Chicago neighborhood schools, not charters, the driving force behind rising grad rates

Well, it's that time of year when the media spotlight in all the privately-run charters schools that supposedly enroll 100% of their students in a college program. Of course they fail to mention they mean 100% of the 25% or fewer that make it from freshman year to the graduation ceremony.

I wonder how many of those 100%-ers actually show up for college classes, can afford skyrocketing tuition, or graduate some time down the road. Urban Prep, for example, continually boasts about it's college-acceptance rate for the few that graduate, but rarely about reading and math scores which are among the lowest in the city. This year only 24% of students at this school are considered proficient in math and/or reading.

Check out the number of Urban Prep Charter Academy (Englewood) 9th-graders in 2014, compared with the number that make it to senior year.

Or the high-flying Noble St. charters which lost about half their students by senior year.

Here's the latest from U of Chicago's research consortium on the city's graduation rates:

Chicago’s open enrollment high schools were the driving force behind a steady rise in graduation rates citywide over the past 15 years. In fact, new findings by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research say graduation rates at schools that have to accept anyone have just about caught up to publicly funded, privately managed charter schools.

 “Notably, we find significant growth in graduation rates at neighborhood high schools. It does not seem this progress has come at the expense of student achievement; in fact, graduates are more qualified than in the past,” said Elaine Allensworth, the lead author of the study on high school graduation rates. (Sun-Times)

This, despite all the advantages -- smaller size, outside funding, few special needs and ELL students -- given to the city's charter school operators and massive cuts in neighborhood school budgets.

While the report acknowledged that charter and selective-enrollment schools attracted some top students, researchers noted that even as charter schools gained students “the gap in graduation rates between charter and neighborhood schools has diminished.”

Makes you wonder about the continued expansion of privately-run charters and selective-enrollment schools which skim the top-scoring students.

Urban Prep's anti-union version of teacher professional development

“Urban Prep has always respected teachers’ right to organize." --  Chief operations officer Evan Lewis 

Urban Prep Charter Academy, one of the most highly touted, yet worst performing charters in Chicago, had its own special version of staff development. No, it wasn't about improving reading or math instruction. Instead, the school used staff time and PD funds to train teachers on the evils of unionization.

Thanks to Chicago ACTS Pres. Brian Harris for getting me Urban Prep's power point slides, used to propagandize the staff. It looks like they were put together by Andrew Broy's union-busting team at INCS.

Slide 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8RpkGJdu8iyUlhtNV9zMHRxN2M/view
Slide 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8RpkGJdu8iyTGVNQjRlNTJhTjg/view?usp=sharing

Needless to say, their tactics failed. UP teachers voted to unionize. So Tim King and his board fired 17 teachers -- most of them African-American -- suspected of being involved in union activity. But after the NLRB ruled that the teachers were fired illegally, UP was forced to hire them back and pay out some $261,000 in back pay plus interest.

Today's knee-slappers

Funniest Quotables:

Fariley

"I plan to operate independently. That’s how I operated as a federal prosecutor. I would go off and do the investigations and report on them and take my actions. Nor do I feel any pressure from the mayor to conduct my work in any way.”-- IPRA chief, Sharon Fairley  

“Urban Prep has always respected teachers’ right to organize, and as such, would never dismiss any teacher because of his or her organizing activity.” -- Chief operations officer Evan Lewis 

Patton 

“He's [Dan Webb] not going to sully his reputation by not doing a good and thorough job, and I don't want him to." -- Rahm's top City Hall lawyer, Steve Patton 

 The bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind was an important start, and together, we’ve increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering. -- Pres. Obama's SOTU speech 

Dying laughing. Oregon "militia" said people keep sending "bags of dicks" to their camp. Dildos from Amazon. 😂😂😂 https://t.co/cZAVJjmYQM

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) January 13, 2016

IPRA chief vows to cut umbilical cord to City Hall to help restore public trust broken by Laquan McDonald case https://t.co/1bNWHSOlTe

— Fran Spielman (@fspielman) January 12, 2016

Saying 'No' to Nobel charter expansion

A few of the many Catalyst alums (including me) with Linda Lenz

Congratulations again to Catalyst on its 25th anniversary and to friend and departing Catalyst founder and publisher Linda Lenz,

Tuesday night's party for Linda at the House of Blues was great fun. It brought together the whole gang from the first wave of Chicago school reform. Back in the day -- pre-Gates, pre-mayoral control of the schools -- there was room at the reform table for a broad range of activists from corporate reformers to black community activists to the CTU. Never again shall that twain meet, except of course, at Linda's farewell party. Cautious hugs and hand shakes. Very funny to this participant/observer.

Here's Linda's retrospective on Chicago school reform.

Teacher/Principal Retention Rates are a strong indicator of school quality. This finding is based on data just released by the State Board [Warning: You should take all data coming from ISBE with a grain of salt]. The best schools generally have highest retention rates and the lowest rates of teacher attrition. Those schools serving the district's poorest kids have the lowest retention rates. Charters are generally the worst when it comes to keeping their faculties intact.

The Sun-Times reports:

As for the city's growing charter sector, ISBE couldn't say how many staffers have cycled through each school, because in many cases, the numbers were not broken out by campus.

Urban Prep's [charter school] chief academic officer Lionel Allen couldn't believe his three campuses showed, for a second year, zero teachers remaining, saying, "We continue to be frustrated by the incorrect data that are reported for our schools and the lack of transparency around how these metrics are calculated."

Me too, Mr. Allen. Me too.

Lindblom students protest charter expansion.

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to Lindblom H.S. students who, along with some teachers, marched in protest over the Board's awarding Noble Network a competing charter school in the Brighton Park neighborhood. They marched to the Bank of America and then to Ald. Raymond Lopez's office to let them know their dissatisfaction.

They may not have known that Ald. Lopez has been openly opposed to the Noble charter in his area. Maybe he should invite the students over for lunch and let them know that he stands with them on this issue.

"Bank of America robbed our schools..." Lindblom students & staff chanting, referring to #CPS toxic swaps. @CatalystChicago

— Stephanie Choporis (@Steph_Choporis) October 29, 2015

Taking the fight right to Urban Prep's board. 'Bring the fired teachers back!'

It's been tough sledding for union organizers trying to help Chicago charter school teachers win collective bargaining rights. Even though charter schools were originally created by union teachers, state laws were soon passed barring charter teachers from joining their public school colleagues in the same union or local bargaining unit. This forced the union to start organizing efforts as the Alliance of Chicago Teachers and Staff (Chicago ACTS). Over the last five years, ACTS has led several successful organizing drives.

Privately-run, publicly-funded charters and their corporate-dominated boards and lobbyists have spent millions of their education dollars relentlessly fighting unionization. One of their most common legal arguments is that since their teachers are paid by private operating companies, charter teachers are not really public employees and therefore cannot unionize simply by a majority sign-up or card-check. Nationally, there are more than 4,000 charters, each with their own private board or network organization. This creates a daunting task for the unions, having to win agreements with each board school-by-school.

Charter operators have also used tactics of threats, harassment, intimidation and firings of even their best teachers to undermine organizing efforts. I'll go out on a limb here and say that privately-run charters have now become the center of union-busting efforts.

The irony hits you when you see dozens of charters named after people like the great union leaders, Cesar Chavez or Dr. King, who gave his very life while defending the union rights of public employees in Memphis.

Here in Chicago, eyes are on the successful organizing drive at highly-touted Urban Prep Academies where a majority of teachers recently voted to unionize and be represented by ACTS. But so far, Urban Prep's board has refused to recognize the union or negotiate a contract. Worse, they just illegally fired 16 teachers and staff, including several who have be actively supporting the union drive.

Yesterday I joined a rally outside the UP board meeting with more than 100 teachers, parents and students chanting, "Bring them back!" and "Union busting is disgusting!" Then we marched into the meeting where we made our voices heard in support of those who were fired. Board members, including Urban Prep founder Tim King sat stony faced and unresponsive while speaker after speaker came up to the microphone and voiced support for the fired teachers.

I think part of the reason King and the board are so union resistant is that contract negotiations require a higher degree of transparency and the school has been anything but transparent in response to questions about its overblown success claims or finances.

Samuel Adams, an eight-year veteran, one of the fired UP teachers, spoke at the rally as well as inside the meeting directly to the board. Adams said teachers at Urban Prep have an interest in communicating with the board and felt the union would help them get their voice heard. It would promote change, he told the board.

“It seems that when we brought these changes to you, that those teachers who brought those changes were let go,” said Adams.

Brian Harris, president of the charter union, said:

“The campaign is over. The teachers chose a union. You had ample time to make your call,” Harris told the board. “How is firing all these teachers negotiating in good faith? The Urban Prep creed says we choose to live honestly. Live honestly. Reinstate the teachers.”

Shoneice Reynolds, whose son will be a senior, said two of the fired teachers helped her son transition from elementary school to Urban Prep, providing constant emotional and academic support.

Several students also gave testimony about how their now-fired teachers had helped them turn their lives around and get them plugged into school.

Knowing how Tim King has responded in the past, I doubt that he and the board will willingly agree to a contract or bring back the fired teachers. It will most likely take legal action by the union and more protests.

*Be sure a read Jennifer Berkshire's (Edushyster) account of what happened when teachers confronted a union-busting charter CEO at the recent National Charter Schools Conference in New Orleans?

Join me today in supporting illegally-fired, pro-union charter teachers and staff

Urban Prep students support their teachers at a rally earlier this year.   (Arielle Zionts)

I hate bullies...
So today I'm heading over to the board meeting this afternoon to stand up for those 16 Urban Prep Charter teachers and staff who were illegally fired for supporting union activities. Two of those fired—Mathias Muschal and Natasha Robinson—are leaders of the organizing committee and exemplary teachers who had dedicated 6 and 7 years to students at Urban Prep.

On June 3rd, the teachers at Urban Prep voted over 60% “yes” to be represented by AFT Local 4343—Chicago ACTS, despite a very determined anti-union campaign. The firings are little more than the revenge of defeated bullies.

The union is fighting back by filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. While we know we have a strong case, the legal process can be long and drawn-out, especially when fighting an employer so determined not to have to answer to its teachers.

Marty Ritter from the CTU tells me that a strong showing by education activists like you and me will go a long way toward not only getting these teachers their jobs back, but getting UP management to the negotiations table.

I hope to see you all this afternoon at 3:30 PM.  We will meet outside the meeting site at Urban Prep Englewood Campus, 6201 S. Stewart Ave.