"We're listening" and other causes for skepticism

The last PTA Advisory meeting of the 2012-2013 school year was last week...right as parents, teachers, and principals were learning (or in my case, had yet to learn) about how badly their budgets had been slashed for the 2013-2014 academic year. Our primary speaker was Wendy Thomson of the Office of Family and Community Engagement (FACE).

She spoke about transition plans for closing schools. She said that iPads and other promised resources will be available at the welcoming schools. They are District resources for use by the affected students, but it's not a one to one distribution of materials to those affected.

She mentioned Jadine Chou's safe passage program, saying that the District put out an RFP that explicitly sought community-based organizations (CBOs) with ties to each community and plans to hire community members to deliver safe passage services.

For overcrowded schools, Ms Thomson said that the district will use its Education Facilities Master Plan (EFMP) to guide its work with overcrowded schools in the utilization process. The EFMP came out in May and the district plans to conduct community outreach and engagement around four areas or "buckets":

- Program placement - how and where to place STEM, IB, and other programs within existing buildings/school communities
- Capital maintenance projects - CPS calls these capital improvement projects - determining how to prioritize its list of capital projects
- Capital improvement projects - CPS calls these capital enhancement projects - determining how to prioritize improvements to buildings
- Overcrowding/ over enrollment - she said, "nothing is off the table" when I asked about re-drawing the boundaries to improve overcrowding in some areas

For the 49-55 buildings in CPS that have been closed, the District is doing pre-RFP research to determine how best to repurpose these buildings. Carl Hurdlik, CPS moderator for PTA advisory, acknowledged that the city cannot likely sell the buildings because there isn't a lot of interest in them. Plans now to develop/formalize process to redevelop these buildings. A common idea is to use them as community centers.

Brenda Bell from the CACs spoke a bit about the process of transforming these buildings, the need for a formalized process, solid operational outlook, budgeting, etc. Get aldermen, small business partners, CBOs, CACs and parents involved in the re-development process. Use CACs to drive the process of conversion and then have communities themselves take over administration and project ownership of each community center or repurposing of buildings.

Utilization Meeting, Round Two

CPS released its "schools still on the table for possible closure" list a few weeks ago. There are no schools in the massively overcrowded O'Hare network on it. But that hasn't seemed to stop the conjecture about what is going to happen to the only two under-performing, under-utilized schools within the network. Last week, GIPNA circulated its proposal to the Board of Education. My reaction to late-in-the-game GIPNA proposals has hit nerves in the past, and I anticipate that this one will as well.

At today's O'Hare network community meeting, representatives from 13 schools spoke in 6-minute segments about the challenges faced by their communities. Three schools did not speak about overcrowding. Murphy school was one of them. The other two were Roosevelt H.S. and Disney II.

Murphy's LSC chair, Roberta Salas, and other representatives focused their comments on how Disney II is going to take over "their" neighborhood school, Thurgood Marshall Middle School, and how the community will feel the loss of this highly prized neighborhood jewel.

As both a current Disney II parent and Independence Park resident, I find this stance presumptuous and misleading. First, as I noted later, CPS has not yet identified a facility for the expansion of Disney II, which the board approved in December. This lack fuels conjecture and negative sentiment. Decisions should not be made based on rumors. Second, it's misleading for Murphy community to act like TMMS is their neighborhood school.

Indeed, as Paul Flaherty, TMMS principal (who was in the audience, but did not make public comment) told me after the meeting, TMMS has four feeder schools; Murphy began retaining its 7th and 8th graders in 2010, so very few go on to TMMS. The vast majority of TMMS students come in on a bus, from Falconer, Henry, Barry, and Volta. When speaking candidly of his students' challenges, Mr. Flaherty told me that although I live within two blocks of the building, I am ineligible to serve on its (anemic) LSC because I do not live in the school's community. When I looked up the attendance boundaries for TMMS on the CPS site, the map overlays do not correspond in any way to the GIPNA boundary.


Roosevelt High School was the third school in the O'Hare network not facing overcrowding. A teacher, Tim Meegan, spoke. He urged parents concerned about high school to consider Roosevelt, and spoke for 6+ minutes about the scourge of charters and the importance of public education, citing study after study. I had no idea that the investors in charter school organizations enjoy a 39 percent tax credit, for example.

Listening Tour, Part 2

As I wrote yesterday, I met with schools' CEO Jean-Claude Brizard last week. The event, part of his ongoing Listening Tour series, was organized by Family and Community Engagement Officers from the O'Hare and Northside High School networks.

Not surprisingly, concerns about Common Core and true college readiness were brought up by more than one parent at the event.

I've known about Common Core for quite some time and I'm confident that the standards of teaching and learning at Disney II make it well-equipped to make the change. Therefore, the Common Core flurry hasn't penetrated my radar much beyond media mentions and blog chatter about the new standards and their implementation . However, in this i am again an anomaly. It would seem that despite the chatter and explanatory events hosted by Blaine PTA, Black Star Project, etc. many CPS parents remain, well, clueless, about the new standards and what they may mean for their students.

Brizard shed some light on the process, explaining first what the Common Core is on its most basic level. He then explained that the new standards will mean more advanced teaching practices that push academic rigor. Common Core will mean true college readiness at the high school level, and high school readiness at the elementary level. As an example of the kind of academic experience that Common Core is designed to encourage, Brizard held up an exchange he witnessed at Burley. He reported that he witnessed two 3rd graders arguing about an idea presented in a book; both were citing passages in the text to support their positions. This is the kind of academic rigor that CPS would like to see across schools in the district. 

He said that his office is spending time asking things like How can they change teachers' practices to promote rigor? How can CPS improve proficiency among students? He noted that although ISAT scores are up within CPS, joy within the district is down because ISAT does not prove the type of rigor expected out of Common Core. Chicago parents are "going to freak out" as their children's scores drop.

I'm less worried about what Common Core means for my own children as the kind of academic rigor in place at Disney II is the kind that encourages students to think critically, be curious, and assimilate information in a way that builds their academic careers. This also drives success on the assessments. (The Boy, for example, is scoring in the 99th percentile on math and reading.)

However, I'm concerned about what this means for the achievement gap, and what it will mean in school's where there is no curriculum (as reported by commenters on CPS obsessed) or instructional leadership supports in place. Brizard suggested that the longer school day could address the achievement gap. Certainly true, but it does assume that principal leadership is there to guide the process of the longer school day. Brizard did specify that the schools within CPS that work--and work well-- do so because their principals are committed stewards of the school community. I've seen this first-hand. He said that the people who are best-equipped to align goals with money are individual principals--not the bureaucrats downtown. 

But the problem--as even CPS may acknowledge--in this plan are those principals who are unable or unwilling to make the alignments--or worse, who are unwilling to be transparent in the process. What is it about Tchr's school that there is no money for  curriculum or books? What is the school spending its money on? Do parents or teachers have access to the school's budget? Would they know how to read it even if they do? Does the principal provide guidance as to what all the categorical numbers mean? 

On the curriculum front, a parent asked about implementing a common grading scale across the district. It's a good idea. But: no matter how you slice it, you can't remove the human (subjective) element from grading. Brizard said he tried to do a weighted GPA in New York and it was a "very difficult" and "complex" process. He said that it's more likely that CPS will create a standard or get rid of the policy altogether.

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?