Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 7:59 AMBy: Teacher Quality High School Transformation, Marshall, & More Late Hiring, Lower Teacher Quality

The graphic shows that the number of unfilled positions has declined.

It would have been helpful if Catalyst showed the trend in the total number of teachers during the same time period.
If the total number of teachers has declined systemwide - then perhaps you would expect vacancies to decline too.

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 7:21 PMBy: George N. Schmidt High School Transformation, Marshall, & More Hey, everybody, you all have heard about the "High School Summit" on April 10, right?

Here's hoping Catalyst is inviting teachers from every high school in Chicago to their "High School Summit II". The event will be held on Thursday, April 10, 2008, beginning at 8:00 a.m. at the "Chase Tower" (once upon a time, the First National Bank Building, since then renamed several times) at 10 S. Dearborn St.

According to the Catalyst invitation:

"Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan will present an update on the status of the High School Transformation Plan, which he introduced at the first Summit two-and-a-half years ago. The $80 million initiative, aimed largely at improving instruction, is now in 25 schools..."

I hear that the Duncan administration is figuring out how to provide substitute teacher coverage for at least two teachers from every high school and for one administrator (principal or assistant principal preferred). Hopefully, this is true so that when high schools are discussed in Chicago there are some high school people there for the discussing. Especially since the sponsor is Catalyst. Another question is how many people will be there from the Chicago Teachers Union and the other major unions. Finally, how many parents and students?

We'd like to hear how many teachers and principals from CPS high schools will be there on April 10.

Please let us know, here or by other means.

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 7:42 PMBy: rodentface High School Transformation, Marshall, & More susieQ: "Duhhh, please elaborate more intelligently and articulately as to why High School Transformation is "crap." Anyone who knows anything about school reform realizes conclusions can't be drawn after only 18 months."

There is a great deal of pressure from CPS to include my high school in the Transformation. I agree that 18 months isn't enough time to determine the program is crap. But that same 18 months is also not enough time to determine it is effective. And without any impressive evidence of success I don't feel it's justified to foist Transformation on 25 additional schools every year, including mine. Let a small sample size of schools run its course to determine if it is successful. If it is successful, *then* consider expanding the program. Just like CPS did with IMPACT. Oh...um...wait...

The teachers at my school are vehemently opposed to "crap" Transformation for several reasons:

1) The consultants who provide the mandated curricula require class sizes of 24-28. That is simply not feasible in my building. We have three staggered schedules for students and core class sizes are still in the 40s.

2) 40+ students in core classes impacts student achievement, especially for those students who won't do especially well on standardized tests and need extra assistance. We don't think it's unreasonable to demand the opportunity to improve in-house with reasonable class sizes before bringing in mandated curricula.

3) Of the "choices" among the mandated curricula at least one of each is scripted. That's not much of a choice and our teachers just aren't interested in reading a script to our students. And no matter what our opinions of the movement itself Transformation will not succeed without support from the actual teachers in the building.

4) Instead of paying exorbitant sums to consultants with mandated curricula, we would rather CPS paid the teachers a in our own building a fraction of that cost to develop and/or revise our own curricula over the summer. But CPS won't do that. We know our students best and we have a strong, relatively young, highly educated, and motivated staff. Teachers who are heavily invested in their own curricula will teach it better than a mandated one.

5) The Transformation consultants had no clue how their curricula, protocols, and scheduling would work in our building. No clue whatsoever. They weren't aware of the special issues teachers and students in our building face; they had done zero research about our school and knew literally nothing about it. When these consultants presented to our staff, and our staff cracked up in laughter at some of their proposals, protocols, and requirements, these "experts" could not offer a single possible solution. The response was "Well, our program works the way it works and it won't work any other way." Needless to say, we were unimpressed.

6) We admittedly have attendance issues. That means that spiral curricula can be more effective than a traditional one. None of the mandated curricula addressed these needs for our students. If a significant portion of students miss a week, well then, they've missed it. Day 73 of the mandated curricula means we're covering day 73 material regardless of student understanding or attendance. That inherent inflexibility simply will not serve our student body well.

So, given our experiences with it so far High School Transformation absolutely, unequivocally amounts to crap.

Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 3:54 PMBy: please just post it here High School Transformation, Marshall, & More we'd all love to know which schools might be doing HST next year -- so if you know just post it here.

Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 4:17 PMBy: to:Jackson Potter High School Transformation, Marshall, & More Please post here we can not read you the blog has been blocked.