While Arne Duncan was superintendent of schools in Chicago, he received over $10 million from the Gates Foundation to begin “turning around” low-performing schools. He supported the creation of The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), which subsequently took over 31 schools, some of which raised test scores but were criticized for pushing out low-scoring students. One of AUSL’s goals was to train teachers for urban schools.
The leadership of Chicago Public Schools decided to absorb the 31 schools back into the school district, according to Chalkbeat. AUSL will continue training teachers.
Tapped in 2006 to steer improvements at some of the city’s lowest-performing schools, the nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership manages 31 schools that together enrolled 14,745 students this school year, mostly on the city’s South and West sides. The contractor oversees a yearlong teacher residency program that prepares educators to work with high-need students. In the past five years, enrollment across its schools has declined 12% compared to the district’s 10% drop, while year-to-year academic growth on standardized tests has shown some schools steadily improving and others struggling.
Mike Klonsky, veteran activist in Chicago, explains the spotty record of AUSL here. It was a key component of Arne Duncan’s “reform” agenda, handing over low-performing schools to private organizations and firing their teachers. It was a precursor to the massive failure of Race to the Top.
Klonsky wrote:
Lacking any research base and built on the false premise that private companies, hedge funders, and power philanthropists could best operate public institutions, AUSL’s school takeover turned out to be an expensive and dismal flop.
AUSL was founded and run by Chicago venture capitalist Martin Koldyke, who used his connections and big campaign donations to become a powerhouse in the school turnaround business. Koldyke, a golf buddy of then-Mayor Daley, decided he could save the public school system by running it like a business. Koldyke’s company, Frontenac, had been a big investor in for-profit colleges like DeVry and Rasmussen College.
Despite AUSL schools ranking at or near the bottom of the system, the company benefited from backing from Daley, and then from Rahm Emanuel. Rahm even selected a former AUSL top executive to oversee CPS’ finances and named AUSL’s previous board chairman, David Vitale, as president of the CPS Board of Education. With virtual control of the board and the central office, Koldyke was assured of a stable funding pipeline to his then 19 turnaround schools, even in the midst of a budget crisis when neighborhood schools were being starved of operating cash.
Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, reacted gleefully to the news:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s outgoing CPS leadership team publicly confirmed today that it is dismantling the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL), the district’s largest turnaround school network. Beginning in 2006, turnaround actions across the South and West sides of Chicago led to a sweeping purge of Black educators under the guise of “failing” schools, when in reality, mayoral control of CPS had long starved these school communities of resources needed to thrive.
Our beloved Karen Lewis led the charge to fight these racist purges when she became president of our union in 2010. The following year, we filed suit in federal court against CPS for violating the civil rights of displaced Black educators. The district fought for a decade to derail this case until a judge ruled this spring that without a settlement, the suit would proceed to trial.
None of this happens without educators’ vocal opposition to turnaround actions, and coalition and community support for the brave plaintiffs in our lawsuit, which have pushed CPS to tacitly end this practice. The same can be said about broad opposition among parents, students and traditional, neighborhood public school communities to uncontrolled charter expansion, which has helped stall school privatization in recent years.
We will continue our work to dismantle racist metrics — now branded SQRP by CPS — even as the mayor’s handpicked Board of Education lets these policies fester. We will continue to push the state legislature to give Chicagoans what residents in every other school district in the state have — the right to a fully elected school board that will not rubber stamp the racism of the past. We will continue to fight, and we will continue to win.
Unity and commitment to creating a truly sustainable community school district is what moves our struggle forward. Educators’ work is anchored in the fight for the schools our students deserve, and the right to recovery for every CPS student and family.
Our mission remains to reverse the harm of racist policies like turnarounds, and move our bosses to provide school communities the resources required to support every student’s needs.
This post illustrates that when there is reasonable leadership in place, positive change is possible. Why anyone would believe that hiring an outside contractor to train teachers to work in high need schools would make sense? Duncan is another corporatist policy wonk, not an authentic educator. He believes that the free market can solve our education problems. He crafted much of Obama’s abysmal education policy that set the stage for Betsy DeVos. Duncan experimented on students in mostly communities of color and failed. Mayor Lightfoot is wise enough and cares enough to reverse the failed decisions of the past.
Urban schools that suffer from systemic under funding are easy targets for privatizers. In most red states the failures of privatization are often disregarded along with all the waste, fraud, embezzling and segregation. Many state leaders are working in tandem with corporate privatizers by enabling the dismantling of public education.
I agree. Mayor Lightfoot wasn’t the top choice of the union, and may not be a perfect progressive, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a reasonable Democrat who will do things to make Chicago better.
There is a big race for Mayor in NYC and I just saw that Representative Hakeem Jeffries (a pro-charter US Congressman who had been a favorite of ed reformers!!) just endorsed one of the most progressive (and pro-public school) candidates in the race – Maya Wiley!
Shocking, but in a very good way! And Jeffries is one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. He has been pro ed reform for a long time, but is apparently progressive on many issues.
The endorsement of Maya Wiley by Congressman Hakeem Jeffries was surprising because Jeffries is a huge supporter of charter schools.
Diane,
I know! That’s why I really object when Democrats (like Biden for example) get demonized for having a bad position on one issue when it is clear from their many more progressive positions on other issues that Democrats are NOT like Republicans and they simply have a big tent which includes politicians who may be too conservative on a few issues, but are overall supportive of progressive legislation and still able to do good things. It may not be as progressive as I like, but it’s on the way there. Rightly criticize their conservative positions, but they shouldn’t be falsely attacked as if they were the same as right wing Republicans.
I can’t even think of the most moderate Republican who would endorse Maya Wiley — and the mainstream Republican party is to the far right of Ronald Reagan now.
I stopped donating to the school from which I received my M. Ed. when I found out they were participating in AUSL teacher training residency program. I never did understand how you could support both privatization through this program and still train teachers in a traditional program geared to public education. I wonder how many of those teachers still teach in charter schools.
Ugh. Like Jeb Bush, Duncan is still solicited for opinions on public schools and it’s all the same public school criticism the whole ed reform echo chamber relies on for public appearances.
Until we break up this echo chamber public schools will be stuck with ed reform policy and ed reform policy is GRIM. It’s chanted mantra on how public schools are all failing and no public school student ever succeeds.
No one from outside the club is ever invited to speak so all the public hears is a relentless negative drumbeat towards public schools and cheerleading for charters and vouchers.
Duncan and Bush can still speak on public schools, but shouldn’t we also have speakers who support public schools and public school students? Shouldn’t our schools be represented? Must we have 100% echo chamber-approved education discussions?
I cringe when I see Bush, Duncan or Christie on cable news shows. Randi Weingarten has been on MSNBC recently. Her statements are rather measured, but supportive of public education, as she dares not go after the charter lobby on corporate sponsored news programs. We need some smart, vocal, authentic advocates like Denisha Jones, Julian Vazquez Heilig or Leslie Fenwick speaking up for equitable public schools instead of politicians and privatizers. Representation matters! We need people of color that understand the democratic value of quality public schools since it is majority minority schools are mostly on the chopping block.
great suggestion: may we see it happen
“Arne Duncan
School districts should think about using the influx of federal resources to pay their most at risk teens to come back to school this summer.
Use these critical months for academic enrichment, SEL support, extracurriculars & to serve the community.
We must help students reengage”
“School districts should”. The ed reform mantra.
School districts should think about getting advice and direction from someone outside the ed reform echo chamber because ed reformers don’t actually support public schools or public school students.
Try hiring some people who actually value public schools and public school students instead of the paid representatives of the charter/voucher lobby.
Here’s a phrase you’ll never hear in the ed reform echo chamber “charter chains should…” For some odd reason we get NO critical analysis of the charter and voucher schools these people promote. All critical analysis is directed at the public systems they work to eradicate.
Why is that? If this “movement” is about “education” why don’t they do any substantive or critical analysis of the charter and voucher schools they all market and promote?
What’s the upside for public schools in hiring any of them?
Imagine you’re interviewing a new superintendent for your local public school district.
The ed reform candidate arrives with a litany of complaints about public schools, uses wholly negative terms regarding public schools (‘cartel”, “government schools”, “factory schools”) and goes on to announce all the students are probably failing because they’re attending a public school.
This is the ed reform pitch. They want us to agree to hire and pay people who don’t support our schools and have contempt for our schools.
Would a charter chain do that? Of course not. Yet public schools are expected to.
Stop hiring and paying people who don’t support public schools IN public schools That’s a recipe for poorly-served public school students. Eva Moskowitz isn’t hiring full time professional charter critics to run her schools. You shouldn’t either.
If we listen and follow the issues presented by Randi Weingarten, public schools will again not only thrive but excel for all children. She hit the issues I write about and we must all be on board to succeed. We must teach the whole child and never again be controlled by politicians and the standardized test.
The current administration might use the test once ONLY to determine who needs the most help, but I am hopeful that will be the only use of that test.
Finally the possibility of the dream I and many others have will come true has a chance to become real. Stay focused and stay strong for the times they are a’ changing!
Title 1 funding is determined by poverty rates, not standardized test scores. Money doesn’t hurt but it will never solve the root of the problems afflicting inner city students. Schools can only be as functional and successful as the families the community that they serve. Over 80% of children in inner city schools are being raised by single mothers. All bets are off until that changes.
That’s why I support a push toward the community school model where local social service and healthcare agencies can provide their services to the whole community.
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily
Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
Please tell me who I am
I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
Oh take it, take it, take it, yeah
But at night, when all the world’s asleep
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man
Won’t you please (Oh won’t you tell me)
Please tell me what we’ve learned (Can you hear me)
I know it sounds absurd (Oh won’t you help me)
Please tell me who I am
Who I am
Who I am
Who I am
‘Cause I was feeling so logical
D-d-d-d-d-d-digital
One, two, three, five
Oh, oh, oh, oh yeah
Ooh it’s getting unbelievable, yeah
Songwriters: Richard Davies, Roger Hodgson
I’m also singing Another One Bites the Dust.
Gates’ divorce may be one of the best things to happen to public education. WSJ reported about Bill and his time on Microsoft’s board, “had a reputation for questionable conduct around women.”
For a man who crafted an image of not caring about money, he should make sure he delivers what Melinda is owed. I’d enjoy watching a Gates’ reality show. The WSJ wrote that Melinda didn’t have prior knowledge about the situation at Microsoft (reportedly, at least one affair he confessed to). I guess we’re to believe Gates’ recent bad PR isn’t remotely related to the transfer of assets.
On the current affairs forum at the Post Dispatch, I presented Philadelphia and Chicago as places of which St. Louis school people should take note. Philadelphia is echoing the some of the mistakes Slay and Danforth marched them toward, more than a decade ago. Chicago is making efforts to deal with the damage of those same sort of mistakes. I already know that it is too much for people who prefer to limit all ideas and responses to eleven word catch phrases. I might get one or two mentions that teachers’ unions are responsible for everything that is wrong with schools,with the same self-assured idiocy that they tell us the election was stolen from Donald Trump.