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BREAKING NEWS: Rahm Appoints Supporter of Charters and TFA to School Board

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2016 //
27

This just in from the Chicago Teachers Union. With a teachers’ strike looming, Mayor Emanuel decided to stick his thumb in the CTU’s eye.

 

 

STATEMENT

IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ronnie Reese

January 6, 2016 312-329-6235
Illinois Charter School Commissioner Appointed to Fill Seat on Chicago Board of Education
CHICAGO—The Chicago Teachers Union finds it unfortunate that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has chosen to replace one of the most independent voices on his appointed Chicago Board of Education with Jaime Guzman, an Illinois Charter School Commissioner, and someone who led the Office of New Schools for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) at a time when hundreds of students had their education disrupted by school closures and turnarounds orchestrated by his department. Additionally, Guzman is an alumnus of Teach for America, an organization that has contributed to the massive loss of Black teachers and experienced educators both in Chicago and nationwide.

 

With the mayor’s selection of Guzman, more than half of the Board of Ed’s members are now unabashed charter supporters. Considering that charter schools only serve 15 percent of CPS students while taking in 18 percent of the district school-based funds—not to mention the additional funding and support received from CPS’ Central Office—it is clear that the mayor and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool intend to greatly expand charter schools in Chicago. The public, on the other hand, has shown time and time again that it chooses publicly run neighborhood schools over privately run charters.

 

“Through overwhelming voter support for an elected school board, it’s clear that the public wants a democratic board of education that represents the diverse interests of students and parents across the city,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “While Mr. Guzman does have teaching experience, which is a rarity for members of the mayor’s handpicked Board, our students and their families do not need another pro-charter, politically connected rubber stamp who will continue the decimation of our neighborhood schools through charter expansion.”

 

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Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Education Reform

With Chicago in Turmoil, Rahm’s School Board Wants To Expand Charters

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2016 //
9

Despite declining enrollments, despite the closing of 50 public schools, the Chicago Public Schools board (hand-picked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel) is seeking to expand the number of charter schools. The great advantage of charters, from the Mayor’s point of view, is that they are mostly non-union. So think of it as payback to the Chicago Teachers Union for its insistence on adequate resources for the public schools.

 

Despite declining student enrollment and dozens of dramatically under-enrolled schools, Chicago is seeking potential new charter schools for the city.

 

 

In a Request for Proposals issued Wednesday, CPS says it’s looking for dual language schools, “Next Generation” schools that would blend technology and traditional teaching, and—in a first—it wants a “trauma-informed school,” where staff would get training to support students with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or exposure to trauma.

 

 

The district is prepared to give charters that already run schools approval for up to four additional campuses. And it’s poised to grant approvals now for campuses that wouldn’t open for several years, to allow more time for planning a school’s opening, the district says in a press release.

 

 

In recent years, the district had named Neighborhood Advisory Councils where community members could give input into charter proposals. Those are now scrapped, saving roughly $170,000, CPS says. Instead, charter schools themselves will “directly engage residents in obtaining the support of their desired school community,” according to the release.

 
“It looks like they’re making it even less democratic,” said Wendy Katten, director of the parent group Raise Your Hand, which has had members serve on the advisory councils.

 

 

Katten says many considered the NACs “flawed” because CPS seemed frequently to ignore the advice of the councils, but “at least it was an opportunity to look at the proposal, to really scrutinize it as a community. To take (that) away—and to have the charter operators do the community engagement—that’s even more of a sham than what currently has existed. The real question is, our city needs a massive debate about opening any kind of new schools in a city that has just hemorrhaged students,” said Katten.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions

Chicago: Public Is Bitter Towards Rahm

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2016 //
14

A Chicago columnist asked a while back whether Rahm Emanuel would have been re-elected if that video of the death of Laquan McDonald had been released before the election–and six months after Laquan’s death. The video shows that the boy was walking away from the police when he was shot sixteen times. The mayor or someone in his administration refused to release the video. Since it was made public, there was yet another police killing; two people died, a mentally troubled adolescent and a 55-year-old mother of five who made the mistake of opening her door to see what was happening.

 

Some commentators say the protesters in the streets are the same people who voted for the Mayor’s election opponent, Chuy Garcia. Others think that Rahm is in deep trouble.

 

This article in the Washington Post says that Rahm is under siege, and it is personal. It is not only the actions of the police that have burst his bubble, but lingering anger about his abrupt closure of 50 public schools, almost every one of them located in a black or brown neighborhood, disrupting the lives of children who need security and continuity, not disruption.

 

The protests reflect frustration with chronic problems Emanuel inherited in Chicago, a city long plagued by police brutality, failing schools, rampant gang violence and dire ­finances. But as Emanuel enters his second term, critics say he has deepened distrust in City Hall through a string of scandals affecting his administration, a lack of transparency and his abrasive personal style.

 

More anger may be on the way.

 

The Chicago Teachers Union voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, which may happen this spring. The public schools have been subject to repeated budget cuts, losing teachers, programs, and services, while the hand-picked school boards continues to open new charter schools, which will be lavishly funded by their benefactors.

 

How much more can the city take?

 

 

Categories Chicago

Chicago: Parents Clean Filthy Bathrooms, Thanks to Privatization of Custodial Services

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2015 //
24

Parents in an elementary school in Chicago brought  cleaning supplies to their children’s school, because of the filthy conditions in the bathrooms. The leadership of Chicago Public Schools, controlled directly by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, privatized custodial services last year, and at that time the principals complained that the schools were getting dirtier by the day because of the loss of their custodians.

 

Would Mayor Emanuel tolerate these conditions in his own children’s school? Would any member of the Chicago Board of Education? What do you think?

 

 

On Saturday, a handful of pre-kindergarten parents packed yellow rubber gloves and spray bottles of vinegar and baking soda solution and headed to Suder Montessori Elementary Magnet School, 2022 W. Washington Blvd., on the Near West Side, where they spent the morning cleaning their children’s washrooms.

 

The parents felt they didn’t have a choice: Upon entering the bathrooms, they found pools of day-old urine on the floor, feces smeared on the walls and clogged, stinking toilet bowls. In the past few weeks, the school had an E. coli outbreak and more than half of the kindergarten students missed school because of various diseases, including a stomach bug, diarrhea or vomiting, said Michelle Burgess, head of the school’s parent-teacher association.

 

“These are preschoolers. They go to the bathroom and miss. The boys play in the urinals. And sometimes can’t get to the toilet fast enough. It’s understandable,” said Angela Morales, the parent of two children who attend the school. “But they need to clean. We can’t have our kids be in this filth.”

 

Parents claim the unsanitary bathroom conditions, overflowing garbage cans and soiled napping cots are the result of inadequate custodial care following the Chicago Board of Education’s decision last spring to award multi-million dollar custodial management contracts to two firms, Aramark and SodexoMAGIC.

 

The decision to privatize much of the custodial work was made in light of “daunting financial challenges” faced by the district, CPS officials have said. Surveys conducted by principals and parent organizations at the beginning of the school year aired numerous complaints of filthy conditions inside some school buildings after the custodial changes.

 

Aramark and Chicago Public School officials could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.

 

Questions about school cleanliness grew further in early September when district officials announced close to 480 subcontracted custodians who work in CPS buildings would be laid off by Aramark.

 

CPS officials in March signed a minimum three-year contract worth up to $260 million with Aramark. SodexoMAGIC also received a minimum three-year, up to $80 million contract for facility upkeep earlier this year.

 

The reduced contracts, Suder parents say, have led to the school operating with two full-time custodians and one part-time custodian as opposed to operating with four full-time custodians as it had in previous years. Parents claim that since the reductions, janitors have done a poor job maintaining regular cleaning duties and, for the past three months, have mopped the floor with water—and nothing else.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Chicago, Parents, Privatization

Sara Sayigh: Do Reformers Hate Librarians?

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2015 //
14

Sara Sayigh is the librarian for the DuSable campus. She was suddenly laid off, then just as mysteriously rehired.

 

 

She wrote the following:
Chicago Public Schools and other school districts have been imposing the conditions of “school reform” on students, parents and communities with relatively little opposition from communities of color up until recently. I will never know the true reasons why my position was suddenly cut by CPS a week and a half ago- I do know that the decision was not at the building level – my principal is extremely supportive of the library, but I am sure that these decisions are made in an atmosphere of cynicism and disregard for the students who will be affected.

 
Since 2012 when ⅔ of CPS schools had a librarian, half of those positions have been cut resulting in a system where only ⅓ of CPS schools have librarians as of the beginning of this school year 2015-16. Even more have been cut during this school year. I know many of the librarians personally, especially the high school librarians.

 
Once the librarian is cut, the library is nothing more than a room, and the collection is dispersed and ruined. Many studies have shown the importance of school librarians but rather than cite them here, I urge you to find a single privileged person whose child goes to a school without a librarian and library. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s children go to the Lab Schools where there are 7 or 8 librarians.

 
As of the current school year 2015-16, there are only 3 out of 28 predominantly African American high schools in CPS with librarians. So while the loss has been felt across the CPS system, it has disproportionately affected African American children and teens like my students.

 

 
There have been a number of excellent news stories and posts.

 

 
I especially recommend these two – School Library Journal writer Christina Vercelletto: In Chicago, Bronzeville School Librarian Layoff Inspires Outrage—and Support
and this one by the blogger Julie Vassilatos also known as Chicago Public Fools: Who lays off librarians? CPS, that’s who
The sleeping giant of student and parent activism has been awakened and that is the CPS appointed Board of Education’s greatest fear. The Board has done whatever they want to their staff but they cannot ignore the voices of their students and parents. CPS schools have been stripped of staff that are essential to a well functioning school; we no longer have social workers, nurses and other clinicians (staff shared among several schools), an adequate number of counselors, special education teachers and aides, art and music teachers and librarians. I am glad for my students that their “read in” protest attracted so much attention and support. Due to my students’ actions, CPS had to re-open my position for the rest of this school year. I hope that what my students have done will inspire others to take action together.

 

 

Sara Sayigh

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Librarians

Chicago Librarian Gets Her Job Back: But Who Did It?

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2015 //
11

Mike Klonsky reports that Sara Sayigh, the librarian for the DuSable building has been rehired. The Chicago school superintendent Forrest Claypool said “an anonymous donor” had funded the position. Mike suspects that student protests brought about the sudden change.

As one of our readers pointed out recently, the elite of Chicago don’t think that public school children need libraries. But the University of Chicago Lab School–where Mayor Emanuel and Arne Duncan send their children–has many librarians.

Mike Klonsky writes:

“While I’m elated to hear that students at DuSable (I still call it that) have their beloved librarian Sara Sayigh back, CPS’s statement explaining the whole affair, is borderline laughable. An anonymous donor? Really, Forrest Claypool? Are teaching and staff positions at CPS now like endowed chairs at the university, dependent on the benevolence of wealthy patrons? Is that even legal? Will it become part of the next collective-bargaining agreement (if there ever is a next)?

“We’ve already got high schools named after billionaires line Gov. Bruce Rauner, retired ComEd CEO Frank Clark and Exelon’s John Rowe. What’s next? The Ken Griffin Social Studies Teacher at Lindbloom? The Anonymous Donor School Clerk at Bronzeville Military?

“Sayigh’s retention means we’re back to three out of 28 high schools with a student population over 90 percent African-American that have a library staffed by a certified librarian. The others are Morgan Park High School and Chicago Vocational Career Academy.”

Sadly, DuSable is no longer a school. It is a building that houses three privately managed charter schools. They too need a library and a librarian.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Libraries

Mike Klonsky: Can Rahm Hold On?

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
21

As almost everyone reports, Chicago is on fire with outrage. The question, says Mike Klonsky, is whether Rahm will resign or will tough it out. 

 

His poll ratings are down below 20%. He said in the past that he couldn’t release the video of Laquan McDonald’s killing because of an ongoing investigation, but local reporters have found emails that contradict that story.

 

It just keeps getting worse, and there may be a teachers’ strike. The national media may say a teachers’ strike is all about greed, but parents in Chicago know that CTU will strike, if it does, to get libraries, the arts, smaller class sizes, and other things that their children are denied. It truly is about the students, and the parents know it. Teaching conditions are learning conditions.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Chicago Students Protest School Lunches that Look Like “Prison Food”

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2015 //
27

Chicago students are threatening a one-day walkout on December 17 to protest the terrible school lunches they receive.

 

The fruit is bruised and moldy; the pizza looks as it was cooked three days ago. The kids are poor, but they don’t deserve to be fed food that is damaged goods. For some of these children, lunch may be the only meal they get. Why not serve them nutritious food? Mayor Emanuel runs the schools. He should be held accountable.

 

The food is prepared by Aramark, a private company that also supplies food to prisons and has a contract to clean the Chicago schools. Ever since Aramark won the custodial contracts, leading to the layoffs of experienced custodians, principals have complained about dirty buildings.

 

A modest proposal: Why not invite the Chicago Board of Education–all of them–to eat lunch in a public school every day for a week? Do you think they would show up?

Categories Chicago, Students

CTU: Only Two Certified Librarians Left at Virtually All African-American High Schools in Chicago

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
6

When Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence expresses outrage, it should direct its outrage towards the budget cuts that have gutted necessary services for the students in Chicago, not at the teachers’ union that is fighting for the restoration of services. Patricia Levesque, if you were a high school teacher, wouldn’t you go on strike if your students didn’t have a librarian in their school? Wouldn’t you demand a restoration of budget cuts that took away most of the city’s librarians?

 

This press release came with graphics, which I did not include. The graphics show a dramatic contrast between schools that are majority African-American, and schools that are not, in terms of their having a certified librarian. The higher the percentage of black students, the less likely is the school to have a certified librarian. For example, 75% of the schools where the enrollment is less than 50% African-American have a certified librarian; 16% of the schools with a student body that is 50-90% African-American have a certified librarian; only 9% of the schools that are 90% or more African-American have a certified librarian. Contact Stephanie Gadlin if you want to see the graphics.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
December 14, 2015 312/329-6250
StephanieGadlin@ctulocal1.com

 

 

A CTU SPECIAL REPORT:

 

 

Just two certified librarians left at virtually all African-American CPS high schools

 

 

By Chicago Teachers Union Researcher Pavlyn Jankov, with assistance
from the CTU Librarians Committee

 

CHICAGO – For the last several years the CTU and the CTU Librarians Committee have been documenting the loss of professionally staffed libraries from district schools. The district’s failure to provide adequate funding has led to position closures, shifted librarians into classroom positions and left in disuse libraries that have been painstakingly built and supplied by their teachers. Constant funding precarity has also pushed out experienced and veteran librarians to seek other opportunities.

 

In 2012, 67 out of 97 schools had a dedicated certified teacher staffed as a librarian. After three years, half those high school librarians lost their positions or left their schools. This year, the proportion is reversed with just a third of all high schools having a librarian.

 

With the district’s implementation of student-based budgeting alongside deep budget cuts, and its continued reckless expansion of charter schools, CPS’ lack of support for neighborhood schools has led to enrollment losses and severe budget cuts across high schools. Segregated Black schools on the South and West sides have been hit especially hard, and when it comes to access to school libraries, the disparity has become startling.

 

The number of librarians staffed at high schools with a student population greater than 90% African American with a librarian on staff has dropped 84%, from 19 schools in 2012 to just 2 this year, at Chicago Vocational Career Academy, and Morgan Park High School. Across the 46 high schools with a majority African American student population, just 15% have librarians, and across the 28 high schools with an African American student population above 90%, just 7% do. In comparison, the dismal rate of librarian access across all CPS high schools is 32%. Such a deep disparity did not exist several years ago. In the 2012-2103 school year, 61% of high schools with a majority of African American students had a certified librarian on staff, compared to 69% across all district high schools.

 

LIBRARIANS RE-ASSIGNED TO FILL TEACHER SHORTAGE

 

Some schools that have library rooms without librarians actually still have librarians – but they are assigned as full-time classroom teachers. In 2013, 58 librarians were shifted into non-librarian positions. A librarian at a southwest-side high school reports that while her school has had a vibrant and collaborative library program that circulated over 9,000 books to students last year, her duties now include teaching several English classes. However, she felt lucky, as she has had an assistant, and managed to keep the library going with funding and grants.

 

Librarians are indispensable to not just students, but to fellow educators. Coworkers of Ms. Tamela Chambers, a librarian at CVCA – one of the few remaining librarians in a south-side neighborhood high school, described how invaluable it is to work with her: “We continue to challenge each other with projects that stretch our creativity. Working with Ms. Chambers literally leaves me ‘jumping at the bit’. I can’t wait to finish one project so that I can get into the next one.” At CVCA, they have collaborated over student projects for newscasts, documentaries presented at the Chicago Metro History Fair, service learning projects, children’s books on food deserts, collecting songs for use in AP U.S. History. Facilitating such projects are so important, Tamela said, because “libraries bridge the gap between academia and personal interests; a crucial connection that makes learning meaningful and relevant”.

 

Records indicate that CVCA has had a certified-librarian staffed for at least the last 15 years, a duration that many other south side high schools also shared until the last several years of budget cuts. This week, the librarian at DHW, housed at the DuSable school campus along with Bronzeville Scholastic Academy and the Dusable Leadership Academy, was notified that her position was closing. With the closure of the DuSable Library, a library that has been in continuous existence since the start of the historic DuSable school, the district shuts down the only functioning library staffed with a fully-certified librarian in a Bronzeville neighborhood high school. Sara Sayigh, the veteran librarian who received the layoff notice, explains the historic importance of school libraries: “Since 1936, DuSable has always had a librarian and during most of the time, more than one. This historic Black school is the alma mater of Harold Washington, Nat King Cole, Ella Jenkins, Timuel Black and many, many others. The library in this school always has given a sense of community to the building and it still does today. When you remove a librarian, you remove an entire service, and take something essential away from the whole building. At my school, it’s connected to the sense of the greater community.”

 

BY THE BOOK: CPS IS BROKE ON PURPOSE

 

Total funding for libraries across district schools has shrunk again this year, down to just $24 million, a cut of 20% from last year’s $30 million. The precarity of the CPS budget constantly weighs on teachers. K.C. Boyd, a veteran and celebrated certified librarian formerly at Phillips Academy left CPS this past summer to run the libraries program across the East St Louis school district. In CPS she faced a situation familiar to many veteran educators of subjects that are not considered by central office as core curriculum with dedicated funding – annual uncertainty of a continued position. She said “I had experienced a position closing on me in 2009 and vowed that I would never go through that again… This was a painful decision because this was the first high school library I was assigned, I had re-built the library from scratch, developed an awesome collection through grants and donations and turned non-readers at Phillips into readers.”

 

K.C. was one of several Chi School Librarians activists who met with former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett last year to advocate for library funding and more teacher representation in curriculum development. She recounted how at the end of the meeting, it was apparent that CPS was not committed to their library programs: “Dr. Byrd-Bennett said that the projected figures for next school year looked grim along with our positions. She paused and looked all of us sitting at the table in the eye when she said that. I caught that message loud and clear.”

 

K.C. is happy in her new role managing and re-building a library program for East St. Louis schools, and she expressed concern that CPS has not prioritized libraries, especially in communities that have suffered disinvestment: “I think it is appalling that the south side of Chicago, in particular greater Bronzeville, the home of the Black Migration from the South has so few sitting certified librarians.”

 

The Chicago Teachers Union is committed to fighting for sustainable resources for CPS, for the district to re-prioritize our neighborhood high schools, and for dedicated funding for a certified librarian at every school.

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago, Education Reform, Funding, Libraries

Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Education Excellence Condemns CTU Strike Threat

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2015 //
8

This statement was released by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, in response to the news about the CTU strike vote, approved by 96% of voting members. FEE was founded by Jeb Bush; he stepped aside when he decided to run for the GOP nomination. Patricia Levesque was former Governor Bush’s closest associate. It is interesting that she refers to the children of Chicago as “our children.” The FEE–which strongly advocates for charters, vouchers, and virtual classes and schools– has never issued a statement about the lack of resources for the Chicago public schools, the lack of libraries, social services, or about overcrowded classrooms. Nor did it issue a statement when Mayor Emanuel closed 50 public schools in a single day, which surely hurt many children.

 

 

CHICAGO FAMILIES WOULD BE CASUALTIES IN THREATENED TEACHERS UNION STRIKE

 

 

Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, the Chicago Teachers Union membership voted to authorize setting a strike date if demands are not met by the State Board of Education. Patricia Levesque, CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, issued the following statement.

 

 

“The Chicago Teachers Union has used its political power to turn the city’s education system into a place where collectively bargained job protections, benefits and pensions are the priority, not the education of our children. It’s no wonder Chicago Public Schools is spiraling into insolvency.

 

 

“Rather than negotiate in good faith on permanent solutions, the union is desperately lashing out, blaming everyone else for a state of affairs it has been instrumental in creating. Under the guise of taking a stand for students, it is preparing for a strike that will abandon students in their classrooms.

 

 

“This union agenda punishes families and only will hasten the flight to charter schools, where parents can find better options and where thousands of children currently are on waiting lists. The question now becomes whether or not union leaders are interested in the education of children and the long-term survival of Chicago Public Schools, or whether they are interested in a self-serving agenda of maintaining power.”

 

 

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For more information, visit http://www.ExcelinEd.org.

Categories Accountability, Bush, Jeb, Chicago, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions
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