What's happened to Chicago schools since Arne Duncan got Judge Kocoras to lift the deseg consent decree

Students wait for the bus in front of Bouchet Elementary Math & Science Academy in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. More than 74% of students whose neighborhood school is majority black schools are bussed to majority-black schools. (Manuel Martinez/WBEZ)

I'm reading Sarah Karp's WBEZ story about Chicago's experiment with school desegregation and recalling how Arne Duncan helped get a federal judge to quash the city's deseg consent decree.

Karp writes:

Most of the city’s 78 magnet and test-in schools — including classical, gifted and selective enrollment — were created under the decree as a way to lure in a diverse group of students. But even after the court order was lifted, school district officials said they believed integration was important, and they started integrating by the socioeconomic status of children.

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras lifted the consent decree ending three decades of efforts to integrate Chicago schools. The decree’s bilingual education provisions, according to Kocoras, duplicated protections in state law. The ruling came despite evidence presented by DOJ lawyers in court that the district repeatedly failed to enroll English learners in bilingual education fast enough or provide them with required services.

Since then, writes Karp, CPS has continued busing and spending extra funding on magnet and test-in schools and also added 13 new ones plus more charter schools that have been shown to contribute to segregation. This year, the school district plans to spend $50 million for bussing and extra positions at these schools, which serve 62,000 students.

But, says Karp, the WBEZ analysis finds only about 20% of magnet and test-in schools meet the racial makeup goal set out in the court order, compared to 35% a decade ago. Under that definition, the goal was for white students to make up between 15% and 35% of the student body and black, Latino and Asian students to make up between 65% and 85%.

Six schools of the 65 in existence 10 years ago went from being considered integrated to not, while only one of the new schools has that mix of students. Among the schools no longer meeting this definition of integrated are Skinner North Elementary School, which opened in the last decade, and Walter Payton College Prep High School — two schools often named as the best in the city and the state. They have both seen significant increases in white students. 

Magnet schools and busing programs that were created and funded for the purpose of encouraging racial desegregation have since been turned into their opposites. Now magnets have increasingly become privileged selective-enrollment schools, anchors for neighborhood gentrification with expensive busing programs taking children miles away from their neighborhood schools and into segregated ones.

Niketa Brar on Hitting Left

Niketa Brar, executive director of Chicago United for Equity, and a frequent guest on Hitting Left, says magnet and selective schools have been used as a way to allow families to avoid the problems of the public school system. This is especially true in gentrifying neighborhoods, she said, where parents put their children on buses to be driven away from their local schools.

Brar tells Karp:

“They become little havens of white people feeling like they are participating in the public school system while actually keeping their children segregated from the impacts of a local neighborhood school that have the same resources that every other child in their neighborhoods gets.”

It's worth recalling that it was Pres. Obama's Secretary of Education and former CPS school chief, Arne Duncan, along with Mayor Daley and Duncan's successor Ron Huberman, who pleaded with Judge Kocoras to scrap the decree a decade ago. They claimed that the city had done all it could do to desegregate its schools and that the deseg struggle was "futile and a drain on district funds".

This,  even though research has shown that the period in which school deseg was in full play was when the district had made the greatest gains in measurable student learning and closing the so-called achievement gap.

Duncan maintained that if the consent decree was lifted, CPS could save $300 million, mostly in eliminating bus service to magnet and selective enrollment schools. It was all a lie. Busing service and selective enrollment programs and charter schools have been expanded. Only their purposes have changed.

Under Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's selective-enrollment schools became even more exclusive.

During the period of 1981 to 2015, the total population of African-American students in CPS plummeted from close to 240,000, 60% of all CPS students, to 156,000 or 39% of CPS. The loss of so many poor and black children and an increase in wealthier white students have since been ignored as an explanation for claimed rising test scores and graduation rates.

I'd argue that they, along with school resegregation, have lots to do with it.

We'll see if and how things change over the next four years with a new mayor and city council. 

Next CEO an educator, business manager or Vallas? Makes little difference under mayoral control.

“I think Barbara Byrd Bennett's legacy is going to be she'll be remembered by educators and community members as the person who sold the mayor's schools closings,” --  CTU VP Jesse Sharkey.

Carol Felsenthal at Chicago Mag interviews Paul Vallas and comes away thinking he may be the man for the job. I come away thinking, what has Carol been smoking?

Actually, my blog was intrigued by the idea. It kept whispering to me, "Oh please, yes, yes. Bring him on. Especially now, right in the middle of the Byrd-Bennett/SUPES grand jury hearings."

I mean, the guy has been running one step ahead of the feds and grand jury hearings since he left Bridgeport, where he gave FUSE a fat no-bid consulting contract a la SUPES/Synesi.

I know I have at least 70 more Vallas exposés stored away in virtual SmallTalk file cabinets. A Vallas appointment, while a total disaster for public ed, as it was in Philly, N.O. and Bridgeport, would be a windfall for SmallTalk.

But then my brain answers my blog: "No way in hell will Rahm go there". Mr. Brain is right. My sources tell me that Rahm will go with another loyal bureaucrat/manager, turnaround type like CTA boss Forrest Claypool. Think Ron Huberman. What could possibly go wrong?

We got a hint of another Huberman type from last week's Tribune editorial. Remember the Mussolini reference? Make the trains run on time? Get it? However, even Mussolini would be just another bureaucrat serving totally at the pleasure of the mayor.

Meanwhile, the media debate is all about whether Rahm should appoint another career educator like BBB or J.C Brizard, or another non-educator business guy? I don't think it makes a damn bit of difference so long as either one, along with the hand-picked school board, are mere puppy dogs. It's mayoral control of the schools that's the real issue here. The fact that Rahm is shopping for Chicago's 6th CEO in 6 years following Huberman, Mazany, Brizard, Byrd-Bennett, and Ruiz, makes my point. Instability is the name of the game and when things go south, like a major scandal or a teachers strike, they are all easily replaceable.

We need an elected school board and an end to autocratic rule over the schools.

Does Rahm deserve the credit for bump in grad rates? Uh uh.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett claim credit for a reported 4% bump in CPS grad rates. 

Rahm Emanuel has rankled the Pilsen and Little Village communities with a new campaign ad — one in which, anti-coal activists say. he attempts to grab full credit for closing two area coal plants, when in fact it had taken years of work. Community response has been quick and angry.

But I'm wondering why there isn't the same angry response from parents and educators as Rahm and CEO Byrd-Bennett try and take credit for the reported steady rise in CPS graduation rates which began more than 5 years ago when Daley was the mayor and the likes of Ron Huberman and J.C. Brizard were running the schools for him and all claiming credit for improved graduation rates? This is also part of a national trend that began about the same time as in Chicago.

Perhaps Rahm and BBB will claim credit for the upward national trend as well.

It's my hunch that few even know how graduation rates are determined or how much credibility goes with the latest calculations, let alone what's driving them.

University of Chicago researchers report that grad rates have increased by 15% since 2008. But given a 2011 change (see below) in the way graduation rates are measured, it's hard to know how they got that figure. They attribute the increases in large part to the power of their own research, which shows a strong correlation between freshmen being on-track and graduating on time.

A TIME Magazine report points to studies released in 2005 and 2007 by researchers at UC's Urban Education Institute’s Consortium on Chicago School Research which "made a simple but powerful finding: Graduation is mostly determined in the ninth grade year."

Institute leader Tim Knowles touted this research back in April:

Freshmen who are on track to graduate in the ninth grade (earning no more than one semester F in a core course and accumulating sufficient credits) are four times more likely to graduate than students who are off track. Researchers found that being on track in the ninth grade is a better predictor of high school graduation than a student's race, family income, the neighborhood they come from and prior test scores, combined.

 Suddenly, addressing the dropout problem was not about the host of factors over which educators have no control — neighborhoods, poverty, violence or prior academic achievement. There was a single, manageable intervention point: ninth grade course performance.

There! claims Knowles. Finally, a magic bullet. Just examine the Institute's data. Forget about all those silly distractions like race, poverty, gun violence, family circumstances and the decimation of neighborhoods (including the mass closing of neighborhood schools), over which we supposedly "have no control". Then implement a few early interventions in the freshman year -- not a bad idea but certainly not a new one -- and voila!

When I say it's not a new one, I'm thinking back to the small-schools movement of the early '90s in Chicago, where early interventions like freshman academies were short-lived. As for 9th-grade on-track rates, you can go back earlier than that. There are tons of early intervention studies showing, for example, that 3rd-grade reading proficiency drives future academic success and that retaining (failing) elementary grade students increases the probability of them dropping out by 5X.

This is not to say that there's no value in the U of C study. Consortium researchers like Melissa Roderick have been pointing to the need for early intervention to reduce high school dropouts for years, and without overstating the power of good data, she and they deserve lots of credit for their focus on urban schools and students.

But research aside, whenever there is reported progress in public education, you can bet your last buck that teachers will be the last ones to receive the credit. First in line are glory-grubbing politicians like Rahm Emanuel who are quick to claim all the credit for last year's bump in grad rates. This, even though his current approach drains these very schools of badly-needed resources and shifts them instead to crony-run charter networks like UNO as well as to pet selective-enrollment schools.

An all-too-compliant media is quick to play along, either rendering unto Caesar... or trying to be "balanced" (OMG, even my pal, the usually critical-thinking Ben Joravsky).

But whether you buy all of the U of C research or not, there is little evidence that the current mayor's top-down, imposed education policies; i.e., more seat time, mass school closures, replacing neighborhood public schools with privately-run charters, whitenizing the teaching corps, cutting community-based health clinics, etc... have anything to do with improved graduation rates.

Other factors to consider

• Has anyone considered the possibility that CPS' shrinking student population along with the mass exodus of nearly a quarter of a million African-Americans, including thousands of school-aged children, has impacted graduation rates?

• In 2011 new federal guidelines set up a single, uniform standard that all states must follow when calculating these rates. Now, the rate will be based on a strict measurement of what is called a “four-year adjusted cohort.” The formula divides the number of students who earn a diploma in four years or less by the number of students who formed the original cohort—that is, the number of students who entered 9th grade together—of the graduating class. So the question is -- how much of the small 4% increase should be attributed to the way dropouts and grads are counted? I'm thinking back a few years to 2006, when this same Consortium found that  only 6.5% of CPS freshmen went on to earn four-year college degrees by their mid-20s, and among African-American and Latino males, only 3%. I'd be curious to see how that number has changed.

• I still haven't seen how newly-reported graduation rates break out by school, neighborhood, race and poverty. As I reported before, I am concerned that the rate increase may be more reflective of the changing demographics in the city than any single school intervention. 

What happened to Runcie's anti-truancy plan?

Byrd-Bennett gets a whisper of advice on CPS truancy from  state Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie at a Nov.meeting. (Tribune )

The CPS focus on the so-called "under-utilization" of schools is all wrong and their plan to close hundreds of schools is misdirected. That's the only reasonable conclusion one can come to, especially after reading the latest report on the district's failure to implement its own anti-truancy program. 

It turns out that the problem of dwindling attendance, particularly in low-income communities on the south and west side, has been ignored by the past three administrations at CPS, even though millions of dollars had been allocated for a comprehensive anti-truancy plan.

The Tribune reports that the plan, developed in 2010 by  Ron Huberman's Chief Administrative Officer Robert Runcie, who left Chicago the next year to become superintendent of the Broward County, Fla., was shelved soon after it was written. Millions of dollars in anti-truancy funds that were apparently given to non-performing, outside consultants remain unaccounted for. 

The Trib quotes former CPS Office of Student Support and Engagement leader Paige Ponder, whose division helped oversee the effort before she left the district in frustration. Truancy and absenteeism are "such an enormous, complex issue. But the money, the will, the leadership just wasn't there to tackle it in a sustained way."

It's not clear who's leaking these internal documents to the Tribune. This is the second major leak in a month, following the report of the secret list of supposedly underutilized schools marked for closing. The latest leak may have come from Runcie himself, a Harvard grad who was trained at the infamous Broad Superintendents Academy, but passed over for the top spot at CPS in favor of J.C. Brizard. 

The long and short of it is that communities are not under-utilizing their schools. Rather, dwindling populations in some south and west side neighborhood schools are the product of a myriad of problems having to do with poverty, violence, and  failed policies (over-development of charter schools) and misuse of public funds at the top of the system with its lack of transparency and public accountability. 

The real Chicago "miracle" -- Arne Duncan still has a job

The only miracle emerging from the past decade of Chicago's corporate-style school reform is that former CEO and current Sec. of Education Arne Duncan hasn't resigned from either posts out of sheer embarrassment.

The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) once again put Chicago near the bottom compared to other large urban districts with similar demographics and concentrations of poverty (85% of CPS students live in poverty). Significantly, the biggest drops in reading scores came during Arne Duncan's time as CEO when the media was spinning the myth of a Chicago "turnaround miracle."

A new report on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress taken by 21 big-city districts was the second analysis in less than a month to indicate that, despite more than a decade of massive investments in corporate-style reform, and despite a heavy administrative emphasis on test-prep and big push on  reading skills,  Chicago’s elementary-grade reading performance has barely budged for years. The Sun-Times reports that the so-called "achievement gap"  between white students and black and Latino students— showed no real shrinkage since at least 2003 in fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading. In fourth-grade reading,

Most interesting -- Chicago’s NAEP reading doldrums occurred during a huge reading push ordered by former Mayor Daley and carried out by then-Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan, now the nation’s Education Secretary.

The Sun-Times reports however, that "real progress didn’t show up until 2011 — after Ron Huberman took over the Chicago Schools CEO helm in 2009 and shifted the district from Duncan’s emphasis on reading coaches to a new emphasis on data analysis."

I suppose the lesson here is that the real key to progress in school reform is manipulating and spinning data reports (Huberman's specialty) rather than the imposition of programmatic reform. Duncan's success came after he and his media team fabricated the myth of a Chicago turnaround "miracle" which later formed the basis for federal education policy, including Race To The Top.

Peter Cunningham, Duncan's media guy, tells the S-T: 

“The information we had [from state achievement tests] showed [CPS] was showing great success... We weren’t gaming the numbers."

My experience tells me that whenever the spinners claim that they aren't gaming the numbers -- they're gaming the numbers."  If Cunningham has some previously unrevealed evidence of great progress, perhaps he wouldn't mind sharing it with us. Until then, we'll go with the NAEP results.

Chicago math and science scores worst ever

Duncan rode the myth of the Chicago "miracle" all the way to D.C.

It's been 16 years since Mayor Richard M. Daley took control of Chicago's school system, bringing with him a school-reform agenda focused on school closings, mass teacher firings, privately-run charter schools, and increased reliance on standardized test scores as the main means of judging  schools and teachers. Now Mayor Emanuel has taken the reins with his own brand of corporate-style reform.

Each campaign, from Renaissance 2010, to Turnaround Schools, was supposed to produce big gains in measurable "student achievement."  The mayor's hand-picked, politically faithful school CEOs, from Paul Vallas, to Arne Duncan, to Ron Huberman, were all quick to make claims of miracle "turnarounds." Duncan even rode the myth of Chicago "miracle" all the way to Washington.

But facts are stubborn fellows, as they say, and now comes news that nearly half of all Illinois public school students failed the annual 11th grade Prairie State Achievement Exam, the worst statewide performance recorded in the test's history. This news comes on the heels of a report from the Consortium on Chicago Schools Research, showing, "No real progress in CPS grade school reading in 20 years."

The latest results not only show the bankruptcy of corporate-style school reform in Chicago, but the failure of No Child Left Behind as well. Chicago's  failure to meet NCLB standards makes the district part of the 80 percent nationwide who are anticipated to be left behind.

I can already predict the mayor's response. Instead of calling for an end to the testing madness, Rahm will likely claim that the dismal scores are the result of schools not implementing HIS longer-school-day reform. Maybe he can name it, Renaissance 90 Minutes.

Isn't it time to rethink the whole notion of mayoral control of the schools?

Are they really trying to resurrect Renaissance 2010?

HUBERMAN: We're continuing to learn from what's worked well in Renaissance 2012…2010!...and what we need to improve on…

ambi: tape rewind

Did he say Renaissance 2012??

HUBERMAN: No, that was just a slip, Linda.--WBEZ report from Jan. 12, 2010.

Chicago's local public radio station WBEZ jumped into the exciting world of school reform program evaluation this week and as one might expect, they made quite a muck of it.

While several previous studies and analysis of Mayor Daley's signature Renaissance 2010 campaign have either been inconclusive or shown it to be a flop, leaving the district with a widening so-called achievement gap and essentially no better off than it was before the expensive and divisive campaign started, this new "study" is dazzling only in its mystification.

It was  supposedly concocted with the help of Columbia Teachers College, appears to be little more than a pre-election gambit at resurrecting a discredited reform strategy of mass school closings in targeted neighborhoods and turning them over to private operating companies.

The study pitches itself, "a progress report, not a final grade." But that implies that Ren10 is still alive and kicking with the final verdict still in doubt. The BEZers like Linda Lutton must not have read or listened to their own report from a year ago, "Renaissance 2010: A Tainted Brand", announcing that the mayor and former schools chief Ron Huberman had already declared the program over, kaput, dead and buried. In fact after the plan's Civic Committee architects called the results of the mayor's reform "abysmal," Huberman  even banned use of the term Renaissance 2010 within the hallowed halls of 125 Clark Street. And for good reason.

WBEZ report's low-lights

This is what WBEZ did: grade by grade, subject by subject we compared test scores from the Renaissance 2010 schools to the neighborhood schools right around them.

Do any credible researchers still consider this a valid way to measure school reform progress? Please write in and let me know who you are.

WBEZ found a third of the city’s Renaissance 2010 schools do not beat out their neighborhood comparisons even half the time.

Huh? What?

Interim schools chief Terry Mazany: Clearly, as I’ve been saying, there is no silver bullet.

Who could argue with that? Although Ren10 was pitched as a silver bullet by the mayor, Arne Duncan and the Civic Committee. Duncan even rode the rigged results of this Chicago Miracle all the way to Washington.

Overall, WEBZ  found Renaissance elementary schools outperformed nearby schools 58 percent of the time on the grades and subjects students were tested in.

And what did they do the other 42 percent of the time or in subjects that weren't tested? For example, Huberman cut important foreign language programs, ostensibly to save money, because foreign languages aren't tested. Is this making any sense yet? It's more or less left to the University of Chicago's Tim Knowles, himself a charter school starter/operator to sum all this up.

KNOWLES : Are we willing to live with some margin of error? We should be, because we’re trying to create new paths forward for children and family.

Tim, of course there is always some "margin of error." That's not the problem here. It's comparing, closing, or privatizing schools and firing thousands of teachers based on a single, standardized test score. Ah, but you already know that. Right? Remember Tim,  it's those kids, parents and teachers that have to live with your margin of error, not you.

KNOWLES: The city should make Renaissance 2010 routine.

But why, Tim? The study is inconclusive. Previous studies called it a failure. Why make it "routine"/

KNOWLES: But along the way, we should be doing careful cost-benefit analysis. And asking ourselves is this worth the upheaval.

Ah yes, a cost-benefit analysis. Harvard grad school tuition wasn't wasted. But why along the way? Why not do it before we embark?

KNOWLES:  The critical question is whether more children are being better educated now. And whether the results justify the costs.

Yes indeed. Now you're talking. Please consider real studies, not just those done by radio stations, that answer those two questions along with questions of equity (the gap, remember?) before resurrecting Ren10 and "making it routine."

Previous looks at Renaissance 2010

The Chicago Tribune, January, 2010:

• "In Renaissance 2010 elementary schools, an average of 66.7 percent of students passed the 2009 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, identical to the district rate."
• "The Ren10 high school passing rate was slightly lower on state tests than the district as a whole -- 20.5 percent compared with 22.8 percent."
• "Only a quarter of Renaissance 2010 schools had test scores high enough to meet the federal goals set by No Child Left Behind."
• "Nothing created more disruption to the city's educational landscape."
• "Chicago students as a whole still post some of the lowest test scores on national math and reading exams."
• "Even in schools with single-digit pass rates, violence-filled hallways and embarrassing absentee patterns, parents picketed the streets and filled the school board chambers, begging that their schools be left alone."
• "The new schools mirror the district demographically, except they enroll fewer special education students and those who speak English as a second language."

SRI International and the Consortium on Chicago School Research  (August 18, 2009)

Furthermore, although researchers note that the initiatives are still in the early stages and that more time may be needed before drawing definitive conclusions, descriptive analyses show that the average standardized test performance of freshman students in most high schools in all three initiatives remained similar to historical levels relative to overall CPS performance.

SRI International (June, 2009)

Overall, we found no dramatic improvements. We did find a few hopeful signs, but results were generally mixed.

Guess where Huberman went? No surprise.

Wondering where former Chicago schools CEO Ron Huberman fled after CPS? An investment firm of course. Making $$$ with his City Hall, public schools connections? You bet.

Mr. Huberman said his task will be to find investment and buyout opportunities in three fields he knows well: education, transportation and security. (Crain's)

Emanuel blowing more smoke on Chicago school reform

Here's the latest Rahm bomb

He promises even more arbitrary school closings in black and Latino communities, turning them over to private management companies under the failed Race To The Top policies he helped engineer in Washington. 

The so-called "turnaround" process, handing neighborhood schools over to operators like Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), has only served to widen the city's achievement gap and expand the two-tier school system we have always known in the Windy City.

While Emanuel won't commit to sending his own children to any AUSL-run schools, or to any other public school period, he giddily promised, at a press conference on Tuesday, to "turnaround" and hand over to companies like AUSL 35 more  local public schools. Where did he get the number 35? Has he studied each school (he doesn't name them) to see what their specific needs are? Are they really "failing"? Does he know the impact the "turnaround" process will have on the surrounding community? Of course not.

Victims of the current "turnaround" process are mainly hundreds of teachers and students who fell victim to the ensuing instability and chaos. A study out of the University of Chicago's Consortium for Chicago School Research showed that for all but 6% of the displaced students, there were no significant learning gains. The other 94% ended up in some of the city's worst schools and made no measurable gains in learning.

Side story: The newspapers are still blaring headlines about the trial of the teens convicted in the beating death of Darrion Albert outside of Fenger High School. But there's little mention of the fact that Fenger was one of those schools where the entire teaching staff was swept out of their jobs under the Mayor's Renaissance 2010 "turnaround" and replaced by a new, inexperienced team that was taken by surprise by the violence which occurred outside their school,

In response to the damage done to local communities by arbitrary closings and "turnarounds,"  Rep. Cynthia Soto successfully pushed legislation to place a moritorium on former CEO Ron Huberman, keeping he from closing any more schools without first creating standards and providing a strong rationale for such extreme action.

Emanuel standing up at a press conference and promising to "turnaround" 35 schools, without explaining exactly which schools or why, should provide plenty of ammunition for his mayoral opponents.

All this shows once again that Rahm is an unqualified and unworthy schools boss and therefore, and unworthy mayor in city where the mayor has total power over the public schools.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dilemmas of school closings

Last winter, when Mr. Huberman made an initial announcement about closing Paderewski, Ms. Roberts was heartsick. All the years of hard work seemed to be for naught. “This is where the heavy lifting is done,” she said. (NYT)

 Cathie Black waiver panel tied to Bloomberg

“It appears that the deck has been stacked in favor of granting the waiver in a manner that will further undermine public confidence in the appointment of Ms. Black.” (Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries)

Bill Gates

“You can’t fund reforms without money. And there is no more money.” (NYT)

City's broke, but...

Mayor Daley is giving $15 million in TIF money to his cronies at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade.

CME is among Chicago's most profitable companies, with a dominant share of the market for futures trading in the United States. For the first nine months of the year, the company reported a profit of $755 million on revenue of $2.2 billion. (Sun-Times)

Millionaires to Obama: "Please tax us"

"For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as scheduled," their website states. "We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more." (The Ticket)

Whittier field house occupation will continue until Huberman agreement becomes official

According to a statement from a Camp Whittier leader, parents will continue to occupy the school's field house until the agreement reached with Ron Huberman becomes official. Caro Gaete of Blocks Together, is being careful to call the agreement, "potentially a great victory."

In a memo we received from Teachers for Social Justice, Jackie Leavy of the Illinois Facilities Task Force recalls this list of Huberman's promises to the parents:

1.  Demolition of La Casita, and construction of a soccer field, are BOTH OFF THE TABLE.  Huberman agreed to "codify" this.  This can be done in the form of a CEO report to the CPS Board meeting next week, saying in writing that the demolition order has been canceled.

2.  Huberman agreed - pending a legal review - to lease the field house to the Whittier Parents' Committee for $1.00 per year.  This would be an "exclusive" lease arrangement - meaning that CPS would NOT do an RFP - other groups wouldn't be offered a chance to "bid" or propose to take over and run the field house.

 3.  Huberman agreed to the immediate removal of the storage container from the playground.

4.  Huberman agreed that CPS will pay for a detailed inspection and assessment to pin down the exact work and cost of the work needed for La Casita to comply with fire and building codes.  This will happen within one month's time.

 5.  Huberman agreed that CPS will work WITH the parents to design a final plan for a Whittier School Library. He did say it won't be as large or fancy as the one at Orozco (since that was a new bldg), but there will be a follow up meeting next week to continue working on details for this and other aspects of the agreement.

 6.  Huberman agreed to report to the CPS Board meeting next week on Whittier.  It isn't crystal clear exactly what form this will take (I've made one suggestion in point # 1), but the other key agreements or reports to the CPS Board need to include:

 --- Ald Solis re-affirmed that Whittier will get what is left of the initial $2 million in TIF funds for which the community lobbied.  Solis is already talking to the City's Corporation Counsel to make sure that the TIF funds are "locked in" for Whittier.  You'll need more clarification from CPS and the Alderman, but Huberman said today that the $356,000 in TIF funds that has been repeatedly mentioned, is actually a larger sum (based on the whole TIF allocation being larger than you originally thought), it hasn't been spent yet, and the Alderman will work with the parents and Huberman to make sure these funds are "re-programmed" for the initial safety repairs for La Casita.  Huberman also said CPS initially said "$356,000" but that wasn't all just for DEMO, it was to pay for the soccer field as well.  SO. . . Now that CPS has agreed NOT to demolish, or build the soccer field, all that money in "on the table" again.

 --  Over the phone, State Rep. Ocevedo agreed to talk with the State and with Sen. Munoz to re-program the $200,000 in State school construction funds, originally to be spent on ADA improvements at Whittier, toward the La Casita and library work, as needed.

RE:  The TIF $$$$ - To make sure the money is there, there has to be an "IGA" - "Intergovernmental Agreement" - between the City and CPS.  However, Solis and the City may already have such an IGA in place, it might just need to be "amended" to "re-direct" the $$ to the Whittier Parents' priorities, instead of the demolition and soccer field.

 RE:  What CPS wants in exchange for agreeing to all this:

 Huberman focused on the combustibility (fire hazards) in the fieldhouse, and based on arguing for the safety of the children, asked the Whittier Parents Committee to agree to keep kids out of the building for now, and agree to limited use and access for adults. The folks at today's meeting agreed.  However, it sounded to me like the moms will stay in the building until next week's board meeting and the Parents Committee gets the Demo cancellation, cancellation of the soccer field, and "partnership" agreements in writing.

Huberman agrees to put library in Whittier School. No field house demolition.

Victory in Pilsen

CPS chief Ron Huberman, left, state Rep. Cynthia Soto, second from left, and representatives of the Whittier mothers group gather at the news conference announcing the agreement to save the field house. (Nancy Stone, Tribune photo / October 19, 2010)

Parents win all their demands

The occupation of the Whittier Elementary School field house has officially ended in victory with a written agreement by CPS to finally build a new library at the school. Schools chief Ron Huberman also agreed not to demolish the field house that's been home to parents and community activists for the past 36 days.

The sad thing is that it took such a long, difficult struggle and great sacrifice on the part of parents and their families in this largely Latino community, to win something that is taken for granted in wealthier communities. Huberman and Mayor Daley had been under pressure from the Civic Committee not to give in for fear the occupation would spark struggle at other schools. Some 160 CPS elementary schools have no library.
 
According to the Tribune:

Huberman dismissed claims that the sit-in had spurred the district to agree to the deal. He also said he wasn't worried that the protest would set a precedent for other groups seeking changes at the schools. "We are open to having this dialogue with community groups across the city and do it all the time," Huberman said. Parent Carolina Gaete, one of the protestors, saw it differently. "I don't believe today would have happened without a sit-in," she said.

More to come on this.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Goodbye to all that

I'm not including any notable quotables this week that make any reference to Superman. Fact is, I'm just sick of this daddy of all ed clichés. So if you're waiting for Superman or not waiting for Superman, or think that Michelle Rhee or Geoffrey Canada is Superman, or even Clark Kent, get the hell off my blog and start digging a little deeper for good metaphors. I mean for goodness sakes the guy wears his underwear on the outside of his leotard. Here are some possible explanations why.

58,000 teachers lost jobs despite Edujobs bill

"What the payroll numbers show is unambiguous: teachers were cut. A lot of them," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the progressive Economic Policy Institute. "States should have gotten more fiscal relief to keep this from happening. The job loss was 58,000 jobs in state and local education in September. (Arthur Delaney, HuffPost)

Schools fixated on test scores, not learning

Evidence had been mounting for some time that the state’s tests, which have formed the basis of almost every school reform effort of the past decade, had serious flaws.

“If they are not learning social studies but their reading scores are going up, they are not getting an education,” Ms. Ravitch said in 2005, as the mayor coasted to re-election.(Jennifer Medina, NYT)

A slap in the face

In a letter Thursday, Chicago schools C.E.O. Huberman agreed to the delay razing the field house at Whittier School to "give sufficient time to meet with representatives of the Whittier community and plan the future of the building.'' Parents have been occupying the field house for 25 days, demanding a library for their school.

"It's a slap in the face,'' Whittier parent Araceli Gonzalez said of Huberman's letter. "We want a letter, simple as that, to not demolish [the field house] and it will be a library.'' (Sun-Times)

Stupid human tricks

Chicago's two lame-ducks, Mayor Daley and schools CEO Huberman, are stalling for time. With mayoral and aldermanic elections coming up, the Pilsen parents' occupation of the Whittier field house is gaining support and lots of good media with each passing day. One columnist wrote that Whittier is likely to attract more campaigning pols than a CTA L platform. Daley and the powers that be are telling Huberman to end the crisis, make it go away, without conceding to the protesters' key demand. They want a library for their kids.

Huberman has tried calling in the cops. But that succeeded only in rallying hundreds of new troops for  Camp Whittier. Then he tried turning off the heat in the field house. But that so incensed the community that it brought down heat from State Rep. Cynthia Soto and her schools facilities task force as well as from City Council members who ordered the gas company to turn the heat back on.

The latest from Huberman's bag of stupid-human tricks came yesterday. He promised not to demolish the field house for six months if parents would only abandon the occupation, now in its 23rd day.

"At this point, we are willing to say we won't demolish the building for six months,'' said CPS spokeswoman Monique Bond. "These are small steps, but we need to work toward a workable solution.'' (Sun-Times)

A desperate Huberman, who plans to beat his boss out the door, is obviously trying to buy time and pass the problem on to his successor. But the parents would have none of it.

"It's a slap in the face,'' Whittier parent Araceli Gonzalez said of Huberman's letter. "We want a letter, simple as that, to not demolish [the field house] and it will be a library.''

One can only wonder--who's advising this guy (Huberman)? 

Restructure Chicago's school district leadership

Whittier school occupation shines a light on the problem

Pilsen neighborhood parents are heading into the 22nd day of their occupation of the field house at Whittier Elementary School. The occupation has the mayor and his hand-picked CEO Ron Huberman in a bind. The parents are clearly on just ground in their demand for a library. Whittier is one of 160 CPS elementary schools without a library. Can you imagine public schools in the wealthy, white suburbs without a library?

The demand has resonated in the community and support is building around the occupation. Huberman has tried calling in the police to clear out the protesters. But community members broke through police barricades and rallied behind the parents forcing the police to back off. Then Huberman had the heat and hot water turned off in the field house just as night time temperatures were dropping into the 40s. More anger in the community.

Hello, Huberman! This is an election year.

State Rep. Cynthia Soto and her facilities task force have now come out on the side of the parents and have asked Huberman to turn the gas back on. But Huberman and the mayor are also under pressure from their business backers at the Civic Committee who are demanding that they hold firm and don't show weakness in the pace of the protest.

All this harkens back to the 19-day hunger strike by parents in the predominantly Mexican community of Little Village in 2001, which ultimately led to the creation of the four small schools within a new Little Village High School. A few years later, I was in a meeting with  Daley's appointed schools financial chief, David Vitale who called the hunger strikers' victory, "one of the greatest disasters in CPS history." Vitale, representing the mayor and the business sector, saw the hunger strike tactic as "blackmail" rather than community and parent engagement. That strike also led up to a mayor's race, as I recall, and was certainly a factor in the resignation (firing?) of CEO Paul Vallas and his replacement with Arne Duncan. Who needs that kind of press in an election year? No wonder Huberman can't wait to get out and get back to the "private sector."

As Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell put it: "If the Whittier issue isn't settled soon, the field house will become as popular as a CTA L station as a campaign stop." 

******

With Daley and Huberman now heading for the exit doors, lickity split, now is the perfect time to rethink the CPS district leadership structure. That's the argument CTU prez Karen Lewis is making and it's a good one.
Lewis says the district needs a superintendent with a background in education instead of a CEO.

LEWIS: I think it's much more important to make educational policy based on research and science as opposed to what's faddish right now. (City Room--Listen)

"Turn the heat back on before you leave"

Rep. Cynthia Soto tells lame duck Huberman

Pilsen parents who are fighting the demolition of the Whittier Elementary fieldhouse won the backing of a powerful ally Tuesday. A legislative task force recommended that the Chicago Public Schools restore heat to the fieldhouse and halt demolition plans until the group releases recommendations on how CPS should decide which facilities to repair or build. (Sun-Times)

"I support the parents," proclaimed Cynthia Soto, chair of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force.

Huberman: 'I'm outa here..."

Who will turn off the lights?

Yesterday-- a judge declared Huberman's mass firings of teachers illegal and headlines had him turning off the heat on Pilsen parents asking for a school library. Today--the Chicago schools CEO is running full speed towards the exit door. He's even elbowing his boss Mayor Daley out of the way so he can be first out of Dodge.

All this threatens to occur over a critical set of months when CPS traditionally devises its budget, prepares for state tests and decides which schools to close. It must tackle these tasks with an administrative staff decimated by budget cuts, teachers left disgruntled by cost-saving layoffs, and the specter of even worse budget woes next school year. (Sun-Times)

That leaves CPS without a CEO or a chief education officer, since Huberman never replaced the system's top educator, Barbara Eason-Watkins. She departed for Michigan City in June leaving Clark Street practically devoid of educators.

What's the rush? Elections coming up. Maybe he's wants to hook his cart to another horse. One question is, which manager from what city department can they bring over to take the job as a lame duck until February's mayoral elections? And how many other Huberman/Daley-appointed bureaucrats, transplanted from the CTA and the city payrolls, are headed out the door before the elections?

I guess they should have thought of these problems before they made CPS a wing of City Hall.

Huberman tries to freeze out Pilsen parents

"We're not going anywhere..."

Chicago school boss Ron Huberman has ordered the heat turned off inside Whittier School field house in an attempt to freeze neighborhood parents out of a building they've been occupying for nearly a month, round the clock to prevent demolition. The gas shutoff left the field house without heat or hot water, just as night temperatures were due to fall to the 40s.

CPS wants to raze the structure, which it calls unsafe, and put in a soccer field to be used by a nearby private school, Cristo Rey. Parents want it converted to a library and parent center. Whittier is one of 160 Chicago elementary schools without a library.

Whittier parent Manuel Beltran said parents will stick it out by using electric heaters.

"They want us to run away but we are not going to ,'' Beltran said. "We are not going anywhere.'' (Sun-Times)

Electric heaters, books, and hot coffee can be brought to the field house at 1900 W. 23rd St.

Big victory in Chicago court case

Federal judge orders CPS to rescind teacher firings

The Chicago Teachers Union won a major victory in its battle stop the mass firing of tenured teachers. In June, the Chicago School Board passed a resolution giving schools chief Ron Huberman the power to layoff teachers without regard to the district's collective bargaining agreement with the union.

In the ruling, United States District Judge David H. Coar called on the Chicago Public Schools administration to “rescind the discharges of tenured teachers.” The district then has 30 days to negotiate with the union a set of recall rules. In court, the union held that most of the tenured teachers who were laid off were rated “excellent,” “superior,” or “satisfactory.”

“Chicago Public Schools should stop slurring our teachers, suggesting that those fired somehow were less than exemplary teachers.   The court appears to agree – tenure is necessary to academic freedom,” said CTU president Karen Lewis in a statement. (Chicago Catalyst)

Check out Fred Klonsky's blog for more on the court's decision.  

Sunny Neater-Dubow tells my class about the court's ruling against Chicago teacher firings. (M.Klonsky photo)

The announcement held special significance for Sunny Neater-Dubow, a tenured, National Board Certified art teacher who spoke in my class at UIC Monday evening shortly after the court decision. She was fired last month, along with nearly the entire faculty at Little Village High Schools Multicultural Arts Academy (MAS), without any due process. Since CEO Huberman couldn't legally fire Sunny outright, he got the school's new principal to "redefine" her position. For more on Sunny's story, read Ben Joravsky's great piece in the Chicago Reader, "Define "Redefinition."