show up when requested, leaving students waiting for extended periods of time, from five minutes to not showing up at all. This can lead to infections and other health problems. It is dehumanizing to require students aged 15-18 to have an escort to the bathroom.
Female students are left to bleed through their pants. In numerous instances, female students have been left to soil themselves due to the escort rule. In addition, Noble Schools restrictive policy requires teachers to adhere to a rule instead of listening and responding to students needs. The bathroom escort rule is extremely embarrassing and unnecessary.
2) Petition to reduce homework and reform the conditions under which a lasalle can be received
Lasalles are often issued for small mistakes and it is unfair to make students stay after school and take away from their personal time for minor mistakes.
It is unreasonable to issue Lasalles simply because a student forgot to write their name or have turned in an assignment written in pen rather than in pencil. Thus, Lasalle should only be given if the work itself has not been turned in rather than for other unreasonable circumstances.
The amount of homework given on certain days leaves students with no choice but to stay up all night in order to avoid receiving a lasalle.
Teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to function best, and students are barely receiving half of that. Without enough sleep, students are more likely to fall asleep in class and lose focus.
Some students have after-school activities such as jobs, clubs, tutoring, etc. Thus, students are forced to stay up even later due to the burden of homework. Students then have no choice but to turn in work of low quality and end up doing the homework to get it done rather than to actually learn from it, rendering it useless.
After going several nights without receiving enough sleep, many students are showing early symptoms of sleep deprivation. This results in demerits being issued for falling asleep in class, and it is something students simply cannot control.
A Stanford study showed that 56% of students report homework as their number one stressor. This seems like unnecessary stress and does nothing to create an enviroment for knowledge seeking. The purpose of schooling is to foster a lifelong pursuit of learning and knowledge.
3) Petition to have more Freedom of Expression with less restrictions
Noble students lose their self-identity at the doors of Noble charter schools. Freedom of expression is heavily restricted and there is no opportunity for students to express themselves and distinguish themselves from the crowd.
Since “there is no funding for more art classes during school time,” we demand more funding for afterschool programs such as art, music, photography, poetry/writing.
Allow tattoos to be visible
Allow ribbons and pins to be worn
Allow hair to be dyed any color
Give student council/government more power to influence the school and its culture
Congratulations to the high school students who want freedom of expression. Break those chains that bind you!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s really fascinating because the ed reform theory of “choice instead of voice” would seem to dictate these kids should just move along and transfer out of the school.
Instead they feel the school is theirs, NOT just a service provider, in other words.
It’s like they can’t break the attachment people have to “public” schools – the ownership interest.
Apparently it’s NOT like going to a different food truck 🙂
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Good catch.
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Yes. Invasive “reformers” simply miss the fact that a huge part of pop culture has revolved around the public school system as it has been developed over the past 70 years; kids don’t just “go to school,” they attend a cultural tradition.
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The reason these high school students attending corporate charters are speaking out and protesting is more proof that teachers are not the major influences in their lives.
The students’ parents, family, neighbors, pastors/rabbis/priests, and friends are the major influences in their lives.
The average student spends less than six hours a day, five days a week for about 180 days a year in more than one class. The rest of the time they are with their family and friends.
Who has the most influence — the average teacher that spends about an hour a day with them or their parents and friends?
Even these draconian corporate charter schools can’t bully these children and crush who they are so they will conform to some dystonia future agenda being written by a few old very wealthy white man and even fewer old very wealthy white women.
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I really look forward to watching ed reform square their vehement opposition to labor unions and collective bargaining with a charter joining a union.
We may reach new heights of complete incoherence. Can they pull it off? Can they come up with some real or imagined distinction that allows them to tolerate collective bargaining?
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Will the corporate charter do the same thing the Waltons have done with any Wal-Mart where employees voted to unionize — close the store and fire everyone?
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May they close the stores and let public schools take their place!
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I didn’t think of that. To encourage and guide all the teachers working in corporate charter schools to unionize so the charter schools close and the kids return to the public schools.
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At the NPE conference in Indianapolis, one of the Chicago teachers mentioned that unionizing charter teachers is a means to undermine the whole charter agenda.
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Unionizing charter teachers is a setback for the Waltons and DeVos but the risk is that unions will Mute their opposition to charters
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Worth noting, though, that in California, a little more than 30% of charters are unionized, just not necessarily linked to the CBAs of their authorizers. It’s not as black and white an issue as it would seem at first glance…. at least in California. Some of the big players in LA, for instance… Green Dot, Camino Nuevo, Accelerated. And CAVA across the state (K-12).
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It sounds like the charter students seek some of the same rights enjoyed by most public school students. They are protesting the prison like treatment and demerits for minor deviations from the norm of acceptable behavior.
Homework is a continuous stressor. My grandson is already finding this out in third grade where is labors over a ton of CCSS prep work assigned each night. In high school I labored several hours a night with homework, but to be fair, it often included lots of reading which I enjoyed. I also did not have to have a part-time job like so many students today.
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“…principal, always says she loves adolescents because they have an innate sense of justice.”
This is one of the first things I noticed when I began teaching. The school was for children who had experienced failure in traditional settings for a variety of reasons. I remember how well they recognized BS when they saw it, and how quickly they could sum up the injustice of situations they felt strongly about.
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Man, even the Catholic all-boys school that I attended in the late 60s and early 70s wasn’t as insanely controlling as that chain of schools. Didn’t have demerits, had a dress code, collared shirt, no jeans, dress shoes, hair above the collar, not much else. One student wore a wig to school to abide by that last one. Some of the teachers knew about it and didn’t report him.
What the hell are the teachers doing in that charter school? What kind of robotic non-thinking stiffs are they? Disgusting and sad!
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I’m sympathetic to a lot of these complaints. It is abusive to make a girl bleed through her pants, for instance (but then, I think making someone ask permission to use the bathroom anywhere outside of prison is abusive).
Other complaints, not so much. You don’t join the Marines and then complain that they make you shave your hair and wear a uniform. The Marines aren’t shy about the “discipline” they expect and enforce. In fact, that’s precisely the reason a lot of people join up.
Similarly, you can’t enroll at a “no excuses” place like Noble (or Success) and complain that they won’t let you dye your hair or show your tats. No excuses schools are not shy about their expectations and their “discipline”. Again, that’s why a lot of kids/families choose them.
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Interesting ideas. Have to disagree, though. When adults join the military, they sign away their rights as civilian citizens. Minors, however, don’t forgo basic rights to have the taxpayer buy them a corporate product, a charter. No one is going to be shooting at them. It’s different. I am extremely proud of these high school students. They are right. They have rights.
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But the whole point of school choice – by the choicers’ own admission – is, well, choice. People seek out charters because the public schools aren’t “good enough” for whatever reason. One of the main reasons people seek out “no excuses” schools is that the public schools have too many of “those kids” who are “out of control” and “distract” from the learning, etc.
So “no excuses” schools have developed their brand to address precisely that. No one is “out of control” at a ‘no excuses” school because every single aspect is controlled. That’s the agreement you make when you choose to go there (or send your child there). You can’t go there and say you want all “those kids” to be controlled but not expect the same “discipline” to be applied to you (or your child) as well. That’s like joining the Marines because you want order and discipline, but expecting that you personally are going to be let off the hook – it’s just those other schmucks that have to deal with all that discipline stuff.
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I actually even understand the bathroom rule; I “lost” students to bathroom emergencies. I do believe, though, if you are going to require escorts that they had better be available at a moments notice. In general, I find myself agreeing with Dienne. I don’t like no-excuses policies, but such charters don’t hide them. No one has to choose to go to such a school (unless the quality of the public school has been so degraded that there is no other choice). What I really object to is being forced to support them through my taxes. Tax dollars belong in the public system.
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One caveat – in Chicago so many public schools have been closed, parents may have few alternatives to a charter. The same is true in New Orleans.
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I wonder how many of the high school kids came up through the ranks of elementary and/or middle schools at these charters. If kids and parents have been trained (or brainwashed) into accepting draconian discipline for 8 years before high school, they begin to see it as just the way school is.
However, if kids are coming into these high schools from a more usual school environment where increasing responsibility and self control are the norm, it’s just logical they’ll push back. If they have peers whose schooling doesn’t include so many restrictions, it’s also logical that they’ll demand fewer controls too.
In either case, cheers to the kids and the teachers who support them!
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