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.

A Question of Trust

This morning, I stood for an hour in high heels in support of Disney II Principal Bogdana Chkoumbova and 3rd grade teacher Adrienne Garrison, Fiske grandparent Shirley Calhoun, and CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard while they and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel spoke at a press conference held in the Disney II gymatorium. The event was to announce a revision to the longer school day. I did this because I believe in Disney II's principal and teachers, just as I believe in the positive impact that a 7.5-hour elementary school day and 2h50m preschool-for-all day has had on my three children.

Will a one-size-fits all mandate work for every student, teacher, aide, and principal? No way. But it seems to me that what is lacking in this discussion is micro-level trust. That is, trust on the individual school level. Disney II works because it's a group effort: a principal with a clear vision, teachers who believe in the vision and put it into action, students who come to school ready and eager to learn, and parents who are committed to setting their kids up for success--academically and through the rest of their lives. This is a great base. We also probably couldn't do it if the school did not have per-pupil funding (instead of a quota-based funding formula) and a Local School Council (currently the Interim Advisory Council) that is willing to spend a lot of time on the budget to make it happen. 

When Principal Chkoumbova told me of the 7.5-hour day plan in September 2011, I quickly realized that I had no reason not to trust that the teachers and administration at Disney II were doing the right thing for our kids. Even if the impetus to lengthen the school day by another 45 minutes came from the top. If you don't trust your principal and teachers, you probably shouldn't send your kids to that school. And fortunately for the 13 percent of CPS's student population that belong to middle-class families, their parents do often have the option to change schools or move out of the city to a suburb whose education system better fits their philosophy.

As a child, I grew up in a household where education was important. Education was paramount. It came in many forms in addition to the six hours and 45 minutes I spent in school every day: travel, after-school activities and classes, a trip to the Woolworth's lunch counter on State Street in the mid-1980s. But none of these additional educational opportunities were as important as school itself. In my family of origin, my job was to do well in school. 

I'm fortunate that I can afford to take the same attitude with The Boy, The Girl, and The Tot (Who's Not). I'm moderately certain that if a greater percentage of CPS parents were able to take the same stance, our students wouldn't need a 7-hour day and/or no CPS parent would complain about the proposal for increased time. 

Part of me--the part who has an incoming kindergarten male next fall--is a bit relieved by the revision. But the balance of me is bummed out. At Disney II, our students were doing great things with all that time, and the plan for next year looked even better. But, although no one in the room dared to utter the word, I think it's a good compromise between the Mayor's vision and the vocal opposition.

School Time

A reader of my PTA Advisory Council post suggested that I naively accept CPS' presentations on the extended day. This may be true. But I love learning new things, so I've spent the last four days reading education research papers and studies, websites, blogs, and articles. I have a list of at least 40 other studies I want to find and read. I daresay I want to take a statistics class so I can better understand raw data sets. But what I found so far in the studies surprised me. Study abstracts on extended school time dismiss its effectiveness summarily, as do those who quote them in the fury breeding throughout the Chicago education discussion. But a deeper dive into the research suggests to me that the issue is (unfairly?) cast as enemy #1 of CPS parents.

I'm pretty sure that Rahm Emmanuel pulled the 7.5-hour day out of a rabbit hole and blamed it on Houston. (Although maybe he got the number from a 1996 case study about a Boston middle school or was just trying to one-up Daley, who suggested year-round schools in 2005?) But the optimist (and it's chronic) in me believes that Jean-Claude Brizard and the powers-that-be at CPS must have read Erika Patall's 2010 synthesis of extended school time research studies. While Arne Duncan may have simply been repeating his boss's concern, I think President Obama likely did some policy work on the matter.

This concern over school time is also nothing new. As Marcotte and Hansen point out in their study, the American concern for time spent in school pre-dates even the 20th century, when school calendars began to shed days like a post-partum mother loses hair. In 1990, The Atlantic Monthly published a lengthy essay written by Michael Barrett, a state legislator in Massachusetts. In it, he made a case for additional school time. Paul Vallas (remember him?) proposed extending the school year in Philadelphia, where he was schools' chief in 2006. 

The opposition to extending the school day or year is also decades old. In her 2007 study, Elena Silva reported that by 1889, American cities' schools had adopted summer holidays in July and August, reducing the nearly year-round school systems' calendars to 250ish days. The elite parents of the day advocated for their children's "need" to take a longer mental break. I wonder who was thinking about the minds of little mill workers?

Indeed, the studies' observations reflect many of today's comments about the full school day. Silva writes, "The strongest opposition to extending the school into the summer or throughout the year comes from middle-class and affluent parents who see no real benefit for their own children for giving up the vacation schedule they have come to expect." 6.5 to Thrive might find allies with Florida's Save Our Summers or Save Alabama Summers. In a 2006 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll, 67 percent of poll respondents said that they'd favor a one-hour extension of the school day. I believe this is consistent with what the Raise Your Hand Coalition found in its survey last year.  

In this journey into education politics and reform, I've met many well-educated, resourceful, and dedicated parents and teachers. I'm often frustrated by the current discussion about school time. I believe it is a distraction from the way we, as parents, can best advocate for all children and influence change in the city and state. Namely: money. Although the longer day and paying for the longer day are intractably linked, I believe that the best way that we can advocate for everyone is to keep asking CPS, City Hall, and Gov. Quinn: who's paying? And how?

PTA Advisory Council: The Theory of Change

The theme among winners’ comments at the Alfred Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway is one of tolerance and keeping an open mind—especially when dealing with one’s enemies. The idea that we must embrace the differences of our foes is a difficult one for me to grasp.

And yet, it’s an important lesson—one that can ease the way for me (and others) in many situations. I’d urge my fellow parents to keep it in mind when reading or talking about the longest day debate played out in the papers, blogs, Facebook, message boards and on the playground.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is the absence of balanced reporting. I think the Raise Your Hand Coalition is trying, but first, despite their numerous press mentions, they’re not the media. Second, they are only one voice—or more accurately, one set of voices—in the storm that is CPS education policy.

And so, when community meetings are held, there are a fair number of people who walk into the room with a closed mind, itching for a fight. I’ve seen it in West Garfield Park, and I saw it yesterday during the PTA Advisory Council’s monthly meeting. Moderated by Carl Hurdlik, a CPS employee, and Cassandra Eddings, a PTA member, parent, and volunteer, the PTA advisory council was the brain child of the late Betty Durbin, a longtime PTA champion with a significant legacy at Carl Schurz High School. As an aside, I’m often asked what PTA does. This is one of the things it does. Although it was set up for PTAs, the group is welcoming to representatives from PTOs, Friends-of groups, and LSCs from CPS schools throughout the city.

Carl and Cassandra had invited Monica Lee, Directory of New Initiatives at CPS, to speak about the changes coming to CPS next year. When she first started to speak, it hit me that the Longer Day could be a classic case of a politician reading a brief and misspeaking. Thus inadvertently creating a sound bite that doesn’t convey the whole picture, but ignites hysteria as it is reported by the media and picked up by concerned Chicago parents, to the detriment of the initiative. I know this is the optimist view, but read my review of Ms. Lee’s presentation before you snap to judge.

Ms. Lee, a former math teacher, tried to convey to the concerned group of parents in the room is that the longer day is just one piece in a three-pronged approach by CPS to improve student outcomes.

While most of us in the room had children in high-achieving schools—Skinner North, Farnsworth, Blaine, Burr, Alcott, Lenart, Inter-American, Northside Prep, and Disney II—the district-wide lack of achievement relayed by Ms. Lee was shocking:

• only 7.9 percent of 11th graders score at the minimum ACT level (or higher) to succeed in college. How many CPS high school students aspire to attend college? I’m pretty sure that it’s more than 7.9 percent
• only 17 percent of 3rd graders read at grade level. 3rd grade literacy is a marker of college-readiness down the line

Clearly, CPS is failing our kids academically. Sure, not everyone wants to go to college. Not everyone should go to college. But the second largest school system in the country should prepare more than 8 percent of its total population to attend college, no? 

And so it was, Ms. Lee said, that CPS decided to study the problems and come up with a reasonable solution for their amelioration. Ms. Lee told the group that the imitative seeks to do three things. It’s not enough to lengthen the school day, as so many parents have pointed out. (In fact, in her presentation, this was the last point that Ms. Lee made.) It’s not enough to change what is taught through implementation of the Common Core. And it’s not enough to change how teachers teach. The initiative is the confluence of these areas to create more college-ready students.

Ms. Lee told the group that the elements look something like this:

• Common Core is a change in what is taught from rote memorization (10 ÷2 = 5) to teaching students to understand conceptually what division is.


• Instructional Framework gives teachers models of what good teaching looks like and how they can measure their success against it, and gives them professional development tools to tweak their methods for success.

• Full School Day gives them time to understand, implement and tweak both the Common Core and the Instructional Framework. It gives time for students to catch up, but it also gives time for students to excel. The longer day also gives time for schools to offer “a richer array of academic, social and behavioral supports” and more time for “a broader set of subjects” –science and social studies as a mandate, and art, music, language if the school desires.

Then Ms. Lee went over how CPS plans to implement these changes. At this point, all the work is being done at the network and/or principal level, leaving parents mostly in the dark about what this is all going to look like. First, she said, the network chiefs had a lot of discussions about what’s best for every type of student. They conveyed this to principals, who then submitted a draft plan for next year. The draft plan’s goals reflect what parents, teachers and data say, and the schedule is to meet the parameters set by CPS. The draft plan also allows the network chiefs to flag facilities and other problems, Ms. Lee said.

The budget is still unknown because principals reported that incomplete data would be unhelpful. The district-wide budget will be presented at the March Board of Education meeting, following CPS’ typical schedule for these things, per Ms. Lee. The budgets will go to schools in March or early April, and final budgets will be due in May with the Continuous Improvement Work Plan, the replacement to the SIPAAA.

Someone in the room asked how CPS came up with a 7.5-hour day. Ms. Lee’s answer kind of surprised me. She said that CPS worked with Common Core experts, and focus principal groups, and from a content perspective to determine the ideal instructional time. For elementary school, that was 6.5 hours. The extra hour allows for lunch, recess, and bathroom breaks. As children and their parents know, there is a lot of waiting involved in group activities. For high school students, it wasn’t a huge increase over current instructional time: 6 hours and 8 minutes, adding 46 minutes to each high school day within CPS for lunch and passing time.

This is about the time than I began channeling Nobel Peace Center quotes. The Northside Prep parents were angry about the change: how were their kids going to continue their colloquium, their sports, and their extracurricular activities? I’m a non-athlete who grew up in a family full of intellectuals so this is a really difficult point for me to see. I also don’t have a teenager. Given that, I am going to bow out of any judgment on what high school should look like.

The Longest Day: A Rebuttal

I’m a huge fan of Mad Men. Although I’ve never had any real desire to work in an agency, and I pride myself on my contrarian nature as regards to marketing, I have to hand it to Matthew Weiner and his writers. I have a feeling that Rahm Emmanuel is a fan as well. After all, he’s done such a brilliant job of changing the conversation in Chicago education politics away from the inarguable (lack of funding) to the arguable (length of the day). If you don’t like what they are saying, change the conversation.

Bravo, Mr. Emmanuel!

My perspective is completely different. My children attend a school that is utterly unlike 99 percent of the elementary schools in the Chicago Public Schools’ portfolio. I’m not sure why that is – after all, parents at Disney II are no more involved and their children no smarter than the populations of many other schools, including those behind the 6.5 to Thrive movement: Burley, Blaine, Coonley, Bell, Mt. Greenwood, Drummond, Inter-American, and others. Disney II is a magnet school, so it’s got a wee funding advantage, but no more so than most of the schools listed above. Nor is it any better funded than my neighborhood school, John B. Murphy, whose 85 percent free and reduced lunch population (not to mention a fully populated school of PK-8), gives it a funding bump that is not replicated at Disney II.

As a parent of children who have attended a school that has had the longest school day within CPS since its inception in September 2008, I’d like to address some of the arguments I’ve heard and seen about the longer/full school day:

Advocate what is best for your child.

This seems like a no-brainer advice for a generation of parents on the heels of those who regularly call up their adult children’s bosses to advocate on their behalf. But at the same time, I question the wisdom of basing the second largest school system on the welfare of a few. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but should it in a system that serves not only the children of tax-paying and resourceful citizens, but also those children whose parents are too busy or too distracted to decipher the messages coming from both CPS and its critics? There’s a very good reason that businesspeople have historically not been in charge of public services.  

6.5-hour CPS schools outperform 7.5-hour charter schools.

Although CPS likes to tell the story that charter schools are part of a public school portfolio, charter schools are not, in fact, the same thing as public schools. Do these 6.5-hour schools have the same populations as 7.5-hour charters? And how did 6.5 to Thrive reach this conclusion?

6.5-hour schools outperform 5.75-hour schools.

Pick an argument here. The idea that 6.5-hour schools outperform 5.75-hour schools within the same portfolio begs the question: Is it because of the extra time or in spite of it? What accounts for the difference between the performances of children in these schools? More resources? More highly involved parents? Smarter kids?

As 6.5 to Thrive states, kids at these schools get recess and extracurricular activities, not simply more time to plug away at math and literacy. Maybe its poor reasoning skills, but I don’t understand this argument. First, neither a 6.5-hour day nor a 7.5-hour day has been proven (by anything but anecdotal evidence) within CPS. The vast majority of CPS schools provide just 5.75 hours of instruction (whether they are open campus with a recess or not). Second, if a 6.5-hour day is better, a 7.5-hour day must be an improvement, no? If some is good, more must make it better. If that is true, why isn't 6.5 pushing for a longer day?

There’s no scientific data about a 7.5-hour day.

That’s the thing about being a pioneer: no one comes before you and there’s no way to measure to your success. It’s kind of a leap of faith. It seems strange to me that a group of parents are willing to take the leap by putting their kids into the system in the first place, yet unwilling to trust that the educators who both administer and teach in the system have all of our children’s best interests at heart and top of mind.

I’m not discounting the possibility that the longer day could be yet another failed experiment in the failures of the district. But is it at all possible that the Chicago could be in the verge of greatness in moving to this model? Could a 7.5-hour day be used to address achievement gaps in those who lack early childhood education, a parent available for homework after school, an hour not spent on the street deflecting rocks?

Kids need a school-life balance and the AAP recommends unstructured play time.

As anyone following politics in the last century knows, cherry-picking data is nothing new. Apparently, it’s also not limited to CPS. What the AAP actually said is that unstructured playtime is more valuable for young children than screen time. The research was published in a November 2011 report about toddlers. The same report also recommended that “young children learn best from—and need—interaction with humans.” And in its 2006 study on children’s activities, the AAP suggested that it’s parents who over-schedule their children. I feel compelled to note that the AAP deals with children’s medicine, not children’s education.

A longer school day doesn’t mean a better quality school day.

Finally: a valid point. But this is where we should, as parents, focus our energies. Although it’s slow in coming, I think CPS is going to put real meaning around what, exactly, a longer, high-quality school day looks like. My feeling is that the longer day is coming, whether we like it or not, and we’d do better to focus our efforts on how we can shape that day and, most importantly, how CPS plans to fund it.

Teachers and Students

All over Chicago, bloggers, message boarders, reporters and post-school playgrounds are abuzz with news of waiver votes happening at schools scattered throughout the city. For my family, the extended school day is nothing new.

What is new is that CPS paying for it. Or, more accurately, the teachers at our school voted to give up their stipend and take the flat 2 percent payout + $150,000 in discretionary funds of the Pioneer Program in exchange for teaching school for an additional 45 minutes (to our already extended day) each day. Starting Monday, The Boy and The Girl will attend school from 8 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., giving them an extra 5 minutes for lunch and 40 total minutes added to the music, art, technology and physical education that they already receive, giving them a full 60 minutes to explore these subjects. They'll retain the daily 90-minute literacy and math blocks that make up the core of their instructional day. 

There is much debate over the extended day and public education in general these days in public forums and private living rooms and everywhere in between. Unfortunately, in education policy--as in parenting--we may only see the effects of our immediate actions 10 or 20 years down the line. But, I am fairly confident that a 7.5-hour day, structured in the above manner, will afford my children the kind of education I think that they--and their peers--need to become productive members of society in 16+ years. I believe that this new longer day will look nothing like the CPS-as-babysitter model feared by many.

And more importantly, the teachers at my children's school believe that this longer day is beneficial to the children. So much so that 83 percent of them voted to take a significant pay cut. In light of this, I am disappointed to learn that the 2011 Blue Ribbon Commission recommended that teachers pursue children-of-teacher admission to their schools as a benefit through CPS' Human Capital division (page 4). Won't someone please think about the teachers?

Extending the Day

Yesterday, I spent an hour explaining CPS kindergarten matriculation to a co-worker. He was surprised to learn many things about CPS, but none threw him more than the average length of the CPS school day: an abysmal 5 hours and 45 minutes. He was also shocked to learn that unlike the suburban district in which we both grew up, the start and end times of the CPS school day are inconsistent across the country’s 3rd largest school district.

Coincidentally, my friend Sonia sent me this Catalyst story yesterday about the average length of school days at CPS versus elsewhere. It was published nearly a year ago, in January 2010, but with the mayoral election and just about everything else in Chicago (politics) in flux, now is the time to rally the cry of a longer school day for Chicago students. On the whole, they probably need it more than their well-heeled suburban counterparts.

As the conversation builds, I cannot help but look to my children’s school as an example. It’s an example not only of how the extended day can improve educational outcomes, but also of the cost such initiatives bear. While other schools fundraise for a climbing wall, auditorium update or a red-tape-defying exercise room, we’re spending countless volunteer hours to bridge the gap between the CPS budget and requirements for our teachers’ (much-deserved, in my opinion) salaries and stipends. I’m told that that the fundraising push will have an end-date when the school reaches full capacity not long into the future. Thank goodness, because I am not sure that half the school's families can continue to bridge the budget gap without developing a sense of entitlement, frustration or both.

Admittedly, I have elementary-aged children who are in 2nd grade and kindergarten, respectively. Except for The Boy’s disastrous preschool year at a local parochial school, I have no parental experience with other schools, or educational or curriculum models. Only time will tell if it’s the right choice for The Boy, The Girl, The Tot (Who Isn’t) and their 309 school and classmates. To some extent, I have faith in the system, in the teachers who say that the longer school day allows them to get deeper into subject matter and give students the tools and time to follow their imaginations. Besides, it’s what suburban districts do, and what experts increasingly say is the right answer.

In my late teens, I lived with a family in France who had 3 young children who were in K-4th grade equivalents during my stay. They attended class every day from 8 until 4, and a ½ day on Wednesdays. I have no idea if the French are as well-prepared for a successful working life as the rest of the world -- (they also have a lot of roadblocks to the educational system, beginning with the prémier bac en français, which can keep students in high school until they are well into their 20s) -- but they certainly emphasize the importance of classroom learning (and a full hour to eat one’s lunch and run around).

Quality of instruction issues aside, the truncated school day is yet another example of a policy decision that ultimately punishes working Chicagoans. When I suggested to my co-worker that he check that the school hours worked for his family's needs, he sputtered, "You mean, they are not all the same??" How on Earth are you supposed to get to work on time when you have to drop your child off to school at 8:30, or pick him up at 1:45 p.m.? Although some Chicago firms allow workers to flex their schedules, many do not. In the Chicago Tribune's list of top-100 Chicago-area companies, almost half were located outside the bounds of the city. Positive cashflow may be good for the mayor, but does it create an ideal urban environment for the worker?