...Where You Always Save More Money

TimeOut Kids Chicago didn't exist in 2006, when I started this blog. These days, I'm rarely looking for fun things to do on the weekend, but when I am, I'm so glad that TimeOut Kids has already compiled a happenings list for me.

This morning, The Girl woke up in a mood. I tell you, some days I am not sure that both of us are going to make it to the angsty tween/teen years. Which everyone seems to think are summarily awful. As I wrote another day, I think The Girl has been caught in friendship flux this year. And, unfortunately, with her personality, this means that she is fine at school or elsewhere, but bubbles into a seething cauldron of rage when at home, or with her family. I'm trying my best to soothe her emotions, but it's mentally exhausting. In fact, I'm relaxing with a glass of white wine right now.

Part of The Girl's mood was that she wanted to do something with the day. My initial suggestions (neighborhood garage sales, Wells Street Art Fair) were met with thumbs pointed down. Enter the TimeOut Chicago list!

Among the contenders were the Scandinavian Jam at the Swedish American Museum, the Chicago: You Are Here exhibit at the CAF, and my top pick: the BH&G Chill & Grill Fest with Stephanie Izard at Waveland Bowl. The winner, however, fit in with our "Saturday Sweets tradition" (gakked from our Norwegian friends): the Elmhurst Historical Museum's Sweet Home Chicago: History of America's Candy Capital.

The museum, free to the public, is in the Glos House near the center of Elmhurst. It's open on weekends from 1-5 p.m.

I grew up in the south suburbs, so I can't recall ever having been to Elmhurst before. I seriously cannot say the word Elmhurst without repeating the Celozzi-Ettleson Chevrolet dealers' tag line: where you always save more money! None of my children understand commercials, so the joke was lost on them. (Did anyone else watch copious amounts of bad non-cable TV in he 1980s in Chicagoland? When I queried The Dad as to his association with Elmhurst, his response was the word "tree.")

I even looked for mention of the slogan in the museum's other exhibit, a history of the town from the 1800s to the present. Sadly, there was no mention of it. I did learn, however, that Elmhurst started the second ever Boy Scout Troop in the early 20th century, and had GSA and Camp Fire Girls troops as well.

But back to the candy exhibit.

It was nicely done. We stopped in the gift shop/welcome desk on the way in to get a brief intro and a "treasure hunt" worksheet of sorts for The Boy and The Girl to fill out as we went. The Boy is a solid reader and could read the exhibit placards himself, but I found myself orating to a crowd as I read a brief history of the candy business in Chicago, as well as individual business histories--Cracker Jack, Williamson's Oh Henry! bar, Mars' Snickers, Ferrara-Pan (did you know the pan is the type of kettle used to make the candy?), Fannie May, Brach's, Tootsie Roll, Wrigley, Blommer's (so that's the wonderful chocolate smell drifting over River North most days!), Willy Wonka, Frango Mints, DeMet's, Bunte, and lots of others. They covered Keeler's, an Elmhurst fixture that has since shuttered. The Boy and The Girl might remember Mitchell's, the candy store and fountain that was popular in my hometown. The Boy completed his worksheet. The Girl was more interested in finding out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop ("three!") to fill out the sheet, which is just as well. Going through the museum was an hour of relative peace and air-conditioned comfort for us all.

Upstairs, the exhibit continued with a hands-on "candy twisting" timed test exhibit (I was rotten!), a guess-that-bar station, and a couple of shorts of Lucille Ball on the candy line.

We drive through what I'd guess is the main drag of Elmhurst on our way back to the highway, stopping at a cute, yet esoteric, store called "Fit for a King" or something like that, which sold chess sets, army men, and doll clothes. We rounded off the afternoon with a pair of size-gigantic iced teas from Starbucks.

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?