Report from last night's hearing on the closing of Crane High School

Hearing on Chicago school closing. (M. Ritter)

I couldn't make it to the hearing at Malcolm X College last night. So I asked Martin Ritter to send Small Talk a report. Here it is. -- M.K.

Unreal event tonight.

Donald Fraynd was the MC and Jesse Ruiz of the Board was present. Around 200 rental protesters were bused in [by the mayor's people]. They didn't know why they were there but all said they got paid. Around 200 Crane supporters: community allies, students, alums, staff, etc. 

Crane Coalition prepared a Power Point presentation -- but were told we could not present it... so after the initial Board presentation 10-15 Crane presenters engaged in civil disobedience and stood at the mike, made a statement about presenting the power point and stood silent. This was extremely effective as our crew and even the rental protesters began to shout together: Show the power point!!! This went speaker after speaker for 20-30 minutes. Jesse Ruiz and CPS didn't know what to do. Finally they relented and let us show our stuff that refuted tons of CPS data. The place erupted as we began to win the hearts and minds of the bused in folks. CPS looked confused and worried.

It gets better: At that point the public officials walk in together. Sen. Annazette Collins, Alderman Burnett, Congressman Davis, Fmr Alderman Ed Smith, and Alderman Fioretti (wearing a Crane Varsity Letterman's
Jacket - the place goes nuts for this). They speak one by one stating their position supporting Crane staying open and opposed to phase out!

They tell CPS - listen to the people. Congressman Davis was more on the neutral side but he said his job was to listen to the people and he said the people were demanding Crane to stay open. The bussed in people are either silent or on our side. A good number of current and former students, parents and community reps speak.

After that person after person tell CPS - "Dont phase out Crane." 8 p.m.comes and CPS high tails it outta there. Round 1 victory.

Martin (Marty) L. Ritter

Gabe Lyon, 2011 Chicagoan of the Year

Congratulations and best wishes to Gabe and Project Exploration. 

Is Vallas angling for Duncan's job? Just asking.

Reading Paul Vallas' strange EdWeek assessment of decade-old NCLB I had a funny thought. This guy is angling for a job in Obama's administration. First read his comment and tell me if I'm nuts.

In summation, I think NCLB's legacy is that it has been the next powerful phase in the federal government’s efforts to improve schools by demanding greater accountability and providing more resources, as begun by the Clinton administration, and it provided a solid base for the current administration to build upon with its ambitious Race to the Top initiative.

The thought struck me that Vallas, who is as they say, between jobs now that his consulting gigs in Haiti and Chile are over, could be a logical replacement for the inept Arne Duncan. Talk about irony. It was Duncan who replaced Vallas as Chicago schools CEO under Mayor Daley. Vallas went on to run the Philadelphia school system into the ground financially and then moved on to create the two-tier school system in post-Katrina New Orleans. In both cities, Vallas led the way in replacing public schools with privately-managed charters.

Duncan on the other hand, has failed to get his K-12 re-authorization bill through congress. He has totally alienated the administration from it's base among teachers and their unions (despite the premature NEA endorsement of Obama) and he crashed and burned with his comment that Hurricane Katrina "was the best thing" that happened to schools in New Orleans. Duncan has staked his reputation upon mayoral control of the schools. Vallas -- not so much.

So I'm thinking, with elections coming up and change in the air, Vallas may be sniffing around Duncan's door. 

CPS parents, community groups protest school closings, privatization

Chicago mayor stars in right-wing, anti-public school video

Thanks to brother Fred I came upon this right-wing propaganda video targeting public school and teachers unions staring none other than Rahm Emanuel.

"A Tale of Two Missions," co-stars the head of the anti-union Michigan-based Education Action Group, Kyle Olson, and Juan Williams, who was fired from National Public Radio for making anti-Muslim comments on air.

The video is part of  National School Choice Week, the continuation of a campaign promoting vouchers and privately-run charter schools and attacking public education and collective-bargaining rights for teachers. The campaign began with the film, Waiting for Superman in 2010 and is backed by EAG and the far-right Heritage Foundation whose own video "What is School Choice," is featured on the NSCW website.

Backers of NSCW include usual suspects, Michelle Rhee, John McCain, John Boehner, Joe Lieberman, Jeb Bush, and FOX News regular, Dick Morris. Others offering NSCW testimonials include Liz Dreckman of the Arizona School Choice Trust, Andrew Broy of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, and Patrick Kaiser of the The Center for an Educated Georgia.

Surprised to see Chicago's Democratic mayor in the center of this right-wing campaign? I'm not.

Teaching and learning in a strange land

One of the by-products of the accountability movement and high-tech data management tools--like on-line grade-books--is the elevation of filling in boxes over actual learning. -- Teacher in a Strange Land

I really liked this reflective piece by Nancy Flanagan, "Who's responsible for this, anyway?" I think I'll use it in my Phil. of Ed. course this quarter. Nancy is a retired veteran teacher who blogs regularly for EdWeek. She was also one of the main organizers of the SOS March in D.C. last summer and was recently elected to the new SOS National Steering Committee.

Nancy stands poles apart from the test-crazy, corporate types who now dominate the field of  school reform. Michael Wiuerip shines a spotlight on these creeps in this NYT piece, about Pearson, the London-based publishing conglomerate that has become a giant in the multi-billion-dollar testing industry. Pearson uses its tax-exempt foundation to buy-off willing district administrators in exchange for contracts and a buy-in to the testing madness. 

Strange land indeed.

NAACP resolution on charter schools

In a process established by the NAACP Constitution, this resolution was adopted by the delegates to the 101st Annual Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, during the legislative session in July, 2010. It was subsequently ratified by the NAACP National Board of Directors at its meeting on October 15, 2010. This resolution is now the policy of the Association, and is “binding on the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, the Officers, and all units.”

WHEREAS, charter schools are public schools which were originally designed to explore new approaches to educate students; and

WHEREAS, in some cases, charter schools have become a school model that is used to segregate students; and

WHEREAS, charter schools have too seldom informed the education community regarding innovative instructional strategies that accelerate academic achievement in the general population of students; and

WHEREAS, the Center for Research in Educational Outcomes (CREDO) which examined charter school data in fifteen (15) states and the District of Columbia confirmed that only 17% of the charter school students in the study outperformed their peers, while 46% performed no better and 37% performed worse; and

WHEREAS, charter schools operate more autonomously than traditional public schools in the use of funds, adherence to state laws and school policies, selection and removal of students, and the selection and removal of staff, thus creating separate and unequal conditions for success; and

WHEREAS, charter schools draw funding away from already underfunded traditional public schools; and

WHEREAS, the NAACP recognizes that at best, quality charter schools serve only a small percentage of children of color and disadvantaged students for whom the NAACP advocates relative to said population left behind in failing schools; and

WHEREAS, the NAACP recognizes the urgent need to provide quality education for all children, not only those fortunate enough to win lotteries to attend existing quality charter schools; and

WHEREAS, the NAACP is committed to finding broad based, effective solutions for immediate implementation to improve the quality of public education for all children.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the NAACP will strongly advocate for immediate, overarching improvements to the existing public education system; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NAACP rejects the emphasis on charter schools as the vanguard approach for the education of children, instead of focusing attention, funding, and policy advocacy on improving existing, low performing public schools and will work through local, state and federal legislative processes to ensure that all public schools are provided the necessary funding, support and autonomy necessary to educate all students; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the NAACP will urge all of its Units to work to support public schools throughout the nation to educate all children to their highest potential.

Roslyn M. Brock Leon Russell Benjamin Todd Jealous
Chairman Chairman President & CEO
National Board of Directors Committee on Resolutions

NEW YEAR QUOTABLES

Barack Obama

"I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists."  -- CNN

Lu Young, supt. Jessamine County, Ky.

“I never had any conversation or discussion with anyone from Pearson about the awarding of the testing contract during this trip or later.”  -- Michael Winerip, NYT

Jason Kamras, D.C.chief of human capital.

“We want to make great teachers rich.” -- NY Times

Phil Kadner

"He held an elected post that was unnecessary, that actually had been abolished but was resurrected so someone could fleece the taxpayers once more. Eighteen months on probation somehow seems inadequate." -- Corrupt IL schools boss gets 18 months’ probation

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/31/2567321/miami-dade-schools-ride-wave-of.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/31/2567321/miami-dade-schools-ride-wave-of.html#storylink=cpy

Summing up 2011: David Sirota did it for me

SOS March & Rally, July 30, 2011

I was going to write one of those end-of-the-year blog posts. But lucky for me, Salon.com's David Sirota ("In education, it’s all about dollars and cents") did it for me. Now I can concentrate on getting ready for classes next week. Thanks David for getting it right.

As the revelations of 2011 prove, students aren’t helped by billionaire-executives-turned-education-dilettantes who leverage their riches to force their faith-based theories into schools. Likewise, they aren’t aided by millionaire pundits sententiously claiming that we just “need better parents.” And kids most certainly don’t benefit from politicians pretending that incessant union-busting, teacher-bashing and standardized testing represent successful school “reforms.”

Read David Sirota's entire commentary here.

A biblical school reform metaphor

But who's David and who's Goliath?

There's a strange dynamic going on inside the online education reform debate in which the well-funded reformers play the role of wimpy David and the scrappy traditional educators are Goliath. -- Alexander Russo

I've got to hand it to provocateur metaphor-mixing Russo. He got some of my fellow SOSers and current reform critics to take the bait by referring to them as mighty Goliaths overpowering the wimpy Davids of corporate school reform in internet combat.

Russo, a paid blogger for Scholastic, got what he was after -- someone to take notice, stir some controversy  and a hoped-for circulation boost. I have no problem with that. I've worked as a paid writer (beats the hell out of working for free) for several publications myself. But there should be a special place in hell for Russo's patron, Scholastic Inc., if only for their publishing and distribution of coal industry propaganda to the nation's fourth graders.

Speaking of heaven and hell, let me put on my old-testament scholar's cap for a minute (watch closely, you probably won't see this happen again), to take on Russo's misuse and abuse of good- book mythology. Remember, the biblical David's victory in the battle against the Philistines had less to do with size and and shot accuracy than it did with social justice. David stood on just ground, sling-shot in hand against the enemies of God's helpless people. That's hardly a metaphor for Bill Gates' minions.

How does that metaphor play out here? Let's just say it's a stretch (no sling-shot pun intended). Any comparisons between God's king and corporate school reformers like Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, and Wendy Kopp come purely from the pipe dreams of a Philistine. In other words -- what is Russo smoking? Neither are today's teachers, parents and community activists helpless wanderers, waiting for a Superman messiah to lead them.

My fellow SOS activist and EdWeek blogger Nancy Flanagan (Teacher in a Strange Land) thanks Russo for "acknowledging a handful of the swelling cadre of articulate educators and parents who are mad as hell about what's happening to their public schools and just not going to take it anymore. We like it when our efforts are noticed and shared."

But Nancy isn't buying Russo's David/Goliath metaphor either.

One at a time, the big-boy funders are picking off nonprofits (not to mention the federal government) and re-shaping their work toward a reformy mindset. A little anti-LIFO here, a bit of merit pay there, a heavily subsidized "innovation charter," the repeated concept that grant funding and privatization are the only routes to genuinely raising the bar. If you want the pay, you have to play. They may have even lured the NEA over for a quick drink with their youngest and hottest teacher recruits.

Anthony Cody (Living in Dialogue), one of the "Goliaths" named in Russo's post, has a different theory.  He thinks that the corporate heavies have a disdain for public debate and carefully choose their arenas so that they can always win. 

They are choosing as their forums places where they know they can win. Video surfaced of Stand For Children CEO Jonah Edelman speaking frankly to fellow "reformers" at the Aspen Institute, disclosing exactly how his organization had muscled its way into Illinois, supporting legislation that eroded the ability of teacher unions to negotiate over basic things like the length of the working day, and undermined seniority.

Just to be safe, I consulted with some other of my fellow hermeneutic scholars, some of whom interpret this dust-up as Russo's attempt to egg on his favorite corporate funders to become more active (if you know what I mean) in the internet battle against us reform infidels. 
 
Others interpret Russo as a misunderstood prophet who is actually praising us progressives for our feistyness (yes indeed) and our organization (if only it were true) and telling us, that in the long run, we have the power to overcome and save our schools.

I'll go with that.

What the 1%ers have to say for themselves

Quotes from New York Magazine piece, by Noreen Malone, ‘I Stand Guilty of Being a Fat Cat.’

Yuck!
Billionaire Tom Golisano:

“If I hear a politician use the term ‘paying your fair share’ one more time, I’m going to vomit.” 

Right-wing loony
Home Depot Ken Langone reclaimed certain terms that have been used to oppress his people:

"I am a fat cat, I’m not ashamed. If you mean by fat cat that I’ve succeeded, yeah, then I’m a fat cat. I stand guilty of being a fat cat." 

Shop at Home Depot? Are you kidding me?
Another Home Depot co-founder, 82-year-old Bernard Marcus said, regarding possible targeting from Occupy Wall Street protestors, the only thing to do was approach the whole thing with Zenlike calm.

"Who gives a crap about some imbecile? Are you kidding me?”

There's more: white men with money, white men with money talking to reporters, the wail of the 1%

While public schools go begging...

Cities spend billions on militarization

Thousands of local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-style equipment in the name of homeland security, aided by more than $34 billion in federal grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Daily Beast investigation conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found. Obvious question for Occupiers is, who are these WMDs really pointing at?

Answers could come from Chuck Wexler who runs the govt.-funded Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).  Despite implausible denials here and in this obviously embedded NPR story, it was Wexler who coordinated those conference calls with city police chiefs to discuss their response to the Occupy Wall Street movement last fall. He basically admits PERF'S involvement in this Tweet from Nov. 1

Those conference calls were the prelude to the Oakland attacks on occupiers which led to the wounding of Iraq war vet, Scott Olsen and to the pepper spraying of passive protesters at UC-Davis. Now the cost to those cities is likely to skyrocket as they face lawsuits over free speech, use of force.

******

ABC News reports that anti-govt. anti-taxer Rick Perry's security costs Texas taxpayers up to $400,000 a Month. And he's not even a Chicago alderman.

Ben Falik (really) at Huffington, claims there are some really great deals in Detroit if you want to buy a school.

"What's stopping me from opening my own charter school?" Not much, in all likelihood... You'll want to choose a name for your school that exudes credibility and markets the particular mission of the school. Assuming it's still available, I recommend Academy for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.

CHRISTMAS QUOTABLES

Community activist Martha Sanchez, right, shares an emotional moment with her children, Gonzalo Romero, 17, and Catherine Romero, 12, celebrating victory in an eight-year battle to shut down a metal-finishing plant across the street from 28th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles. (Luis Sinco, Los Angeles Times)

Danny Schechter

I did my Christmas penance back in a very cold and all too empty Zuccotti Park on Christmas day. There had been a 24 hour prayer event and vigil. I had only stopped in for a two hour stint—call it my Holiday witness—in time to hear the writer Jay Janson and others read from the still moving statement by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on the need to get out of Vietnam and other countries Washington was then occupying/invading in the false name of freedom. -- The News Dissector

P.L. Thomas

Choruses of “no excuses” and “poverty is not destiny” punctuate almost all of the discourse and even reform plans coming from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, and Michelle Rhee, and the implications of these bromides are where the problems rest.  In short, the real debate is not whether or not one side believes poverty matters and the other does not (this is genuinely a false dichotomy that likely does not exist). The real debate is where the source of what matters lies and how to address the impact of poverty on the lives and learning of children. -- Poverty Matters!: A Christmas Miracle

Ross Caputi

What we did to Fallujah cannot be undone, and I see no point in attacking the people in my former unit. What I want to attack are the lies and false beliefs. I want to destroy the prejudices that prevented us from putting ourselves in the other's shoes and asking ourselves what we would have done if a foreign army invaded our country and laid siege to our city. -- I am sorry for the role I played in Fallujah (Guardian)

Andrew Hartman

TFA is, at best, another chimerical attempt in a long history of chimerical attempts to sell educational reform as a solution to class inequality. At worst, it’s a Trojan horse for all that is unseemly about the contemporary education reform movement. -- Teach for America: Liberal mission helps conservative agenda (WaPo)  

Katharine Mieszkowski

At Cesar Chavez Elementary School, physical education lessons, taught by classroom teachers, are held on a fenced-in blacktop lot below a huge, colorful mural of the school’s namesake. In the mural, Mr. Chavez, the late civil rights leader, is surrounded by a crowd of children as he carries a banner that reads “Help me take responsibility for my own life so I can be free at last.”--The Haves’ Children Are Healthier Than the Have-Nots’ (NYT)

End of Iraq War? Let's not celebrate quite yet

Brecht

When the leaders speak of peace
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out. -- Bertolt Brecht

A letter from  a friend tells me the war is over, that Obama has pulled all combat troops out of Iraq. She suggests that we who protested Bush's invasion from the beginning should hold a press conference and claim credit even though the anti-war movement in the U.S. has long been dormant, anesthetized since Obama's election in 2008.

Liberal peace activist, Tom Hayden writes in the L.A. Times that, "the war is as over as a war can be, and the peace movement should celebrate." The president himself has declared the war effort, "a success" and the New York Times goes so far as to tells us that "War Really Is Going Out of Style." Remember, it was the Times that banged the war drums the loudest in the months leading up to the invasion with article after article offering "proof" of weapons of mass destruction. 

Hayden also sends around an interview with Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, who claims that "The tide of war is receding around the world." 

Like my friend, I'm happy to recognize any and all accomplishments by the peace movement but only with my favorite caveat attached, Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories.

Like Hayden, I'm happy about the pull-out and detest war industry lobbyists and  opportunist Republicans like John McCain, who are trying to score points by calling the withdrawal "premature" and arguing for a large residual force to remain in Iraq. McCain knows full well that Obama had no choice but to pull out after negotiations with the Al-Maliki regime broke down. I'd also be elated if we could get out from under the great financial burden a decade of war has placed on our backs. The war cost, amounting to $2 trillion by most estimates, has been a key factor in the current economic collapse and has helped devastate public education and erode civil liberties.

In the pit of my stomach I know that any anti-war celebrations are premature and just plain wrong, considering the death and devastation our retreating troops are leaving behind. I mean --thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed; the cradle of civilization bombed, battered and bleeding with little left of infrastructure, torn by sectarian violence which was inflamed by the U.S. 10-year occupation. A corrupt, anti-democratic, U.S.--installed but pro-Iranian regime, in Baghdad sitting next door to the world's largest embassy, guarded by mercenaries from the murderous group of thugs and assassins formerly known as Blackwater. Their main job, it seems, will be to protect the western oil profiteers from tripping over each other for a shot at Iraqi oil.

Then there's the accompanying erasure of memory about the torture cells at Abu-Ghraib and the 2005 Haditha massacre.

We broke it, but we sure as hell have no intention of fixing it. Tom, celebrate? Really?

******

Largest embassy in the world

Now comes the news, leaking out in dribs and drabs, that the war in Iraq may not be as "over as over can be." A NYT article by Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker appears on Christmas eve, describing a new, secret phase of U.S. military action in Iraq.  According to this and other reports, "the responsibility for security assistance" has now moved to the C.I.A., "which operates in Iraq under a separate authority, independent of the military." The agency historically has operated its own strike teams, and it also has the authority to hire indigenous operatives to participate in its counterterrorism missions.

“As the U.S. military has drawn down to zero in terms of combat troops, the U.S. intelligence community has not done the same,” a senior administration official said.

The U.S. also has about 40,000 combat troops remaining throughout the region, including a ground combat unit that was one of the last out of Iraq — and remains, at least temporarily, just across the border in Kuwait. Significant numbers of long-range strike aircraft also are on call aboard aircraft carriers and at bases in the region.

Rhodes tries to counter the NYT story in the plausible-denial language only a Defense Dept. bureaucrat could love.

"I don't think we're looking to reallocate our military footprint in any significant way from Iraq. They won't be reallocated to other countries in the region in any substantial numbers."

Eli Lake, writing for the Daily Beast, has more on the "CIA's covert Iraq Mission."

The programs involve everything from the deployment of remote sensors that scan the wireless spectrum of terrorist safe havens to stealth U.S.-Iraqi counterterrorism commando teams, and their status is uncertain as a U.S. diplomatic team negotiates with Iraqi leaders, according to officials, who made clear the CIA intends to keep a footprint inside the country even as troops leave by Dec. 31.

The causes of war still remain -- now more than ever. Big power contention for markets and for old sources of energy, strategic footholds, ports, etc... power and influence of the military-industrial complex and Wall St. on our elected politicians. The next phase may focus on Iran. A Libya-type attack on Syria is also possible.

The face of war is changing. Less and less emphasis on large-scale troop surges -- or what people like Rhodes call, "a large footprint."  More on hi-tech warfare, drone wars and use of mercs. The New National Defense Act budget is larger than ever, replete with new assaults of civil liberties for Americans and foreigners living here.

No celebrations yet. Keep the pressure on! Use the 2012 elections to rebuild the movement against war.   Bring all the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan!  Demobilize Blackwater! Jobs and justice for our returning troops! Obama keep your promises! Close Guantanamo! End the torture!

That's where I'm at this Christmas Day.

Jose Rico named to lead White House initiative

José Rico has been appointed as the new director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. The Initiative is in charge of expanding academic excellence and improving educational opportunities for Hispanics.

Hispanics are the largest minority group in the public education system, comprising more than 1 in 5 students in the nation's elementary, middle and high schools, according to a report by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. The report shows that Hispanics will drive the growth of the labor force over the next several decades, accounting for 60 percent of the nation's growth between 2005 and 2050.

“Hispanic students have graduated at lower rates than others for a long time, making it impossible for America to advance if they continue to fall behind,” Rico said. “Improving Hispanic educational excellence isn't just a Latino problem. It's a challenge for all Americans.” -- Ed.Gov

Prior to his work with the Administration, Rico served from 2005-2009 as principal of Chicago's Multicultural Arts High School, named by then Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan as founding principal in 2005. He previously worked for the University of Illinois-Chicago's Small Schools Workshop to help develop small, innovative learning communities in public schools. He also worked during this time as a school improvement coach and on charter school projects with the Knowledge Works Foundation and the National Council of La Raza.

Parents beat back Rahm's re-segregation at LaSalle Academy

LaSalle Language Academy

When Arne Duncan was Chicago schools CEO, one of his first goals was to eliminate the city's court ordered desegregation plan. The fight was carried on under Mayor Daley's regime by Duncan's successor, Ron Huberman, who finally got a federal judge to liquidate the consent decree. Rahm Emanuel's attempt to carry on Duncan's tradition and re-segregate one of the city's few remaining integrated magnet schools has been beaten back by protesting parents.

Emanuel tried to phase out LaSalle Language Academy Magnet School, where 1,500 kids apply for about 70 open seats every year. According to a WBEZ report, " it also would have turned one of the city’s few integrated schools into a majority white school by closing the door on students from other neighborhoods. And parents feared their school’s unique language programs—run with desegregation funds—would be lost."

Late Tuesday, schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard sent letters to parents  saying the proposal is off the table.

Chicago communities rally to save their schools

Board pushes longer school day on the high schools

Marquette Elementary School supporter Florence John
son, center, with Southwest Youth Collaborative, rallies Thursday with parents, teachers, community activists and students who oppose a “turnaround” project at the Southwest Side school. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune / December 22, 2011)

On a day when teachers, parents and students rallied to protest closings or turnaround projects at eight public schools, school district officials responded by announcing they would extend the high school day by 36 minutes beginning next fall. At Marquette, which has been on academic probation for seven of the last eight years and where less than 20 percent of students between the third and eighth grades are reading at grade level, teachers say the district has failed the school.

"We have been sabotaged over the last three years," said Jacqulyn Ward, an eighth-grade math teacher. "We've had three principals in that time; we've had new (area officers) who've come in and tried to change everything and who are now gone. It's been total instability."-- Chicago Tribune

Vallas, the master of disaster, takes interim job in Bridgeport

"I am used to taking on great challenges and going into crisis situations," he said. "Our plan is to move fast." --Paul Vallas

I guess his consulting business in Haiti and Chile must have bottomed out. In any event, Vallas has taken a job, offered by his buddy Stefan Pryor in Bridgeport, as the interim superintendent. Look for him to make the best use of him limited time there to decimate collective bargaining, fire teachers in mass, eliminate as many neighborhood schools as possible and replace them with privately-managed charter schools. That's been his MO since leaving Chicago, Philly, post-Katrina New Orleans and post-quake Haiti. He's definitely the master of disaster.

Bridgeport is the state's largest city, whose district has some of the state's deepest poverty and not surprisingly its lowest test scores. Also look for Vallas to give a big no-bid contract to his old Chicago pals at Synesi. 

Turnaround cronyism at Collins High

Be sure and read Matt Farmer's excellent Huffington post on Chicago turnarounds. He lays bare the crony relationship between venture capitalist Mike Koldyke's Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) and the mayor. It ends up with AUSL being handed Collins High for their very own. 

That's when the money started to roll in. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation quickly ponied up $1 million to the heavy-hitters at AUSL for the Collins turnaround effort. That same foundation kicked in an additional $10.3 million for AUSL in 2008, and a chunk of that cash was used for teacher training at Collins...

The results can hardly be called a success.

...No one with press credentials thought to say: "Mr. Mayor, if one-third of that September 2007 freshman class failed to walk across the Collins stage with a diploma in June 2011, can you really say Collins is a successful turnaround?"

Chicago parents and community leaders take anti-closings fight to City Hall

From left, Jeanette Taylor-Smith, Pastor Joshua Ivery and Jitu Brown yell protest chants in front of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune)

South-side parents and community leaders were back at Chicago's City Hall yesterday asking to meet with the mayor and demanding an end to Emanuel's arbitrary school closings, turnarounds and privately-run charter schools. The say that if they don't get word within seven days of an appointment with the mayor, they will stage a sit-in until they secure one.

"We are requesting a moratorium on all school actions in Chicago based on what the research of our experiences tell us. Chicago Public Schools cannot continue to push policy that is harmful to the children,"  said Steven Guy, s the grandparent of a student from Fuller Elementary School. -- WBEZ

The protest comes five days after hundreds of parents, teachers and community activists occupied the Board of Education Meeting, leading to board members shutting down the mics and fleeing the room. 

In These Times writer Joel Handley, quotes community activist Jitu Brown:

To longtime education organizers like Jitu Brown of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), the program is just another in a long line of failures. “Reconstitution, reorganization, charter schools–all these initiatives have failed miserably,” Brown says. “They’re window dressings. You have to address poverty before the problems of education.” -- The Poverty of School Reform

Writes Handley:

Brown and KOCO created a model for sustainable success with their Bronzeville Global Achievement Village. They asked parents to forget about budget constraints and imagine the type of education they want for their children. Months of cooperative labor birthed a program that would partner with Dyett High School and its neighborhood feeder schools to streamline curricula between grades and bring much-needed focus to laboratory sciences and leadership. But CPS has other plans. On November 30, it announced that Dyett, along with three other schools, would be closing next year.

Also see Chicago Tribune's coverage: "Uproar continues over plans for South Side schools" by Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah