When the going gets tough, create your own study

News from Chicago's School 'Renaissance'

May 12, 2006 Have the schools changed? Or just the studies? Just last month, the U. of C.'s Consortium on Chicago School Research found only 6.5 percent of CPS freshmen went on to earn four-year college degrees by their mid-20s, and among African-American and Latino males, only 3 percent. That study looked at the high school graduating classes of 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2003. Remember, Mayor Daley took over the school system in 1994.

When Congressman Luis Gutierrez used the Constorium's miserable numbers to build a case for himself as the city's next mayor, CPS leaders came to their boss' rescue the only way they could. They quickly produced another study showing that lots CPS kids were going to college. The Chicago Sun-Times ("CPS study paints rosier picture on grads") reports:

Despite a recent study exposing dismal college graduation rates for Chicago Public Schools students, a new CPS analysis has found that more of its college-bound grads went to four-year schools last year than the year before. Sixty-four percent of those graduates went to four-year colleges and universities in 2005 -- compared with 60.2 percent in 2004. That's significant, officials say, because studies have long found students who attend four-year institutions are more likely to complete their degrees. CPS' analysis also showed an increase in overall college enrollment -- 46 percent of graduates were college-bound last year, compared with 43.5 percent in 2004.

Schools CEO Arne Duncan is ecstatic about the new study. The Consortium study was old hat, he said. It ended three years ago. The CPS self-study goes up through 2005.

"I'm very encouraged," said schools CEO Arne Duncan. "The number of graduates going on to college is up, the number going to four-year colleges is up, and that's true for every ethnic group.

What an amazing turn around in just two years of Renaissance 2010! Well maybe not. The two studies were hardly comparing apples and apples. The Consortium study looked at how many entering freshman ended up with a college degree. The CPS self-study looked only at how many graduating seniors entered college. That way they didn't have to count hundreds of thousands of kids who droped out before the senior year. Also, by averaging in the high schools with selective enrollments, like Whitney Young and Northside College Prep, the CPS spin doctors were able to cover up the great gap that exists between these schools and neighborhood high schools. Northside Prep for example, sends about 90 percent of its kids to college while neighborhood schools send about 20 percent. Average them together and you can say that about 60 percent of CPS kids are going to college. Even with this convoluted research by the CPS bureaucracy's own Commisar of Postsecondary Education, it was almost impossible to put a smiley face on the results. Bordering on the darkly humorous were the stats from Kelvyn Park High School. The CPS study found Kelvyn Park had the worst rate of grads going to college in the whole city. The bad news was that only 21.2 percent of KP's grads went to college in 2005. But the good news was, that this was an increase over 2004 when only 20.9 went. There was also a jump in the percentage of the 21. 2 percent kids enrolling in four-year schools, from 52.1 percent to 67.1 percent. Are you dizzy with success yet?

Kelvyn Park High School Principal Sandra Fontanez-Phelan credited a higher priority placed on college enrollment with helping to boost the percentage of graduates going to four-year colleges. She also credited college prep programs in neighborhood schools like hers.

To put those numbers in perspective however, Kelvyn Park, a large (1900 students) school with a mainly Hispanic population, had 400 seniors last year compared with 600 entering freshman. Not bad for a Chicago neighborhood high school. They only lost about 200 kids between the sophomore and senior year. Of the 400 who didn't drop out by the 11th grade, about 300 graduated. The 0.3 percent increase in college-bound kids from 2004 to 2005 meant one more kid enrolled in college than in 2004. Seven more of the 21% of college-bound kids enrolled in a four-year, rather than a two-year school than did in 2004. We can't put all this on the school. How are kids supposed to afford four-year universities when even state institutions like UIC are costing $20,000/year? There are so many other factors both inside the school and outside, that influence post-secondary choices that it makes no sense to think that the differences between Whitney Young's and KP's numbers are just about curriculum or teaching methods. All this political spinning isn't really about the kids or about sending them successfully to college with the resources and academic tools needed to graduate. High schools lik KP and even Whitney Young are organized specifically not to send every kid to college. They are heavily tracked schools with AP and honors courses for the elite kids and non-college track courses for those who are deemed "not college material." In other words, the schools are doing exactly what they are organized to do, track and sort kids. We know what has to be done at schools like Kelvyn Park, to truly leave no child behind. The question is, do we as a community have the will to do it? It starts with leadership. Then we have to do away completely with 2,000-kid high schools, especially when 1,900 of those kids are from low-income, and minority families. Smaller learning environments with the same resources they have in suburban schools, a challenging, focused curriculum and highly-qualified teachers and guess what? You've got a real renaissance. _______________________________________ Kelvyn Park Principal Fires Back at the Tribune From the Chicago Reader:

The story across the front page of the April 21 Tribune reported on a gloomy new University of Chicago study on the city’s public high schools. “Of 100 Chicago Public School Freshmen, Six Will Get a College Degree,” said the headline. Back on page eight reporter Tracy Dell’Angela looked inside some Chicago schools to see what was going on there. Her sidebar noted in passing that the city’s top five schools sent at least 80 percent of their graduates to college. By contrast, “for the bottom five high schools—Kelvyn Park High School, Tilden Achievement Academy, Wells Community Academy, Orr Community Academy and Farragut Career Academy—a third or fewer of graduates enrolled in college, most of them going to two-year colleges.”

Those were the extremes. Dell’Angela sensibly focused on two schools in the middle range, George Washington and Bogan. But her story infuriated one principal, who gave me an earful, and I asked Dell’Angela this Monday if she and the principal had talked. Dell’Angela had been out of town, so the complaint was news to her. “Washington or Bogan?” she asked.

Kelvyn Park.

“It was so hurtful,” Sandra Fontanez-Phelan had told me, “and I’m really mirroring the hurt of my staff, the hurt of my kids, the hurt of my family.” She was preparing a packet of letters from teachers and students to send the Tribune, and she’d talked to her alderman, Ray Suarez, about holding a news conference to set the record straight. Fontanez-Phelan, who’s finishing her fourth year at Kelvyn Park, told me that after reading Dell’Angela’s story people from the West Logan Square community called to ask if she’s been lying to them when she says how far the school has come. “It’s irresponsible to put out information and not clearly indicate that it’s information from the past,” she told me. “It’s irresponsible not to say what’s going on today.”

____________________________________________

Thursday May 11, 2006 - 06:24pm (CDT)

(Mis)educator Bennett Couldn't Help Himself (Archive)

Diarrhea of the Mouth

"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."--William Bennett

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress. --Mark Twain

Former Secretary of Education William Bennett likes to tell everyone how to live and preach from his Book of Virtues. But his gambling addiction and overt racism belie his righteous preachings. Why am I beating this dead horse? Because many small schools, charters and home schoolers are using Bennett's K12 Inc. curriculum and have made him a rich man many times over since he left the Dept. of Ed.

Bennett's remarks echo those from a decade or two ago by William Shockley, who suggested offering cash bonuses to welfare mothers and other social undesirables (i.e. blacks) who agreed to be sterilized and Charles Murray's Bell Curve. They also follow in a long trail of right-wing eugenicists, including President Bush's own grandfather, who pushed the ideas of white racial superiority. And now, even after his offensive remarks about aborting black babies to reduce crime are out on the table, some like Rush Limbaugh are defending him. It seems there is nothing too racist or outright criminal (as is the case of Tom DeLay) for them to stomach. As for Bennett himself, always a defender of the voucher system and an opponent of affirmative action, it seems that he is so filled with racist crap, that like the man who ate at the greasy spoon down the block from our office the other day, he can't control himself. He must let it out to relieve himself--even on the radio.

This time though, diahrrea of the mouth may prove to be costly. The Philadelphia Daily News reported exclusively Saturday that Philadelphia parents and education activists entered the fray to demand that the School District of Philadelphia end the approximately $3 million in contracts it awarded in April to Bennett's K12 Inc. By Monday morning Bennett,was out as K12's chairman of the board of directors, board member and part-time employee, said Ron Packard, who co-founded the multi-million-dollar company with Bennett in 1999. Packard would not disclose what Bennett was being paid but did say he would not be paid in any other capacity, such as that of a consultant.

Then Philadelphia Schools CEO Paul Vallas called the comments Bennett made on his nationally syndicated radio show "outrageous and offensive" and said "any extension of the contract could be jeopardized by his continued presence on the board." Not real strong words but old ties are hard to break.

Now the question is...what kind of contracts will the current DOE hand to Sec. Bennett? Maybe he can be put in charge of new schools for New Orleans or Bagdad.

New York's Small Schools--A critical look at implementation

Archived post from Yahoo360 |09/29/2005 10:27 am

Is Bloomberg's Implementation of Small Schools Hurting the Rest of the District??

A report from the Politics of Education Association, a "special interest group" of the American Educational Research Association, raises questions about Mayor Bloomberg's Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) strategy in New York.

According to the report by Florida State University's Patrice Iatarola, small schools or SLCs, "seem to have potential for improving student chievement or improving factors related to student achievement, such as attendance rates, but the body of evidence is not yet strong enough to know for sure whether or not small schools work.

Moreover, notably absent from the research on small schools is the impact that such changes have not only for those who are participating in the reforms but also on schools and students throughout the system. ... the findings do suggest that educators and policymakers should no longer ignore the implications that small school reform may have on schools and students system-wide."

The suggestion is that Bloomberg's plan for implementation of small schools in NY could be creating or further exacerbating racial segregation and the two-tiered system of education.

This is an issue that I, and other small-schools people, have been raising for years. Small schools, especially charters, can become another part of the horrible sorting and tracking process that replicates what Jonathan Kozol called, the "savage inequalities" in our schools and in our society as a whole. 

The small schools movement in New York began in the late 60s as a movement for equity and social justice. The latest wave, with millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, seems to be more about "scaling up" and replication. I'm glad someone is looking at the implications district wide, especially for the 75% of students who are still forced to attend large (among the largest in the nation) high schools.

Is Bloomberg's Implementation of Small Schools Hurting the Rest of the District??

New York's Small Schools--A critical look at implementation

A report from the Politics of Education Association, a "special interest group" of the American Educational Research Association, raises questions about Mayor Bloomberg's Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) strategy in New York.

According to the report by Florida State University's Patrice Iatarola, small schools or SLCs, "seem to have potential for improving student chievement or improving factors related to student achievement, such as attendance rates, but the body of evidence is not yet strong enough to know for sure whether or not small schools work.

Moreover, notably absent from the research on small schools is the impact that such changes have not only for those who are participating in the reforms but also on schools and students throughout the system. ... the findings do suggest that educators and policymakers should no longer ignore the implications that small school reform may have on schools and students system-wide."

The suggestion is that Bloomberg's plan for implementation of small schools in NY could be creating or further exacerbating racial segregation and the two-tiered system of education.

This is an issue that I, and other small-schools people, have been raising for years. Small schools, especially charters, can become another part of the horrible sorting and tracking process that replicates what Jonathan Kozol called, the "savage inequalities" in our schools and in our society as a whole
.
The small schools movement in New York began in the late 60s as a movement for equity and social justice. The latest wave, with millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, seems to be more about "scaling up" and replication. I'm glad someone is looking at the implications district wide, especially for the 75% of students who are still forced to attend large (among the largest in the nation) high schools.