Thu Jan 24, 2008 at 1:35 PMBy: Dan Bassill School Closings Update (19) This is a much more complex problem than is described in the media and firing everyone in a school won't necessarily change the outcomes for kids living in high poverty neighborhoods, or in communities where learning and education is not valued by a large percent of the population.

I wrote about this on the Tutor/Mentor Blog and provided some links to additional research on the issue.

Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 7:19 AMBy: hearing schedule School Closings Update (19) thanks to george, here is the schedule of hearings from CPS:

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
FACT SHEET

HEARING SCHEDULE ON PROPOSED TURNAROUNDS, CONSOLIDATIONS, AND RELOCATIONS

Monday, Feb. 4, 2008
Miles Davis and Johns Academy proposals, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark
St., 5th Floor Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008
Midway Academy Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th Floor
Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Abbott Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th
Floor Board Chambers, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008
Orr Campus Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th Floor Board
Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Midway Academy Proposal, Hancock High School, 4034 W. 56th St., 5 p.m. to 8
p.m.

Howe Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th
Floor Board Chambers, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Friday, Feb. 8, 2008
Morton Career Academy Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th
Floor Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Edison Regional Gifted Center Proposal, Edison Regional Gifted Center
Proposal, 6220 N. Olcott Ave., 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008
Duprey Elementary School Proposal, Duprey Elementary School, 1405 North
Washtenaw Avenue, noon to 3 p.m.

Monday, Feb. 11, 2008
Fulton Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th
Floor Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Miles Davis and Johns Proposal, St. Andrews Temple, 1743 W. Marquette Rd.,
5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Harper High School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th Floor
Board Chambers, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008
Copernicus Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St.,
5th Floor Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Carver Middle School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th
Floor Board Chambers, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008
Gladstone Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St.,
5th Floor Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

De La Cruz Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St.,
5th Floor Board Chambers, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Friday, Feb. 15, 2008
Irving Park Middle School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St., 5th
Floor Board Chambers, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Andersen Elementary School Proposal, CPS Central Office, 125 S. Clark St.,
5th Floor Board Chambers, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008
Gladstone Elementary School Proposal, Gladstone Elementary School, 1231 S.
Damen, noon to 3 p.m.


Board of Education Meeting. Wednesday, February 27, 2008. CPS Central Office,
125 S. Clark St., 5th Floor Board Chambers. Sign in for public participation
in lobby, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Meeting begins 10:30 a.m.

Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 6:22 PMBy: new heads for turnaround schools School Closings Update (19) here's some info on who's going to run the turnaround efforts, from catalyst

http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/index.php?item=2340&cat=30

Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 10:11 PMBy: The Reason School Closings Update (19) If you look at the public hearing schedules, and the type of action proposed, you'll notice that the schools proposed to close actually have two different public meetings: a public hearing at 125 and a community meeting at the location of the school (or a location nearby).

Edison is a relocation, not a proposal to close. That explains why the hearing is scheduled at Edison.

Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 3:58 AMBy: George N. Schmidt School Closings Update (19) Odds 'n ends Part One:

1. CPS scheduled the Edison hearing at Edison (all the way out in a place many TV hotshots can't find on a Friday night). Scheduling the hearing far far away from media central is a ploy to keep coverage at bay. Arne stages everything possible for TV, even down to telling his “diversity” backdrop where each rainbow piece should stand when the cameras turn on. Don't you think you think the location of the Edison hearing is because Arne's planners want to keep media coverage away from all the hearings, but especially Edison? Arne is going to follow the usual script with most of the schools he’s closing – slander the teachers (and families) by pasting them with the “failure” label. But with Edison he’s destroying one of the best schools in Illinois, going back to the days when Arne was first playing basketball for those powerhouse teams at University of Chicago Lab School and Harvard as a kid. Arne and his central committee are especially and nastily hostile to Edison. It’s as if they couldn't stand having twelve-year-olds who are already better at math than they will ever be, with parents, from all walks of life, who can catch every lie, half truth, and evasion Arne prattles out from his script.

2. Rufus Williams is getting more and more defensive as he has to play Daley’s front man to the Black Community on these weapons of destruction programs. The game will soon be "Where's Rufus?" One of the most interesting things about Thursday's press conference was that Rufus Williams wasn't there. Arne trotted out Barbara Eason-Watkins for the job Thursday. Not only is Rufus dodging the cameras and the community, he hasn’t taken any questions about his decision to close the high school he claims to have graduated from (Orr). For the past four months, every time something really controversial has come up at a Board meeting, Williams can be heard saying, "Why didn't I know about this?"

Didn't anyone tell him Rufus was there to smile a lot, follow orders, and put in his time until Mayor Daley found him honest work as a "developer" or something?

3. Does anyone want to bet that CPS refuses to broadcast the hearings, even though they could get time on Cable TV? CPS has a videographic team that’s been on every moment of this stuff. They will video the hearings, but Arne and his media handlers don't dare make the video records publicly available.

Since 2002, when they did these first show trials, the truth is very dramatic. (Yes, I’ve covered most of the trials, and others all the way back to the “Intervention” hearings in 2000 when they put in that silly program that Catlyst got mindlessly gooey over for a year). The drama comes out at the hearings when people – real parents, teachers, and children -- actually talk about the schools facing extinction. The narrative is dramatic dramatic, moving, and honest. That truth is opposed to those vapid corporate talking points that Arne repeats ad nauseum. “All Children Can Learn” (Wow! Why didn’t we think of that before today; thanks so much, Arne) “Good teachers will keep their jobs in the marketplace?” (Wow! What marketplace did you go to to qualify for your job, Arne?).

When facing real people -- as opposed to doctored spreadsheets, "average" data sets, Power Point, well rehearsed talking heads, and the routine lies that flow like sewage out of 125 S. Clark St. -- Arne shrinks away to the nonentity he is. He won’t ba at the hearings. Nor will the members of that Rubber Stamp, the Chicago Board of Education. They’ll be hiding behind a couple of clichés and looking even sillier than their master up the street at full throat and throttle.

So their next goal is a media blackout on the unfolding of their crimes between now and the February 27 Board of Education meeting.

That's why Edison's hearing is at Edison.

Mon Jan 28, 2008 at 10:58 AMBy: Linda Lenz School Closings Update (19) Another view of Orr High School comes from Brooke Ray, Orr's 2001 valedictorian and a 2005 graduate of the University of Southern Califormia.
She shares it in the December issue of Catalyst:
... Although her high school classes did not prepare her for university-level work, Ray maintained a B-average GPA by studying hard and asking for help from her professors and teaching assistants.
Ray also says she relied on the emotional support of her high school teachers and administrators to keep going when things got rough. “I think attending Orr High School was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says. “There are people that believed in me and what I could accomplish.”

For more updates on Ray and other students featured in our 2001-2002 series "The College Challenge," click here.

Mon Feb 4, 2008 at 2:11 AMBy: Geroge N. Schmidt School Closings Update (19) Even though I am busy, this is a very good question. Arne's attack on Andersen (like his attacks on Edison, which now includes slander by proxy against some Edison parents) is one of the best examples of how Arne Duncan's list is really about total control, and has nothing to do with what is better for the education of children anywhere in Chicago. What Arne has done is release a set of "criteria" which can be used to close down any school any time he chooses, as long as the Board of Education rubber stamps the mayor's wishes when the attack is completed.

That's what's at stake over the next four weeks.

I think it's very important for there to be a large turnout for the Andersen hearing. Andersen, as you know, has one of the best pre-k programs in urban America. For the past four years, Arne has been systematically destroying some of these really good programs (the LeMoyne autism program was a very good example; transplanting such programs destroys them, despite all that boilerplate rhetoric that Arne rehearses with his media handlers).

What's really going on here, if you look at all the choices for closings and messing arounds, is an assertion by Duncan and Daley that they can do anything they want, since there is a "policy" reason for doing anything and a way of manipulating "data" to get the results they want. They currently have about 50 people (possibly as many as a hundred) "running the numbers" and preparing the lies for each school they are attacking. Demographics and Accountability are just the major departments that will be promoting the Big Lie over the next three weeks (beginning tonight). The Law Department and the AIOs are also working overtime to bring this prize (unlimited ability to terminate schools) to the Daley administration.

It's also ridiculous for Arne Duncan to think he can get away with pushing "small" in some places, and then combining Andersen (over time, like slow death) into another building. Assuming (which I don't) that Andersen remains small, so what? At its smallest it will become about the average size of most middle class suburban elementary schools (which, by the way, generally have class sizes about 25 to 50 percent lower than those in CPS, and consequently have different "capacity" situations). The Andersen community deserves the flexibility to utilize that building, and it may be that the combination of Andersen and Flores is just the thing to protect everything that's working there from these predators.

As to whether Manny Flores will stand by all the schools in his communities (that's definitely a plural), we'll see. He's still a little too behind in understanding how the data are manipulated to create these situations. Although he understand how the books can be cooked in other enterprises (his ward is suffering greatly from the mortgage con jobs), he still doesn't see how Arne Duncan does the same kind of thing as New Century or the others just did in a different context.

The more people who line up behind Andersen (and stay in contact with Alderman Flores), the better.

As it is, Alderman Flores has generally been better about public schools than many other aldermen. Most have been sitting on the fence, watching the mayor attack public schools and brokering deals for their own wards. Flores knows every school in his ward. If he doesn't back down, and Andersen is as well organized as I think it will be, the hearings on Andersen alone will be worth the work of all of us. Arne's case to close Andersen is simply ridiculous, on any level. He's got to have some real estate deal in mind behind the scenes.

This bring us to another broader question. Since Mayor Daley and Arne have brought all 50 wards into play in this craziness, everyone needs to pay closer and closer attention to each alderman. There is no reason why developers (as evidenced by that recent Tribune series) should have more influence than working people (and our unions) except that we've ignored the privatization pushers and the union busters.

When you look carefully, there are only a few teacher bashers and union busters really active in City Council -- Brookins (21), Solis (25) and Burnett (27) are the most obvious. All of them have been bragging about their work on behalf of privatization and union busting through charters. Brookins's attacks on public schools and the unions alone should ensure that nobody supports him for state's attorney. But he's not alone in that corner.

On the other hand, some of the strangest ambiguities are Austin, Mitts, and Carruthers, who simply need to be talked to. CTU should spend more time watching the way the aldermen go about their work, and CTU definitely should not have abstained during last year's mayoral and aldermanic elections.

Wed Feb 6, 2008 at 11:52 AMBy: Marc School Closings Update (19) What is wrong with Orr Academy, small schools or the students? The answer is that through the leadership from CPS Offices over the years no one has ever taken the right direction or approach to help the students achieve at grade level. Having worked at Orr as a teacher and administrator over the years I have never seen anyone try and determine why many of the students cannot read at grade level. Their answer was new programs using grant money with catchy names and phrases. Not one of those programs looked at the individual student. Suggestions made by teachers and other administrators fell on deaf ears from CPS.

Back in the early 1970’s when Lincoln Park High School was known as Waller three young teachers worked with 60 students over the eight week summer program for three hours a day. We selected students whose reading levels were still at the elementary school level. We gave each student a diagnostic reading exam to determine their SPECIFIC problems. We divided the students into three groups. The students worked with each teacher for one hour then rotated. Keeping a folder on each student we were able to chart their progress. At the end of the summer we gave the students another post diagnostic exam and to our amazement students jumped between one and three grade levels. As young teachers we wrote up our results and delivered them to CPS headquarters. Administrators were pleased with the results and said they would get back to us. We never heard from anyone again.

Unless Orr Campus students are tested for their specific needs and a plan of action is devised to meet those needs then the plans devised by CPS will just continue to be shots in the dark.

Wed Feb 6, 2008 at 11:57 AMBy: Marc School Closings Update (19) Back in the early 1970’s when Lincoln Park High School was known as Waller three young teachers worked with 60 students over the eight week summer program for three hours a day. We selected students whose reading levels were still at the elementary school level. We gave each student a diagnostic reading exam to determine their SPECIFIC problems. We divided the students into three groups. The students worked with each teacher for one hour then rotated. Keeping a folder on each student we were able to chart their progress. At the end of the summer we gave the students another post diagnostic exam and to our amazement students jumped between one and three grade levels. As young teachers we wrote up our results and delivered them to CPS headquarters. Administrators were pleased with the results and said they would get back to us. We never heard from anyone again.

Unless Orr Campus students are tested for their specific needs and a plan of action is devised to meet those needs then the plans devised by CPS will just continue to be shots in the dark.

Thu Feb 14, 2008 at 9:59 PMBy: North Side School Closings Update (19) CPS does not care about the overcrowding on the NW side. Who are they kidding? They would have had a real solution years ago. These NW side childre did not just appear this year- since 2001 the population has been increasing. Even if CPS joined the news late in the game, they would have had proposed a real solution like a middle school in say 2005. CPS is manipulating the overcrowding issue, not even saying what they would do to really solve it. OK, closing (really that is what it is) Edison is the beginning. What is the middle? the end? Never mind, moving Edison is just a cover up of planning, political and financial errors. Five regional gifted centers east of Central...None west of Central on the N Side. HMM ... hope they take the word REGIONAL out of the title. LIARS.