I'm Not Leaving

On Wednesday, I spent several hours of the morning at CPS, trying to gain admittance to the Board of Education meeting on the 5th floor, or the overflow observation room on the 15th floor. My patience and calm request paid off, and I was eventually allowed to sit in a rolling green chair with a crowd of other people in a large room that featured few windows, a set of fire doors, and two flat screen TVs and a sound system to view the goings-on of the board chambers 10 floors below. 

It was a rowdy crowd up there on the 10th floor, and as anyone who has been around The Girl will tell you, hunger and thirst makes people especially crabby. By the time I sat through six aldermanic speeches, two CTU addresses, and approximately 18 rounds of public testimony, I was no longer muttering under my breath, but joining my fellow observers in yelling at the screen. 

At least three people told the Board that they'd be forced to move to the suburbs if conditions in their schools didn't improve, get more money, or whatever. Up on the 15th floor, each of these comments elicited a response of, "Go ahead!" 

And I agree with their reaction. Since I became enmeshed in advocacy for schools in Chicago, I've heard, "I'll move to the suburbs!" countless times. It is said like a threat, and perhaps it is meant as threat as well. But as a threat, it feels hollow. Threatening to move to the suburbs is a luxury afforded the generally white, generally affluent, generally mobile, and generally well-resourced parents of CPS, if not of Chicago itself.  Every time I hear statements along these lines, The Tot (Who's Not)'s favorite line echoes in my head: Aw, come on! Seriously, if you have the means and the desire to move out of the city, maybe you should do so, instead of holding your residency up like you are a precious gift you've decided to bestow on the city of Chicago.

I am not going to make that claim. Maybe it's because I haven't reached a level of frustration with CPS and the city that has me contemplating the move? Maybe it's because my kids attend a kick-ass magnet school? Maybe it's because Grandma & Grandpa Texas just moved six blocks away? 

But if I want to move to the 'burbs and can afford to do so, I think I will just do it. And if I'm irritated with CPS and city politics and want to make a statement about it, I feel pretty confident that I'll have the means and outlet to do that as well. Certainly, I may be frustrated in my efforts to effect immediate change, as most of the speakers on Wednesday were. But as a chronic optimist, I'm neither ready to move to the suburbs nor to overstate my importance to the city by threatening to do so.

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.

Fathers and School

Last May, Grandma Texas came to visit during a school week. She came with me on a Thursday afternoon to pick up The Boy, The Girl and The Tot (Who Isn't) from school and her observation about life at the kids' urban elementary school struck me as odd: she was surprised to see so many fathers at school. She thought that this was perhaps a Chicago thing, but more recent news makes me think it's yet another sign of school success.

Perhaps it's because The Dad has worked from home since we moved to Chicago 9 years ago, or the acquaintance of a fair number of police officers and fire fighters (both male and female) and nurses, but a sizable population of involved fathers has never struck me as odd. And fathers at our school are involved. And more to the point, their involvement is visible and tangible, regardless of individual race, educational level, marital status, address, generation, age or socioeconomic status, fathers are very involved at our school. They drop off their kids, pick up their kids, attend parent-education events, lead fundraising, chaperone field trips, direct traffic, volunteer in class, read books, coach extracurricular sports and bring special activities (like the Pilot Light Chefs) to our school.

I've always taken this for granted, but it's actually anomalous in Chicago today. Per new CPS chief Jean-Claude Brizard, such involvement is so rare in some neighborhoods as to be bizarre. In some areas of the city, in fact, according to Brizard, census data show that there are some neighborhoods where there are no males between the ages of 18 and 35 living there. They are all either incarcerated or dead, he said.

Although my father was not intimately involved in my early elementary years in the early 80s, I feel fortunate that I cannot really imagine a world bereft of dads.  And I thank goodness that my kids--and their classmates--do not have to either.

Not quite the 7th of July

But the transcripts from the Blue Ribbon Commission hearings are finally up on the OAE site.

Progress Reports

Today marks the last Monday of attendance* in the Chicago Public Schools' 2010-2011 academic year. The Boy and The Girl will receive their final progress report during their one-hour of attendance on Friday. The Tot Who Isn't will receive his on Wednesday. And, apparently, individual Chicago Public Schools will receive a progress report before September as well.

At least that's what Jean-Claude Brizard, Chicago Public Schools' newest chief, said this afternoon when a group of parents and I met with him.

Haven't we done this before? Will Mr. Brizard reveal new data that wasn't previously available on the CPS website? Sure, navigating the CPS website is/was difficult, as Mr. Brizard pointed out in his remarks to us today. But while reporting the data is important, it's significantly less important (at least to our audience) than improving the number of high-quality educational seats available across the board. After all, nearly everyone in the room could share a story--whether personal, familial or anecdotal--of parental frustration in navigating the application process or gaining admission to a school of their choice.

I feel fortunate (OK, I feel like I won the lottery) that The Girl, The Boy and The Tot Who Isn't attend a school that is a school of choice for much of the northwest side. The Boy is going into 3rd grade, so now I'm looking at high schools. I'm pleased to see the Northside High School Initiative and the increased interest in and support of Lakeview High, but that doesn't do much for kids out here in the boondocks of the northwest side. They deserve a great high school option as well, I told Mr. Brizard. Another parent echoed this sentiment, sharing that the handful of well-known great high schools (Northside Prep, Jones, Whitney Young, Walter Payton) don't provide enough seats to enroll all of the kids like ours, who will likely come out of their current school well-prepared and excited for a vigorous, challenging high school education. Mr. Brizard pointed out that there are other great high schools outside of this list, but they are less known because of the lack of data on them.

Such things are possible. But as a research-oriented parent, I am a bit skeptical.

Mr. Brizard pointed out that within CPS, there are essentially two school systems. Some people, he noted, have choices. Some do not. Call me what you will, but it's important enough to me to burn time with the CEO of the CPS to advocate for increased high school opportunities (or choices) for our elementary school's current population. While I'd argue that our group, as parents of children in a highly sought-after magnet school, was not really in the "non-choice" group, I can get behind an initiative that brings more information (and more transparency, and more accountability, per Mr. Brizard) to a wider swath of the city's population. Provided that the information itself has real meaning. (What does it mean that School A's academic performance was above/below the citywide average for last year? Is the number of teachers who choose to stay at a school more important than the number of teachers who are retained?).

It's not surprising that Mr. Brizard didn't yet have concrete plans for how he'd accomplish an increase in educational choices. I mean, he's only been in the job for less than a month. While he did tout his 25 years of experience as a school administrator and high school teacher, he does have a monster of a job in front of him: improving educational opportunities for all, on a shoestring budget, and in the face of parental non-involvement, poverty and other obstacles to success. I'm curious to see how he'll implement plans to introduce "new school operators," to CPS and how those operators, such as Expeditionary Learning, will improve educational outcomes.

Only time will tell. I'll be watching.



* For regular schedule track schools

Choosing the right school for your child - glimpses of life on the other side

I sometimes feel as if I’m a character in a plebeian version of The Nanny Diaries. As an activist, blogophile, volunteer and mother to three children within the Chicago Public Schools, I am often asked what I think about the system as it stands now. Do I like my children’s school? Do I regret not sending my children to an SE program? Would I make the same decision? How did I know that the school is the right fit for my kids? How do I know that now?

The people doing the asking are much the same as I was a couple of years ago. They are concerned about the arduous and very important task of educating our children. They are unable or unwilling to consider private schools, and are committed to city living. They are also worried and scared about what is going to happen in the next 5-6 months, and how those decisions—entirely out of their control—will affect their children.

The truth is: I don’t know these things. I was not sure if the school I chose for The Boy was the right one for his style of learning. Before we had ever seen the inside of a classroom, met more than one teacher or the principal, or had any idea what the school would actually be like, The Dad and I were attracted to the technology aspect of the school. I’ve heard Karen Lewis say that, although we're living in the 21st century, our school system is still based on a 19th century model. While it may be the only issue upon which Ms. Lewis and I agree, that technology is integral to the success of our society, both now and in the future, seems indisputable. 

How can a parent accurately judge what kind of learner their 5-year-old is? I often try to be deliberate and thoughtful in my parenting, but trying to figure out how to match the tab to the slots feels like rocket science: infinitely difficult. My criteria for choosing The Boy’s school went something like this:

1. He got in
2. It’s walking distance from our house
3. It’s got a technology focus
4. It’s a new school with new equipment
5. Its teachers are well-spoken and well-dressed
6. It’s backed by Boeing

Some studies suggest that it may not really matter anyway: family involvement is critical to student success.

And if The Boy’s kindergarten year was any indication, The Dad and I were very involved in his academic progress. I think this was the hardest adjustment for me. When I was in K in 1979, I went for 2.5 hours, sang songs, drew pictures, learned my letters and how to get along with the other kids in my class. I didn't have daily homework until I was in 7th grade. But my kindergartner had daily homework in the second week.

The current educational climate expects children to do more work at a faster pace and at more advanced levels than it did when I was in K. It seems like K is the new 1st grade, preschool is the new K. And the level of teachers' and administrators' expectations of children is so much higher than it was 20-30 years ago.

I was wary of the academic pressure on a 5-year-old who hadn’t yet decided that learning was a fun activity. Was I doing the right thing? Why weren’t my friends’ kids doing so much work? How much is too much? But: the teachers were so nice and so passionate about their work and the kids. The administration held fast to the belief that this was the best way. So we stuck it out, gritting our teeth at first until we became accustomed to the level of work required of our 5-year-old.

I’m a pragmatic decision-maker – this means I like to see results rather than every data point under the sun. And I can see the results in The Boy’s academic progress. Two-and-half years later, I’m still not sure what kind of learner The Boy is. But I do know this: he is thriving.

The Kids

Ask The Tot where his mama was on Saturday morning and he’ll proudly tell you, “Education.” He knows that has something to do with school, and that it’s important, but he probably can’t tell you what exactly Mama’s work for education means. I’m not sure I can either, but it feels good to at least learn what the heck is going on.

On Saturday morning, I was down on the south side, at Ariel Academy in Kenwood. Sonia Kwon, Jill Wohl and I bypassed the floods and the Cubs traffic and made it to the humid, slippery auditorium in time to hear Karen Lewis’ rousing speech about CPS, the state of Illinois and the state of education. Lewis reported that the powers that be at CPS are repeating the same, tired schpiel that all people in power repeat when their motives or actions are called into question: Won’t someone please think about the children? Oh, please. Like CPS teachers are in it for the money? Like involved parents’ primary motivation are not their children? Were we all giving up a couple of hours smack-dab in the middle of a summer Saturday for some other reason but the children? As Lewis said, it’s about money and power. Like everything else in Chicago, it seems. Same-old, same-old.

Lewis also said something that struck me as pretty powerful. In 2004, she said, 62% of the CPS budget went to personnel costs. In 2009, that number dropped to 49%. What changed? Why? I wish I could say that I checked her facts against existing data to substantiate her claim, but getting the city to share its “datapoints” is harder than getting a willful toddler to eat smashed peas.

But her ire was not directed only at CPS, but at the state as well. She suggested that we all call our state representatives and senators and tell them that they are late in their payments. “And we’re not even charging you interest.” Good point.

Will someone please think about the children?

"As if, you know, the kids are really what all these machinations are about." I want to be Ben Joravsky when I grow up.

Breaking the Clique

I've "heard" that there is a perception among the parents at The Boy's and The Girl's school that the existing parent groups are "exclusive" and "cliquey." I can understand that; after all, the same 20+ people often show up to everything. I am happy and grateful to those volunteers (like myself) who want to be really involved or really informed. But: why aren't more people involved? How can we create a warm and inclusive parent community/culture? How to create more opportunities for involvement? And a confession: I often feel that I am on the outside of the circle.

In talking to other parents at other schools, this feeling of exclusion is common--even parents like myself who are what my friend Ami would call Super Volunteers. Last week, during a community-building session at Nettelhorst's CPS Symposium, one parent, Patricia O'Keefe of Friends of Alcott, shared what she had done to "break the clique" at Alcott, creating a community culture that really, truly values parent volunteers. It's simple, really, but so smart:

Everyone who wants to be a room parent, can be a room parent.

I know what you're thinking: well, how does that work? Basically, at Alcott, they broke up all the tasks associated with classroom activities and made it more manageable for everyone to get involved:

#1 Teacher Contact. This person fulfills the normally associated duties of room parent, meeting with the teacher as-needed, assessing classroom needs, and communicating with the teacher and the rest of the room parents about what is needed. Teacher preference goes.

#2 Communications. This person does everything associated with communications: putting together a class list, helping with the directory, sending out emails to parents, etc. Some teachers at Alcott even have the communications room parent help or do their weekly newsletter.

#3 Social Butterfly. This person coordinates social time for kids, parents, moms, dads, etc. outside of the classroom: pizza parties, MNO, DNO, parent socials, etc.

#4 Volunteers. This person coordinates volunteers needed for classroom events, putting together a schedule, getting the information on classroom volunteers from the teacher contact, etc.

#5 LSC/PTA/FO Contact. This person is the liaison between the classroom and these organizations. If a classroom project needs to be done for an auction or other event, this is the person who works it out.

#6+ Ad Hoc Time. This person or people may have 4 hours/week or 1/2 an hour a year to support the classroom. They'll work with the classroom volunteers person to make sure that the teacher has all of her bases covered in and outside of the classroom, lending a hand here and there as needed.

Hearing Ron Huberman

As The Dad says, I have become my own version of CPS-obsessed these days. I'm generally less interested in the aggregate as how things affect my own children's school, but the education budget crisis (called by Sara Feigenholtz as the worst she's seen in 20-30 years in state government [she started working for John Cullerton in 1982]) has made me re-examine that. And in the past three or four months, as the budget crisis has caused me to become re-engaged in the political process, I've become more interested in how we can work together to improve the system.

In April, I became involved with the Raise Your Hand coalition. I am seriously in awe at the power and dedication of the men and women spearheading this effort. They are committed city-dwellers, passionate activists, and deeply networked. They ask the hard questions, and are not afraid to push the envelope to varying degrees.

Over the past six to nine months, since my friend Ami asked me to attend a “Friends of CPS” meeting and take notes on her behalf, I've become more interested in what is happening at other schools. Although my children's school is in a unique position (really!) in terms of size, funding, seed money, history, etc., we still have so much to learn in terms of not only funding, but community-building.

It is because of this that I gave up my wedding anniversary, first Saturday of summer vacation, to spend 8 hours sweating in an elementary school (though admittedly fabulous) auditorium and learning parent-led school improvement best practices at the CPS Symposium.

It was such an interesting day. I walked away energized and ready to tackle some stuff. The reality is that it's summer and my affiliated group has no elected leadership, but I will get to that later. For now, I'd like to share what would probably be most interesting to the casual reader interested in CPS:

Ron Huberman made a special appearance, showing up to speak to the crowd and take questions from the audience (note: if you are sitting in the middle of the row, you won't get the mic). At this point, I am going to report directly from my notes, without my own analysis of Ron Huberman's comments. He first said that his office studied “great” schools the world over to determine what they have in common

1. A great leader.
Without a great leader, you don't have a great school. To that end, CPS will “exit” (his term) 150 principals this year. He said that these were “tough decisions.”

2. Great teachers.
In Chicago, great principals hire great teachers. Great teachers are engaged with their students. In the context of this point, he also said that his office is planning to institute a teacher evaluation process based partially on principal review. He noted that they are "empowering" principals to evaluate teachers, and that they want to make the process as transparent as possible.

3. Data for analysis.
Great schools report and measure data to ask questions: are kids learning? Are they learning what we want them to learn? If not, why not? Is it the teacher? Is it a professional development issue? Is it the curriculum? He noted that some great schools in Chicago already practice this data measurement and analysis, but CPS plans to implement this method district-wide next year. He also said that states are under pressure from the federal government to show improvement every year, and intimated that the way they do that in Illinois is to change the ISAT. He wants CPS to have its own assessments outside of the ISATs.

4. Meaningful parent involvement.
He said that they found that even when schools have the first three, they will not become truly great, their improvement will flatline, if they do not have a committed and involved parent community. He suggested that parents can achieve that in a few simple ways: physically taking your child to school in the morning when you can, showing up to school on report-card pick-up day, knowing your child's teacher by name and giving him/her your number and asking that s/he calls you when/if there is a problem. He did say that there were really two things surrounding this, but he never got back to the second point.

After he reviewed what makes schools great, he addressed the budget issue, saying that CPS is “fundamentally a state-funded agency.” CPS does not have a budget yet. They've delayed releasing it in the hope that the state legislature will reconvene to pass a budget. They have a “best case” and “worst case” scenario that they've been considering. He said that every day, it's literally a white board exercise trying to figure out the budget. In the “best case” scenario, there will be a $427 million budget deficit. In this scenario, they'll restore full-day K, junior varsity sports, and “lower” class sizes. However, they have no idea when they'll get a budget from the state, and they may have to pick an arbitrary number upon which to base their budget for FY11.

Historically speaking, Huberman said, when the state of Illinois said it would fund something, they'd do it. But Illinois has stopped paying its bills. They owe CPS ½ billion dollars....which is why CPS (got permission to) took out an $800 million line of credit last week.

What has Huberman done to fix the budget? He said he's laid off 1,000 classroom positions, cut $165 million in contracts, depleted CPS's cash reserves, cut capital projects, and reduced the number of administrators – all to preserve spending at schools. Also, non-union staff and administrators have taken furlough days that equate to a 6% pay cut. They've made non-school based cuts across the system.

Sonia Kwon and Jill Wohl from the Raise Your Hand coalition asked him questions about what the city is going to fix the budget deficit, mentioning TIFs. Huberman said that the mayor has raised taxes to the cap allowed every year that he has been able to do so, but it creates a massive inequity in funding when the state doesn't fund what it is supposed to fund. He said that TIF funds have actually funded a couple of schools on the northwest side and funded capital projects at schools that would otherwise not be possible without CPS bonding off its operating budget.

He also took questions about general school process issues, specifically the changed admissions policy for magnets and selective enrollment schools, and selective enrollment schools. He said that there is no plan to de-magnetize the magnets. They did go back to 5% principal discretion at the SE schools, but not at the magnets. The reason for this is that SE schools have objective criteria against which they can measure candidates, but magnets don't have any such criteria: they are a pure lottery. He said that what is the on the table now is not the existence of magnets or SE schools, but the enrollment process.

No to 37

How many kids is too many in a classroom? How many can one teacher handle? Shouldn't the focus of a teacher's attention be on teaching his or her students over merely handling them? 

If we thought the threat to PFA last year was bad, this is a million times worse. Thanks to Blago, and before him George Ryan and Jim Edgar, the Illinois budget is a mess.  And if our politicians don't approve a new budget that keeps education funding at its current level before Friday, we are going to be in trouble.  

But: Illinoisians are speaking up and speaking out via NOto37.org. CPS parents are speaking up via the Raise Your Hand coalition.

High School

As I reached the train platform this morning, I noticed a high school girl wearing sweatpants and a backpack who had just exited the train and was walking down, presumably to go to school. I assume that she was on her way to nearby Schurz High School. In about 6 years, high school for The Boy will be on our minds. It's really not that far away. If schools get better by parent/community involvement and marketing power, maybe it's time to get involved in the local high schools in the hopes that by the time my 7-year-old is ready for them, they'll be worth attending?

However, high school is still a daunting thought to me. First, there are only a handful of selective enrollment high schools in the city, which means that competition is fierce. One group, the North Side High School Initiative, is trying to start the process to improve options at the high school level. Unfortunately, this group is from/focused on wards 32, 42, 46 and 47; I'm in ward 39. 

Second, and slightly more upsetting, is the issue of school violence at the high school level. Last week, I attended the League of Women Voters' lunch talk on school violence in CPS. Unfortunately, I missed the first 5 and the last 20 minutes of the presentation because I had to work, and missed the speaker's name. However, he was an administrator with Chicago Public Schools and presented data from a September 2009 PowerPoint deck on school violence. While the deck did present some good information (80% of school violence takes place in 38 schools, for example), the presenter had taken the CPS spin class, and could/would not give me specific answers to some of my questions (like the names of the 38 schools). 

I'm committed to CPS through 8th grade, but will we be city-dwellers after 2017? It has nothing to do with street cred; I'm not sure I can hack the politics of everything. 

CPS Obsessed

Unlike this lady, I'm not really obsessed with CPS in general -- just with what's going in with my children's school, and how the wider CPS policy and culture, and indeed, wider Education news and policy, affect it. So it was with great interest that I read yesterday's Chicago Tribune front-page article on the early success (or not, as it turns out) of the Renaissance 2010 schools.

For those of you who don't know, Renaissance 2010 (and its main funding organization, the Renaissance Schools Fund) came out of the civic committee of the Chicago Commercial Club and Mayor Daley. It is a plan to turn around Chicago's failing educational system by replicating existing successful schools within CPS. Disney II is a modified replication of the Walt Disney Magnet School. Walt Disney Magnet School opened in 1972 (I believe), the first magnet school in the city of Chicago.

Parents of children at CPS (at least all the ones I know and talk to) are already in a tailspin after the Consent Decree was overturned in September and the new magnet/siblings-admission policy. Can any good come out of the Trib's indictment of the Ren10 schools? What do you think of the news?

GEAP Test, Check

So, I thought I'd be all bad-ass urban mama and take The Girl on the L to her GEAP test yesterday. And then I realized:

- the test is at 3:30 in the afternoon, which is not the best time for a 4-year-old to be at her best

- it was a school holiday, so Natty didn't need the car to pick up The Boy

- and it's 30-degrees outside

So we drove to IIT instead. Earlier in the day, Natty had taken The Boy, The Girl, and The Tot to the Shedd Aquarium before picking me up at my office (I took a half-day's vacation), so The Girl was pretty wiped out. I left at 2 o'clock, leaving myself a ton of time to get there and hoping The Girl would fall asleep in the car on the way down, but she wrote her first and last name on a piece of paper and counted to forty instead.

We got there way early, at which point I realized I needed cash to pay for parking, so we drove back up to the Jewel-Osco at Roosevelt Road for cash and snacks: Veggie Booty, grapes, and a snack-sized package of bite-sized brownies. Back down to IIT to park, scurry across State Street in the bitingly cold wind, and upstairs to the psychology department in the Life Sciences Building. The Girl was in and out in about 1/2 an hour. She, like The Boy two years ago, couldn't or didn't want to tell me anything about what she'd done during the test. And that's fine. Until recently, it hadn't even occurred to me that someone would prep their kid for the test.

The head of the department was there to answer questions about the process. He couldn't reveal anything about the test CPS uses, or how it's scored. But he did say that the norms they use to determine the standard are actually taken from test data from four or five years ago, which I found pretty interesting. He also said that they score everyone taking into account their actual age, within the month. So The Girl will be scored against all the other 4-year-and-7-month-olds. We'll find out in March how she did.

Disney II in the News

Along with the rest of the school and its community, the PR machine at Disney II works. Disney II was the lead in today's New York Times story about parent-led fundraising and Arne Duncan/President Obama's developing push for an extended school day. The Boy's class is pictured in the accompanying photograph.

Trials of the Working Mum #2

Fatigue. I don't know if it's an earlier school time, a later bed time, or just a general lack of time, but we're all just plain tired in our house these days. The Tot, who still takes a 1-3-hour nap, is the glaring exception to this. But The Girl is a disaster most days when I arrive home around 6 p.m. and cramming in dinner, books, and at least 1/2 an hour of homework is certainly not helping. The Tot likes to fart around in his crib before he goes to sleep each night--but only if I stay in the room with him. I can no longer recall where I read this (there's that fatigue component coming into play again), but I seem to remember reading a quote from some child-development expert (Burton White? Dr. Sears? Marc Weissbluth?) that no person under the age of 35 can sleep during primetime hours, while no parent over the age of 30 can stay awake during those hours.

However, the immediate post-bedtime hour on a Friday or Saturday evening is really the only time that I get to talk--or listen--to The Boy. How else is a busy working mother with a busy, full-time student (although he's only not-quite seven) going to learn all the important facts about her child? Some things have changed in the first three months of school, some things have stayed the same.

The Boy: An Interview

Favorite color: Red. And blue and yellow and green.
Favorite food: crockpot BBQ chicken sandwiches (thanks Becky!)
Best friend: A. and Enver
Best friend who's a girl: A. and S.
Favorite subject in school: Writing. And also guided reading and science.
What he wants to be when he grows up: To study science and space (Me: "An astronomer?") No, a professor.

And here we go again...

It's nearly October 1, the date on which CPS school applications come out. The Girl is set to enter Kindergarten in Fall 2010, which means I'm about to climb back on the apply-test-and-wait roller coaster that is the CPS application process. Of course, I will apply and hope-like-hell that The Girl gets into Disney II via the sibling lottery, but I'd be a fool to put my daughter's education eggs all in one basket.

Someone recently asked me about my experience with Disney II, now that we're in Year Two. Here is what I wrote:

My neighbor and I joke that we feel like we really won the lottery because our kids got into Disney II. Seriously, it's a fantastic school with a great principal, a committed parent body, an even more committed teaching staff, and good resources. Since my 1st grader (The Boy) is my oldest child, I haven't had any first-hand experience with other CPS schools, but I am very happy with Disney II. I recently attended a parent meeting where the principal said that her goal is to make Disney II one of the top 10 elementary schools in CPS; I have no doubt that she'll do it.

The school mandate is to integrate technology and the arts. There seems to be a greater emphasis on the arts part of it, but whether this is actually true or a misperception on my part, I am actually fine with the inequality. We have more computers than children, so I have no doubt that my kids will get supplementary tech education at home. They have art, technology and gym twice/week and music once/week. Currently, the school's gym and music teachers are part-time, but if they can swing the budget, they'd like to hire them full time.

The curriculum also has a huge emphasis on literacy, which really appeals to me as a reader and writer myself. I do not know how it is at other schools, but at Disney II, the literacy component seems to be very well thought-out and developed. They are the only school in CPS (and I think within Illinois) to use the U. Chicago-developed STEP system. There is an emphasis not only on learning TO read, but on learning HOW to read.

In Kindergarten, The Boy had a harder time of it -- as did my friends' children who were in 1st and 2nd grade last year, but now that he's been trained in the Disney II way to learn, he's doing really well. Watching your kid learn how to read is one of the most daunting and amazing things I've seen as a parent. Last year, I had no idea how they were going to teach my kid how to read, but they've done it and I think he's doing well for his age/inclination. The school had a full-time literacy coordinator last year, but her title has shifted a bit and she is now the curriculum coordinator. She knows The Boy and The Girl and they know her. They also have a few special education coordinators, although The Boy and The Girl don't interact with them much.

Over the summer, the school developed an assessment and benchmarking system to use for their math curriculum. They do use everyday math, which I still don't quite understand. There's no formal math curriculum in K, and I'm only just getting into 1st grade, so I cannot really comment on the math component. There is a science part of the curriculum as well.

Finally, they use a looping/circular system to instruction, which I like because that is how The Boy learns. The school day is 1 hour longer than any other CPS school day. This allows them to make up instructional time missed for staff institute days, etc. and have a daily recess.

The overall vibe about the school is positive. This is a school whose parent population is overwhelmingly present, involved, and interested in their children's schooling. Students put on quarterly shows that integrate all the elements of a learning unit; the first one was last year in December and was SRO - they split them into 2 shows and they are still SRO events.

Our PTA was formed in November; we raised well over $16K last year for a gym sound system, gym mats, percussive instruments, and other things. Disney II is in its last year of funding from the Renaissance Foundation/Renaissance 2010 initiative. A corporate fundraiser for the Renaissance Foundation came to speak at an IAC meeting and said, "You can tell when you walk in the door whether a school works. Disney II works."

Legalizing the Loophole?

I read this morning on NPN's site that Mike Fortner and Mary Flowers have introduced a bill into the Illinois legislature to change the cut-off age/date for entry into first grade. This attempts to legalize the loophole that many parents now use (or try to use) to get around Illinois's kindergarten entry cut-off date. CPS does not honor the year, and will make young kids repeat the kindergarten year if they come into the system in 1st grade after attending a private school for kindergarten and they were born after the September 1st cut-off date for that academic year.

I think it's a dumb bill and I disagree with it.

When I was a kid, Illinois's cut off for kindergarten was December 1st. I know someone with that birthdate and her mother held her back so that she entered kindergarten a few months before she turned 6. They changed the law soon after that in Illinois. I don't know why the cut-off date was changed in the early 1980s, but I think it's a waste of time and resources to argue the point in the Illinois legislature. That said, given the academically rigorous program of many kindergartens in Illinois, I can see why educators want kids to be older and more mature than they were in the 1970s. That whole kids getting older, younger thing.

When I was in high school, my after-school job boss, Jean, had grown up in Chicago in the 1920s. She told me that Chicago schools used to have 2 entry dates/classes. One class started in February and another stated in September, so they started all the kids at a developmentally appropriate age. I think they evened out the academic years sometime in the upper elementary grades. I can't imagine such a thing flying now with the educational resources we have now, but it is an interesting concept.

What Makes a School Good?

Disney II's first academic year is only 6 weeks away from its conclusion. Acceptance letters have gone out for next year's class of kindergarteners, and I find myself fielding questions about what the school is like by their parents, when I happen to meet them at neighborhood events or via Facebook connections. Is it a good school? What makes a school good? What makes a school bad, or just adequate? These are hard questions for me to answer. I don't yet have the perspective of time and experience to make a good judge. In addition, Disney II is my first real experience as a parent with a CPS school, so I have nothing to which I can compare. And, I've already invested a significant amount of time into Disney II, with plans to do more, so I am biased in terms of its virtues.

What I really want out of any school The Boy attends, and what, in my Philistinistic opinion, makes a school good is its ability to foster its students' love of learning. I don't know that Disney II has done that yet, but The Boy told me about 2 weeks ago that he loves school. I'll take what I can get out of a child who cried every morning at drop-off for the first month of kindergarten.

From talking to friends with children at other up-and-coming CPS schools (Skinner, Nettlehorst, Ravenswood, to name a few), it would seem that the universal standard that CPS seeks to attain in kindergarteners is to get them reading-ready, if not actually reading by the end of that first year of elementary school. As this author points out, the kindergarten of my youth, which involved learning learning not to eat the paste* and introduced the idea of children-in-groups to my only-child (at the time) personality, disappeared somewhere in the 1990s. Although some relics of Kindergarten Past remain (shoe-tying is a progress-report item on The Boy's list; my mother-in-law remembers that she received low marks in skipping in kindergarten), the emphasis of kindergarten at most northside CPS elementary schools, including Disney II, is on literacy.

As an avid reader and formerly "gifted" child myself, I struggle with the early-reading component. I did not learn to read well, by which I mean I was in the high/advanced reading groups, until I was in 3rd grade -- and even then, I had problems with reading comprehension in some areas (my strong aversion to Greek myths persists 20+ years after Miss Commandella's unit on the subject) in 5th grade. And yet, I am living proof that early reading can mean very little in terms of future success: by trade, I am a reader and a writer. These activities are my passion in life; I would and, indeed do, practice them even in the absence of payment.

At the end of the day, I can say with confidence that The Boy likes Disney II and is doing well there. His progress is on-par with those of his peers, and despite the pressure I feel for him to be reading already, I'm confident that he will read (and tie his shoes!) on his own, internal development barometer. He likes the school, he likes his classmates, he likes his teacher. He is exposed to music, art, and technology. He gets to run around every day, and I reserve time for him at the end of the school day for more open/free play. In today's society, with our economic means, that is the best that we can achieve for/with him.

* For the record, I've never tried it.

What a difference a year makes

During The Girl's ballet class this morning, I spoke with Beth T. about the neighborhood, schools, and Australia. She had gone on a tour of Disney II yesterday, and reported that she saw both The Girl and The Boy happily engaged in their respective classrooms. Our conversation reminded me how stressed I was last year over applying to and visiting schools, The Boy's Options for Knowledge Test date, etc. While next year, I may very well be back in the same boat*, it's been nice to be blissfully ignorant of the flurry of activity occurring right now in rising-kindergartener households all over the city of Chicago.

Disney II is on course to be a good, sought-after school. Beth shared that the school has already received 550 applications -- and there's still a week to go before the December 19th deadline. So far, I am happy with the level of education that The Boy is receiving. His teacher, Mrs. Callaghan, is phenomenal. I'd like to see her nominated for a Golden Apple award, but I don't want the school to lose her for the year that she'd be on sabbatical as a result. He's halfway through the year and I can see that he'll be reading at the end of it.

The Girl is an enthusiastic preschooler. Her teacher, Mr. Manesis, has nothing but good things to say about her behavior and interest in the various activities offered by the Preschool for All program. She is eager to go to school each day, and was more upset about missing school last week during a bout of mycoplasma than she was about feeling crummy for 5 days straight.

As for me, I've joined the school community wholeheartedly. Although it's difficult for me to volunteer in the classroom, I've gone on a field trip with The Boy's class, volunteered at the fall book fair, and am serving on the newly formed Disney II PTA. For those reading who are looking for involvement opportunities at Disney II, there is also an Interim Advisory Committee (IAC), which is a precursor to the LSC.

* Although there is a sibling preference system in place at Disney II, it's still a lottery system when there are more siblings than there are holdback spots for them. With many of The Boy's peers' siblings set to enter kindergarten in the fall of 2010, like The Girl, there's bound to be competition and angst over available spots. In addition, I'd like to have The Girl tested for gifted/classical schools, adding another potential element to the decision.