Nerds like me

On Sunday night, I attended the first CPSObsessed book club. It was a group of 8-10 heavy readers and/or commenters of the blog, plus CPSO herself. We came together ostensibly to discuss Diane Ravitch's book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, but the discussion eventually became a CPS/education/social policy free-for-all.

I was in heaven.

One guy mistook my stated interest in reading social/public policy issues as credentials in the field, which I both corrected and find flattering. These in-person discussions make me feel like I'm back in college, arguing political theory until Espresso Royale kicked us out when they closed at midnight. I'm older, saggier, more worldly, and more dependent on coffee, but also just as recharged by the process now as I was 15 years ago.

A central theme in both Ravitch's book and our discussion was the difference between data-informed decision-making and data-driven decision-making. The former can be useful in public schools, whereas the latter is an oft-used buzzword for a concept that is best left to those who coined it: corporate America. As Ravitch said over and over again in her book, test scores are a measurement, not the goal:

• Scores matter, but they are an indicator, not the definition of a good education.
  
• No Child Left Behind had no vision other than improving test scores in reading and math. It produced mountains of data, not educated citizens.
  
• Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction.
  

I have said before that I believe the standardized tests my children take are just one tool in the box available to their teachers. But the test scores themselves are not really the goal. The goals are students' ability to think critically, read fluently, and master other "executive-level functioning" skills.

With a former charter school administrator in the room and the reversal of opinion on charter schools expressed by Ravitch in the book, the dual concepts of charter schools and school choice was also a topic of discussion. The parents at the discussion were pretty much all beneficiaries of school choice (either through or in spite of NCLB), but opinion was split about whether school choice is desirable. As many pointed out, there are too many variables that aren't controlled in studies of academic achievement. Do successful schools succeed because the kids chose to go there, the parents chose to be involved, or because they fit the kind of demographic profile that has historically enjoyed success? Put another way, demographic changes in a school often drive change within the school population. In CPS, it explains the nascent popularity and/or acceptability of schools like Nettelhorst, Waters, Agassiz, Audubon, Coonley, Hamilton, and Belding when even a few years ago, those schools were on most well-educated, middle-class parents' no-way-hell list.

In contrast, the group reached consensus that (the expectation of) school choice is pretty much the only thing that NCLB achieved since its implementation in 2002. One guy even said that NCLB/charters' model of run-schools-like-businesses introduced the kind of organizational instability (heretofore known by corporate employees throughout the U.S.) to the public schools. We all agreed that NCLB is on the way out; that the Powers That Be will declare victory and move on.

Finding my own voice

Chicago Public Schools' independent fact finder report was released this week, and as all news outlets are reporting, both sides rejected the report's recommendations.

At yoga with a group of moms yesterday morning, the pre-pranayama chatter was all about whether CPS teachers are going to strike. On Facebook, everyone is asking the same question. The fear of the unknown is palpable. Working parents everywhere feel the shadow over what remains of the kids' summer vacation.

Although I follow CPS closely, I have no idea whether a strike is imminent or avoidable. My reaction to public issues is often so far outside of popular opinion that I cannot trust that my gut reaction to any particular issue is in any way predictive of outcome. 

Oddly enough, I feel fairly calm about the whole thing. The Dad is worried about a possible strike interfering with the kids' schooling, but I think a labor dispute could provide a standalone education lesson that The Boy, at least, would find interesting. I mean, this is the kid who found WBEZ's recent On Point story so riveting that he asked if we could continue to listen to it in the house. 

I came to my own interest in civics a bit later than the age of 9: although I studied Political Science in college, I pursued a (corporate) writing career. When I left UIUC in 1997, I also left late-night discussions about Nietzsche, Machiavelli, and the future of the EU to wither in my memory of Urbana's Espresso Royale.

Raising children in the city of Chicago--with its long history of both the good (architecture, arts, social work) and the bad (crime, graft, greed, corruption) in society--has been my political reawakening.  Don't tell my father-in-law, who is fond of quoting Winston Churchill, but as I get older, I've become more of a social democrat.

That said, I've been rather wishy-washy on the issue of the CTU, and of unions in general. I've yet to meet a white-collar professional/manager with something positive to say about union labor. But as I've read the news reports, and the editorials, and the public rants about the CTU's greed, I've come to an interesting realization about how I feel about the union versus free-market debate. 

And that is: I believe fundamentally in the unions. As a Chicago resident, I often find Karen Lewis's public statements to be irritating. But even with the CTU's bad (or nonexistent) PR, I don't think the usefulness of union labor has ended.  Without unions, we wouldn't have (had) a fair wage, a reasonable work week, and decent working conditions -- all things that helped to create a middle class, even as that middle class rapidly disappears. Even when I worked full-time, I often wondered why my field was not unionized. After all, in some ways, unionization is codification of an industry. Codification is really information. And information is power.  

I do not actually believe that the CTU wants or expects a 23% pay raise, but thanks to SB7, the CTU cannot negotiate on anything else unless/until CPS brings it to the table. So the teachers end up looking like greedy assholes in the press/public opinion. And the mayor wants this negotiation played out in the press; Karen Lewis isn't the only one who can play that game.

As an employee, the most important things to me were time, time, and culture (whether I felt respected by my co-workers and boss, and felt like I was contributing)--not pay. Of course "a day's pay for a day's work" is important, but no one in his right mind would argue that teachers in the United States go into the field for the money. 

As discussion of the fact-finders report and next steps continues, the online discussion invariably turns to what happens in the private sector (lack of raises, job security, etc.). In the private sector, we negotiate one-on-one with our employers about vacation time and benefits as well as about salary. To me, the CTU-CPS negotiations are no different. 

Food That Rolls

A million years ago (it seems), I introduced The Tot (Who's Not) and The Girl to the world of crêpes. Vella Cafe has long since shuttered, but we've been to Crêpes à Latte a fair number of times since then. However, I'm kind of a purist when it comes to crêpes--or at least to my memory of them. A billion years ago, when I lived in France, crêpes were mostly a street food. We ate them hot, with jam or sugar, in a paper cone on the side of the street. None of this egg-cheese-avocado stuff. 

At one point in time, I had the recipe for crêpes memorized--in French. A liter of milk, 8 eggs and 500g of flour. Or something like that. But, I never really had the occasion to make them. If I were to make them now, I'd certainly check and double check the recipe before dumping all that together. I know just enough about baking and cooking to sense that my 18-year-old self has forgotten the butter as she committed the recipe to memory.

Recently, however, in a fit of gumption, boredom, or both, I decided to make flour tortillas from scratch. The recipe called for a comal, a Mexican griddle. Instead of investing in yet more kitchen equipment for which there is little space in my tiny Chicago kitchen, I pulled out the crêpe pan. The one that had been languishing in my kitchen cupboards since July 2009 when I bought it.  It worked beautifully.  

And thus we started our family love affair with "food that rolls." Given an hour of time, a 1/4 cup of butter, some flour, and a dearth of anything good to eat in the house, I'll happily make a batch of flour tortillas, and fry them up on the crêpe pan. They are best straight off the griddle, plain or with a bit of quesadilla cheese melted in the middle. I'm hungry just thinking about it. 


My success with flour tortillas quickly expanded to Swedish pancakes, the Scandinavian version of the crêpe (or tortilla). Unlike American flapjacks, Swedish pancakes have a rapid cook time, making them an easier choice for this not-a-morning-person mama on a busy weekday morning, for a snack that feeds a crowd of kids, or a Daddy-is-out-of-town dinner. I made a double batch of Swedish pancakes again at mid-morning, feeding The Boy, The Girl, The Kindy (The Tot), and three of their friends, in an unscripted school's-out-for-the-summer celebration. Served with three kinds of jam, chocolate sauce, maple syrup, powdered sugar, and (untouched) Greek yogurt, Swedish pancakes are more of a dessert than a savory meal, but what is more fun that food that rolls up for easy consumption? After they were done, I sat down at the table of sticky to eat some with Greek yogurt and sour cherry jam.

And so summer begins...

Domesticity

My friend Melissa is my hero in the world of SAHMdom. She cooks, bakes, paints, and mothers calmly, which she manages to convey both in-person and through her blog.

As the school year winds down, and with it, my various school-related activities, I've had time to read--and be inspired by--more homekeeping-themed bloggers in the blogosphere. Like Melissa, or Marisa of Food in Jars, or Liesl of Oliver + S, or the folks at Sew, Mama, Sew, or occasionally, Young House Love, and everyone on Pinterest. Thank goodness for them.

Without meetings and action items to occupy the space not taken up by homework and kid emotions, I retreat back into my own head. And what I do to occupy my hands while I am thinking is engage in all forms of domestic arts. I'll likely never share step-by-step tutorials or photos of a project on this blog, but I'm incredibly grateful for bloggers who do, keeping the nearly forgotten arts of sewing, knitting, needlework, baking, cooking, and furniture restoration alive.

It is surprising even to me, but I do feel a sense of satisfaction in completing tasks around the house. After buying a flat of organic strawberries at the farmers market on Sunday, I've spent the week thinking up ways to use them. I've made two batches of cobbler, two batches of jam, one tarte aux fraises one batch of ice cream, and froze many individually.

Last week, I completed a twin-sized bed for The Boy, made from a set of Design Confidential plans, and refinished a side chair that I found on the street a couple of years ago. I cooked dinner. I cleaned areas that are part of the regular cycle and areas that are not. I pulled out toys and put them in the garage sale bin. I made dinner every night, and on some mornings, I actually made my children a hot breakfast (something I almost never do on weekdays). When The Girl asked me to do laundry, I complied.

I cannot really explain this flurry of domestic activity. On the surface, the explanation is that I did / do these things because they need to be done. But part of me wonders if it's my brain's way of letting go of this school year. Perhaps, in the same way that my children will use the time off from school this summer to play video games, run around outside, stay up late, and generally recharge their psyches, all this introspection and domestic activity is restorative for me.

Listening Tour, Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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