Fri Feb 15, 2008 at 2:04 PMBy: Goldminer More On Abbott and Andersen Keep on looking Abbott and Anderson and watch what CPS is saying. For instance, if they say a majority, they mean 51%.
When they throw their power point slides up on the screen make sure you get each individual number and re-add them up because someone may have not changed a total when they added something to make their case look better. Remember, according to their "formulas" capacity has to end in a zero or a five and be divisible by 15. Good luck!!!

Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 2:24 AMBy: Andersen More On Abbott and Andersen The numbers show that the school is at 58%, considering the special education classes.

Where does it say that utilization should be the reason for closing a school? Isn't it a question of educational quality?!

This approach is ridiculous! Look into how enrollment can be increased...there have to be multiple solutions.

Utilization is a percentage...look at real numbers of children and then take a good hard look at how it will impact every single child that has to change schools. Is this really worth it? Their self esteem, academic progress, message we are sending to them...

This has to stop! You have to stay focused on what is right! Yes keep up the fight. Hopefully there will be some results by the end of the month!

Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 8:17 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen The hearings on the fate of Andersen Elementary School were among the most dramatic of the current series. More than 100 people filling the Board chambers above capacity until late on a Friday night. Detailed and often moving reports were delivered by the school's alderman (First Ward Alderman Manuel Flores, who remained for the entire evening, leaving with his constituents at 10:00 p.m.), by researchers, by parents, by teachers, by principals and former principals, and by students.

But everyone who turned from the speaker's podium to address "The Board" was not told that the seven members of the Chicago Board of Education, all appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, don't attend these hearings, and never have.

Despite the fact that the "hearing record" will be presented to the seven members of the Board of Education by February 25, so that they have the reports prior to voting on the CEO's recommendation at their February 27 monthly meeting, the seven members of the Chicago Board of Education not only boycotted the public that eloquently presented its case against the CEO's recommendations, but they will not even read the reports that supposedly will form the basis of their decisions when they vote, one-by-one on each of 19 Board Reports on February 27, 2008.

Since January 2001, when the Board voted to close the Jacob Riis Elementary School at Taylor Street and Lytle west of the University of Illinois campus, the Chicago Board of Education, on the recommendation of CEO Arne Duncan, has closed 40 Chicago public schools. (One of those, Riis, was closed before Duncan was appointed CEO by Mayor Daley on July 1, 2001).

Every school got a "hearing" that the members of the Board of Education avoided.

Every school was the subject of a "hearing officer's report" that members of the Board of Education did not read.

Every school was defended eloquently, as were Irving Park Middle School and Andersen Elementary on the night of February 15, 2008.

And on the afternoon of February 27, 2008 -- without having bothered to listen to one parent, heard from one teacher, been subjected to the arguments of one researcher (every Board data set has been challenged since the current round of hearings began, and several researchers have charged the Board with deliberately falsifying data), witnessed the tears of parents, students and principals (two principals were in tears at hearings covered by Substance; there may have been more), without having even bothered to read the thousands of pages of reports and documents that will be prepared for them prior to their vote -- the seven members of the Chicago Board of Education, all but one of them millionaires according to their most recent ethics filings -- will vote to destroy another 19 Chicago public schools and disrupt dozens of other schools as Chicago's version of "school reform" continues.

Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 9:31 AMBy: Gladstone Hearing today. More On Abbott and Andersen I can't speak of the Anderson/Abbot hearing, but the lady at the Gladstone hearing seemed pretty fair and let people finish their points. - She was an older African American lady.

There is another Gladstone hearing today. The kids at that school went to Riis and then to Jefferson and then to Gladstone and now they go to Smyth if Gladstone closes. How is that children first? Gladstone also has a lot of special education rooms. I believe the hearing is at 1231 S Damen.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

If we don't speak up for our fellow teachers and students now, who is to say that next year it won't be us? Go to a hearing if you can, show your support for your colleagues and all the children of Chicago.

Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 9:41 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen The highest paid of the hearing officers (going back to the 1997 Reconstitution hearings against Englewood and many of the others on this year's bulls eye), has been Fred Bates. I can't remember a year during which Bates wasn't awarded at least $30,000 via Board Reports (recommendations of the Attorney) for various chores such as these. He's now in his 11th year since Mayor Daley took over "school reform."

The others still on the team include Michael Hernandez and, of late, Respicio Vazquez. Vazquez, until a little while ago, was also representing the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) on, for example, the Corey H case in front of Judge Gettleman. Hernandez and Bates have been around the longest.

The most wonderful of all of them for the sheer Chicagoness of it was Richard Travis. Travis did Collins High School, for example (February 9, 2006). When community residents pointed out (at a Board meeting a couple of months later) that Travis had been disbarred in Michigan, CPS merely stated that a "hearing officer" didn't have to be an attorney licensed to practice, but merely appointed by CPS. Unbowed, the Board never used Richard Travis Esq again.

The ethics reports are on file with the Cook County Clerk's office. Despite some recent trauma, I'm confident that Clara Munana's stock portfolio is still in the eight or even nine figures. As you know, Norm Bobins received a very nice going away present when Bank of America took over LaSalle Bank. Like CPS executives, the curriculum vitae and resume and other stuff on these people should be a matter of public record, but CPS takes the position that the answer to any FOIA request is "None of your business..." and usually the Illinois Attorney General rubber stamps the CPS interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act. When the answer isn't "None of your business..." it's often "We're getting around to that..."

Sun Feb 17, 2008 at 2:29 PMBy: Andersen teacher More On Abbott and Andersen George---saw you were taking pictures at our hearing---will you be posting them somewhere online or in the paper---please let us know where and when---thanks!!!!

Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 12:55 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen "...George---saw you were taking pictures at our hearing---will you be posting them somewhere online or in the paper---please let us know where and when---thanks!!!!..."

I took more than 500 photographs of the Andersen hearing.

Short answer. We'll share. Here and elsewhere.

Before going into detail, I think we need to elevate the word "efficiency" to the level of obscenity it deserves in this town at this moment in history. More than 50 years ago, it had once before achieved that, back in the days when my father was carrying an M-1 from France to the Austrian Alps in a different fight against people who push these versions of reality, eugenics, and the philosophies that fester beneath all their manipulations and oleagenous words. I know people are very busy, and that Friday night ended a long and stressful week. But the battle continues, and when the seven members of the "Chicago Board of Education" convene to rubber stamp Arne Duncan's predations on February 27, I hope that as many people will be present as were present across Chicago the past two weeks at all of these hearings. There has rarely been such eloquent tributes to democracy, or such cynical and expensive attempts to manipulate all of us as this latest foray into school closings, Chicago style.

Substance would be willing to share the whole set with people from Andersen. Someone needs to get in contact so we can discuss a couple of things. I will share a couple with Alexander Russo here within a day or two, and we will put some up on our website.

But the entire CD will be useful at Andersen. There were more than 50 speakers, including most of the students. I only want to utilize those for which I clearly got the spelling and identification of the speaker correct (from Alderman Flores to the children), so when I share this stuff with you all I'll trust that you will return one copy with all of the names spelled correctly to me later. You know how bad an eloquent 14-year-old will feel if his or her remarks identify him or her inaccurately.

That's what will happen with the photographs.

As you noticed, the rest of the media simply ignored the eloquence with which Andersen presented its cases Friday night. That was deliberate. CPS scheduled Andersen and Edison for Friday night knowing the odds are enormous that the TV cameras (which they fear most) will never spend three hours on a Friday night doing a story as complex as the human tragedy being created right now with these closings. One of the things I noted was that the two late night Friday events (Edison on the 8th at Edison; Andersen on the 15th) were both pertaining to the hypocrisies of "Specailized Services" (although it's not usually appreciated, gifted children are also "special needs" children), so as CPS continues its attack on the IDEA and on programs that work for children with special needs, the dozens of propaganda people paid by CPS work overtime to ensure that the stories of their victims don't get told in media that they fear.

You might have noticed that I lost it when Adam Garrison began to clap with everyone during his mother's remarks. Everyone was eloquent, but the moment the Andersen community brought such joy to that child was the signature moment of the evening, and made perfectly clear what Andersen was presenting. But CPS won't ever broadcast (or even make available) the tapes of those three hours, and only Labor Beat and I were trying to capture as much of the story as possible. (I think David from Labor Beat was gone by the time the Garrisons testified).

I've been watching various special needs children and their families and teachers at Board of Education meetings and budget hearings for the past three years. I was the only reporter who pointed out that the 2006 special education cuts (more than $26 million) were completely unnecessary because the "deficit" that Arne Duncan had been trumpeting from January through July 2006 was a lie, and the enormous size of the cash reserves CPS had when it closed its books (now available in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports for FY 2006 and FY 2007) prove that it was a lie all along.

I've watched dozens of children in wheelchairs at Board meetings and other events protesting the rape of these services im the name of "efficiency" and hiding behind lies about budget "deficits" that are created by cooking the books. I've visited many of the victims of these lies at their schools.

But somehow it all came together when the Garrisons stood up and Adam began smiling and clapping. This has rarely happened to me during these events, or in the many years I've covered some unusual news, going all the way back to some very nasty stuff 40 years ago.

When I got home late Friday, I told my family that what we are depicting here deserves to be called evil, and then I showed the Garrison photograph. Next time I'm at CPS, I'll take another look at "John Galt Associates" on the 19th floor and do a little more looking into the real theological underpinnings of what these people are doing to our public schools and the philosophies underneath their lies.

For the past three years the attacks on special education programs have escalated, and the special education children that have been, literally, dumped out on the streets has increased. Spalding still sits empty, while the administration is spending more than $20 million rehabilitating the asbestos filled Sear Power House. The LeMoyne program for children with autism was destroyed so that Advocate Illinois Masonic could grab the land under InterAmerican. This is a very very nasty story, and although most of the victims of these manipulations and hypocrisies have been healthy and robust and able to defend ourselves (after all, we're still standing nearly ten years after they sued us for $1 million and the Tribune and Sun-Times told CPS to fire me from my teaching job), hundreds of the victims of these Ayn Rand "efficiencies" have been children with disabilities. Many with the most severe disabilities.

I was at Blair two days around Halloween 2006 when they couldn't get those children out during fire drills because the budget people had cut six special education aides. I've watched them hold the Spalding building for some developer buddies of theirs, while the children Spalding had served were waiting to be trapped on the upper floors of Clemente because there was no way to get them out of Clemente in a real emergency. And, of course, there was that wonderful program for children with autism at LeMoyne that they destroyed using Power Point, spreadsheets, media complicity, and over and over and over lies, lies, and more lies.

Arne Duncan -- with the full cooperation of his highly paid executives in "Specialized Services" -- has destroyed program after program in special education -- LeMoyne, half of Blair, Spalding, and others too numerous to mention. It amounts to a raw abuse of "data", power, and hypocritical moralizing that's truly unprecedented anywhere I know in the past 25 years (although those who know the history of the treatment of special needs people -- especially children -- know that Arne and his colleagues have deep roots in some of the nastier chapters in Chicago and US history).

Everyone was eloquent Friday night. Everyone was beautiful except those dreaded mercenaries sitting behind the railing, there because they'd been ordered to be there by Arne. Did you know that his office took attendance of the functionaries that were yawning during your presentations?

Did you know that not one member of the Chicago Board of Education attended one of those hearings, and that not one of the seven members of the Board of Education will read any other those reports -- let alone the Andersen "chain" -- before they vote to destroy another 19 schools at the February 27 meeting?

Those people behind the railing were mid- and low-level bureaucrats whose $80,000 to $140,000 per year salaries depend on their going along with these pogroms.

Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 3:46 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen The "reports" from each of the 19 hearings on the school closings that have been held between February 4 (Johns Academy) and February 16 (Gladstone at Gladstone) have to be ready in time for the distribution of the agenda for the February meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. The agenda has to be published and available by February 25 if Chicago is to be in compliance with even a shred of the Illinois Open Meetings Act. The hearing officers have also promised people at the hearings that they could certainly pick up copies of the hearing officers' reports.

Right.

There will be a major public meeting on February 27, 2008.

The agenda will include a thing called a "Board Report" recommending each of the closings that Arne Duncan announced he wants to do a month ago. Each Board Report will be a few pages long, and it will probably say that the Board accepts the recommendation of the hearing officers that the recommendation of the Chief Executive Officer be followed.

At least, that's the way it's been since April 2002, when this school closing blitzkrieg began nine months after Mayor Daley appointed Arne Duncan as CEO of CPS and Paul Vallas went out to run for governor of Illinois.

The Chicago Board of Education's February meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 27.

Sign in for those who wish to speak in public participation is from 8:00 to 9:00 in the lobby of 125 S. Clark St. The public participation is scheduled to begin at 10:30, but the Board usually figures out how to stall for at least an hour with some kinds of honorary thingies. (One month they spent ten minutes on a program to promote squash in elementary school, even though virtually no elementary school has a squash court; go figure -- it was to waste time so the public didn't get to speak...).

Some time between 10:30 and noon, the "public participation" will begin. The Board is supposed to allow everyone who signs up to speak, but they usually try to limit people to two speakers per "topic" (they decide the topics when they can) and each speaker gets two minutes.

Although more than 100 people can fit into the Board chambers on the 5th floor, where the meeting is held, the Board reserves almost half the seats for its own people, including almost all of the center section (where the TV cameras see people seated behind the speakers).

An interesting civics lesson could be to determine the total cost of all the people warming the "reserved" seats on the 5th Floor in range of the camera, since all of them are highly paid (few being paid less than $90,000 per year) CPS bureaucrats. Remember, this doesn't count the 30 or so more highly paid ($100,000 to $200,000 per year) executives who sit "behind the railing" arrayed around the Board members and Arne Duncan. These are, generally, the "Chiefs", "Chief Officers", and "Directors".

If there are more than 70 or 80 people who show up to attend the Board meeting, they are shunted up to the 19th floor to a place called the "overflow room", where the proles get to sit and watch the Board meeting on closed circuit TV. They used to have three overflow rooms for major overflows, but I was told last month there is only one now. It seats about 100 people and is not a comfortable place.

The last time the Board met at a school was in April 2002, the first meeting at which Arne Duncan proposed closing some schools in order to "save" them. This salvation theology has been underlying the rationale for closing schools since then. CPS is either "saving" the children; "saving" the school; or, in the case now of "underutilized" buildings, "saving" taxpayer dollars. This "salvation" stuff goes on unless those buildings contain charter schools, in which case they can't be underutilized by definition. The Austin High School building, for example, has been known to fit 2,500 high school students, but since Arne Duncan saved the Austin community from public education by closing Austin as a public high school and slowly turning it over to private entities (American Quality Schools and, this year, a thing called the "Austin Polytechnic"), Austin is already being "saved" by educating only about 500 kids within its spacious walls. But remember, Austin isn't "underutilized" because by definition it can't be "underutilized". Ditto Calumet, Englewood, and Collins, all of which have been privatized.

But back to April 2002.

That was the first year Arne Duncan saved some schools by closing them. The Board meeting that month was held at Herzl Elementary School on the West Side. More than 1,000 people showed up, almost all of them to oppose the salvation plans for Dodge, Terrell and Williams elementary schools. So the public's participation in that public meeting frightened Arne and Board President Michael Scott so much that they decided the best public meetings would be held thenceforth at 125 S. Clark St. where the public would have to pay a fortune (at some privatized city parking lot) or otherwise not be as easily able to make it.

The last public meeting of Chicago's public school board held in a public school was the first public meeting at which Arne Duncan began closing public schools. He's closed 40 since then, but never again risking having large numbers of the public present for the public meeting. Let's bet that on February 27, 2008, the public will be greeted by phalanxes of security to protect the Board of Education members from the public. And to make sure that people don't sit in the reserved seats and don't overflow the overflow room(s).

Couple of other things:

1. The Board of Education meeting doesn't actually begin until after the "Public Participation" ends. That means, among other things, that the Board of Education doesn't keep any stenographic record of what the public says to the Board at the Board's public meetings.

2. The Board has to actually vote on a thing called a "Board Report" in order to close all these schools they want to close. But what the Board will do is recess into "Executive Session" after "Public Participation" and discuss the public's business in secret.

3. The Executive Session will end some time late in the afternoon or in early evening, at which time the Board will "reconvene" and vote on all the agenda items in front of it in record time without discussion or debate. Generally, Rufus Williams has been able to get through an agenda with between 100 and 200 items in less than 15 minutes. Unless you have a very well prepared scorecard, you won't even know that they just voted (legally, at least according to legal form) to close your school.

4. Although the hearing officers who were doing all that stuff the past couple of weeks will have presented the Board members with a report (on each of the 19 closings), given that each of the major reports will fill a loose leaf notebook, it's unlikely that the seven members of the Board of Education will bother to read any of the reports, let alone all those nice things that the children prepared when they thought they were talking to "The Board" at the hearings.

Nope. They're just going to vote, very quickly, "Yes" to everything Arne Duncan has proposed.

At some point late in the day on February 27, the February 2008 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education will have completed its business, and the destruction of 19 schools (and the disruption of thousands of lives -- parents, children, teachers, principals and other staffs) will go into high gear, just as it has for the past six years (and the past 40 school closings).

By September 1, 2008, Mayor Daley's miracle management team and miracle school board will have closed 59 public schools, flipping many of them into the hands of quasi-private operators (e.g., the charter school operators and their management organizations).

And since Mayor Daley has told the world that he will have opened "100 New Schools" under "Renaissance 2010" by the year 2010, you might say that Arne Duncan (appointed by Mayor Daley) and the seven members of the Chicago Board of Education (also appointed by Mayor Daley) have been doing their job quite well --

if their job is to do what Mayor Daley and his corporate buddies order them to do.

Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 8:39 AMBy: Rod Estvan More On Abbott and Andersen At the hearing CPS Office of Specialized Services presented a report. In that report OSS said that two state blended pre-K programs would exist after Andersen became LaSalle. Two early childhood programs for Autism would be moved, but by then the current student would have aged out according to OSS, and three cross catagorical self contained programs would be phased out.

OSS made no attempt to contact parents of students with autism attending Andersen to discuss their proposal with them. Several parents at the meeting on Friday night seemed upset by that.

Several parents of students with disabilities made what we at Access Living think is a very critical point. Chidren who have disabilities have major problems with transitions, several of the families noted they came to Andersen after having failed to recieve appropriate services elsewhere in CPS. The object of self contained special education programs is to bring students with disabilities back into regular classrooms whenever possible. A school like Andersen, that can provide an array of supports is the best environment for educating these students whenever possible in regular classrooms. Moving these children reduces the possiblity of their returning to regular classrooms, because the regular education teachers will not have special educators that really know these complex children and can support the reintergration of these students.

Much of what CPS does in terms of returning self-contained students to regular classrooms can only be called dumping. At Andersen there is a real posibility of meaningful reintergration in a gradual way for many of these seriously disalbed students. This is in big part why Access Living opposes the closing of Andersen School.

Rod Estvan
Access Living

Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 9:16 AMBy: more info More On Abbott and Andersen here's some more info about what's being proposed:

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=R&url=http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/799467,CST-NWS-magnet18.article&cid=0&ei=uWm5R_euKZT6-gHrvIWVCA

or click here.

-- alexander

Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 10:39 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen As I reported earlier, this is part of what is now a four-year project of the Duncan administration to disrupt and dump special education programs. Since Duncan closed Spalding (it was supposedly in need of major repairs that couldn't be completed while children were in the building), there has been a steady attack on special education programs that were working well for the children in them. The testimony of the parents, teachers, and children from Blair, LeMoyne, Southside and other places has always been the same: "Why are you doing this to the least of your brethren?"

And the cynical answer from CPS is always a bunch of mumbo jumbo, doubletalk, and cynical media manipulation.

Alexander, I don't know how you can include a story by Rosalind Rossi of the Sun-Times at this point. Rossi was not at CPS for the hearings on Irving Park Middle and Andersen on Friday. Nor was she at the hearings the day before (Da La Cruz and Gladstone). Nor was she at the hearings the day before that on Copernicus and Carver Middle.

The only conclusion anyone can reasonably draw about the way in which the Sun-Times has "covered" these stories is that they are getting their information exclusively from CPS "Communications", with perhaps a phone call or two for a quote to show "balance." That's nonsense.

Between February 13 (Copernicus and Carver Middle), February 14 (De La Cruz and Gladstone) and February 15 (Irving Park Middle and Andersen) more than 500 parents, teachers, principals, community leaders, and student spoke eloquently against these closings at 125 S. Clark St. The Sun-Times was last seen covering one of the hearings at Edison (February 8), although they might have had someone at one of the other hearings since February 8.

That's not reporting, it's recycled CPS propaganda, reported as "news." Anyone who wants to keep a clip file of that kind of "news" and then reference it deserves to remain deluded.

Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 1:59 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen Most of the Sun-Times articles result from those infamous editorial board meetings where Arne goes in with his Power Point and data sets and spouts BS. Nobody takes a close look on the ground, because it costs too much money to send reporters all the way from Harlem and Devon 28 miles southeast across one of the nation's largest cities to 133rd St. and the Bishop Ford and document each lie in those charters, graphs, and Power Points.

Edison's a good example on every level. In the "Edison Sliver" of Chicago (that tiny piece of the city bounded by Harlem Ave. on the east, the Kennedy Expressway on the south, and the suburbs every place else) there are three elementary schools: Edison; Ebinger; and Stock. Even Oriole Park, which is close geographically, is separated from the Edison Sliver by the Kennedy Expressway, and no CPS administration has ever dared claim that elementary children should be districted to cross something that big (although Arne's team is capable of anything in the abstract, I'll admit).

What Arne's Big Lie in the Edison fairy tale did was truncate two data sets.

In the Edison end of town (the sliver), Arne claimed there was "overcrowding" across the whole northwest side (down all the way to here, near Portage Park school). While the generalization is true, none of it applies in the real world to the situation adjacent to Edison Regional Gifted Center. The overcrowded school there is Ebinger. Period. Any relief by closing Edison as a Gifted Center goes to Ebinger. Period. Unless you do something so ridiculous even the Sun-Times might notice, like telling kids from south of the Edison site to go to Oriole Park (south of the Kennedy) to "relieve overcrowding".

On the other end of the Edison Big Lie you had the "Albany Park" craziness. True, Albany Park Middle School is currently "underutilized". But the corner where Albany Park sits (which includes Hibbard to the immediate west, 150 feet from Albany Park) is overcrowded. And the Edison kids will be arriving by bus. Add 300 Edison kids to that corner to the 1,200 Hibbard kids and the 300 or 400 Albany Park kids and just think of the traffic problems. First time a little kid gets popped there will be another screaming tabloid headline in the Sun-Times (which apparently hasn't sent any of its editors to the corner of Ainslie and Sawyer either in the a.m. or p.m. to see how this "solution" to "overcrowding" will really work).

I guess you can say that the Hibbard corner isn't "overcrowded" -- at six a.m. and six p.m. But once the school days starts, it is.

In order to see that reality, from Oriole Park all the way over seven miles to the east to Albany Park, you have to go look. It's what reporters used to do in Chicago, until all of the stories began coming out of corporate meetings with editorial boards, highlighted by Power Point presentations, boilerplate babble, and Excel spreadsheets in which nobody ever checks that underlying data.

Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 4:03 PMBy: Elizabeth Hildreth self-contained pre-K at Andersen Maybe someone can answer a question for me...My daughter is in the self-contained pre-K class at Andersen. My other daughter is in the Blended. Both my daughters are 3, they entered into State-preK straight from Early Intervention when they were 2 and a 1/2. My daughter in the self-contained class is the youngest student (age 3) in her morning class. The self-contained classes are supposed to be phased out year by year, and she will still be there another two years after this year. By the time she gets to her last year, all the kids in her class will have aged out. She will be the only one left in her class. The ONLY one.

How will that work?

On a related note, what sucks about this whole deal is that my kids who will have been at the Andersen facility for three years in pre-K don't get to go into LaSalle II. According to the school (talked to them today), if (after THREE years at the Andersen), I wanted them to continue at that facility and go right into the LaSalle kindergarten, I would have to reapply through the magnet program. Unfortunately, my kids applications would not be weighted for sibling lottery (both of my girls are in Pre-K and would be applying for kindergarten at the same time) and I'm not convinced their apps would be weighted for proximity (right now they're bussed to Andersen because of all of its spec ed programs). I realize I have a personal stake in not having my kids moved all around the city, but does that seem like a really bad policy to anyone else? I can't believe anyone can justify yanking a spec ed kid who can't tolerate change well out a facility that they've been in for three years because technically, they're at a different "school"--and by a different school, i mean they're in Room 104 instead of 108. Ridiculous. Can anyone predict how this will play out for us?

Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 10:13 PMBy: A preschool teacher More On Abbott and Andersen Elizabeth- Is the old Anderson your home school? It is pretty typical for ECSE students to go to a school with a program for the years they are in the program and then return to their home school. If this is your home school, than I think you have an argument. If it is not your home school, than your children would be expected to leave at the end of Age Cycle 4 (for the Blended) and Age Cycle 5 (for the instructional). Most children cannot enter blended until they are Age Cycle 3 and can only be in Blended for 2 years. The rules on that changed in 2004/2005 - Blended (Age Cycle 3/4), Instructional (Age Cycle 2 - 5).

Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 2:11 AMBy: George N. Schmidt More On Abbott and Andersen Anyone who believes that Arne Duncan will keep one of the promises that are being made by his ruthless agents during this round of school closings might want to revisit the closing of LeMoyne's famous autism program (as late as two months before they announced they were going to screw LeMoyne, Duncan and Michael Scott were asked -- by teachers from both LeMoyne and Inter American -- if they were planning to close Inter American (then adjacent to Advocate Masonic) and move it to LeMoyne, while kicking the special education program out of LeMoyne.

Duncan and Scott answered in all sincerity that they had no such thought. Actually, the plans were already being made. They lied.

The same thing happened to Edison, which actually got a letter two years ago saying nothing was planned to change Edison.

And this kind of thing goes all the way back to the Dawn of Duncan. In late 2001, Duncan and Daley visited Williams Elementary and told the teachers and everyone else how great the schools was. Six months later, it was a "failure" and closed, amid a slander campaign against all of the staff that continues to this day when Arne's Anecdotes are being sprayed around.

Anyone who believes that the programs for special needs children at Andersen will survive the first year of this thingy Arne's doing to Anderson has been deprived of a close look at the past six years' history.

Any promise made as they are trying to divide and conquer a school in order to close it is broken as soon as they've broken the opposition. Ask the teachers and other staff from Williams, Dodge, Terrell, Morse, Bunche, and a dozen other elementary schools. Ask the staffs from Austin, Calumet, Collins, Englewood, and Flower high schools.

Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 12:39 PMBy: jessica More On Abbott and Andersen Okay so everybody knows what is wrong and that they lied.
Now what is the solution?

Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 9:04 AMBy: Alectay More On Abbott and Andersen A more direct link to CEJE would be

null

Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 9:43 AMBy: Rod Estvan More On Abbott and Andersen I attempted to answer several questions but my post was blocked for the use of a word or words not allowed. I still do not know what those words were or are. I sent the post to Alexander to figure out what bad things I said. Maybe, it had to do with legal terms, I honestly do not know. I have not yet heard back from Alexander.

Rod Estvan
Access Living

Mon Feb 25, 2008 at 4:01 PMBy: concerned More On Abbott and Andersen The hearing officer's report was faxed today. It was recommended that the Board proceed with the proposed phase-out. I'm sure everyone is shocked (yeah, right). Why even bother with these public hearings since it's CLEAR that the CPS already had their minds made up. This whole situation is so stupid and out of control, it's ALMOST humorous. Almost.

Fri Feb 29, 2008 at 6:14 PMBy: Joke More On Abbott and Andersen The hearings the Board holds regarding schools being phasing out, closed,and turn around is absolutely a waste of time. People think the Board will listen to educators, parents and students. How do you think the children feel after they have spoken eloquently and there is a "done deal"
What does this teach children? Big business and politicians rule! Its a horrible thing to teach innocent children .

Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 1:50 AMBy: Curtis Harris More On Abbott and Andersen How could Mayor Daley instructs Duncan and his cohorts dismantle a great autistic program at Le Moyne for a magnet school in the affluent Lake View neighborhood more worthy and deserving than Le Moyne's most vulernable students. Daley doesn't have a clue about regression of autistic children into their new schools, especially when they're between the ages of 3 to 6.

I wonder did Daley visit Le Moyne before its closure? If he did, he left Le Moyne little impressed about the Le Moyne autistic program. Daley had his plan all along to sell the old Inter-American building to Illinois Masonic Advocate Hospital move the gifted students into the Le Moyne building and start the phaseout of Le Moyne. Daley instructed Duncan, Michael Scott and Rufus Williams to evict the special eduction student s out of Le Moyne.

Does Daley and CPS cohorts recognize Le Moyne was the first CPS school to have the autistic program, nearly a quarter-century ago? Must not. Now he has his Board of Education a.k.a miracle team dismantle another successful autistic program at Andersen for a more gifted magnet school of La Salle.

As a person with a disability, Daley should research medical facts and evidence of children with autism before aggressively going after the 2016 Olympics. Providing an adequate funding for special education is more important than the Summer Olympics.

I believe Daley is selling the Renaissance 2010 to impress the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to show the world of "his miracle team" of reforming the Chicago Public Schools to show how our schools have improve and deserves to get the 2016 Summer Olympic games in Chicago.