Closing 16 more schools in Chicago

Daley has his way

Of course it was a done deal. Mayor Daley had told his hand-picked school board and his hand-picked schools boss, Ron Huberman to close 22 more schools, and that's what they did--minus 6 where community protest was the loudest.

Philly students confront Ackerman

Public school students in Philly aren't buying Supt. Ackerman's plan to close neighborhood schools and hand them over to private charter operators. The students, members of the Philadelphia Student Union activist group, yesterday afternoon protested Ackerman's five-year, $50 million "Imagine 2014" plan, modeled on Chicago's "Renaissance 2010".

Charelle Reed, a 12th grader from Overbrook High, praised plans to boost the number of counselors and put Student Success Centers, which help students apply to college, in each high school, but she said that turning to charter schools is not the answer."There are some real equity issues when it comes to charter schools," she said. "Charters have been known to push out English-language-learning students, special-needs students, along with poor students." (Daily News)

Now KIPP is bellying up to the bar. They want Ackerman to approve 10 of their replicant schools. She's nervous.

Rockford folds

Facing a full-court press from outside charter school operators, consultant Paul Vallas, and local real estate developers, the Rockford, Illinois school board yesterday approved a charter for Chicago International, the largest chain operator in Chicago.

Camping out

Media coverage of last night's vigil at CPS

Chicago Breaking News (CLTV) story plus video

NBC Chicago News

Organizers of GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) pitched tents and held a candlelight vigil outside the public school board offices overnight, calling for a moratorium on school closures.They say they expect hundreds of more dissenters to arrive at board headquarters by bus Wednesday afternoon for a rally to halt a vote to close schools.

CBS

"We were there when it was hard; when it was dangerous, and now that it's better for our children, and safer, now they want to kick us out," said Carpenter parent Maria Hernandez. "Why? Because we're the minority, and we're also low income families?"

Today's Sun-Times editorial:

School officials spend months analyzing potential closures, but little of what they learn, and few details about how they choose one low-enrollment school over another, is shared with the public. That should change. We also support a call by community groups and the teachers union for an independent analysis of the effects of Renaissance 2010.

Fred Klonsky
PURE Thoughts
Chi-Town Daily News
Catalyst
Russo

Obama's speech

I keep reminding myself that this is just a speech and a pretty good one at that--a selling of the badly-needed stimulus package to Congress and more importantly to a short-on-hope American public. Without a rapid and huge injection of new capital, and confidence, warned Obama, the impact of this global financial collapse on jobs, schools, neighborhoods, and childrens' futures would be even more devastating than it already is.

I think he sold it. But the weakest part of the speech for me, was the piece on education. It's not that it was all bad--and those like Diane Ravitch, ("Is Arne Duncan really Margaret Spellings in Drag?") who are now equating Obama with Bush, are ridiculous.

After all, Obama, in the face of opposition and even sabotage, from the Limbaugh Party as well as from some inside his own regime, has launched the largest new deal for public education in history, one that's needed to save hundreds of schools from closure and thousands of teaching jobs in inner city, rural and suburban schools. It will provide millions more for after-school programs, Headstart and early-childhood ed, student health services to treat asthma, hearing defects, etc...for students with special needs and disabilities (that one is close to my heart), teacher education (that one too) billions for new school construction, and so on.

What a far cry from from the past eight years of neocon rule and programs like Bush's $4 billion Children's First phonics swindle or his use of NCLB in the most punitive, test-crazy ways imaginable.

Here's what I didn't like:

1. Obama's placing school reform wholly in the context of gl0bal competition and a narrow and misleading view of job training (I bow to Gerald Bracey on this topic).

2. His turning charter schools into a throw-away line, a substitute for real school reform specifics. Charters aren't one single entity. Nor are they a panacea. In fact, they have become largely a vehicle for closing neighborhood schools, union busting, and for taking the public out of public education. Plus, there's lots of evidence that, as a group, they perform no better than traditional schools.

3. His steering away from any critical mention of NCLB and its testing madness.

4. Millions going for some kind of pay-for-performance programs. While there's no explicit language in the stimulus package linking salary to student performance, the lack of details in Obama's speech raises my flag.

All this confirms that Obama's election was no reason for complacency. The struggle for the heart of public education continues, both in policy areas and at ground zero. But it should be carried out on just grounds, in a way that makes sense to those in the school community.

More on Huberman's retreat

Black asks: "But why, out of all the small and struggling schools in the district, were they and sixteen others the ones put on that list in the first place?"

Under pressure from community protests, Chicago schools CEO, Ron Huberman, made a tactical retreat Monday, on 6 of the 22 schools slated for closing. But Curtis Black, posting at Huffington Chicago, and the Community Media Workshop, says the the move raises even more questions about the rest of the closings.

He cites a study of the CPS school takeover process released last week by UIC researchers, which included a look at three schools. Two of them, Peabody and Holmes, were granted reprieves by Huberman; one, Carpenter Elementary, wasn't:

Carpenter integrates arts throughout its curriculum, with programs provided by the Joffrey Ballet and Adventure Stage theater company, and last month the school mounted its first musical production, "Alice in Wonderland." It was "a model of inclusion" according to the study, with students with hearing impairments and other special needs in major singing roles...It serves low-income students, many with special needs, and it is steadily improving academically. "Carpenter is an example of the kind of school CPS says they want," according to the study.

What a loss this would be to the community. Black, with good reason, challenges the legitimacy of the entire Renaissance 2010 school-closing process. Cynthia Soto's bill would put at least a temporary halt to the closings.

Huberman's retreat

Six schools saved from closing

Chicago schools CEO, Ron Huberman walked into a buzzsaw last month, when he replaced Arne Duncan. Hundreds of angry parents and teachers hit him from day-one, protesting Daley/Duncan's arbitrary school-closing plan which has little to do with reform and much to do with neighborhood gentrification plans.

Yesterday, Huberman made a tactical retreat. He announced that he would spare 6 of the 22 schools slated for closing after reading some of his staff's notes about community anger. He also had to admit that schools like Peabody and Global Visions (a small school within Bowen High) were not "failing" at all, but actually on the upswing. Maybe Mr. Duncan can explain why these schools were slated for closing in the first place.

From the Sun-Times:

Huberman, appointed only last month, said he read staff notes about community comments at 22 public hearings in deciding whether to accept proposals by his predecessor, Arne Duncan, now U.S. education secretary. "The process worked. That's what public hearings are supposed to do,'' Huberman said.

But Huberman's concession hasn't succeeded in chilling opposition to the entire school closing plan.

Laura Ramirez, from the Education Rights Coalition and the Southwest Youth Collaborative, has called for protests and a "sleep-over" tonight at CPS headquarters. Here are the actions planned by the parents, and the Education Rights Coalition in conjunction with the Grassroots Education Movement:

Candle Light Vigil at the Board, TONIGHT, TUES, 7-9 PM, 125 S. Clark.

Sleep over at the Board to protest CPS/R2010 policies, 10PM- 5 AM (Tues-Wed)

Board Meeting tomorrow (Wed), 10:30 AM, 125 S. Clark

Rally and march to Thompson Center, 3:30 PM WED., 125 S. Clark

One charter's view of the arts

"It doesn't matter how well they can draw..."

A host of private, Chicago charter school operators are making an all-out marketing move on Rockford, Illinois. The city's school community is badly divided heading into today's board vote. When board memberAlice Saudargas expressed concern over the lack of art and music in the curriculum offered by K-7 Galapagos Charter School, she got this response from the charter's director, Michael Lane:

“Our students need to be able to perform well academically,” Lane said. “It really doesn’t matter how well they can draw and what type of music.”

Ackerman needs new role models in Philly

In Philly, schools chief Arlene Ackerman is following in Paul Vallas' muddy footsteps, promising to close 35 neighborhood schools and turn them over to outside charter management companies. Every study done on the Vallas-era privatization showed it to be a total disaster.

From the Inquirer:

Outside managers - including some for-profit companies, such as Edison Schools Inc. - have run Philadelphia schools since 2002. Most research has shown that despite receiving additional funding to bolster student achievement, the private managers have done no better than the district has.

Improving existing schools has worked better:

The district did have some success with its 21 "restructured schools" - with their special interventions, they outperformed schools run by private managers - but that model was abandoned in 2005 for lack of funding.

Ackerman insists that her "Image 2014" plan (sounds an awful lot like "Renaissance 2010") will work and she points to Chicago as her model. The Daley/Duncan "miracle" rears its ugly head once more.

Creating a union at KIPP

Russo got this story right from one of the veteran teachers in the middle of the UFT's organizing drive at KIPP:

Everyone seemed hopeful and optimistic during summer meetings when they got back. The faculty revisited the KIPP core values, and did team-building exercises to bond founding faculty and new teachers like Nelson. "We all drank the cool-aid," says Nelson.

Once problems started coming up again in the new school year, however, the mood changed quickly despite the change in leadership. Teachers were "shut down" and told to talk offline whenever they raised issues at meetings, according to Nelson. But those follow-up conversations never happened. Other promises went unmet, including regular videotaped observations. "It was all talk," says Nelson. "Just talk."

The “quiet philanthropy” of Chaz Ebert

I heard Chaz Ebert read her film-critic- husband Roger's eulogy to the late Studs Terkel at his memorial, last month. But here's a story about her own special relationship with her alma mater, Crane High School, on the city's west side. What a difference in style from the dominating trend of philanthro-capitalism.

As part of the reunion activities, the alums are planning to take seniors to the Abraham Lincoln Library in Springfield, and they'll donate computers to parents of Crane students who complete computer training workshops provided at the school. "When I went back to the school, I was amazed by all of the programs the school offers," she said. "They have an autistic program. They have evening classes, and they are open on the weekends. It is just not the traditional school that I remember. (Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times)

Weekend Quotables

Chicago school reformer Don Moore on Mayor Daley's picks for new school board president, Michael Scott and schools CEO, Ron Huberman:

“It’s only on the margins (that it matters) who is in these positions, the CEO and the president of the board, because they basically do what they’re told by the mayor, for the mayor’s inner circle.” (Chi-Town Daily News)

Diane Ravitch, who has recently shown glimmers of sanity on local N.Y. issues, but who has spent most of her career in the Bushes and still hangs out at the far-right Fordham and Hoover Institute, has the chutzpah to attack Obama for being Bush-like:

"It looks like Obama's education policy will be a third term for President George W. Bush. This is not change I can believe in." (Politico)

What a joke! Obama has done more to save public education in one month than the entire Bush regime did in 12 years. Even worse, Ravitch uses Linda Darling-Hammond's return from the White House to Stanford to cover her attack, claiming to support Linda but oppose Obama. LDH, who has been a leader in the development of Obama's ed policy, offers nothing but high praise for it and for the Prez.

Charter demagogy in Rockford

Here's a follow-up on last week's post ("Pushing the Business Model in Rockford") about Rockford, Illinois, where a chain of Chicago-based charter schools is making its move on the district and its school board.

Chicago International, backed by a group of developers and church groups, along with consultant, New Orleans school boss, Paul Vallas, has caused a split in the school board with several member quitting over the issue. Chicago International operates a dozen schools in Chicago in violation of the legislative cap on district charters.

Now, former board V.P. Ted Biondo, is weighing in on the side of charter operators, claiming that charter schools are the only thing that can attract new business and jobs to struggling Rockford and painting Charter International as a potential savior. He blames the city's loss of an IBM service center to DuBuque, Iowa, on the city's lack of charter schools. To top it off, he uses misleading information about Chicago charters to spread the Chicago "miracle" myth.

We need look no further than neighboring Chicago to find charters with long-standing achievement success in similar urban conditions. In Chicago Public Schools (2006-2007), 36 out of 41 K-8 charter schools posted higher combined scores than neighboring traditional schools on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test in reading, math and science.

Compare this statement with the most recent studies which find Chicago charters doing no better than regular neighborhood schools.

It's not that Rockford, or any other community shouldn't consider the option of opening some charter schools. But rather that Chicago International's campaign and Vallas' role are both pretty sleazy and information from Biondo, is misleading.

Stay tuned.

Research-based BS

Paul Peterson is a conservative, Harvard-based professor and school voucher die-hard whose work is funded by the Olin Foundation. Funny thing is, his controversial and questionable research methods invariably lead to the exact same conclusion--vouchers are great and privatization is the panacea for all life's problems.

Now Peterson has come out with a new study of Philadelphia's long-discredited privatization initiative during Paul Vallas' tenure as schools chief. Rand had already done a comprehensive study showing that the district's 62 privately-managed charter schools failed to outperform the very local neighborhood schools they were intended to replace. This, even though the private managers were given an extra $92 million over 4 years.

Peterson takes another look at the 2002 reform experiment in an attempt to reverse the verdict on privatization--and he does, in a weird sort of way. He finds that charters run by for-profit companies scored a little better on standardized tests than those run by non-profits. What the significance of that is, Peterson never makes clear. In reality, there is a symbiotic relationship between charters run by profits and non-profits. Often, the non-profit is given the charter and then sub-contracts the school's operations to a for-profit company. Peterson never tells us what it is about the for-profit-managed schools that accounted for their bump in test scores.

But his most significant finding is just mentioned in passing in this NY Post article:

We did not detect a significant difference between progress under for-profit managers and what would have happened under district management.

That's right. He said it. No detectable difference between the for-profits and district-managed schools. Peterson, while trying to make the focus, profit vs. non-profit managed charters, can't help but confirm what the Rand study already demonstrated. Privatization was a big, expensive bust in Philly.

Heading back to Stanford

Linda Darling-Hammond, who led Obama's transition team in setting its education agenda, is leaving D.C. and heading back to the campus. Read her email to friends and colleagues on Russo's blog, for the reasons why.

Best of luck to LDH who drew lots of fire from the Limbaugh Party and even some pro-voucher, anti-union Democrats, when her name came up as a potential Obama pick for secretary of education.

Are the wheels coming off Chicago's Ren10?

Soto bill gains support in the House

A citywide movement to save 22 neighborhood schools slated for the next round of closings under Mayor Daley's Renaissance 2010 plan, is gaining momentum. A bill sponsored by State Rep. Cynthia Soto, aimed at putting the breaks on Ren10 school closings, has won the support of the state's House Education Committee.

Soto's bill has drawn broad support from community groups and follows on the heels of new research challenging most of the assumptions propelling Renaissance 2010. One of the UIC studies shows that Ren10 charter schools aren't scoring any higher as a group, than traditional neighborhood schools, despite their lack of recruitment among special-education students and their lower percentage of low-income and minority students.

A press release issued by Designs for Change, highlights Peabody Elementary School, which, they say, "is one of the 11 out of 22 schools recommended for closing that out-perform students in the school system's highly-touted 'turnaround' schools."

Angela Caputo, writes in Progress Illinois:

There’s no question that CPS needs an overhaul. And, as we’ve noted before, some of the most innovative school programs, like the Austin Polytechnical Academy, have been pulled together by private interests within the Renaissance 2010 structure. But the emerging pattern -- in which CPS displaces poor children only to upgrade their schools and hand them off off to private companies that cater to fewer of the neediest students -- obviously weighs down the system elsewhere. CPS’ lack of research to prove otherwise only reinforces the need for a moratorium on school closures.

Breaking News...

School Board President Rufus Williams, who has been the target of much of the anti-Renaissance 2010 school closing protests, will hand in his resignation tomorrow.

Also read Ramsin Canon at Gapers Block...

N.Y. school class size is at record levels

Bloomberg is blaming the principals.

Randy Weingarten, the president of the teachers’ union, who has long pushed for smaller classes, called the rise “disheartening and inexcusable.” “The state will not continue sending the city money for class-size reduction if the city continues to defy the terms and intent of the 14-year-old Campaign for Fiscal Equity court case,” she said in a statement. “It’s time for the city to quit making excuses and comply with the law.”

A good NCLB school? Depends on what state you're in

A study by the conservative Fordham Institute makes a mockery of NCLB's testing madness. The study looked at 36 schools and found out that the same schools that failed to make AYP in one state, all made it in other states. What a joke. Solution--national standards, depending on which states' you used, most likely would have made all 36 success stories or total failures. What a way to look at schools. Totally revamping NCLB and using a range of assessments, rather than standardized test scores makes the most sense.

Spinning charters

Travel day today. So I missed the Sun-Times story about the latest study showing, once again, that Chicago's charter high schools as a group, fail to out-perform the very neighborhood high schools they are supposed to replace under the Mayor's Renaissance 2010 initiative. But my brother Fred picked it up and says what needs to be said.

I'll just add one point. Two weeks ago I was part of a discussion at Loyola's Law School, that included the head of the local charter school association. She used the forum to make wild, unsubstantiated claims about the superiority of charter schools as a class. Obviously, the research doesn't back up her claims.

She got very angry and upset when I argued that charter schools, like other public schools, should not be assessed as a single group, or compared with or pitted against neighborhood schools as a group. Whatever good charter schools have going for them (and there are several good ones in Chicago) they don't necessarily share it with other charters or with other public schools. Also, as Gutstein's study shows, they don't recruit the same proportion of poor kids as do the neighborhood schools.

Charter schools are here to stay and have a role to play, albeit a limited one, as acritical force within the public school system and a place for experimentation and innovation.

What they don't need are any more cheerleaders and invested spinners, exaggerating results and pitting them against other public schools.

Her idea of reform—larger classes, longer hours

The way they do it in Singapore

Susan Sclafani used to be an assistant superintendent in Houston, working for Rod Paige. The two of them helped engineer the so-called “Texas Miracle” that pushed George Bush into the White House. They used bogus data to claim that they had eliminated dropouts and raised test scores. Sclafani and Paige ran the DOE during W’s first term in office. Then they started a consulting group, Chartwell Education Group, trading on their White House connections to steer international contracts to like-minded educational service providers for handsome fees.

In the Feb. 11^th issue of Edweek, Sclafani lays out her big ideas for “school reform” including, “larger class sizes, and longer hours.” She says, they do it that way in Singapore.

Wait, I thought Huberman saved the CTA?

Now come new "doomsday" reports that Chicago may not have a public transit system by the year 2010. The Tribune's Jon Hilkevitch writes:

The new numbers are so bleak that the "doomsday" service cuts and fare increases threatened more than a year ago appear mild in comparison to the sweeping measures that would be needed to fill gaping budget holes...

And, of course, these cuts and fare increases always hit hardest at the city's poorest neighborhoods, for people trying to get to their jobs and on kids trying to get across town to get to school now that so many neighborhood schools are closing.

All this leads Mike Doyle to ask, "how strategic does Mayor Daley’s recent sudden yanking of Huberman away from the beleaguered agency to head Chicago Public Schools seem now? Not to mention a municipal bid to host the 2016 Olympic Summer Games that includes not a single additional dime for CTA service improvements?"

Remember, it was Daley who, upon appointing Huberman, claimed that a "good manager can manage anything."

******

Meanwhile, Teachers for Social Justice and GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) are trying to rally support for Cynthia Soto's House Bill 363, which would, at least temporarily put a halt to Renaissance 2010 school closings. GEM is holding a press conference this morning at 10 a.m. over at CPS headquarters, 125 Clark St., if you can make it.

What price academic freedom?

Closed parking lots at Georgia Southern

Bill Ayers was barred from speaking at Georgia Southern. The lame excuse the university gave was, “security costs.”

A spokesman for the university said that security would have cost $13,000 for the Ayers appearance and that several major parking lots would have been closed.

The Times’ Deborah Solomon (“Radical Cheer”) seems to have worked her way around the security problem with this Ayers interview. Does the Times building have free parking?

GW vs. MB

David Bloomfield posting on Presidents Day at NYC Public School Parents, compares the leadership styles of George Washington and Mayor Bloomberg.

The Mayor’s top-down approach is also well known, even to the point that his appointees to the city school board are removed if they oppose him and forbidden to speak publicly about their work.

Humerus

Last week Bill Gates released a jar full of mosquitoes into the audience during a presentation about malaria. People in the audience haven’t slapped themselves this much since Gates released Windows Vista. (Weakly Humerus News)

Vallas watch

Pushing the "business model" in Rockford

Paul Vallas, who is still running the schools in New Orleans, has also been feathering his nest up in Illinois through his consulting firm, Synesi and Associates.

His first stop was in Peoria. And now it’s on to Rockford where Vallas has fractured the school board by pushing for a Broad Academy-trained business type over local school leaders, to replace former superintendent Dennis Thompson. Thompson left the district for Naples, Florida in 2007..

Rockford board members are divided over a plan to bring in a chain of charter school operators from Chicago. Vallas, who's planning to return to Chicago and run for county board president as a Republican, has been in the forefront of bringing privatizatized charters to Philadelphia and New Orleans.

Ownership Society quotables

Competition?

Upon hearing that N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg will bail out his failed Brooklyn Catholic schools by allowing them to become publicly financed charters:

Bishop DiMarzio said he was eager to support the proposal, saying he believed competition was the best way to improve schools. (NYT)

Students and teachers could still be selected by the church and church-hired teachers given short-cut certification.

The “rebuilding” of Iraq-- bribes in pizza boxes

Business associates of Dale Stoffel, an American arms dealer and contractor who was killed in Iraq in late 2004:

“Fifty thousand dollars delivered in pizza boxes to secure contracts,” said the former associate, a consultant in the arms business with whom Mr. Stoffel sometimes worked in the former Eastern bloc. “Of course, it just looked like a pizza delivery.” (NYT)

Frank Rich on the Limbaugh Party’s self-denial

This G.O.P., a largely white Southern male party with talking points instead of ideas and talking heads instead of leaders, is not unlike those “zombie banks” that we’re being asked to bail out. It is in too much denial to acknowledge its own insolvency and toxic assets. Given the mess the country is in, it would be helpful to have an adult opposition that could pull its weight, but that’s not the hand America has been dealt. (NYT)

Head of the GOP says, “don’t trust us…”

RNC Chairman Michael Steele on FOX tells voters, “"You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point." (Huffington)