Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Byrd-Bennett's 5-year plan is perfect, except for that fact that ...

...there really is no plan and BBB probably won't last 5 years.
For the first time since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took over CPS, his CEO laid out an education plan, calling for high academic standards, more focus on parental engagement and greater accountability for the district, including an annual scorecard. -- Catalyst
Ok, but what are the specifics of the plan? The Sun-Times supports the plan. Here what they have to say about it.
"Much of the plan already has been announced, and it was short on details... But where’s the money to do this well? Ditto for arts education and better attendance (it takes people and time to hunt down truant kids). Byrd-Bennett says they’ll redirect resources and tap outside funds. That’s a start but not a recipe for lasting change."
Umm, no specifics, no recipe for lasting change, and no money to implement. So what is it you actually support here, S-T editorial board?

Well there is "parent engagement". Doesn't saying those two words constitute a plan of some sort?

Well it might, if we didn't already know what BBB means by parent engagement. 20,000 turn out for sham hearings to protest school closures. BBB attends none of them. The she announces that all 20,000 supported closures. Parent engagement.

More from Catalyst:
 But Byrd-Bennett’s announcement at Westinghouse High School raised immediate questions about how the board would pay for the initiatives. And following the announcement, Board President David Vitale confirmed that principals, who received their school budgets just last week, will have to make do with less.
Making do with less? Why, that's the same 5-year plan we just had. Thanks President Vitale.

OK, so what do the teachers, who have to carry out the plan, think of it?

We don't know. No one's asked them.
 “It is amazing that CPS’s first impulse, no matter who heads it, is towards an autocratic, top-down approach that people who actually work with kids are expected to implement without the appropriate resources or tools. When will CPS understand that having a ‘plan’ that never includes the voices of parents, students, CPS workers and a realistic blueprint on how to generate revenue will continue to foster mistrust, alienation and lowered expectations, especially after the tragic closing of 50 schools?” -- CTU Prez Karen Lewis
So much for the plan.

2 comments:

  1. "The Plan" is just another diversionary sales pitch for things that initially sound nice but which CPS has ZERO capability to bring into existence. And yes, there's that whole blatantly Orwellian parent engagement thing. And the billion dollar deficit they clutch their pearls over. And all the other lies and incompetent flubs. Broad Toadies at work on our dime. Tar and feathers time.

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  2. And while they've got a "plan" (which includes the laughable--if not, in reality, potentially tragic--"safe passage" by way of Chicago's firefighters {whose job, after all, is to fight fires, not keep displaced children from being shot at}), we are still wondering about the mystery of former CPS (appointed) Board President Michael Scott.
    However, in accordance with all that has ever been CPS, we must, as BBB has so helpfully reminded us, move forward and put the past behind us.
    Nothing is more bizarro world (reference to Brother Fred and Jerry Seinfeld) than CPS.

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Agree? Disagree? Let me hear from you.