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Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
By: Alexander Russo / June 10, 2008
There's not much on the wires yet about this morning's big education rally, but I'm guessing that some of you who read this blog went or heard about it and might help fill the rest of us in.
Did you go, and how did it go? Were there really 30,000 kids there? Was it hot, or tense, or happy, or what?
Tell us your most vivid moment. We need the details.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
My school went to the event. However, before I comment on the event, I would like to state that it is somewhat disheartening to read the many negative comments that people write (many times with a lack of facts). Now, I thought that the event was extremely well organized (so Kudos to that team). I would have to agree that a more intimate setting (e.g. United Center) would have had a greater effect on the students. It was a beautiful day; however, the sound system and proximity took away from the effectiveness of the speakers and the delivery of the message. To respond to the notion that students did not get anything out of it, CPS suggested through several memorandums prior to the event, that the purpose should be conveyed to both the students and the teachers who were attending.
Therefore, if students did not know, it can't simply be blamed on the venue. In closing, I thought that the students were extremely well behaved throughout the stadium (in spite of participating in the wave). I also didn't witness any fights or conflicts of any kind amongst the children (or adults). Also, I would like to think that CPS found a generous donor to offset the cost of this event. I'm almost willing to bet that it was not funded through school funds.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Rebecca wrote: "The goal wasn't to entertain the kids, I beleive the goal was to make a point. With a lot of bodies. Sometimes you just gotta sit there for the day and take one for the team. Sadly, it probably won't make a difference."
So it's okay with you that the kids are used as pawns in a game between politicians?
It was the day after finals at my school, and honestly there wasn't much for students to do. I wouldn't have minded students attending, but I know of only a handful that went. (Apparently, the principal notified Central Office that we would not need buses.)
But it does rather gall me that students were encouraged to be docile as lambs and not think for themselves. Surely if a student had asked some hard-hitting questions, s/he would have been escorted out. Or questioned the truthfulness of the mayor's narrative? Or, Heaven forfend, question how money is already spent in CPS?
Granted it's anecdotal and unscientific, but not one teacher has written in here to say the event was a valuable civics lesson for students. That sure makes it look like a mere publicity stunt.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Dear LV, it was a publicity stunt never the less!!!!!!!!!!
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I know that the majority of high schools had given final exams so that they can be graded and enter final grades for report cards.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I wasn't at this and it sounds like all I suspected it to be, but I hate to see it called a publicity stunt. Publicity for what?! Everything it stood for was valid, but if not this... how can Arne and the families of Chicago get the attention of the people who need to give us the funding to improve CPS?! Sure, this may not have been the best idea, but if not.. what is? I don't know nor have I seen any ideas proposed.
The goal wasn't to entertain the kids, I beleive the goal was to make a point. With a lot of bodies. Sometimes you just gotta sit there for the day and take one for the team. Sadly, it probably won't make a difference. I just wish that someone could figure out how to show the people with the money that something different needs to happen.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
More money for charters, you mean. I understand that Arne, Mayor Blowhard and his cronies are angling to have the charter cap lifted down in Springfield. Why should we sit around in a stadium where normally only surburban boozehounds go to listen to that crap? If Chicago gets the Olympics, Daley will have police armed with those machine guns he's ordering sitting outside of that same stadium he packed so those same kids he just exploited can't attend his wonderful Olympics.
Questions: If these were high school students, why weren't they in school? Didn't they have final exams to take? Why is it that Daley and Duncan allow students to miss time out of the classroom for that crap, but then yell when students show up at Board meetings to actually take part in the civic process? Thank God my kid's school wasn't involved. I would have kept her at home. Big waste of time, and a wonderful way to exploit children. Way to go, Daley!
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I wasn't there, so I can't accurately judge the event. I will say that perhaps not all is completely lost to students. It's one opportunity for them to try on an activist hat (to a small degree) and don't discount the fact that one day they WILL be able to vote. I agree, though, that a stadium full of voting parents would have been great, too.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I wasn't there, so I can't accurately judge the event. I will say that perhaps not all is completely lost to students. It's one opportunity for them to try on an activist hat (to a small degree) and don't discount the fact that one day they WILL be able to vote. I agree, though, that a stadium full of voting parents would have been great, too.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I listened as carefully as I could, given the fact I had to worry about disappearing kids, and the sound was not consistent. The discussion of school funding was absurd and simplistic, the main funding Bill SB2288 supported by CPS was not discussed. I did not get the link CPS was trying to make between school funding and violence. It was unclear to me how exactly the funding was going to stop killing that have taken place outside of schools. Does the Mayor think after school programs will fix gang wars and poverty? The General Assembly was attacked as were legislators who opposed giving more money to CPS for education. I thought the attacks were partisan and inappropriate at an event funded with public dollars.
I thought CPS, Jackson, and Daley painted a picture of a non-functioning state government. But there are real, very real disagreements on where to get the money from in the General Assembly. When there isn't enough money it is hard to get agreement. The CPS has its hand out every year, to be honest people outside of Chicago are tired of that story line.
If we use the CPS estimate of $10 per student for transportation (stated in Tribune article), add $4 for food per student, and another $1 for security per student if there were 15,000 we get a cost figure of $225,000. I would bet I am underestimating the costs, but none the less I would say the event was not worth the cost of four teachers.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
click [url=http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/RUSSO/index.php/entry/910/Wednesday_Morning_News%2C_Part_1 new=true]here[/url] to see what the papers and radio had to say about the event, and keep sending in those descriptions of what it was like to be there.
-- alexander
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Snow Day
Next winter remember the Snow Job you got yesterday .
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Now Arne and Daley and the rest can go back to their fancy offices and pat themselves on their backs and pretend something was done for the education of Chicago students. What a sham. I read the articles in both Trib and Times and those writers should get an award for fiction. There were not 30,000 there. It was a miserable time and EPD, you are right. The students did not have any idea about why there were there. They do not yet realize they are political pawns in this city. Someone should sent this blog to the papers.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Did it really cost that much? How do you know? I couldn't atend because my child's school held their awards assembly and I wanted to get pics. I'm so sorry amd wished I wished I could have been there;-]
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
That this was so clearly a STUNT orchestrated by the board and the mayor is infuriating! The message was lost on the kids...nevermind the fact that they are not the voters - their parents are!! if daley and duncan really want to get a message out, fill a stadium with VOTING PARENTS. Crying poverty indeed...just wait til this Olympics nonsense happens - then we'll see just how much money Chicago actually has.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
If it was 15 degrees hotter or if a powerful rainstorm swept through, it could have been a very bad scene. I don't think this was a good idea.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
At first the students were disappointed that we were at the top but our seats turned out to be the best in the house. We had a cool breeze, warm sun and a great view of the crowd. That was pretty much it.
There wasn't much of a connection for the students as to why were actually there. In fact on the bus going back to school, the students asked that very question. The big screen should have stated things the kids could do to help - either anti guns or funding.
Maybe that was the problem - two huge issues and the issues ran each other for the focus of the event.
But - it was a nice treat and pleasant well arranged event; my kids enjoyed the trip ... they just didn't get the target message.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
... on propaganda.
It was pretty gross. People kept saying 30,000, but I saw 6,000-8,000 for most of the show and with latecomers, it may have pushed 10,000. We were told to sit anywhere because someone else was sat in our section, which our kids were fine with, but then an hour later when that section's ticket holders came, they were very aggressive toward our students.
This was symptomatic of the day--our kids were prepped to interact with other students and found that the stadium was as segregated as our fine city.
Then we got all of the "it's the downstate legislators' fault" line from the speakers, who seemed to have been given talking points. The speaker from Simeon was awesome, but the others were just parroting.
Then Duncan was introduced as "a great champion of education".
We just had eight of us best teachers cut yesterday, so it was like a big **** you to our school and staff.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Besides a sunburn, I brought something home from today’s Shout Out at Soldier Field: A reminder that for the mayor and the administration of CPS, “school improvement†is always about politics.
Was there more to the event than that? Yes, I was impressed by the students who sang, performed poetry, or made speeches about the effects of violence and fiscal neglect. That was genuinely moving.
But it’s difficult to get too excited about Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley, crying poverty while literally standing in the middle of a huge stadium, paid for with $370 million of taxpayer money. There always seems to be a way to fund the real priorities in Chicago. Multiracial, multigenerational stage scenes aside, Chicago is pretty bald about leaving poor communities and their schools out while funding everything from Millenium Park to dozens of charter start-ups.
I could keep going about how ironic it was to see Jesse Jackson slapping Arne Duncan’s back just a couple of days before Harper and Orr are closed, about how, of all the students who gave speeches, every single one conformed to the mayors story-line. No hint of the dissent that has motivated student protestors at Engelwood, Senn and Austin to name but a few. But in my mind, one fact, says it all—despite literally dozens of speakers and performers including a cross-section of the CPS bureaucracy, not a single teacher spoke or even went to the stage. I guess we’re not part of the Chicago schools story-line.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
A waste of time.
We (teachers and staff) did not want to go but were told it was mandated.
Our students were well behaved but not all were. Lote of cell phones, head phones, screaming, yelling obscenities.
And traffic was awful.
There is $$$ for this!
I estimated about 12-15 thousand there.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I was there. Our school left relatively early, as our principal was frustrated that the speakers were so difficult to hear, for the most part, and the entire stadium of students appeared, as the WBEZ reporter described it, "disengaged." The transportation logistics were quite impressive. The actual event was not. This could have been quite the pep rally if there had been better sound, more entertainment, such as our many wonderful HS cheer and dance teams, marching bands, etc., in between the speakers, and a lot less political posturing by Arnie, Rufus, and Hizzoner. By the way, one of my friends told me a fight broke out in the tunnel leading from the stadium. Did anyone else witness this?
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I did not attend the rally. I am grateful that my administration did not "invite" me to go. Upon his return, one of my students reported that it was hot, boring, and that the food, once he remembered that there had been some, was awful. Several teachers at my school had their positions cut last fall. Could we have saved a position or two with the money spent on today's "festivities?"
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I don't think my students got anything from this event but a sunburn. Acoustics were terrible, screen was too far away (and the closer one was behind us - great) and some of the speakers were just plain old irrelevant. Add to that the fact that there was very little Latino representation among the guests for my 98% Latino students to relate to, you have a waste of a day. I can only imagine what CPS spent to stage this publicity stunt.
Some of the adults were no help, either. The snacks were meant to stay on the buses for after the event. Read the memo, people. And teachers actually ENCOURAGING "the wave" and the screaming that accompanied it, while someone was speaking on the stage??? Incredibly disrespectful.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
Daley called the rally, "the largest civics class in history."
And one of the worst because if you were to assess what the kids learned from it, you would find they learned very little. And what did this show cost the CPS? They scheduled 400 buses. Why should the legislature give the city more money for education when they are wasting the money they've already been given?
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
I agree. We were one of the last groups to leave. It took us over an hour to reach our bus. Another issue was our pick up time - we were told to arrive at school at 7:30am. It took us over an hour to reach Soldier Field from Kedzie and 50th. Our suburban bus driver had never driven in Chicago before. We were at SF for four hours. All in all, my students didn't get much out of the rally.
Shout-Out For Education: Who Went, & How'd It Go?
It went pretty well...until we had to head back to Healy. Luckily, Healy is a only a hop, skip, and a jump away. There was the usual parade of speakers, Duncan, Daley, even Jesse Jackson (who probably got the best response from the students). There were a variety of musical acts that a smattering of the students had heard of; there were a few student speakers, a few student poems, a couple of decent attempts at doing "the wave" (which I loathe, by the way). I didn't notice any problems until it was time to leave.
Our school was one of the last to leave (probably because we were only about 8 minutes away), but the trip to the buses in the south parking lot was frustrating. One rent a cop tells you one thing, a real cop tells you another thing, another guy in an orange shirt tells you another thing, then a cop tells you another thing....
It was probably particularly frustrating for us because we had 9 classes and over 200 kids/teacher/chaperones/gullible parents--so we had 8 buses. There also was a marching band somewhere on the path back to the buses, and grass we couldn't, then could walk on, etc, etc...
Other than the frustration of the post-rally departure, it was uneventful. As to whether the students got anything out of it...probably a small percentage; most of them looked at it as a warm, sunny day out of the classroom where they could sneak a text message or two to the person sitting three seats down from them. They could scream without getting in trouble, they didn't have to think about anything too strenuous...
So to summarize...relatively stress free until departure. Not much substance that pertained to the kids, a few nice moments here and there...I can't wait for the sequel...
P.S. I don't think there were 30,000 people there, I'd probably put it somewhere between 12 - 20,000 (I'm not expert).