RSS Feeds
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
"The report directly challenges widespread claims by current and former CPS officials that local students have shown substantial progress over the last decade on standardized tests."
In response, spokespeople for Arne Duncan cited improvements in 8th graders' performance, even after adjusting for the changes in the tests, and increases in ACT scores. Really? That's all they have.
Digg
Del.icio.us
Mail
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 7:05 PM
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
he knows what he is talking about. Will anyone get that the mayor has failed with his takeover?! What a sham he has created and the business people believe the mayor! And then we get MORE business people who do NOT know what they are doing, to run the schools! You are a mess mayor!
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 7:11 PM
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
they need jobs! and they will play the daley game.
just look at that other post Outsiders At 125 S. Clark Street
they are "developing' things that already exist!
what a scam to be paid to do something that has already been done and is in place. It is not even funny anymore.
At least they can not erase my memory,yet.
just look at that other post Outsiders At 125 S. Clark Street
they are "developing' things that already exist!
what a scam to be paid to do something that has already been done and is in place. It is not even funny anymore.
At least they can not erase my memory,yet.
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 7:36 PM
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
Thanks Greg for getting out the trutMr.
"Martin did praise new schools CEO Ron Huberman. "He's doing everything right," Mr. Martin said. "They're going to squeeze everything possible out of the operation and put it into charters."
Boy EM is an idiot. No wonder why he has the name businessman.
"Martin did praise new schools CEO Ron Huberman. "He's doing everything right," Mr. Martin said. "They're going to squeeze everything possible out of the operation and put it into charters."
Boy EM is an idiot. No wonder why he has the name businessman.
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 10:37 PM
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
The problem is that real reform has not been tried. Remember that running the Chicago school system is an extremely important job. Think about it. We have non-educators making key decisions on how schools should be organized and function! The point is that Mayor Daley should have done a serious national search for a successful urban manager who understands education, has a vision and can lead because he or she has done it. Think about this also. Chicago has the shortest instructional day of any urban school district. 100 hours less than New York per academic year. Business people should know that having schools function without regular time for staff to collaborate on assessment and evaluating student work is madness. What successful organization doesn't strategically plan on a regular basis. I think the business people on the school board would have flagged those points and corrected them. Teachers and principals are waiting for competent leadership from the educational leaders. Huberman, if he had a clue, would have not have hired his CTA cronies but did a national search on successful school reform managers to really develop the professional leadership capacity within schools. Huberman is doing what Duncan and Vallas did, "smoke and mirrors" initiatives. The buck stops with Daley since he holds all the cards. The teacher's union is in his pocket so we can't toss the blame on them as some folks do. The leadership in the union can be blamed for being in Daley's pocket and and not supporting their teachers. Oh, by the way, the Chicago Civic Club has been a part of the problem. Sorry to see that they didn't out Daley on the shortest instructional day in the country and not providing regular time for the professionals in the classroom to strategically plan!
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 11:26 PM
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
Hinze has been right on his evaluation of Daley's program. It is Daley's baby. Daley should have DCFS on him for the lousy parenting job! It took a very bad recession for us to see all of Daley's sins and incompetence. Just as sad are the business folks who are on the Chicago School Board and the so-called do-gooders from the business sector like the Chicago Civic Club! Really, these folks give business people a bad name!
Wed Jul 1, 2009 at 11:18 AM
Another Report Questions Chicago Improvements
INITIAL COMMENTS ON THE STILL LEFT BEHIND REPORT
By Rodney D. Estvan M.Ed.
Access Living of Chicago
July 1, 2009
I think it is fair to begin this initial inquiry into the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago’s report “Still Left Behind” (June 2009) with some wonderment. In the very first few pages of the report we see that the Committee challenges the fundamental validity of the State of Illinois standardized tests, the ISAT and PSAE, yet uses this same data to validate charter and contract schools in Chicago because “most of these schools outperform the traditional schools that their students would otherwise have attended.” If these testing instruments are invalid for traditional schools then they are equally invalid for Renaissance 2010 schools.
Now having said this I would also agree with a significant amount of what this report says about CPS academic achievement since the advent of Mayoral control of the CPS. But the Committee’s report makes assertions in the report that have no academic references. For example on page two of the report we read:
“As recently as January 2009, CPS distributed brochures showing that 8th grade reading scores improved from 55% of students meeting/exceeding standards in 2004 – to 76% in 2008. And 8th grade math scores improved from 33% in 2004 to 70% in 2008. But these huge increases reflect changes in the tests and testing procedures – not real student improvement.”
There is no citation for the assertion that all of the big increase in ISAT scores in Chicago is due to changes in the tests. We could turn to the research of Fair Test and Monty Neill who questioned these big jumps back in 2006, or Timothy Shanahan, a reading expert based at the University of Illinois at Chicago who also questioned these results (R. Rossi and K Grossman, Sun Times 7/12/06). But most of all we should look at what the psychomatrician John Wick has said about these testing results now for years (http://www.wickpartners.com/pdfs/testaudits/ISAT2006.pdf).
But up to now the Civic Committee has not been among the critics of the existing State of Illinois testing system, I am glad they have joined the ranks of the critics.
The Committee makes a correct reference to the work of the Consortium on Chicago School Research which has noted that the PSAE meeting standards category would not equate to an ACT score that would allow these students to enter almost all four year colleges. The Committee also notes that ISAT higher ISAT scores are not reflected by CPS scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which generally was low. I am sure that George Schmidt and other Substance reporters who have noted this issue at thrilled to have the support of the Civic Committee for their findings. It should also be noted that Catalyst and Desings for Change have also discussed this issue.
What is the solution the Civic Committee has for CPS? More charter schools and contract schools. Rather amazingly in this report a chapter is devoted to the performance of CPS charters using only the Office of New Schools charter report as a basis for promoting this choice based alternative. Still Left Behind does not discuss either the SRI report titled “Renaissance Schools Fund-Supported Schools: Early Outcomes, Challenges, And Opportunities” that is on the Consortium for Chicago School Research website or RAND’s interesting and informative study “Achievement and Attainment in Chicago Charter Schools.” Both of these reports indicate that claims made by the Committee in relation to charter achievement may at least be some what exaggerated.
I personally would urge the Committee to take this passage from its own report and apply it to itself: “The usual tendency of people and organizations to magnify their own accomplishments is amplified in the environment of big city politics.” I believe that this is exactly what the Committee is doing in relation to Renaissance 2010 schools achievement. As Access Living has shown in our April 2009 report Renaissance 2010 and Students with Disabilities there is no real academic advantage for students who have disabilities to attend Renaissance Schools as opposed to traditional CPS schools, we believe this issue needs to be addressed and acknowledged by organizations like the Civic Committee. No one comes out of the school reform reality of Chicago without dirt on their hands, we should not pretend we have the solution to fix the problem of educating low income urban students whether we call that fix “choice,” “local school control,” or “data driven improvement.” Maybe, just maybe it takes all these things to begin to fix our very big problem.
By Rodney D. Estvan M.Ed.
Access Living of Chicago
July 1, 2009
I think it is fair to begin this initial inquiry into the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago’s report “Still Left Behind” (June 2009) with some wonderment. In the very first few pages of the report we see that the Committee challenges the fundamental validity of the State of Illinois standardized tests, the ISAT and PSAE, yet uses this same data to validate charter and contract schools in Chicago because “most of these schools outperform the traditional schools that their students would otherwise have attended.” If these testing instruments are invalid for traditional schools then they are equally invalid for Renaissance 2010 schools.
Now having said this I would also agree with a significant amount of what this report says about CPS academic achievement since the advent of Mayoral control of the CPS. But the Committee’s report makes assertions in the report that have no academic references. For example on page two of the report we read:
“As recently as January 2009, CPS distributed brochures showing that 8th grade reading scores improved from 55% of students meeting/exceeding standards in 2004 – to 76% in 2008. And 8th grade math scores improved from 33% in 2004 to 70% in 2008. But these huge increases reflect changes in the tests and testing procedures – not real student improvement.”
There is no citation for the assertion that all of the big increase in ISAT scores in Chicago is due to changes in the tests. We could turn to the research of Fair Test and Monty Neill who questioned these big jumps back in 2006, or Timothy Shanahan, a reading expert based at the University of Illinois at Chicago who also questioned these results (R. Rossi and K Grossman, Sun Times 7/12/06). But most of all we should look at what the psychomatrician John Wick has said about these testing results now for years (http://www.wickpartners.com/pdfs/testaudits/ISAT2006.pdf).
But up to now the Civic Committee has not been among the critics of the existing State of Illinois testing system, I am glad they have joined the ranks of the critics.
The Committee makes a correct reference to the work of the Consortium on Chicago School Research which has noted that the PSAE meeting standards category would not equate to an ACT score that would allow these students to enter almost all four year colleges. The Committee also notes that ISAT higher ISAT scores are not reflected by CPS scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which generally was low. I am sure that George Schmidt and other Substance reporters who have noted this issue at thrilled to have the support of the Civic Committee for their findings. It should also be noted that Catalyst and Desings for Change have also discussed this issue.
What is the solution the Civic Committee has for CPS? More charter schools and contract schools. Rather amazingly in this report a chapter is devoted to the performance of CPS charters using only the Office of New Schools charter report as a basis for promoting this choice based alternative. Still Left Behind does not discuss either the SRI report titled “Renaissance Schools Fund-Supported Schools: Early Outcomes, Challenges, And Opportunities” that is on the Consortium for Chicago School Research website or RAND’s interesting and informative study “Achievement and Attainment in Chicago Charter Schools.” Both of these reports indicate that claims made by the Committee in relation to charter achievement may at least be some what exaggerated.
I personally would urge the Committee to take this passage from its own report and apply it to itself: “The usual tendency of people and organizations to magnify their own accomplishments is amplified in the environment of big city politics.” I believe that this is exactly what the Committee is doing in relation to Renaissance 2010 schools achievement. As Access Living has shown in our April 2009 report Renaissance 2010 and Students with Disabilities there is no real academic advantage for students who have disabilities to attend Renaissance Schools as opposed to traditional CPS schools, we believe this issue needs to be addressed and acknowledged by organizations like the Civic Committee. No one comes out of the school reform reality of Chicago without dirt on their hands, we should not pretend we have the solution to fix the problem of educating low income urban students whether we call that fix “choice,” “local school control,” or “data driven improvement.” Maybe, just maybe it takes all these things to begin to fix our very big problem.
