Archives for category: Chicago
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Grassroots Effort in Chicago for Elected Board

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2012 //
2

After nearly two decades of mayoral control in Chicago, it is clear that it doesn’t improve schools.

The board is appointed by the mayor,  and the public has nothing to say about who sits on the board and no way to contest its actions.

As in New York City, mayoral control means that the public has no role in public education.

Under this system, Mayor Daley started Renaissance 2010 (run by one Arne Duncan) and the results have been barely noticeable.

One thing for sure: Renaissance 2010 did not produce a renaissance; 2010 has come and gone.

Chicago is still in trouble.

People are beginning to wonder whether an elected board could be any worse than one-man rule.

They wonder whether an elected board might be willing to listen to parents and community members.

And they are gathering petitions to put the question on the ballot.

This must frighten the mayor. Can he rally the public to disenfranchise themselves again?

Can he persuade the public to believe that all these years of stagnation is progress?

Categories Chicago, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Arne Duncan Says…

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
42

I hesitate to inflict this interview on my readers. You trust me to inform you and even on occasion to make you laugh with a good satire or parody. I try to shield you from pain and double-speak.

But I must share this with you.

Here is the latest interview with the Secretary of Education. It begins with a stomach-turning but accurate admission that education is the one thing that President Obama and the teacher-bashing governor of New Jersey Chris Christie agree on. How’s that for a reassuring opening?

When asked why the evidence for the reforms he is pushing seems weak, Duncan replies it is because they are new and therefore don’t have a 50-year track record. Oh, please, they don’t have any track record at all, yet he is pushing these untested, invalid measures on schools across the nation. Of course, everyone wants great teachers and great principals and great schools, but nothing he is doing is producing those results.

The questioner gently asks why there were no “dramatic” improvements in New York City or Washington, D.C. or Chicago, where Duncan was in charge for eight years. The answer is so vague as to be indecipherable. Ten years of Duncan-style reform in New York City, six years in D.C., twelve years in Chicago, and nothing to show for it. Just have faith! Believe!

I can’t go on.

Maybe you can.

But isn’t it nice to know that Arne Duncan and Chris Christie and all the rightwing governors are on the same page about how to deal with teachers and principals and schools and education?

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Merit pay, New Jersey, New York, Teacher Evaluations, US Education

Why Won’t Rahm Talk to Parents?

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
10

This parent activist in Chicago says that parents have good ideas about how to improve the schools but Mayor Rahm Emanuel won’t meet with them.

Parents in New York City say the same about Mayor Bloomberg.

Why won’t the mayor listen to the most informed and most committed stakeholders of all? Not the business community, not the entrepreneurs, but the parents of the children?

It would cost more than the city has which is a nearly 1 billion dollar deficit! Parent groups have proposed plans that would increase art and gym, support after school programs and allow more opportunity for hands-on learning, but CPS and the mayor emphatically refuse to discuss the future of our children’s education with parents. Rahm’s only solution is to impose a longer school day with no additional funding and essentially let schools try to figure out how to make it work, while secretly hoping schools fail so he can close them and create more charters.
Categories Accountability, Arts Education, Chicago, Curriculum, Emanuel, Rahm, Parents

The New York Times Editorial Is Clueless

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
21

The New York Times published an editorial calling for “carrots and sticks” for teachers and principals.

What  the editorial means is that professionals should get bonuses for higher test scores, and this would recognize high performance and get educators to work harder and produce more high performance (higher test scores).

As I said in my speech in Detroit to the AFT convention, carrots and sticks are for donkeys, not professionals.

The schools in New York City have been subject to budget cuts for the past few years. The Times’ editorial doesn’t suggest where the money will come from to award bonuses. Should some teachers be laid off so others can get a bonus? Should the schools eliminate the arts so that some teachers can get bonuses?

The Times makes no mention of the long and consistent history of failure of merit pay plans. See here and  here and here and here and here.

After ten years of carrots and sticks in New York City, the Times concludes that what is needed is more carrots and sticks.

Teachers are doing the best they can, with or without bonus pay. I posted several times yesterday about why merit pay doesn’t work. I wish the Times’ editorial writer were reading those posts, and more important, reading the comments by teachers, such as this one:

I work in a challenging inner city school in NYC-DOE. Just about every teacher there works hard. Our administration is ok but not great. Our teachers collaborate and cooperate. I love working in my school.
This past June during our final staff meeting on the last day of school our principal who was thanking everyone for their hard work let slip that thanks to our hard work, she and her assistant principals all received substantial bonuses from the DOE.
There was complete silence in the room. It was a very sad way to end the school year. No one listened much to anything the “suits” said after that. She did say it was part of her union contract and we should pressure our union.
Many teachers were very discouraged. Teachers are between a rock and a hard place. If they don’t work hard and make the administration look great (which is not likely because in the end it would hurt our students) our school will most likely close. If we work hard, the administration will be rewarded for our efforts.
This is not going to do much for morale come September.
If states made it more difficult to enter the teaching profession and provided adequate resources, none of this bonus stuff would be necessary.
Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Merit pay, NYC, Tennessee

Thanks to Teachers in Chicago for Saving Me

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
8

This reader writes about the teachers who changed his life:

I had four CPS public school teachers to thank for recognizing and nurturing my strengths in English, writing and creativity, in 7th through 10th grades: Miss Fox, Mrs. Langdon, Miss Schwartz and Mrs. Gordon.

Until middle school, I did not think I had any academic strengths. In part, this was because, in 4th grade, when my mom remarried, I gained a step-father who frequently referred to me as “dumb”. He often said that, in his estimation, I was just too stupid to be able to excel at school. He turned out to be an example of how wrong non-educators can be about students and learning.

Thanks to these great CPS teachers, I developed confidence in my abilities, was inspired to broaden my interests, and I graduated with straight A’s from high school and summa cum laude from college. I will be forever indebted to them for rekindling my love of learning, because in spite of my achievements, my step-father never did change his views about my capabilities and always found a way to downplay my academic success. Thank goodness I learned at an opportune time in my development that his opinion didn’t matter as much as the professional judgments of those who are skilled in learning and teaching.

Categories Chicago, Teachers and Teaching

The Secret Trick Behind Merit Pay

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2012 //
12

Hardly a day goes by without another politician or businessman calling for merit pay, performance pay, incentivize those lazy teachers to produce higher scores!

The Obama administration put $1 billion into merit pay, without a shred of evidence that it would make a difference.

Merit pay schemes have recently failed in New York City, Chicago, and Nashville, but who cares?

The Florida legislature passed legislation mandating merit pay but didn’t appropriate any money to pay for it. That was left to cash-strapped districts.

So here is the secret trick.

There is no money to pay for merit pay!

In a time of fiscal austerity, the money appropriated for merit pay (when it is appropriated) is money that should have been spent on reducing class size, preserving libraries or school nurses, or maintaining arts programs or other school-based services.

Instead, districts will lay off some teachers so that other teachers get bonuses. That leads to larger classes for the remaining teachers.

That is ridiculous, but that is the way of thinking that is now prevalent among our nation’s policymakers.

A reader knows this:

 I find the whole premise behind merit pay insulting.  If the districts have extra money, let’s use it to improve teaching conditions such as providing class sets of reading books, pencil sharpeners, science materials, or any of the hundreds of items teachers end up paying for out of pocket.

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago, Florida, Merit pay, NYC, Tennessee

Rahm and Other People’s Children

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2012 //
23

One of the themes of the corporate reform movement is this:

“We know what’s best for other people’s children but it is not what’s best for mine.”

Many of the leading corporate reformers went to elite prep schools and/or send their children to them.

Schools like Exeter, Andover, Deerfield Academy, Sidwell Friends, the University of Chicago Lab School, Lakeside Academy (Seattle), Maumee Country Day School (Toledo). At these schools there are beautiful facilities, small classes, experienced teachers, well-stocked libraries, science laboratories, and a curriculum rich in the arts, sciences, languages, and other studies.

I hope you read this post about Chicago billionaire and school board member Penny Pritzker. She sends her children to the University of Chicago Lab School, which has the best of everything, but feels no embarrassment that the children of Chicago who attend public schools that she oversees do not have the same advantages.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his children to this school. Arne Duncan is a graduate of it.

Remember that theme: Other People’s Children.

This reader thought about what Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants for his own children. Why doesn’t he want the same for all Chicago’s children?

Others have mentioned that Rahm’s own children attend the University of Chicago Lab Schools. If true, it irks me to no end that they benefit from a school:Whose motto is “learning by doing”Whose total school population is less than 1800 students, nursery school through 12th (and it is still called nursery school, which has an entirely different connotation than preschool or pre-K)

Where John Dewey himself formulated and applied his progressive educational theories

Where Vivian Gussin Paley, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, spent many years researching and writing about the importance of young children’s imaginative play (she is a great hero of mine because she documents children’s first language, play, with respect and thoroughness). Most people’s children, mine included, don’t have the benefit of time at school to learn together through play. They have been robbed by adults who don’t understand or care about child development.

The school for Rahm’s kids develops character, values diversity, and provides depth in learning (see website). Other people’s children are left with worksheet after worksheet and empty bubbles to fill in on a test.
Categories Chicago, Curriculum, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Rahm Emanuel’s Financial Illogic

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2012 //
9

Chicago Public Schools have a large deficit. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is responding to the deficit by encouraging the growth of charter schools to carry the burden of educating the city’s children.

One reason for the growing deficit is declining enrollment, caused in large part by the CPS promotion of charter schools. The  more students leave the CPS system to enroll in charters, the less state aid CPS gets. As more charter schools open, the financial crisis gets worse. Thus, Mayor Emanuel’s policy makes the deficit worse by stimulating the exodus of students from the school system and reducing its revenues.

One of the mayor’s favorite charter chains is UNO, which is based in the Latino community. UNO just leased a historic Roman Catholic school, St. Scholastica Academy and is set to increase its enrollment. It is sad to see Catholic schools close in urban areas, especially one with such a long history of serving its community.

Both the city and state are pumping money into charter schools, both for operating costs and capital costs. This money is diverted from public schools to privately managed charters. UNO received a state grant of $98 million to expand, and the city adds to its capital costs. In effect, both the city and state are paying charters to drain students and revenues out of the public school system.

Mayor Emanuel is one of those new conservative Democratic mayors who attack the teachers’ union and work to privatize public education in his city. He is following the trail blazed by Arne Duncan in Chicago. If it was a successful policy, Chicago should be one of the nation’s top performing school systems. It is not. How many years will it take before the politicians begin to understand the futility of privatization and the harm they are doing to one of society’s important public institutions?

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

What’s the Purpose of TFA?

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2012 //
23

A teacher in Chicago asked this simple question in an article on Huffington Post.

He noted that TFA was created to fill “chronic teacher shortages,” and he quotes Wendy Kopp saying so.

He asks why Chicago is hiring TFA when 2,000 certified teachers have been laid off and remain jobless.

He notes that some of the teachers who were laid off are nationally board certified.

Why are these experienced teachers being replaced by young college graduates with only five weeks of training?

This is a good question.

Is there a good answer?

Categories Chicago, Teach for America TFA

Chicago: Do Charters Increase Violence?

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2012 //
7

Chicago has just seen another upsurge in youth violence, and different observers have different solutions.

This post by Parents Across America argues that what is needed to reduce youth violence is a closer connection between communities and schools.

It maintains that the city’s decade-long policy of closing neighborhood schools and opening charters and schools of choice has severed young people from the watchful eyes of their community.

Charter advocates argue that charters are the antidote to youth violence because they provide quality choices that save students from their failing school.

What do you think?

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago
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