I Am the Lorax

The CTU strike of 2012 was an eye-opening experience in many ways. I've reaffirmed that I'm not cut out to be a teacher (how do homeschoolers do it??), that I still hate summer, and that Mitt Romney is an asshat who is out of touch with reality of 98 percent of the population. I also learned some new things--some of which may have a devastating effect on my faith in humanity.

Over the summer, I read a series of books written by Rosalind Wiseman. The subject of them was primarily about girl bullying, but they also dealt with the societal pressures on girls and women not to show anger or true feelings that may be seen as "bad" by society at large. Wiseman made a rather salient point about how social media and mobile phones have changed the face of bullying since I went through elementary school in the 1980s.

They've also changed the face of organizational movements, as parents or other individuals fed up by large groups' inability to act quickly in response to _____ banded together to add their voices to the fray. Indeed, this is how Raise Your Hand got started in March 2010. Raise Your Hand got its start in advocating for fair funding of Chicago schools; to support its advocacy in this, it has launched two campaigns: a push for an elected representative school board (ERSB) and a statewide effort to introduce a progressive income tax.

In some ways, Raise Your Hand's efforts seem like a bypass/doubling of those of Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), which began in 1987 in response to the last CPS teachers' strike. And in some ways, PURE's efforts seem like a bypass or doubling up of the efforts of the Illinois Congress of Parents and Teachers -- aka PTA. It's not widely known among Internet-savvy parents, but PTA has been building relationships with CPS in an advisory role since 1996 with the creation of the PTA Advisory Council. Like RYH and PURE, the PTA's nonprofit status prohibits the organization from taking a position on labor negotiations.

During the Karen Lewis-Rahm Emanuel standoff, another group, calling itself Chicago Students First, launched, urging parents to make their voices heard. I find it somewhat amusing that hundreds of parents who were pissed off that they had to actually pay for childcare because the teachers had the audacity to band together to fight for what they believed in...banded together to do the same.

Presumably, some parents (although I don't know who they are) also support the efforts of groups like Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Stand for Children, although I believe these groups are PACs with nonprofit arms.

How many groups are we up to? But wait, there is one more -- CPS's own Office of Family and Community Engagement (FACE), which employs 17 area/network directors, each with a number of FACE officers under him or her. The FACE officers I've met all have extensive backgrounds in community organizing.

So there are seven organizations that I know about. Seven groups purporting to advocate for me as a parent. Yeesh. Although I admire these groups for banding together, I kind of feel like having so many groups to "speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues" dilutes the message. Parents want a seat at the table, but who gets to sit in it? Shouldn't that person or group be democratically elected or chosen? Otherwise, what's the difference between Matt Farmer and Penny Pritzker?

At my kids' school--and as I suspect was true at many other schools--the strike was a deeply polarizing issue among parents. There were those that baked cookies and visited the teachers on the picket line, those that protested the picket line, and those who fell in every place in between. If that can happen at one very successful Northside school, how can anyone reasonably speak for all parents? As school resumed, I read many Facebook statuses that asked their fellow parents to remain mindful of what we have in common rather than what divides us. I hope that all parents in Chicago can remember that.

Listening Tour, Part 3

This is old news in the world of Chicago education politics, but I wanted to finish the series for those who have been following along at home. I became intensely interested in CPS goings-on because of the funding piece and I would be remiss if I didn't mention money in my "reporting" of my meeting with Brizard.

Certainly, funding remains an issue within CPS. Everyone acknowledges this.

But in not sure the blame lies entirely on the shoulders of CPS Central fiscal mismanagement. In my opinion, funding remains an issue due to
1) TIF runoffs
2) state budget
3) federal funds shortage

I'll say right now that I haven't fact-checked the numbers Brizard gave us. I'm not a journalist, school ends in 3 days; I don't have time to do so at the moment.

A parent asked Brizard where she was really supposed to go to get more information or help when the programs--specifically, a summer orientation program for Von Steuben freshmen--that she and her daughters relied on have disappeared, often without warning. She noted that community schools don't have money.

While not addressing the nitty-gritty details of her question, Brizard responded by laying it out: the district does have money. It just doesn't have enough (me: and Von Steuben made the priority to cut the freshman orientation?). And that is a "structural" problem within the district. Brizard said that what they "advertised" with the 7-hour day assumed flat funding from the state. In fact, Illinois just cut $60 million from what they're providing to CPS for FY2013.

Illinois is funding education at the worst level in the country. That ranking is based on percentage of budget spent on education, not pure numbers. In New York, he said, the per-pupil spending was just under $18,000. In Chicago, it's half of that. According to the Illinois State Board of Education, other districts spend less than that per-pupil, but I find that hard to believe given the funding formula in Illinois. I suspect that Chicago has the highest per-pupil amount of state funds; other IL districts have a larger portion of local monies to make up the difference.

It's also difficult to compare per-pupil funding across states, as the funding formulas may or may not be calculated the same, as a quick online survey of other states' per-pupil funding shows (Michigan=$12,000, Houston=$5600).

Brizard said that just to replace the boilers in every school would cost the district $4 billion. So life at CPS quickly becomes an ongoing exercise in setting priorities and letting non-priorities fall by the wayside. And who best to do that but the principal and LSC at individual schools--not some bureaucrat downtown, Brizard said.

Another parent raised the issue of overcrowding and the use of mobile classrooms, and how they both affect socialization within a school population. It is a real issue at her child's school (Canty). What to do if your school doesn't even have a playground or green space, as is true for so many schools within Chicago? As Monica Lee reported on her talk at the PTA Advisory Council, there are some supports in place to flag and correct that. But Brizard, they know it's a problem. I got the sense that he hopes individual school communities can come up with creative solutions.

Mostly, at this point in the meeting, I felt relieved. We are so fortunate at Disney II. And we are fortunate because of a group effort. This is not to say that our school is not without problems and foibles (I'd love for my kids to have gym, art, music, technology on a daily basis, but at least they get it at all. In an ideal world, there'd be no lead paint in a building my children use daily, but at least it's covered and maintained.) Certainly, it's about priority setting and funding to those priorities and only those priorities. As an active parent volunteers I've been irritated in the past by the singlemindedness of funding to the priorities.

Turnover

Earlier today, I received Seth Lavin's School Wonks email newsletter. In it, he refers to Jean-Claude as an alien, and either predicts or recommends that the BoE remove him from his position:

"It’s insane that we’ve arrived here. For Rahm, firing Brizard essentially means raising a white flag on his entire first year of school reform. Yet that’s actually become a less damaging alternative than the charade of acting like Brizard’s relevant or speaks for CPS."

Um, what? As you know, I like Brizard. But also, I can't believe that Lavin is calling for his dismissal already. It seems incredibly short-sighted to want to axe the first educator we've had in the job since it was created by Mayor Daley in 1995. (For the record, Paul Vallas came from the city's budget office, Arne Duncan came from Ariel charters [always as a director; never as a teacher], Ron Huberman came from the police force/city offices/CTA, and Terry Mazany is a banker.)

Hasn't CPS suffered enough turmoil and turnover? How on Earth is CPS ever going to improve if it can't suffer a leader for longer than 24 months? Really Seth? What would you have Rahm and the Board of Education do--hire yet another smart bureaucrat who leaves before he can get acclimated to this complex system? All jobs have a learning curve; how many CPS CEOs have been able to climb up it to effectively perform their jobs? In 2009, the Tribune published an article about Ron Huberman's appointment. They wrote:

"Each time, Daley has gone outside the education bureaucracy and chosen a leader who comes with new ideas and strong administrative and financial skills."

To me, Brizard seems no different from his predecessors in possession of these skills. Where he does seem different is in his willingness to listen to teachers and parents and the mayor, and his ability to know what good principal leadership and good teaching practice actually looks like.

Perception V. Reality

Last week, I had a great opportunity to meet with a group of parents and Chicago Public Schools' CEO Jean-Claude Brizard. When Brizard was first named to the post, I heard a fair amount of negativity about his methods, approach, and success rate. But: I like the guy. I've found him to be approachable, thoughtful, and well-informed. On Thursday, he ponied up to the table with myself and parents from Scammon, Taft, Farnsworth, Canty, Peterson, Jahn, Hibbard, Roosevelt, Foreman, Portage Park, and Kelvyn Park, and introduced himself as a parent of three children who also happened to be the CEO of CPS.

And then he took and answered questions for an hour.

There were essentially three themes in the discussion:
- perception versus reality within CPS
- Common Core and curriculum
- funding / resources

I'll cover the first one in this post.

I think the issue of perception versus reality is prescient. During the conversation, Brizard made a few conflicting points, a reflection of the wider issue. He pointed put that there is "a crisis of 'good' available seat" within CPS, but noted that this is a perception that can create reality. For example, he said, Lincoln Elementary has gross overcrowding, but the network in which Lincoln resides has 1,000 more seats than bodies to fill them. Why does this happen? Is Lincoln infinitely better than Alcott or other schools within the network? Or is it a perception?

I have long believed that if everyone sent their kids to the local elementary school and made the time investment, these schools would quickly because the ideal schools we expect and demand for our children. To wit: Nettelhorst, Coonley, Agassiz, Blaine, Burley, Skinner West, Hamilton, Belding, Portage Park. Taft, Amundsen, and Schurz may be next on the high school front. The problem, however, is the perception that these--or any school--are broken beyond repair. (The turnaround plan unfortunately runs against this current.) However, I fully recognize that this takes a leap of faith and it may seem easier to make the investment in a "new school" in the form of a charter.

Brizard noted that the crisis of quality high school seats is really a crisis of (mis)perception that the only H.S. worth pursuing are on the selective enrollment list. As a parent from Taft noted, this does everyone a disservice. Like CPSObsessed, I've got my eye on the H.S. piece. (And given what comes out of The Boy's mouth these days, I'd say he's thinking about it too.) The Boy is certainly on track to do well in a challenging H.S. setting, but I'm not sure that a highly competitive, non-local high school is the best choice for him, or for any of my children. I'd love to see the city as a whole rework our collective definition of "choice" and "options" so that more students and their families really can choose.

As an aside, did you know that Taft has an average ACT score of 24? I didn't. And that is a fantastic achievement for "just" a neighborhood school; Brizard shared that the college boards consider 21 to be the absolute minimum for a student to achieve college success.

But: how do schools like Taft get the word out? Brizard suggested a few things that his office is launching in the next year. One is to relaunch the principal for a day program as a culmination of a successful partnership between schools and corporations or agencies. Another is a Blueprint for Success in community engagement, which will come out in draft form in late June.

The crisis of quality seats can also be blamed for Brizard's answer to my question: is there a way to revisit the Human Capital issue of teachers' children enrolling in the SE and magnet schools where they work?

Last summer's Blue Ribbon Commission referred this issue to Human Capital. Somehow, I don't see the union fighting for this issue in their list of demands. Although the discussion at the Listening Tour indicated to me that many people do not support teacher "preference," I just can't let this one go.

I believe that giving our teachers the opportunity to enroll their children in the schools in which they teach is nothing short of good policy. It seems ridiculous to me that my 3 children can get into Disney II because of another good policy to keep families together, but my children's teacher, who has been working there for 4 years (and yes, even in the summer), cannot enroll her child through a special teacher lottery when he or she is ready to enter K. At Disney II, we are talking about 1-2 entry-level spots per year, or about 4 percent of the class. In fall 2012, the year The Tot enters K, 54 percent of the class comprises siblings.

A teacher preference policy supports keeping families together. And more than that, it benefits the school communities themselves. Would I rather have my kids' teacher available to run an after-school program at Disney II or would I rather have him/her across town at his/her child's school? What would you choose?

However, Brizard said that although the Board of Education has been debating the issue for months, there is no consensus on the issue either within the board or among CPS parents. To prove his point, he asked the Listening Tour crowd and several people said no.

I'm not going to stop asking. Will you join me?