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Five Things On My Mind
1. Things may not really have been as good as they said they were in recent years, but that doesn't mean that they've been getting demonstrably worse (or that things were all that good before 1995). Very few Chicagoans really want to go back there.
2. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost nationwide, and teachers - especially in declining cities like Chicago -- will likely be among them. Let's not act like teachers should get preferential treatment over nurses, small business owners, or anyone else.
3. What matters most isn't where someone comes from or how long they've been doing what they're doing, but how well they do it -- what the results are. To claim that only those with a certain amount of experience can do a job is discriminatory.
4. While it's easy to focus on new schools, closed schools, and charters, the vast majority of Chicago schools are still neighborhood schools with LSC-picked principals and discretionary budgets and, many of them, faculties made up of veteran teachers. Who takes responsibility for the failures of these schools? I don't hear many volunteers.
5. Neighborhood gentrification isn't necessarily all bad, unless you take the view that everyone should stay poor and live in impoverished neighborhoods with failing schools -- or that gentrification somehow became bad once you got yours. Most of you (or your parents) moved to better neighborhoods or worked to improve where you were.
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Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 9:29 AM
Five Things On My Mind
Response to Alexander (who I believe must be nursing a hangover or had a bad night's sleep): 1. Duh 2. Teachers being cut for valid lower-enrollment reasons is OK; just how it is done here in CPS is totally bogus...fire them all and then rehire when the next school year is about 20% completed. 3. There are entry-level jobs in the world; unfortunately folks who went to school at one time think all education jobs fit that category--not true. 4. And your point is? 5. Gentrification is good; it's the collateral damage (to poor people) that must be limited or avoided.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Five Things On My Mind
I'm not sure why you feel Chicago is "declining," since its population has actually grown over the past two years.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Five Things On My Mind
Yes, we've gained a whopping 26,000 people in the last two years. True growth!
Just because we're growing by a measly <1% doesn't mean those people ahve school age children. Also, declining doesn't just mean population -- Chicago has obviously been hit hard by the economy bursting, and frankly, that affects everyone, as Alexander said.
Just because we're growing by a measly <1% doesn't mean those people ahve school age children. Also, declining doesn't just mean population -- Chicago has obviously been hit hard by the economy bursting, and frankly, that affects everyone, as Alexander said.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Five Things On My Mind
My worry with gentrification is that the poorest get pushed out of the area and then concentrated in even worse areas. How to improve things for everyone, everywhere, and not just create new areas that will "need" gentrification later?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Five Things On My Mind
When has CPS really tried real school reform Alexander? Alexander, AIO's, principals, and the professionals in the classroom, want a longer instructional day and support via more prep teachers or money to get substitutes for staff collaboration where evaluation of practice and time to strategize. Alexander what organization is successful without regular real time to collaborate?
Alexander, if you read the edplan of CPS Edplan of 2002 all that was noted and you will have noticed that the lack of leadership on the part of Daley, his pet Duncan, and his crony top level administrators did not come through on the plan.
Alexander, what organization succeeds without good leadership!
Alexander, if you read the edplan of CPS Edplan of 2002 all that was noted and you will have noticed that the lack of leadership on the part of Daley, his pet Duncan, and his crony top level administrators did not come through on the plan.
Alexander, what organization succeeds without good leadership!
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Five Things On My Mind
"Muddled"--which of Alexander's five points are you calling "muddled?" I've re-read them, and I can't find what you're talking about.
Further, I don't want a longer day. If parents want daycare for their children, then the school day can be extended for children without extending it for teachers. There's no reason, for example, that recess periods can't be added to the day and supervised by non-teaching staff.
Also, collaboration is part of the Union-Board Agreement at the high school level, where we have a one-period per week duty period designated for it.
Further, I don't want a longer day. If parents want daycare for their children, then the school day can be extended for children without extending it for teachers. There's no reason, for example, that recess periods can't be added to the day and supervised by non-teaching staff.
Also, collaboration is part of the Union-Board Agreement at the high school level, where we have a one-period per week duty period designated for it.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 12:07 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Alexander,
You are right. There are always going to be complainers, and these are usually people who don't want change - the baby boomers, or someone with a special education background.
You are right. There are always going to be complainers, and these are usually people who don't want change - the baby boomers, or someone with a special education background.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Five Things On My Mind
1. I don't think anyone is asking to "go back there". The idea that "it was bad before Daley took over, therefore he should always have control" is not a compelling one. We do need reform, and we need it from people who will be transparent and inclusive toward our communities, parents, teachers and students and more interested in our students' well-beings than in cooking data to push their allies' portfolios.
2. I agree that teachers should not receive "preferential treatment", but that's not the same thing as what you are suggesting--"everyone is losing jobs, so teachers should too!" Jobs and work should be based on need. You don't fire all of your fire fighters while the block is on fire. Usually education is one of the best investments during an economic downturn, and I don't understand why we would leave students in classrooms without teachers at a greater rate because of the tough economic times. All that does is lengthen the economic depression.
3. Yes and no. Can I perform open-heart surgery on you tomorrow? What if I make some cool powerpoint presentations that cover up the fact that kill more patients than a regular doctor does? Finally, what does "being able to do the job" have to do with what is going on downtown? Patronage hires have neither expertise nor experience.
4. Well, given that the board controls staffing and has used that to devastate the neighborhood schools, I'd say that the Board and CPS administration should take the responsibility for it when they are talking. I certainly take responsibility for the performance of my classroom. But I don't see the same record of failure that you do.
5. Exactly. And if their neighborhoods were gentrified, they lost all that they worked hard to provide. I guess I fail to see the silver lining to living decisions that seem to be largely informed by race. I mean if you cross "desirable neighborhoods" and account for safety/crime issues, you still find a massive race factor in perception of a neighborhood.
2. I agree that teachers should not receive "preferential treatment", but that's not the same thing as what you are suggesting--"everyone is losing jobs, so teachers should too!" Jobs and work should be based on need. You don't fire all of your fire fighters while the block is on fire. Usually education is one of the best investments during an economic downturn, and I don't understand why we would leave students in classrooms without teachers at a greater rate because of the tough economic times. All that does is lengthen the economic depression.
3. Yes and no. Can I perform open-heart surgery on you tomorrow? What if I make some cool powerpoint presentations that cover up the fact that kill more patients than a regular doctor does? Finally, what does "being able to do the job" have to do with what is going on downtown? Patronage hires have neither expertise nor experience.
4. Well, given that the board controls staffing and has used that to devastate the neighborhood schools, I'd say that the Board and CPS administration should take the responsibility for it when they are talking. I certainly take responsibility for the performance of my classroom. But I don't see the same record of failure that you do.
5. Exactly. And if their neighborhoods were gentrified, they lost all that they worked hard to provide. I guess I fail to see the silver lining to living decisions that seem to be largely informed by race. I mean if you cross "desirable neighborhoods" and account for safety/crime issues, you still find a massive race factor in perception of a neighborhood.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 2:21 PM
Five Things On My Mind
The before/after mayor take over is a canard since both were sorry and it gets the Mayor off the hook. Daley has been charge now for how many years and he hasn't gotten it right for the neediest children.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Five Things On My Mind
"You are right. There are always going to be complainers, and these are usually people who don't want change - the baby boomers, or someone with a special education background"
That's whack. Baby boomers or someone with a special education background. From what I hear, they back change. Maybe just not your kind of change?
That's whack. Baby boomers or someone with a special education background. From what I hear, they back change. Maybe just not your kind of change?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Five Things On My Mind
and as stated earlier--if arne would have stuck to the 2002 plan--things would be different and much more positive, but all the studies and all the $ for them were wasted away becasue he got a basketball player with an MBA who could not follow OR lead with the plan. This is on daley's shoulders and the aldermen who lick his soles.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 2:51 PM
Five Things On My Mind
"Well, given that the board controls staffing and has used that to devastate the neighborhood schools, I'd say that the Board and CPS administration should take the responsibility for it when they are talking. I certainly take responsibility for the performance of my classroom. But I don't see the same record of failure that you do. "
the board controls the level fo staffing, but the board does not select teachers, ESPs or any school based staff. principals, who have been hired by LSCs since, what, 1995? have been responsible for hiring their staffs for about that long. I know that 14 years doesn't explain those 20+ year veterans who may not be effective, but it given the turnover rate, it most certainly accounts for a lot of the teachers who are in place now.
the board controls the level fo staffing, but the board does not select teachers, ESPs or any school based staff. principals, who have been hired by LSCs since, what, 1995? have been responsible for hiring their staffs for about that long. I know that 14 years doesn't explain those 20+ year veterans who may not be effective, but it given the turnover rate, it most certainly accounts for a lot of the teachers who are in place now.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 3:14 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Stop bashing the veterans- I keep seeing new teachers who are so busy on the Internet while their students are in groups at 9:00 in the morning-you know the new Pablum-differentiated instruction-the smart kids teach their peers and everyone is on the honor roll-then when the test scores come back from 2 benchmark tests and one ISAT and the veteran teacher who is teaching"old school" gets higher scores -these groupie teachers do not know how to self-reflect, ananlyze the data OR change instructional methodology- cause it ain't working...uh oh new principals how do these old teachers do it?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 3:58 PM
Five Things On My Mind
the 'younger' teachers are on the Internet and answering email AND they are on their personal cell phone right in the classroom with students. What is up with that?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 4:12 PM
Five Things On My Mind
I also see many of the younger teachers using the current buzzwords--peer tutoring, differentiated instruction--to free up their time of other things. If they are not on the internet doing personal work, they are doing paperwork. In all cases, the students are left to teach themselves. When I first started we called this small group work, and the teacher circulated among all the groups, giving serious time to each. Paperwork was done before or lafter schoo, or during prep periods.
Hey--maybe the new teachers have something there. Work 8:30-2:45 and get all your work done between that time. If students don't learn much--who cares?
Hey--maybe the new teachers have something there. Work 8:30-2:45 and get all your work done between that time. If students don't learn much--who cares?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 4:26 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Who is teaching your class, while you are wondering around looking at other teacher's paperwork?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 5:11 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Brothers & Sisters:
Let's not bash each other. As a veteran teacher, I certainly feel I can learn from new teachers - and I'm lucky in my school to have daily common preps in which to accomplish an amazing amount of work. I also know that new teachers can learn classroom management and content from vets. The main issue here is that we cannot allow outside influences vto keep us separated and fighting one another. It takes a diverse faculty - newbies, middle timers and vets, working together with strong leadership to provide the education all our students need.
Some teachers take advantage of common preps, others don't, but for most of us, this is a relatively new construct. We're used to being autonomous in our rooms, behind closed doors. Working together is the key - but we have got to stop the bashing and self-hatred that lends itself to finger-pointing and no solutions. The is no one right way to teaching. Some of our students need more time to complete equivalent tasks, others need more nurturing. The idea of a one size fits all approch is ludicrous, and yet this is exactly how we evaluate effectiveness.
How terrific would it be to work in an environment where collaboration, constructive advice and advocacy reign supreme?
As to why teachers should be exempt from job loss??? They're not. "Underutilization" has shut down schools and many of those teachers are no longer in the workforce, however, education is not and should never We have just seen the market collapse, so ewhy on earth would anyone want to bring that horror to education. Children are not and have never been widgets!
Let's not bash each other. As a veteran teacher, I certainly feel I can learn from new teachers - and I'm lucky in my school to have daily common preps in which to accomplish an amazing amount of work. I also know that new teachers can learn classroom management and content from vets. The main issue here is that we cannot allow outside influences vto keep us separated and fighting one another. It takes a diverse faculty - newbies, middle timers and vets, working together with strong leadership to provide the education all our students need.
Some teachers take advantage of common preps, others don't, but for most of us, this is a relatively new construct. We're used to being autonomous in our rooms, behind closed doors. Working together is the key - but we have got to stop the bashing and self-hatred that lends itself to finger-pointing and no solutions. The is no one right way to teaching. Some of our students need more time to complete equivalent tasks, others need more nurturing. The idea of a one size fits all approch is ludicrous, and yet this is exactly how we evaluate effectiveness.
How terrific would it be to work in an environment where collaboration, constructive advice and advocacy reign supreme?
As to why teachers should be exempt from job loss??? They're not. "Underutilization" has shut down schools and many of those teachers are no longer in the workforce, however, education is not and should never We have just seen the market collapse, so ewhy on earth would anyone want to bring that horror to education. Children are not and have never been widgets!
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 5:21 PM
Five Things On My Mind
I agree with you BUT CPS does seem to undervalue its veteran educators and the new principals sometimes view veteran educators as a threat rather than an asset.
As a special education teacher I am in and out of rooms all day and I see different strategies work for different teachers. However; if year after year your students do not show adequate progress BUT the other teachers in your grade level do then it is time to rethink your strategies and regroup. Maybe what you are doing is not working. You need to stop blaming the parents or worse yet, the students.
As a special education teacher I am in and out of rooms all day and I see different strategies work for different teachers. However; if year after year your students do not show adequate progress BUT the other teachers in your grade level do then it is time to rethink your strategies and regroup. Maybe what you are doing is not working. You need to stop blaming the parents or worse yet, the students.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 5:33 PM
Five Things On My Mind
We do not have any time for collaboration in the elementary schools. We get three preps a week-four IF there is a music teacher. My morning (4X 25 minutes) is spent meeting/calling parents, finding a computer that works to check for princiapl e-mail and planning for the day.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Five Things On My Mind
The serious professionals in the classroom would love to build collaboration at the grade level and across grades so that a whole staff can be on the same page. The professionals who care want to move their whole school organization forward. It is not about being selfish. Danny I don't know what planet you live on but in early elementary, prep periods are eaten up by time to get centers set up for the little ones and take care of the usual day to day essentials, from listening to a child to getting some paperwork out of the way for CPS.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 8:31 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Wow, Alexander, glad to know what I said didn't actually upset you.
On your mind? I think you meant your liver, because this post is dripping with bile.
1. "you don't want to go back there, do you?" - This is what the pigs said to the rest of the barnyard animals in Animal Farm.
2. This is purportedly an education blog. Did you think the Andersen blogs after their bloodbath were flooded with posts on the loss of teaching jobs?
3. Nobody said only those with those with experience can do the job. You are implying we have. But please explain to me why CPS front loads its salary schedule while other districts recruit, respect and reward experience and credentials? I will refer you once again to last month's Trib roundup of outgoing superintendents (five profiles, nearly 200 years of experience among them). Why is our district the only one that doesn't respect education and experience?
4. You're so right, Alexander. Remember that school that didn't have drinking water for a couple of months when school opened last year? Most of the teachers there were veterans, as are the ones at the schools with 11 year old computers, the ones with 40 kids and 25 books in a classroom, and the ones where IMPACT continually crashes during the whole week we're expected to enter grades. All those things must be the fault of veteran teachers as well, right?. Please don't come here selling your Community Trust/Commerical Club blather about "what did you do with that nickel I gave you last month?" This assumption of what resources are being provided to schools, teachers and children without knowing of what you speak is straight out of Jane Eyre or a Dickens novel.
5. It is impossible to have one cogent response to this last remark, since your point is all over the place. But ok, let's give it a go -
- Are you suggesting that people displaced from their homes suddenly stopped being poor? Wow, I had no idea that's what had become of them. I guess we should just be glad they didn't make them into Soylent Green...
Nobody minds gentrification when all involved can agree to share the space, live together and tend to the needs of all. It is when arrogant carpetbaggers declare that their new digs must be purged of those not in their social strata, or that their presumed superior social status means they should control conmmunity schools, initiatives and agendas even when they are not in the majority that yes, people get testy, see last year's debacle at Ravenswood. Again, if you are implying that all the displaced were greeted at wherever they landed by Ed McMahon holding a big check, then by all means, disabuse us.
- My parents were immigrants (as am I) and we all left each of our succesive neighboorhoods voluntarily. Since I do not have the experience of what it must feel like to be pushed out, or manage to stay and be treated like you don't count, I'm going to err on the side of caution and assume that it may not agree with everyone's constitution.
The word moderator comes from the root moderate...
On your mind? I think you meant your liver, because this post is dripping with bile.
1. "you don't want to go back there, do you?" - This is what the pigs said to the rest of the barnyard animals in Animal Farm.
2. This is purportedly an education blog. Did you think the Andersen blogs after their bloodbath were flooded with posts on the loss of teaching jobs?
3. Nobody said only those with those with experience can do the job. You are implying we have. But please explain to me why CPS front loads its salary schedule while other districts recruit, respect and reward experience and credentials? I will refer you once again to last month's Trib roundup of outgoing superintendents (five profiles, nearly 200 years of experience among them). Why is our district the only one that doesn't respect education and experience?
4. You're so right, Alexander. Remember that school that didn't have drinking water for a couple of months when school opened last year? Most of the teachers there were veterans, as are the ones at the schools with 11 year old computers, the ones with 40 kids and 25 books in a classroom, and the ones where IMPACT continually crashes during the whole week we're expected to enter grades. All those things must be the fault of veteran teachers as well, right?. Please don't come here selling your Community Trust/Commerical Club blather about "what did you do with that nickel I gave you last month?" This assumption of what resources are being provided to schools, teachers and children without knowing of what you speak is straight out of Jane Eyre or a Dickens novel.
5. It is impossible to have one cogent response to this last remark, since your point is all over the place. But ok, let's give it a go -
- Are you suggesting that people displaced from their homes suddenly stopped being poor? Wow, I had no idea that's what had become of them. I guess we should just be glad they didn't make them into Soylent Green...
Nobody minds gentrification when all involved can agree to share the space, live together and tend to the needs of all. It is when arrogant carpetbaggers declare that their new digs must be purged of those not in their social strata, or that their presumed superior social status means they should control conmmunity schools, initiatives and agendas even when they are not in the majority that yes, people get testy, see last year's debacle at Ravenswood. Again, if you are implying that all the displaced were greeted at wherever they landed by Ed McMahon holding a big check, then by all means, disabuse us.
- My parents were immigrants (as am I) and we all left each of our succesive neighboorhoods voluntarily. Since I do not have the experience of what it must feel like to be pushed out, or manage to stay and be treated like you don't count, I'm going to err on the side of caution and assume that it may not agree with everyone's constitution.
The word moderator comes from the root moderate...
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 8:33 PM
Five Things On My Mind
4-1
What the results are. Depends on what you mean by results, are you talking about a group of kids being able to regurgitate answers to a test, so they match the rubric of some
snotty nosed author in Princeton New Jersey?
Are we talking about the intangible qualities no test can measure like guts, ambition,
personality or determination.? Do we mean the instant gratification a 28 on the ACT
Test brings, or the fact we have taught at least three current principals and counting?
By any test who could tell that little fool who needed his ass kicked, it was,
for throwing a chair because you wouldn’t let him butt the line would become a
NBA player and later a principal?
We are not manufacturing cars here we are teaching real human beings. trying
to guide them through their teen years so they come out alive, law abiding, moral
citizens of a democracy which is trying to do something never done before. That
is to educate everyone, not just the elite .Hell our results might not become apparent
for years.When a new teacher can keep up with my old ass let me know. Far from
discrimination it’s a fact wine, like teachers, improves with age. Just who are these results judging teachers or the kids?
What the results are. Depends on what you mean by results, are you talking about a group of kids being able to regurgitate answers to a test, so they match the rubric of some
snotty nosed author in Princeton New Jersey?
Are we talking about the intangible qualities no test can measure like guts, ambition,
personality or determination.? Do we mean the instant gratification a 28 on the ACT
Test brings, or the fact we have taught at least three current principals and counting?
By any test who could tell that little fool who needed his ass kicked, it was,
for throwing a chair because you wouldn’t let him butt the line would become a
NBA player and later a principal?
We are not manufacturing cars here we are teaching real human beings. trying
to guide them through their teen years so they come out alive, law abiding, moral
citizens of a democracy which is trying to do something never done before. That
is to educate everyone, not just the elite .Hell our results might not become apparent
for years.When a new teacher can keep up with my old ass let me know. Far from
discrimination it’s a fact wine, like teachers, improves with age. Just who are these results judging teachers or the kids?
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 8:55 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Just wandered--thanks for the thoughtful response to Alexander. He's apparently become a person with a 'vested interest' in 'preserving disorder' as the old man Daley said years ago (or so I read). I am forgiving his rant this morning. I saw the editor of Catalyst on Chicago Tonight and, if he has to deal with that woman who is about as inarticulate and uninformed as a person can be, he deserves a rant or two.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 9:05 PM
Five Things On My Mind
I'm glad that Alexander put all of his silly biases against teachers (and the history of CPS) up front. That list could be a script for corporate "school reform" apologetics, and it's certainly been the primary prism for pundits the past 20 years (in many ways, thanks to Catalyst).
I'm saving this.
I'm saving this.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 9:12 PM
Five Things On My Mind
So sad--yes, now they close schools that ARE VERY successful--de la Cruz comes to mind---scores and attendance up up up! (And they overcrowded two latino neighborhood schools to do it.) Shame.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 9:24 PM
Five Things On My Mind
One of the things I'm honored by is that our work at Substance involves people who know the schools, classrooms and education from the ground all the way "up." Grady Jordan is a good friend. Al Korach still writes for us (just before his 80th birthday). And some of our newer reporters are just hitting their stride, with five or six years in the classroom. And all have BS sniffers now. Call the millions in non-profit dollars can't keep the Catalyst lies alive much longer.
The other day, The New York Times reported on the number of welders needed across the USA (while today the official unemployment rate headed towards ten percent, with the real rate double that). The people who preached and worshipped at the altar of the "accountability for the global economy", like their predecessors 100 years ago, then 60 years ago, have again crushed the world and society between their greed and their glib ignorance. Another raft of victims were heading home from 125 S. Clark St. for the last time over the past seven days.
No thank yous.
No gold watches.
Only irony for dinner.
Reading that piece about vocational training (forget this New Age Clinton-Bush-Obama nonsense about "Career Education") I had a memory of the scent of the west wing of Dunbar 30 years ago, when every shop was in session and you could learn to rebuilt a bulgalow from the ground up or learn airplane mechanics on the site from a guy who flew with the Tuskeegee airmen (Marshall Knox). From CVS to Dunbar to Lane a kid could learn welding, drafting, or calculus. With none of that New Gilded Age nonsense, no privatization, and a respect.
I once gave a speech in the Lane Tech auditorium to the north side high school teachers at an in-service. It was during the early days of LSC-based "school reform." It was necessary, then and now, to note that the school system, like the city, was suffering from triage in the classic sense. Kids could get a very good education in the best of the city's public schools and a decent one in most of them. Even in the "worst" schools, as Joyce Hughes told me (if you don't know who she was and what she did, try Google) there was a place for the kids who really wanted to work hard, play sports hard, and where possible get their hands dirty pulling an engine, pulling a commode, or pulling wiring through a wall.
The past 25 years in Chicago have been a disgrace, nothing less. The propaganda that has erased both history and sanity rings loudly at the opening of this thread, but its origins came from the same people who just released the latest iteration of "Left Behind." Teacher bashing. Union busting. Public school hating (and democracy hating) CEO types, and those who showed money on their paid propagandists, like the Catalyst crowd.
Reading that stuff in The New York Times, I thought of Phil Viso, who headed vocational education when we had hundreds of classes for kids who would find work from neighborhood to neighborhood fixing things, building things, and creating things. Not rip off artists with huge ACT and SAT scores (although they were often one and the same) whose only goal was to generate a more "robust" bottom line (no matter what the social cost).
Anyone who lies as much as Catalyst does about the actual history of what has been destroyed in Chicago's public schools deserves to be kept around. As an example, like the previous iterations of these kinds of Social Darwinian dreck, from the Dearborn Independent to the screeds that got tenure for University of Chicago professors back in the day when that kind of racism was what respectable people could get away with.
Just some random thoughts about history and historical honesty, with one last one.
The white blindspot supported here and throughout the corporate Chicago media has created great suffering during every era when imperial fantasies reign. This version is no different from its predecessors. At least Rudyard Kipling was honest about both his ideology and his use of the English language. The apologists for today's version of the same stuff are in the same traditions, but far less honest than Kipling and his generation.
The other day, The New York Times reported on the number of welders needed across the USA (while today the official unemployment rate headed towards ten percent, with the real rate double that). The people who preached and worshipped at the altar of the "accountability for the global economy", like their predecessors 100 years ago, then 60 years ago, have again crushed the world and society between their greed and their glib ignorance. Another raft of victims were heading home from 125 S. Clark St. for the last time over the past seven days.
No thank yous.
No gold watches.
Only irony for dinner.
Reading that piece about vocational training (forget this New Age Clinton-Bush-Obama nonsense about "Career Education") I had a memory of the scent of the west wing of Dunbar 30 years ago, when every shop was in session and you could learn to rebuilt a bulgalow from the ground up or learn airplane mechanics on the site from a guy who flew with the Tuskeegee airmen (Marshall Knox). From CVS to Dunbar to Lane a kid could learn welding, drafting, or calculus. With none of that New Gilded Age nonsense, no privatization, and a respect.
I once gave a speech in the Lane Tech auditorium to the north side high school teachers at an in-service. It was during the early days of LSC-based "school reform." It was necessary, then and now, to note that the school system, like the city, was suffering from triage in the classic sense. Kids could get a very good education in the best of the city's public schools and a decent one in most of them. Even in the "worst" schools, as Joyce Hughes told me (if you don't know who she was and what she did, try Google) there was a place for the kids who really wanted to work hard, play sports hard, and where possible get their hands dirty pulling an engine, pulling a commode, or pulling wiring through a wall.
The past 25 years in Chicago have been a disgrace, nothing less. The propaganda that has erased both history and sanity rings loudly at the opening of this thread, but its origins came from the same people who just released the latest iteration of "Left Behind." Teacher bashing. Union busting. Public school hating (and democracy hating) CEO types, and those who showed money on their paid propagandists, like the Catalyst crowd.
Reading that stuff in The New York Times, I thought of Phil Viso, who headed vocational education when we had hundreds of classes for kids who would find work from neighborhood to neighborhood fixing things, building things, and creating things. Not rip off artists with huge ACT and SAT scores (although they were often one and the same) whose only goal was to generate a more "robust" bottom line (no matter what the social cost).
Anyone who lies as much as Catalyst does about the actual history of what has been destroyed in Chicago's public schools deserves to be kept around. As an example, like the previous iterations of these kinds of Social Darwinian dreck, from the Dearborn Independent to the screeds that got tenure for University of Chicago professors back in the day when that kind of racism was what respectable people could get away with.
Just some random thoughts about history and historical honesty, with one last one.
The white blindspot supported here and throughout the corporate Chicago media has created great suffering during every era when imperial fantasies reign. This version is no different from its predecessors. At least Rudyard Kipling was honest about both his ideology and his use of the English language. The apologists for today's version of the same stuff are in the same traditions, but far less honest than Kipling and his generation.
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 9:56 PM
Five Things On My Mind
Thanks George. The sad truth is that the world that our students are entering requires more skills than 25 years ago. That is the challenge, provide our students the skills necessary to be successful and be responsible citizens. The present reality is a Mayor and other incompetents "playing doctor" with the present and future of our children, along with the lives of professionals working in classrooms!
Thu Jul 2, 2009 at 11:15 PM
Things On My Mind
There is only one truth and that is what is right and creative.
Destruction and dismantling of public education and those that participated will be remembered. It is only a matter of time when this activity will stop; the only question is will it be naturally or by force. The natural progressive change is preferred due the consequences of forceful change.
The new Career Administrators attempting to control the success of Chicago students have no idea what they are doing.
How do I know? I studied the development and success industrial education in Chicago at the turn of the last century. It did not involve closing programs, but the exact opposite, it was the largest expansion of technical training in history and Chicago was, at one time the epicenter of the world in regards to technical training.
The success was not from non-educated outsiders brought in to fix the problem. Success came from local neighborhoods, communities, and educators that came through the ranks that understood and experienced what was needed within the neighborhoods of Chicago. Training was expanded, not reorganized and contracted as the current CTE administration is doing. What is the funniest thing about the whole reorganization, is that there are at least, a dozen CTE teachers in CPS, that are more qualified that any of the appointed administrators. In just a cursory search, as with the general 125 Clark St administration, CTE administrators are not industry experienced(in specific career fields), some do not even hold teaching credentials, and most if not all do not hold administrative credentials.
One of the biggest questions that comes to my mind as a certified teacher is how anyone can legally administer any educational department with teachers that does not hold state credentials: over the summer I will be doing some ed law research to seek answers to this nagging question. I know: "That's the way it is" Well it is about time to end these shenanigans.
The Carter H. Harrison Technical High School was built in 1912 in a “community composed mainly of Bohemians...who saw the great advantage of a high school for the community.”[31] Thomas Masaryk who spoke at a school assembly in 1918 writes, “Knowledge which cannot be used makes its possessor a victim of fantasy, of hypercritical nonsense, destroying the desire for useful labor, creating needs which cannot be satisfied, and leading in the end to boredom with life.”[32] The credit for site selection and building of the school is given to Martin J. Královec.[33]
In a Board of Education report, Board President James B. McFatrich explains the need for Harrison Technical High School:
It would be unjust to offer a course in vocational instruction that did not combine therewith the agencies of growth, the absence of which would handicap individual should he desire in later life to qualify for a different vocation. The work of the Vocational School should be so suggested that it would lead as directly and certainly to high school as that which is prescribed for the student in academic subjects.
It is not to be expected, in the initial stage, that these schools will give all of the training for skilled workmanship, but they will serve the essential and valuable purpose of providing for the child an opportunity for discovering himself, -- an event of primary importance in the career of every individual.[34]
The student body of Harrison numbered over 5000 students in 1929 and “has the record of being the largest high school in the world for children of Bohemian descent.”[35]
Citations
[31]“Harrison High Students Start Perpetual History,” Chicago Tribune, 17 November 1929, 3.
[32]Thomas G. Masaryk, Suicide and the Meaning of Civilization, trans. William
B. Weist and Robert G. Batson (Chicago: University Of Chicago, 1970), 68.
[33]John J. Reichman, Czechoslovaks of Chicago: Contributions to a History of a
National Group, with an Introduction on the Part of Czechoslovaks in the Development
of Chicago (Chicago: Czechoslovak Historical Society of Illinois, 1937), 31.
[34]Chicago Board of Education, Fifty-Eighth Annual Report to the Board of Education for the Year Ending 1912 (Chicago: Board of Education, 1912), 22.
[35]“Perpetual History,” 4.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
The vigour and freshness, which should have been stored up for the purpose of struggle for existence in practical life, have been washed out of them by precocious mental debauchery—by book gluttony and lesson bidding.
Thomas H. Huxley, 1882
Destruction and dismantling of public education and those that participated will be remembered. It is only a matter of time when this activity will stop; the only question is will it be naturally or by force. The natural progressive change is preferred due the consequences of forceful change.
The new Career Administrators attempting to control the success of Chicago students have no idea what they are doing.
How do I know? I studied the development and success industrial education in Chicago at the turn of the last century. It did not involve closing programs, but the exact opposite, it was the largest expansion of technical training in history and Chicago was, at one time the epicenter of the world in regards to technical training.
The success was not from non-educated outsiders brought in to fix the problem. Success came from local neighborhoods, communities, and educators that came through the ranks that understood and experienced what was needed within the neighborhoods of Chicago. Training was expanded, not reorganized and contracted as the current CTE administration is doing. What is the funniest thing about the whole reorganization, is that there are at least, a dozen CTE teachers in CPS, that are more qualified that any of the appointed administrators. In just a cursory search, as with the general 125 Clark St administration, CTE administrators are not industry experienced(in specific career fields), some do not even hold teaching credentials, and most if not all do not hold administrative credentials.
One of the biggest questions that comes to my mind as a certified teacher is how anyone can legally administer any educational department with teachers that does not hold state credentials: over the summer I will be doing some ed law research to seek answers to this nagging question. I know: "That's the way it is" Well it is about time to end these shenanigans.
The Carter H. Harrison Technical High School was built in 1912 in a “community composed mainly of Bohemians...who saw the great advantage of a high school for the community.”[31] Thomas Masaryk who spoke at a school assembly in 1918 writes, “Knowledge which cannot be used makes its possessor a victim of fantasy, of hypercritical nonsense, destroying the desire for useful labor, creating needs which cannot be satisfied, and leading in the end to boredom with life.”[32] The credit for site selection and building of the school is given to Martin J. Královec.[33]
In a Board of Education report, Board President James B. McFatrich explains the need for Harrison Technical High School:
It would be unjust to offer a course in vocational instruction that did not combine therewith the agencies of growth, the absence of which would handicap individual should he desire in later life to qualify for a different vocation. The work of the Vocational School should be so suggested that it would lead as directly and certainly to high school as that which is prescribed for the student in academic subjects.
It is not to be expected, in the initial stage, that these schools will give all of the training for skilled workmanship, but they will serve the essential and valuable purpose of providing for the child an opportunity for discovering himself, -- an event of primary importance in the career of every individual.[34]
The student body of Harrison numbered over 5000 students in 1929 and “has the record of being the largest high school in the world for children of Bohemian descent.”[35]
Citations
[31]“Harrison High Students Start Perpetual History,” Chicago Tribune, 17 November 1929, 3.
[32]Thomas G. Masaryk, Suicide and the Meaning of Civilization, trans. William
B. Weist and Robert G. Batson (Chicago: University Of Chicago, 1970), 68.
[33]John J. Reichman, Czechoslovaks of Chicago: Contributions to a History of a
National Group, with an Introduction on the Part of Czechoslovaks in the Development
of Chicago (Chicago: Czechoslovak Historical Society of Illinois, 1937), 31.
[34]Chicago Board of Education, Fifty-Eighth Annual Report to the Board of Education for the Year Ending 1912 (Chicago: Board of Education, 1912), 22.
[35]“Perpetual History,” 4.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
The vigour and freshness, which should have been stored up for the purpose of struggle for existence in practical life, have been washed out of them by precocious mental debauchery—by book gluttony and lesson bidding.
Thomas H. Huxley, 1882
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 12:03 AM
Five Things On My Mind
some of you guys are so strange in what you write and your intolerance to disagreement.
if i was some CPS apologist or party line pundit then i wouldn't have created this site, criticized arne duncan as much as i have, and generally annoyed the bejeesus out of the folks at 125 s. clark street.
doesn't make sense, does it?
-- alexander
if i was some CPS apologist or party line pundit then i wouldn't have created this site, criticized arne duncan as much as i have, and generally annoyed the bejeesus out of the folks at 125 s. clark street.
doesn't make sense, does it?
-- alexander
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 12:26 AM
Five Things On My Mind
i can only speak for myself.
Alexander, I am pretty sure you can not even imagine some of the stuff that happens in a school that i have witnessed. Plus i am sure that if one of your children was subjected to what happens on a daily basis in the public schools of chicago you would be not as restrained, as some of the people that post here actually are. last these are our children and there is no reason to be tolerant of any type of negative behavior towards a child. In fact as a licensed educator it is illegal not to report abusive behavior.
It is not a matter of disagreement, when it comes to raising a child especially, when it comes to activities and actions that are clearly hurting that child. Trust me it is not only in the lower performing schools that negative or abusive actions towards children takes place.
Again, how much would you tolerate if it was your child?
As to the attackers on this blogg, some of them are over the top but maybe that is just their way of acting out against the world? Maybe they had some clown teacher because they were basketball buddies with an administrator?
who knows?I aint got that kind of degree, but i think d299 is pretty tame as it goes. when are we gonna be able to post videos or at least pics.
ciao!
kugler
Alexander, I am pretty sure you can not even imagine some of the stuff that happens in a school that i have witnessed. Plus i am sure that if one of your children was subjected to what happens on a daily basis in the public schools of chicago you would be not as restrained, as some of the people that post here actually are. last these are our children and there is no reason to be tolerant of any type of negative behavior towards a child. In fact as a licensed educator it is illegal not to report abusive behavior.
It is not a matter of disagreement, when it comes to raising a child especially, when it comes to activities and actions that are clearly hurting that child. Trust me it is not only in the lower performing schools that negative or abusive actions towards children takes place.
Again, how much would you tolerate if it was your child?
As to the attackers on this blogg, some of them are over the top but maybe that is just their way of acting out against the world? Maybe they had some clown teacher because they were basketball buddies with an administrator?
who knows?I aint got that kind of degree, but i think d299 is pretty tame as it goes. when are we gonna be able to post videos or at least pics.
ciao!
kugler
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 12:43 AM
Five Things On My Mind
Are you on the serious?
"O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us."
-Bobby Burns, To A Louse
"O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us."
-Bobby Burns, To A Louse
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 12:59 AM
Five Things On My Mind
Bravo Alexander. Each one of your random thoughts is interesting and is worthy of serious discussion, all necessary elements of a good blog. The tone of many responses disturbs me with some regularity. We seem to enjoy more than our fair share of bitter self serving bloggers. I suspect that many are like the teachers who used to work for me, cynical, negative, tired people who were well past their prime and critical of anything new or different. They wanted freedom to do whatever they wanted and they wanted to be trusted to decide what to teach and how to teach it. In reality, they just wanted to do as little as possible. Shame on all of us who refuse to look at different points of view and who refuse to embrace innovation, change and experimentation.
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 1:25 AM
Five Things On My Mind
From your tone, you must have been a great principal to work for. Sounds like you inspired your teachers at every turn with your great leadership. You must have been great at creating a culture of shared leadership and collaboration. You sound like you were really bleeding edge. It is ironic that you sound very bitter toward your professionals!
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 5:00 AM
Five Things On My Mind
Alexander, your ignorance of what was going on in the public schools prior to 1995 is no excuse for the teacher bashing you (and Catalyst) routinely perpetuate. That was my point. Once the destruction of 1979 - 1982 (the "school financial crisis") was completed, there were 8,000 fewer people working in Chicago's public schools than there had been three years earlier. Instead of going to education, more than a billion dollars was slated (via the School Finance Authority) to go directly to the bond holders who purchase (via Salomon Brothers) the SFA bonds that drew (remember inflation?) interest of up to 13 percent.
Every school in Chicago was drained dry. The nit picking and austerity went on year after year. Every principal who had to make do during those years can tell stories of how much was lost because the Wall Street and La Salle Street guys and gals got the lion's share of the dollars long before they arrived near the schools, let alone in our classrooms.
But once the Amendatory Act was passed and mayoral control firmly in place, you and other corporate apologists began to carefully craft a hoax -- that's the only word -- based on the myth of the success of the mayoral control and CEO models. You've made a good living off the blighting of the historical record, and your apologetics for the people whose greed and hostility undermined public schools for a generation.
But don't expect cheers when you try and continue such nonsense into the future.
Every single bit of information (including most of the worshipped "data") shows that the public schools of Chicago -- all of them -- have been sabotaged by mayoral control from Day One to the present. There is as much racial segregation today as there was in 1995, only today segregation is not the problem — thanks to guys like you, the "achievement gap" is the problem. And teachers at "failing schools" are the problem.
Well, the game is different now.
Thanks to all the work we did to elect Barack Obama President of the USA, every lie that's been told and spread from Chicago over the past 15 years is being exported -- crammed down the throats, really -- of every state in the USA. But instead of simply telling Arne Duncan "You did a great job in Chicago, with those turnarounds, charter schools, teacher firings, and union busting attacks..."
Most of the states, through the majority of their teachers and other education leaders, are saying
"Oh. Really? Show me the proof that the Chicago Plan 'worked'!"
And as soon as people go beyond the platitudes (such as those embodied in your lead to this thread), they smell the rat we've been fighting here in Chicago from the first day of mayoral control. And then, one by one, they see the real results of Chicago. The massive privatization of public school assets through (mostly) the proliferation of "failing" charter schools.
The corruption of an entire school system via deregulation much the same as wrecked the economy when it was done on Wall Street.
And the almost funny narratives that spin wildly out of Chicago. My favorite this morning, having just edited and posted the latest from Chicago, is that a guy who "learned" about teaching and learning at his Mom's day care center could be qualified, first to lead the public schools of the third largest city in the USA.
And then to be U.S. Secretary of Education.
Thanks to Catalyst and those callow cliches that have for too long passed for journalism in this town, Arne Duncan has been unleashed on the entire country, and the Chicago Plan is being held up as a "model" for the nation. Thank God the nation is not as gullible or racist as Chicago has been since the school system was turned over to the Daleys and their corporate sponsors more than a decade ago.
Every school in Chicago was drained dry. The nit picking and austerity went on year after year. Every principal who had to make do during those years can tell stories of how much was lost because the Wall Street and La Salle Street guys and gals got the lion's share of the dollars long before they arrived near the schools, let alone in our classrooms.
But once the Amendatory Act was passed and mayoral control firmly in place, you and other corporate apologists began to carefully craft a hoax -- that's the only word -- based on the myth of the success of the mayoral control and CEO models. You've made a good living off the blighting of the historical record, and your apologetics for the people whose greed and hostility undermined public schools for a generation.
But don't expect cheers when you try and continue such nonsense into the future.
Every single bit of information (including most of the worshipped "data") shows that the public schools of Chicago -- all of them -- have been sabotaged by mayoral control from Day One to the present. There is as much racial segregation today as there was in 1995, only today segregation is not the problem — thanks to guys like you, the "achievement gap" is the problem. And teachers at "failing schools" are the problem.
Well, the game is different now.
Thanks to all the work we did to elect Barack Obama President of the USA, every lie that's been told and spread from Chicago over the past 15 years is being exported -- crammed down the throats, really -- of every state in the USA. But instead of simply telling Arne Duncan "You did a great job in Chicago, with those turnarounds, charter schools, teacher firings, and union busting attacks..."
Most of the states, through the majority of their teachers and other education leaders, are saying
"Oh. Really? Show me the proof that the Chicago Plan 'worked'!"
And as soon as people go beyond the platitudes (such as those embodied in your lead to this thread), they smell the rat we've been fighting here in Chicago from the first day of mayoral control. And then, one by one, they see the real results of Chicago. The massive privatization of public school assets through (mostly) the proliferation of "failing" charter schools.
The corruption of an entire school system via deregulation much the same as wrecked the economy when it was done on Wall Street.
And the almost funny narratives that spin wildly out of Chicago. My favorite this morning, having just edited and posted the latest from Chicago, is that a guy who "learned" about teaching and learning at his Mom's day care center could be qualified, first to lead the public schools of the third largest city in the USA.
And then to be U.S. Secretary of Education.
Thanks to Catalyst and those callow cliches that have for too long passed for journalism in this town, Arne Duncan has been unleashed on the entire country, and the Chicago Plan is being held up as a "model" for the nation. Thank God the nation is not as gullible or racist as Chicago has been since the school system was turned over to the Daleys and their corporate sponsors more than a decade ago.
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 7:26 AM
Five Things On My Mind
Wrong
I like to provoke people .In that way I can tell their depth of knowledge
and amount of passion they bring to the fray everything is not well in
the Public Schools Of Chicago. Different points of view delivered by
people can create lively debate be it in print, or live.
Also since when does a teacher work for a principal? I was always been under the impression we worked for the citizens of Chicago. Having served with 16
Principals in my 40 years it should be noted not one of them ever signed a paycheck.
I like to provoke people .In that way I can tell their depth of knowledge
and amount of passion they bring to the fray everything is not well in
the Public Schools Of Chicago. Different points of view delivered by
people can create lively debate be it in print, or live.
Also since when does a teacher work for a principal? I was always been under the impression we worked for the citizens of Chicago. Having served with 16
Principals in my 40 years it should be noted not one of them ever signed a paycheck.
Fri Jul 3, 2009 at 8:43 AM
Five Things On My Mind
George, you spoke of the School Finance Authority (circa 1980). I was recently told that the SFA is still in existence and that its members salaries are still paid by CPS. Can you tell us if this is true?
Thu Jul 9, 2009 at 9:06 PM
Five Things On My Mind
This is the text I want, I very interested in your writing to. I try to visit you more often. Success for you. Thank you.
boarding schools ranking
boarding schools ranking
Thu Aug 6, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Five Things On My Mind
the now empty building is now going to be a charter school.
oh, how CPS lies to parents, students, teachers and community members.
oh, how CPS lies to parents, students, teachers and community members.
