Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.
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Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
By: Alexander Russo / October 08, 2008
2nd UPDATE: Here's the list of 20 schools that Duncan is recommending for approval (including two that were -- only in Chicago -- approved already in September). Fifteen of the 20 are high schools, 14 were submitted by CPS teachers or existing schools, according to the Board. AUSL, Victory, and Chicago RISE would do turnarounds. What do you think?
UPDATE: Usually, new Ren10 proposals get announced before the hearings take
place. This year, several of the hearings happened before anyone said
officially what schools were being recommended. Well, Arne Duncan is
finally going to be at CICS Ralph Ellison on West 80th this morning to
announce the latest round of new school proposals for the Board to vote
on October 22 -- including, I'm told, the Pride campus at Social
Justice.
Again thanks to a reader comment, here's the schedule for "proposed" 2009 Ren-10 schools coming up of the next few days (Sat-Wednesday). No announcement from CPS. Nothing in the papers. Amazing.
Remember that you have to register ahead of time if you want to talk, and -- interesting -- there's no discussion after the last speaker has spoken:
"Registration to speak will be from 9:30am-10:30am for all hearings starting at 10:00am. Registration to speak will be from 5:30pm-6:30pm for all hearings starting at 6:00pm. All public hearings will conclude after the last person who has registered to speak has spoken." Italics are mine. In case there's any doubt.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Thanks for bringing up the RAND report, Rod.
Here's another paragraph from the conclusion of the summary:
"For now, the large, positive attainment results in Chicago (as well as in Florida, as reported in Booker, Sass, et al., 2008) suggest promise for (at least) multi-grade charter HSs and demonstrate that evaluations limited to test scores may fail to capture important benefits of charter schools. If charter schools (or other multi-grade HSs) have positive effects on graduation and college entry, they have the potential to make a substantial, long-term difference in the life prospects of their students."
My favorite quote from that paragraph is: "demonstrate that evaluations limited to test scores may fail to capture important benefits of charter schools." Although, in this case I would probably change the word 'charter' to 'all.'
The quote in general is about charter models that include middle and high school and how they are more effective than other schools (even other charters) in raising ACT scores, high school graduation rates and college attendance rates.
George,
One of the things that has allowed 'conservative' foundations to line up to give money to charter schools (which trust me they're not doing this month as many have lost quite a bit of their principal in the stock market), was the fact that charter schools receive less money per pupil in public funding than traditional public schools, as much as 23% less according to the study I cited yesterday.
If charter schools had received equal funding in the first place, or more help finding legitimate facilities, we wouldn't be where we are now, co-opted by neo-cons as a union-busting, privatization scheme and stuck leasing arch-diocese buildings. And receiving full-public funding the public would have even more leverage to demand accountability (not that I'm arguing that it shouldn't occur now, because it should).
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
George,
Never mind the Milkies and Duncans on the payroll. You mentioned Catherine Sugrue? Very few people know that she is Ald. Pat O'Connor's sister! And she flaunts her relationship around. Just check out her office that is lined up wall to wall with pictures of her with her brother. Oh! Brother. Talk about insecurities from a frustrated "educator" who needs to flaunt her relationships to demonstrate that she is in charge. But as you say, I'm sure she's the most qualified individual and does not owe her job to the Alderman. Wink, wink!
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
"...But in general, I still think that charters need to be held more accountable (especially those who are enforcing "selection" standards beyond a very simple one page application)..." (Charlie, earlier).
Charlie, we are in danger of agreeing on a few things.
Most notably that charters in Chicago need to be held more accountable. Right now, charter Position Files (the budget documents which list all employees and pay) are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. As a result, for example, nobody knows how many Milkies are working at Noble Street, while everybody knows how many Duncans are at Clark St. Without transparency, to use the phrase in its current meaning, there is no way to say anything about Chicago's charters.
And in fact, during the past four years CPS has gone out of its way to make charter information less accessible, not more so. Budget information for charters is still lumped (contractual and other services) in the Proposed Budget (which even two months late, as it's been in 2008 and 2007, is all the public has to work from). To claim (as you do) that charters have to work to get foundation and other grants is to ignore the fact that there is an industry of right wing foundations and rich people (from the Walton Family Fund and some members of the Ford family -- as in Ford Motor Co -- to the former editor of the Chicago Tribune lining up to give money to Chicago charters). In addition to that, Chicago's "Renaissance Schools Fund" basically supplements charter budgets. And, not to be left out, the Illinois Facilities Fund (a state body) apparently underwrites the ability of Chicago's charters to issue public, tax exempt municipal bonds. There is no public accounting through CPS of how the bonds from UNO and CICS, for example, are organized, or who has underwritten them.
If, as I suspect, the charter school bonds depend on the continued expansion of the charter schools, then any question of true "accountability" is destroyed. Do you really think that the chaos and corruption at one or two campuses of CICS will lead to their being dumped, at the risk of the solvency of their bonds.
Since you want to talk about "reality" let's be very real. By this point in history, the corruptions at the Aspira charter schools are so widely known (and reported) that even New Schools officials (Josh Edelman and Catherine Sugrue) couldn't cover up the recent scandals being exposed at the Aspira charter schools. And this is after that office (New Schools) has spent five years covering up for Aspira and facilitating its absurd expansions (and equally absurd claims).
Sorry, Charlie...
I couldn't resist.
Cover up, not accountability, has been the hallmark of Chicago's charter schools from the day CICS sent Joesph Nurek to testify before Congress about the glories of charters and "choice."
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Foundation Action: Foundation Defends Against Union Identity Theft, Conspiracy
Thu, 10/09/2008 - 16:34 — Anthony Riedel
This [url=http://www.nrtw.org/files/nrtw/sept_oct_08v7_page4.pdf new=true]story[/url] from the September/October issue of Foundation Action shares the story of Patricia Pelletier, a Connecticut worker who successfully initiated a decertification election to eject an unwanted union from her workplace. In response, union officials started a campaign of intimidation and harassment against Pelletier. You can hear Patricia talk about her case in [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBl59ZQSpe0 new=true]this video.[/url].
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
I thought that the RAND study was objective. The title was "Achievement and Attainment in Chicago Charter Schools" and it came out this year. Here is its largest conclusion:
"We gauge the achievement effects of charter schools in elementary and middle grades with a difference-in-differences analysis: For students who have attended charter schools and districtoperated
CPS schools, we observed whether their annual achievement gains were greater in the charter setting or the CPS setting. Consistent with similar studies in other locations, we found Achievement and Attainment in Chicago Charter Schools only small differences in average achievement gains between charter schools and CPS schools, and these differences do not point in consistent directions. The only strong finding regarding achievement is that charter schools do not do well in raising student achievement in their first year of operation."
Rod Estvan
Access Living
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Dear Spit in my Eye,
Not all charters are better than all traditional public schools. But, yes, charter schools are public schools in that they receive the majority of their funding from public sources and by state law they cannot "select" students based on grades, test scores, ethnicity, etc., etc., etc.
Why can't the resources for the charters be used in neighborhood schools? Because charters, for the most part (Renaissance Schools Fund $$ being the big exception), go out and get their extra resources through grants, individual donations, etc. Others will argue that being given recently renovated CPS buildings is another example of the inequity of resources being given to charter schools, but in truth charters receive 20% or more less public funding than traditional public schools (if you want to know where I'm getting this number, go here: http://www.illinoispolicyinstitute.org/uploads/files/Publications/Charter_School_Brief_(updated)%5B1%5D.pdf - page 5, paragraph 1), which is mostly in the form of facilities cost that they don't receive from CPS (i.e. building maintenance, security, gas and electricity, etc.)
A brand new charter school in it's first couple of years, even in a "free" CPS building ("free" in quotes because if you opt to keep CPS' maintenance and security, etc., they'll shave $1,100 off your per pupil funding, even though that per pupil funding was already less than what they spend (on average) on a traditional public school) will need to raise close to half of its operating budget through private philanthropy due to the costs of ramp up and administrative overhead (ramp-up = opening with only one or two grades and adding a grade every year until you've reached full enrollment).
This is why you see all of the "replication" going on around Chicago. With a certain number of students (differs for every model) overhead costs are defrayed to the point where charters can eventually subsist on public $$'s alone.
Back to the original ? though...Why are charter schools better than public schools? In my experience (2 traditional public schools, 2 public charter schools) charter schools are better because they are often organized around a central philosophy that usually attracts a group of like-minded people who are able to attempt to achieve a common goal without any restrictions imposed by CPS. Mind you, that is an idealized assessment and in practice it's not as if we're gathered around the camp fire singing Kumbaya in perfect harmony, far from it in fact.
All I know is that in the charter schools I've worked in I've worked longer hours, but come home at the end of the day a happier person. I've felt more invested in the success of the school, because I've played a bigger role in shaping that success. My experience could, for all I know, be the exception to a rule I'm unaware of.
But in general, I still think that charters need to be held more accountable (especially those who are enforcing "selection" standards beyond a very simple one page application). And in an ideal world charters would be unnecessary, because general public schools would be meeting the needs of all students, and in an ideal world when this wasn't happening, CPS would actually come up with good solutions that would help fix the problem rather than exacerbating it. But we don't live in an ideal world, now do we?
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Chicago's charter studies have been done by CPS charter school fans for the past ten years. They began under Greg Richmond and have continued since. Basically, they compare charters with the adjacent community based open enrollment public schools, instead of with the selective enrollment schools.
While the charters are challenged in many areas even by that easier "standard", they can generally show they are "superior" to the public school down the street. A closer look shows that every charter (every one -- not just the majority) selects students in the easiest possible way. Require an application and you've screened out the most "at risk" kids.
Most also kick out kids who don't comply with certain "standards" -- both academic and decorum. For the past eight or nine years, Wells and Clemente high schools have been receiving kids who were dropped from Nobel Street. It's the same wherever there are charters in the community. No sooner had "Chicago International Northtown" opened its doors than it was kicking out a half dozen "bad" kids, then refusing to tell me (a) why they were kicked out and (b) where they went. It turns out at least some of them wound up at Mather. So, while a CPS "public" school was kicking out city kids, it was still allowing suburban kids (who had previously attended Good Counsel) to finish up there -- at CPS public expense.
There has never been an independent audit of Chicago's charters, or an independent study to verify their claims. Like most of what has gone on under the regimes of deregulation and privatization the past decade or more, these things are simply asserted, then recycled in editorials in, for example, the Chicago Tribune. Repetition makes them "true" -- just like all that repetition about the "global economy" and the "end of the business cycle" made most people believe the lies from Wall Street and the White House about where the economy of the USA was heading.
Same people.
Same ideology.
Same lies.
Same tragic results.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Let's be glad that Juan Rangal has opted in here.
By a major sleight of hand, Arne Duncan has put off the building of new non-charter public schools on the Southwest Side and is now, as Mr. Rangal admits, going to force parents from overcrowded public schools to send their children to UNO charter schools.
That is forced "choice" and just what the Daley administration has been doing since Renaissance 2010 began.
Now, since we have the attention of UNO, another question.
How much has UNO borrowed by issuing municipal bonds (with the backing of the Illinois Facilities Fund) to capitalize the construction and rehab work at its network of charter schools. How much has the work on each of those buildings cost, and who has paid for that work. Finally, what happens, "going forwards" as they say nowadays, if UNO stops expanding?
Aren't all those bonds (not just those issued by UNO) based on betting on the come -- on the premise that CPS will never lift any of the charters for the "providers" that have been issuing government bonds out of private entities?
I just checked back through every Board Report since the expansion of charters began and can find no public discussion of these bond activities. Yet, by my estimate, the total now out there is around a quarter billion dollars (UNO, Aspira, CICS, and others). Who, ultimately, gave assurances that these public private bonds were backed in Chicago?
Certainly there has been no mention of this whole bonding activity during the CPS budget hearings or during the CPS capital budget hearings -- going back more than five years! So while public school parents, teachers, principals and children were lining up and begging for capital work that was desperately needed, CPS, through the back door was subsidizing the UNO (and other) charter bonds!
Gage Park doesn't need more charter schools. Gage Park and the Southwest Side want and need public schools. The UNO charter schools are not regular public schools, and all the fancy words in the world won't make them so.
The only difference now, I suspect, is that the recent crashed on Wall Street and elsewhere will cause many more people to ask hard questions about how their money has been spent. And when it comes out that Chicago has been quietly underwriting "municipal bonds" for these public-private entities, there may be some louder questions, in City Council, in Springfield, and even later in Washington, D.C.
I'll be happy to hear from anyone -- either here or elsewhere -- who can show me where these bonds were divulged to the public in the context they really exist in relation to the public schools of Chicago. From one point of view, "Renaissance 2010" becomes a kind of Ponzi scheme. With Mayor Daley at the center of it and his charter school allies profiting at every turn.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Can someone please tell me why charters are so much better than public schools? And please don't tell me charters are public schools. Why can't the resources for the charters be used at the neighborhood schools??? But more importantly, if the charters are so good, why do we even need the Board of Education? Haven't they just thrown up their hands and said, we can't do it????
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Everyone, check out the new charters proposed by the Board for the next two years. The IFT is supporting one along with SEIU local 73 - and who is the treasurer secretary of the IFT? That's right none other than Marilyn Stewart -- the same union president who has presided over the privatization of the system and record teacher firings while the CTU has squandered our resources for cell phone, car allowances and legal fees. Maybe we should also picket a Bulls game or two since they are bankrolling the next Noble Street endeavor?
- jackson
20 new schools in CPS plan
E-MAIL article DIGG WRITE for us DONATE
BY PAUL D. BOWKER / Education reporter
October 09, 2008 | 12:00 PM
Fifteen new city high schools and five new elementary schools would be opened in the next two years, according to a plan announced yesterday by Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan.
The proposal is a part of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Renaissance 2010 initiative and includes 14 proposals submitted by CPS teachers and personnel from existing schools.
Nine high schools would open in fall 2009 with another six to follow a year later.
“We need to keep creating great new options for our families -- especially high school options -- across the city to allow our families to find the school that best fits their child’s needs,“ Duncan says in a statement.
Included in the proposal is the addition of Social Justice High School-Pride Campus, which would be an LGBT friendly school open to all students. A final public hearing for Social Justice High School was held last night, attracting about 100 people.
“We are absolutely thrilled,“ says Chad Weiden, assistant principal at the Greater Lawndale Little Village School for Social Justice. “This is a historic day for Chicago. …They really have put the children first.“
Eighteen of the 20 new school proposals will come in front of the Chicago Board of Education for approval Oct. 22. The other two, a new high school and new elementary school in Gage Park to be run by United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) Charter Schools, were approved in September.
Duncan announced that Victory Schools, Inc., and Chicago RISE, a subsidiary of Chicago International Charter Schools, will join the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) as management firms for turnaround schools in 2009. They will be involved in up to six turnaround projects in fall 2009, CPS officials say. Another four to six turnaround schools will be managed by CPS‘s Office of School Turnarounds.
None of the turnaround schools for 2009 have been identified or voted on by the board.
The district currently has eight turnaround schools, five of them run by AUSL.
Proposed new schools, 2009-10
* Alcott High School for the Humanities, location TBA: Would offer a college-prep curriculum with an international focus. The school is an outgrowth of Alcott and Ogden elementary schools.
* William B. Ogden High School, location TBA: Like Alcott HS, it would offer a college-prep curriculum with an international focus.
* Urban Prep Academy for Young Men, East Garfield Park: New contract school based on the existing model at Urban Prep Charter Academy. It would offer a college-prep environment through strong academic support.
* Career Academy for Advanced Technology, location TBA: Would offer college-prep and career-prep tracks with a focus on careers and majors in advanced technology. This is a proposed contract school submitted by the Center for Polytechnical Education.
* Chicago Talent Development High School, West Garfield Park: The proposed contract school would feature a partnership including Union Park High Schools, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union Local 73, and the educational model Talent Development, based at Johns Hopkins University.
* Chicago Hope Academy, 2189 W. Bowler St.: Would offer a curriculum that prepares students for college and life. This is a proposed contract school. It originally was founded in 2004 as a private school.
* EPIC Academy, South Chicago location TBA: Would offer a curriculum that engages students in rigorous academic inquiries and would have students work in teams. The curriculum would include a service-learning component in which students would participate in community projects. This is a proposed contract school submitted by administrators and teachers at ACA Tech Charter, Dunbar High School and Corliss High School.
* Noble Street Charter School, Bulls campus: Would offer students a college-prep focus. The school would receive financial support from the Chicago Bulls and is one of three Noble Street charter high schools under consideration.
* Noble Street Charter School, Muchin campus: Would offer students a college-prep focus.
* Noble Street Charter School Bain-NUSH, location TBA: The proposed grades K-8 school would be the first elementary school in the Noble network. The school would partner with Northwestern University and Bain and Co.
* Garfield Park Preparatory Academy, East Garfield Park: Proposed by the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the grades K-8 school would integrate a research-based approach to instruction known as Accelerated Independent Learner from Columbia University.
* South Loop of South Shore, location TBA: Based on the model of the South Loop Elementary school, this K-8 performance school would build partnerships with local businesses and include a fine arts program.
* Chicago International Charter School, Altgeld Gardens campus, 13300 S. Langley: The K-8 school would serve children in the Altgeld Gardens area of Riverdale, a Renaissance 2010 priority community.
* UNO Charter School, Gage Park Elementary: The school, approved by the Board of Education in September, will serve grades K-8 and offer a structured academic and social environment.
Proposed new high schools, 2010-2011
* Social Justice High School, Pride Campus, location TBA: Proposed as an LGBT friendly school, it would proved a college-prep focus for students. Its curriculum would include four years of English and math, three years of science and foreign language, and elected Advanced Placement classes.
* Urban Prep Academy for Young Men, South Shore location TBA: It would be the second CPS school based on the model at the all-boys Urban Prep Charter Academy.
* Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy, located TBA: The contract school would offer college-prep and career-prep tracks which focus on majors and careers in health sciences. Students would be able to earn certification in nursing, health technology and health administration.
* Noble Street Charter School, Osborn campus, location TBA: The school would offer students throughout the city a college-prep environment.
* UNO Charter School, Charter Academy, Gage Park: Established in collaboration with Chicago LEADS, the school will offer students a college-prep track and a career-prep track focusing on the hospitality industry. This expansion was approved at the September board meeting.
* Transportation Academy of Chicago, location TBA: The performance school would be a career academy operated in partnership with the Chicago Transportation Authority, Chicago LEADS and other businesses. Students would be prepared for careers in the transportation industry.
Paul Bowker, a Chicago-area journalist with 25 years of experience, covers Chicago Public Schools for the Daily News.
Tagged: gay, Board of Education, Education
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Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
George,
Why do you support things that help adults but not necessarily kids? New schools do a much better job of helping kids. You should keep an open mind about new schools. Most are better than the CPS schools kids would have otherwise have gone to. I think it is important to keep an open mind through your entire life.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
George,
What happened at CICS Ellison?
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Mr. Schmidt,
I'd like to clarify a point you made in your post indicating the CPS map and UNO's two new schools in the Gage park Community. You left the impression that somehow UNO's new schools would be part of a takeover or "turnaround" of an existing area school. This is false. UNO is indeed planning to open new schools, actually constructing new school facilities as part of a campus (elementary and high school for 2009 and 2010 respectively) for the Gage Park community which is as you may know, is a severely overcrowded Hispanic area in dire need of new schools.
Although UNO does not oppose school closures for lack of performance and supports turnaround schools, UNO is bringing added value to our community by building schools in overcrowded Hispanic areas where very few charters are opening due to the challenge of facilities funding.
Our new schools will be located on 51st and Homan in Gage Park.
Juan Rangel
CEO
United Neighborhood Organization (UNO)
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
CPS school closing hearings are kangaroo courts. Congratulations to Bowen and South Shore High Schools for being chosen to be "turnaround" schools for the 2009-2010 school year?
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
The Duncan administration announced on October 8, 2008, that it will add another 12 public schools to "Turnaround" at the end of the 2008-2009 school year.
Buried in his remarks praising the "New Schools" initiatives announced at the October 8 event at the new Chicago International Ralph Ellison charter school was a comment announcing that "Turnaround" will double the number of schools for next school year.
At the end of the 2007-2008 school year, six public schools were subjected to "Turnaround" after months of slander against the schools and their staffs, orchestrated by Chicago Schools Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan. Despite the fact that virtually all of those six schools have seen "gains" on the standardized test scores used to supposedly "data driven" measure progress in Chicago, two high schools and four elementary schools were put on the defensive after the "Turnaround" announcement in January 2008, and more than 90 percent of those schools' teachers, principals and other staffs were fired in June 2008 as part of a new program called "Turnaround."
The schools where staffs were fired by the Duncan administration in June 2008 were Harper High School and Orr High School, and Copernicus, Fulton, Howe and Morton elementary schools.
When asked by this report on October 8, 2008, how he could double the number of "Turnaround" schools for next school year when "Turnaround" had just begun in Chicago, CEO Arne Duncan responded that "Turnaround" had already been proven a success because the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) had "turned around" Dodge Elementary School after Duncan closed Dodge in June 2002. Left out of the carefully constructed Dodge "turnaround" narrative, however, is the fact that when Dodge was reopened under the management of the so-called "Academy for Urban School Leadership" more than a year after it was closed (and all of its staff removed), the majority of the schools most "at risk" students had also been removed. Dodge in September 2003 (when it reopened after being closed for a year following its closure under the early "Renaissance" in June 2002) did not have the same students that Dodge Elementary School had had during the 2001-2002 school year.
Nevertheless, the story of the "Dodge Miracle" (like the larger narrative in which it is contained, the "Daley Miracle") has become the dominant narrative about corporate education reform in Chicago. An anecdote about Dodge is even part of U.S. Senator Barack Obama's stump speech on education, and has been reported in The New York Times in an article about Obama's plans for public education in an Obama presidency. The fact that the "Dodge Miracle" is based on a foundation of lies and half truths is left out.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule [Update]
Alexander,
None of the other media reports on what happened at CICS "Ellison" yesterday will be able to report the completeness or complexity of what is in the works as "Renaissance 2010" heads into its final years. I'll be trying, but each piece of this monstrosity (and that's what it is, looked at from any rational public policy point of view) needs a separate look.
For example, yesterday's CPS lists of "new schools" (to go before the Board of Education in less than two weeks, on October 22) doesn't list any addresses. But the map they had on display showed two charter schools (both operated by UNO) surrounding Gage Park High School! I asked Malon Edwards (the PR guy in charge of yesterday's event) where the addresses were, and he said they were "yet to be determined."
So...
We are witnessing the first piece of what will, by January and February, another round of vicious school closings, "hearings," and all the rest of that stuff. In order to clear out public buildings for these "new schools", CPS is going to have to concoct another bunch of Shock Doctrine type media events (like last year's Arne Duncan creation of the "underutilized" school in November and December, so Arne could justify, for example, evacuating Gladstone, getting rid of all those poor kids, and giving the Gladstone building to Noble Street Charter Schools).
I don't expect much on October 22 except a couple of hours of "educational entrepreneurs" lining up to thank Arne etc. etc. like the recipients of the minor Academy Awards. But people from the various targeted communities (which range from Gage Park, as noted above, out to South Chicago, which seems to indicate that Bowen High School is going to be on a bulls eye) might want to get lined up to defend public education. The privatizers, charter izers, and closing people are well funded and very well organized. The "New Schools" and privatizers are much better at staging opulent media events (in part because of their funding; in part because of the fact that the media in Chicago are now reduced to providing stenographic reports, rather than news of any kind we used to read) than the parents, teachers, and children who will be targeted for the next round of attacks.
The targeting last year that resulted in those 19 dramatic (but fruitless) hearings in February and all those protests began in October, when "New Schools" proclaimed its 2008 lists, just as yesterday proclamation of the 2009 lists shows the same thing. Arne will now orchestrate another Shock Doctrine "crisis" (will we have "Underutilized II"?) with the help of the TV "news" talking heads (and the Sun-Times and Tribune), then to launch the real attack on more than a dozen schools in January and February.
There is no credible reason for all this privatization nonsense. After the recent performance of Arne's soulmates on Wall Street (and in Washington DC) the past couple of months, this "educational entrepreneurship" silliness should be laughed out of town. But instead what we saw yesterday is the script for dozens of schools and communities for the next years. And it's a continuation of Duncan's scripted attacks on public schools in the name of "choice" and privatization.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule
The October 22 Board of Education meeting will be another silly bunch of theatricals on behalf of the glories of Chicago's charters, and once again we will be in an alternative reality (something similar to the one created until recently by all of the Bush administration's deregulatory onslaughts). If my count is right, at the beginning of this school year, CPS had granted 101 charter schools (and campuses) enough existence so that they are listed now in the "Directory" included in the calendar (although many of them are not listed as charter schools -- check out, for example, "Polaris").
My only wonder is who is going to orchestrate the sign in for all the charter cheerleaders and reserve all the seats in the Board chambers for the charter touts now that Jeannie Nowaszewski has left for other pastures.
Stealth Ren-10 Hearing Schedule
The letter below was sent to Mr. Edelman on July 9, 2008 and Access Living has never recieved a response from CPS related to it. The final proposals that may be voted on by the CPS Board may be very different than the ones we FOIAed and discuss in this letter.
Because Ren 2010 is fundementally using a public procurement process it becomes very difficult for the CPS to respond to a letter like ours so I am not surprised Mr. Edelman did not write us back or discuss this matter with us. But our letter we hope at least helped CPS correct some very fundemental problems with the proposals we reviewed.
July 9, 2008
Josh Edelman
Executive Officer
Office of New Schools
Chicago Public Schools
125 South Clark Street
Chicago IL 60603
Dear Mr. Edelman,
As you may recall Access Living’s CEO in a letter to Mr. Duncan dated March 26, 2008 indicated that we wanted to review proposals for the Renaissance 2010 boarding school program and provide the CPS Office of New Schools (ONS) direct comments on these proposals. Access Living has now received these proposals after submission of a FOIA to CPS. Our comments on these proposals are as follows.
The proposals we received from our FOIA were:
1. Response to CPS RFP from the Peace and Education Coalition which runs Dugan Alternative High School for 15 and 16 year olds.
2. Response to CPS RFP from the Chicago Hope Academy which is a Christian private school in Chicago.
3. Response to CPS RFP from the Willow Tree Life Preparatory School which currently does not exist in any form, but intends on being a stand alone not for profit entity.
4. Response to CPS RFP from the Greater Roseland Career and College Preparatory High School which currently does not exist in any form, but intends on being a stand alone not for profit entity.
We believe the Chicago Public Schools will in our opinion not be able to approve Chicago Hope Academy proposal because of issues related to separation of church and state we are not going to discuss this proposal.
The first issue of concern to Access Living is that to some degree the three proposals we examined confused students who are homeless and students who are unaccompanied homeless students. We think CPS should adopt the definitions of unaccompanied homeless students utilized in the 2005 University of Illinois report “Unaccompanied Homeless Youth in Illinois: 2005†and in the 2004 Guidance document issued by the US Department of Education. Here is how the University of Illinois report defined unaccompanied homeless youth:
An unaccompanied homeless youth was defined as an individual age 21 or younger who … was not primarily in the care of a parent or legal guardian and who lacked a safe or stable living arrangement. Wards of the state or youth who had formed stable private living arrangements did not fit our definition.
The US Department of Education defined unaccompanied homeless youth:
The term unaccompanied youth includes a youth not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. This would include youth living in runaway shelters, abandoned buildings, cars, on the streets, or in other inadequate housing and children and youth denied housing by their families (sometimes referred to as “throwaway†children and youth), and school-age unwed mothers, living in homes for unwed mothers, who have no other housing available.
The proposal submitted by the Willow Tree Life Preparatory design team did attempt to differentiate between homeless students and unaccompanied homeless youth, but when it came to describing an admissions process this proposal too was confused. There are homeless youth from middle school through high school who have homeless parents and who may live with these parents or may have direct and continuing contact with these parents. These parents retain all legal rights for decisions related to their minor children, including enrolling them in a school. The Federal McKinney-Vento Act, the Salazar v. Edwards case, and related settlement agreements CPS has entered into do not abrogate the rights of homeless parents. Therefore, we believe that the Office of New Schools needs to look carefully at the enrollment process described in the various proposals. Unaccompanied youth may enroll themselves in a school but homeless students who have not reached their majority and are under the control of a parent may not.
Second we thought all three of the proposals we looked at in detail did not effectively discuss the enrollment of students who were wards and under the control of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). In particular DCFS rule 301.100 makes placement of wards in residential settings the most restrictive placement and state: “Placement in a residential care facility shall be made only when no other less restrictive setting is appropriate for children requiring intensive services to change behaviors which significantly interfere with their ability to cope with daily life or which preclude placement in a family setting.†The DCFS because of the Aristotle P. Consent Decree defines a "residential facility" as all non-foster care or relative home care placements. This placement must be made by the DCFS Administrative Case Review Process (ACR) which develops the wards’ service plans.
In general the proposals make it appear that youths who are wards will make the choice to be placed in a CPS residential school. Ultimately based on the rule it is not the student’s choice, but rather DCFS’ choice and by rule a residential placement must be the last choice on the continuum of placements. The Office of New Schools needs to look carefully at the presumptions relating to DCFS wards made in the various proposals.
In general it was not clear reading the design proposals whether or not the dorms for the residential schools would be fully accessible with appropriate shower facilities for students who use wheel chairs or have other mobility related disabilities. All of the proposals did clearly indicate that the school structures themselves would meet ADA requirements.
No proposal for a residential school contained any component for transition services as required by IDEA for any students with disabilities who may be enrolled in these schools. This is a significant failure in all of these proposals.
While these proposals all contained assurances of appropriate services for students with disabilities enrolled, we found no unique approaches to educating these students depicted. In some proposals there were presumptions that CPS, DCFS, or another unknown entity would pay for a full time social worker, and school psychologist for the residential school. Our experience is that it would be very difficult for these smaller proposed schools to receive the level of pupil support services they have built into their plans.
All of the proposals appeared to have made big funding assumptions from DCFS, DHS, and HUD. We question the ability of these agencies to meet the expectations of the design teams. We also were surprised to see that one proposal expected the CPS to guarantee capital development loans for its facility for multi millions of dollars. We could see no where in the CPS RFP where CPS indicated it would provide such loan guarantees.
Access Living wants to point out the following section of the Willow Tree Life Preparatory design team proposal which reads:
For the safety of our proposed community, students without violent histories or mental disabilities will be preferred. If students have had rare moments of violent behavior and still wish to apply they:
a) Must have engaged in anger management counseling;
b) Their application must be supported by a letter of recommendation from that [sic] counselor and any recent counselors they have been seeing;
c) These individuals and their applications must be review and interviewed by a panel made of students, staff, faculty and counselors;
d) Additionally their references must be available for telephone interview by school and residential counselors.
Access Living believes it is totally inappropriate for any Renaissance 2010 applicant to indicate that it is their preference that students with any form of “mental disabilities†not apply. In fact Access Living believes that this statement on the part of the Willow Tree Life Preparatory design team indicates a predisposition to discriminate against a group of students with disabilities and as such is a violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 waiting to happen. It is also a potential violation of CPS rule 01-0725-PO1 which implements the ADA in CPS.
The statement in the proposal in no way defines what constitutes either “violent histories†or “rare moments of violent behavior.†The admissions procedure for those students deemed to have rare moments of violent behavior is completely illegal for a public school because it provides confidential information involving student applicants to other students who are part of a “panel.†Moreover, the requirement that students who are deemed to have had rare moments of violent behavior enter into anger management counseling as a condition for admission to a public school is questionable.
The proposal from the Peace and Education Coalition design team for its Dugan residential school contains the following statement relating to the discipline of its prospective students:
Students attending Dugan will be asked to follow the CPS student code of conduct. Violating the CPS student code of conduct results [sic] is handled by enforcing appropriate disciplinary action: discussions, counseling, detentions and/ or a behavior contract. In extreme cases, all options must be exhausted before transferring the student back to their home school.
The CPS’ rule 07-0627-PO5 that established the current Student Code of Conduct (SCC) would allow the Peace and Education Coalition to adopt a modified version of the CPS SCC. The rule reads as follows:
Contract and Performance Schools have the option to apply the SCC as set forth herein or to modify the SCC for use at the school so long as any such modification has been approved by the Board and is consistent with the educational philosophy and mission of the school. Any modifications to the SCC must comply with applicable provisions of the Illinois School Code and Board Rules. Upon their child’s enrollment at a contract or performance school that has established modifications to the SCC, parents/guardians shall be informed of the modifications, expectations at the school and the disciplinary reassignment policy that would apply if a student violated the school’s modified code of conduct.
The Peace and Education Coalition design team in its proposal does not define the steps the school would take before “transferring the student back to their home school.†It does not acknowledge that schools have different rules they must follow in relation to the discipline and removal of students with disabilities. The team only indicates force transfers would be a last resort if other forms of discipline did not work. The design team does not indicate what type of due process for the family the school would implement to conform with the requirements of law in particular Goss Et Al. v. Lopez Et Al. The design team is proposing what the SCC calls disciplinary reassignment. The SCC has very specific requirements for this process that are defined in the rule as follows:
Disciplinary Reassignment – The transfer of a student from his or her current CPS school to another CPS school for disciplinary reasons. Disciplinary Reassignments are reserved only for students who have been determined, pursuant to the SCC, to have engaged in continually disruptive or very serious acts of misconduct. All Disciplinary Reassignments must be approved and facilitated by the AIO or their designee, or if an AIO is not assigned to the school, the Chief Executive Officer or designee.
The Greater Roseland Career Prep High School design team proposal is for a residential school, but according to the proposal only 30 of 500 students or 6% of the enrollment would when the school was at full operating capacity be composed of residential students. That does not seem consistent with the intent of the CPS RFP.
At this time we are neither publicly endorsing nor opposing the idea of CPS operating residential schools under the control of private not for profit providers. But we do believe the history of the public sector funded residential facilities, including schools, is filled with programs that are in a deteriorated state and are institutions ware housing in particular young people with disabilities. We are very concerned that some of the state agencies that are being proposed to fund the residential components of your residential schools have already failed with the residential programs for people with disabilities in our state that they currently control. We believe that CPS should seriously think about the issues we have raised in relation to the proposals discussed in this letter.
Yours truly,
Rodney D. Estvan
Education outreach coordinator
cc: Arne Duncan, CPS CEO
Debra Duskey, Acting CEO for Specialized Services
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I have been aware that CPS would be holding these hearings since CPS released its Ren 2010 RFP for schools opening in Fall 2009 and 2010 on April 2, 2008. If you go to page 28 of the RFP you can see the projected dates of the hearings. The places they were to be held were not yet determined back in April.
Access Living FOIAed a small number of the proposals that were sent to CPS for this round. Only the proposals for residential/boarding schools were FOIAed by Access Living. The Office of New Schools (ONS) goes through a review process relating to the proposals. So the proposals we reviewed were revised during the process and may be very different than then we reviewed them. Below is a copy of our FOIA: and (a letter relating to the proposals we sent to the CPS and is posted separately on the 299 blog due to the word limit rule):
June 3, 2008
Freedom of Information Office
Chicago Public Schools
125 South Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60603
Attn. FOIA Request
Dear FOIA Officer:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (5 ILCS 140), Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, through its Education Outreach Coordinator Rodney Estvan, requests from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) electronic copies of Design Frameworks and Full Proposals submitted for the 2008 Open Request for Proposals (RFP) for new CPS Residential/Boarding schools opening in 2009 and 2010.
The proposal process for Residential/Boarding schools is described in detail in Appendix H of the 2008 RFP, issued on April 2, 2008. Page 1 of the RFP requires applicants to submit a CD containing electronic versions of Design Frameworks and Full Proposal, as well as appendices. These documents would be housed in the CPS Office of New Schools.
Pursuant to 5 ILCS 140/6 (b), the purpose of our request is to review information in these submissions in order to better understand the proposed educational services to be provided by the new Residential/Boarding schools opening fall 2009 and 2010. Access Living is a Center for Independent Living (CIL) and a member of the Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living (INCIL), a statewide organization made up of 23 Centers for Independent Living (CILs) in Illinois. Part of a CIL’s work is systemic advocacy to eliminate barriers and allow people with disabilities to fully participate in their community. Access Living is actively involved in systemic advocacy in the field of education for youth with disabilities. We believe that individuals with disabilities cannot fully participate in their community without adequate education.
Given our role to advance the public interest, we request a waiver of fees for electronic versions of these submissions. 5 ILCS 140/2 allows for the transfer of electronic records that are subject to FOIA. Access Living prefers electronic records. Also, this format would be less expensive for CPS and will expedite delivery of the documents. Records can be sent electronically to restvan@accessliving.org. Alternatively, if CPS cannot send the records via e-mail, we request that copies of submitted CDs be sent by U.S. Mail to Rodney Estvan at the above address.
If CPS - as of noon on June 2, 2008 - has received no submissions in response to the aforementioned RFP, then please send me a letter advising us of that fact.
Yours truly,
Rodney D. Estvan
cc: Josh Edelman, Office of New Schools
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From looking over Kugler's classes, I would say that, yeah, testing is not going to be nearly as good of an indicator of his success at teaching as say, can the student draft or complete a project. So perhaps the project or final draft would be better indicators of his students' performance.
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Speaking of "test", how are your kids testing these days, Kugler. I bet they're doing "the best they can under the circumstances", right? And who needs tests anyway? There are more ways to gauge success than tests, right? Any other excuses?
Just do it - Teach!
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please insert the word "test "after trrrible
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Dear Kugler
I am well aware of the crap the Board can throw at you. But remember
“It is better to be shot at and missed than shit on and hitâ€
Your biggest enemies are not the board but the entrenched members
Of your own faculty who keep trying to pull you back into the cave
as in Plato look up the pay some of you fellows make.
See who has the work study and home bound programs.and teach less than five a day.
I’m sure the union hates your guts more than the Board.
The Board usually tries to buy people off with soft assignments
In quiet schools. On a personal note George is actually the exception
To the old style and represents a sea changes in how things are done.
I am sure old time bureaucrats would have ignored George and
Not risked exposure of that terrible beyond the readers of Substance.
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here is a link to the classes i teach [url=http://www.hydeparkcps.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=64804&type=u&rn=710623 new=true] Kugler Classes[/url]
so you can pick which one you want to help teach.
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Whenever you want you can come by and help teach my 43 kids i have in one room. I have no trouble teaching. Just do not like to get threaten with firings and investigations when I document and report illegal activities. By the way do you now expect me to teach on the weekends too is that the next [b]Stewart SELLOUT[/b] to have teachers work on the weekends for free?
[b]like she sold out the after school pay![/b]
[b]Shut your trap you hack![/b] that is why you post without a name you are one of the crooks that rip off teachers and students.
kugler
PS that is a voc ed lab by the way. look it up in the contract.
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Here's hoping that anyone who goes to this week's "hearings" will send in some notes, here or elsewhere. By the end of this month, we'll be hearing again about all the great "choice" schools Arne Duncan is proposing to the Board of Education, as the charter school blight is expanded across more of Chicago while Duncan simultaneously sabotages the general high schools and community elementary schools (and not just Hyde Park, which at least has a teacher on staff with the courage to detail what is happening).
October is the month that Duncan has always used for announcing "new" CPS "choice" schools -- most of them charter schools. It is also the time he will begin dragging out his oldest and lamest talking point in defense of his expansion of charter schools: viz., that there is a "waiting list" for them. A year ago, and on a number of different occasions, I asked him how long was the "waiting list" for Whitney Young. He gave me the usual goffy, "I'll have to get back to you on that" and, of course, he never has. (He also hasn't gotten back on most questions about his patronage riddled budget and a dozen other questions, but this one is about Charter School Month in Chicago).
So...
On October 22, Duncan will roll out a bunch of new charter proposals, without one word about the corruption and lies surrounding all of the existing ones. I don't know who is going to organize the orgy of self-congratulation out of all the charters that day (now that the choreographer, Jeannie, has left CPS for more lucrative lives). One thing for certain. There will be not a word of criticism of any of the charter schools. Even the most corrupt among them (ASPIRA) will be singing its own praises and witness Arne Duncan join the chorus of praisings.
Nobody will demand to know how CPS can allow more than a dozen "public" schools (all of the Chicago International charter "campuses" plus a couple of others, like most of the UNO schools) can be allowed to masquerade as Catholic schools (statues of the Blessed Virgin, crucifixes still on display outside all those buildings now being subsidized by the taxpayers).
October 22, 2008, a rerun of the Chicago charter school frauds and hoaxes. Coming soon to a Board of Education meeting near you. While Duncan and his buddies on the Board make sure that not one word about Duncan's sabotage of dozens of real public schools gets told while the TV cameras are turned on.
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My, My, Kugler, don't we think highly of ourselves? Why don't you get back into your classroom and teach, and stop being such a martyr! Woe is me! Leave the conspiracy theories to Oliver Stone aka George Schmidt! You are truly a legend in your own mind.
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Fear, like the wolf, is always at the door if you work for CPS.
Administrators manipulate and fracture the contract, intimidate employees, and run political their politcal posse and no one, no one represents teachers...not your principal, not the union, not anyone at CPS.
Notice how well it works? Despite being right, despite winning a legal case, does George have a teaching job? Will he ever?
Kugler, keep being the voice of involvement, of care, of concern, of right...the children need you, the teaching community needs you and the parents need you.
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Thanks Mr Ed.
I agree we need to start something. What it will be who knows? But silence is starting to manifest itself in the complete disregard for the children of Chicago. As we stay silent they pick us off one by one and in the end the children suffer.
If they can me, I will go back to slinging drywall.
HiHo
Kugler's Back!
Welcome back to the light Kugler! You wrote, "Today I have to stop the fear and say that we must stand together and uncover the harm inflicted on the children of Chicago Public schools." Your political courage and impact could be buoyed by numbers. Teachers fear reprisal and termination, but it's happening anyway with no unified protest. I believe the majority of CPS teachers feel as you do, that keeping silent is a crime, that "silence is acceptance." Why don't we use our strength in numbers? To start, a city-wide CPS teacher action on funding equity makes political sense.
P.S.: Did anyone notice that the LEAD (Legislators Educators) dinner is on Halloween? Is that so they can disguise themselves?
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Central office has dictated the cuts at HPCA.
We are in complete turmoil with no end insight.
As a school in its fifth year of probation it seems as if there is a concerted effort to sabotage the school.
At any moment anything can happen and when it does there will be a well documented narrative of the planned effort to disenfranchise the African-American students that attend Hyde Park Career Academy.
As it may be evident I have not been posting as i did in the past for fear that I have felt when I was shown a file box of "evidence" against me by investigators. A file box that was complied as was the Dallas file with tabs and documents. Today I have to [b]stop the fear[/b] and say that we must stand together and uncover the harm inflicted on the children of Chicago Public schools.
I will be back in the game soon reporting on a series of cover ups and criminal intent that puts children and staff in direct risk of violence and harm. There are also issues of fraud and violation of state labor laws.
I have made my decision it would be a crime for me to stop telling the truth and reporting what is happening to our children.
John Kugler
Father of Three Children in CPS
Substance Reporter
Government Employee
Certified Teacher
Union member
American
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"...but given that CPS has a well-staffed public relations office that sends out a gazillion press releases each week -- and that these are events ostensibly meant to create public participation -- you'd think that they could manage to put out something about this as well..." (Alexander, yesterday, responding to "Stealth").
I agree with Alexander here.
Here at Substance, I logged more than 30 press releases from the Office of Communications between roughly August 25 and September 10. Every celebrity (sports, media, corporate) they could call on was doing a "back to school" media event to head off the Meeks boycott. It was obvious that the mayor and CPS were calling out all the stops to publicize their "back to school on Day One" party line.
Despite all that (plus the backroom pressures), not only did the Meeks event fill dozens of buses, but Wilmette school districts (New Trier among them) ultimately had 888 children registered for "school" there. They reported last week they sent out that many letters to children saying they were not eligible to attend the public schools (elementary and high school, New Trier as the high school) up there.
But the event was an example of how much money and time Chicago is willing to spend on suppressing any dissent.
Compare that with the absolute silence on the position closings that happened last week, or the overcrowded classes that stretch from one end of Chicago to another. You would think that in a country with a "free press," somebody other than Substance (and this blog) would report the position closings, reorganizations, and other messes (all created by Daley's minions) that have meant that for tens of thousands of children (more than 1,000 at Clemente High School alone) the school year is just beginning tomorrow!
That's the true result of forcing the schools to "reprogram" dozens of classes in the fourth of fifth week of school. So all of that sanctimonious prattle -- and all those press releases -- calling on everyone to get to school on Day One has to be placed in the context of the silence that descends when Arne Duncan deliberately sabotages thousands of school years for the city's most vulnerable children.
But of course this stuff is not new to this year, or limited to coverups from the "Office of New Schools." As we've been reporting, the New Schools covering up and coddling of politically connected charter schools (ASPIRA the worst among them) is standard operating procedure. And it goes up to the top and comes down from the top (in this case, Arne Duncan and Josh Edelman).
This pattern is longstanding, and shot through with typical Daleyoid and Duncanian mendacity. Here is how (with a couple of recent examples).
Meanwhile, both City Hall and CPS deliberately don't send out notices of important policy events. For some reason, CPS generally misses the big press conferences involving the mayor (especially for those of us at Substance) until an hour or so before the event. City Hall, at the same time, refuses to provide us with their "...daily Daley" -- the media calendar of the mayor's public events. Apparently, the only way we're going to be able to stop this manipulation will be to sue both of them (CPS and City Hall) to require them to provide the information the same to all media.
On any day, there are between 11 and 14 individuals listed on the board at the CPS communications office and at least that number with mailboxes there. But they also retain one guy up in "High Schools" and probably others. Just trying to write a story about how the budget has been busted with lawyers, political hirelings, and publicity hustlers proves a challenge. But that's another story in a similar vein.
By law, CPS is required to publish these notices in a newspaper of general circulation. For the past couple of years, apparently on orders of Mayor Daley, that newspaper has not been the Chicago Tribune.
One of the most recent examples of how serious this bunch of lies has become came at the August 27, 2008 Chicago Board of Education meeting.
The August 2008 Board meeting was actually two meetings. The first was to hold "hearings" on the proposal to sell $900 million in bonds for construction and rehabilitation of schools. The second was the regular meeting of the Board. The notice of the first meeting (the "hearing" on selling nearly a billion dollars in bonds) was publicized so poorly that nobody -- including the Civic Federation -- showed up to testify.
As a result of that, I asked to speak. I noted for the record that the Board had held six public hearings on the Capital Improvement budget in May 2008, but without a Capital plan for people to discuss. (I was one of two reporters who covered those hearings). More than 2,000 people attended the capital hearings (more than 600 from Gallistel School alone, as we reported in the June Substance) hearings in May. But in August, the Board held a "hearing" on the actual dollars and somehow managed not to tell the people who had attended the May hearings that there were finally dollars to fund a "Capital" plan.
Alexander's characterization of the Ren 2010 hearings (that begin tomorrow) as "stealth" hearings is accurate. Sadly, this example is just the tip of a very large iceberg that stretches back in time for several years. And because the number of "watchdog" groups is diminishing (as Reader reported a week ago about PURE), this type of lying is likely to spread.
Now here is my view.
The management of information from Chicago's City Hall and Board of Education is very much like the management of most public bodies under the Bush administration. The hirelings in these offices (New Schools, CPS Communications, City Hall media) should see as its mission that it has a positive public duty to inform the public. Instead (like the Law Department at CPS and City Hall), it has allowed its "mission" to be redefined as serving a "client" (Arne Duncan and the Board; Mayor Daley) at the expense of the public and the public's right to know.
Every person working for CPS should understand that the primary obligation is toward the public education of all Chicago children, not to burnishing the reputation of Arne Duncan, Rufus Williams and Richard M. Daley. But it's been so long since that has been the "mission" of any of these departments that they presently contain an entire (largest in history) generation of hacks (publicity hacks in "Communications"; legal hacks in "Law"; privatization hacks in "New Schools") that every person in each of these departments thinks first and foremost of the (often illegal) mission that they are doing on behalf of those in power, rather than their obligation (ethical and generally legal) to the public.
So, ultimately, that's how you get this status quo.
And one of the things that encourages that is the cowardice of people -- "Stealth" -- who blog anonymously.
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sure, monitoring the Ren10 webpage 24/7 would do the trick. ditto for the fine print in the paper.
but given that CPS has a well-staffed public relations office that sends out a gazillion press releases each week -- and that these are events ostensibly meant to create public participation -- you'd think that they could manage to put out something about this as well.
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Alexander, doesn't the schedule you posted qualify as an announcement from CPS, given that it is on the Renaissance 2010 website under the "Announcement" section? I don't think that qualifies as "stealth". Also, check the Sun Times or the Trib, something has likely been published under "Legal Notices" at some point over the past few days.
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So who is surprised that these hearings are not announced to the media, that they are taking place simultaneously so it's difficult for anyone with only one reporter on a beat to cover them (this now includes both Tribune and Sun-Times, but not Substance), and that they aren't going to listen or respond to the reports from the public anyway?
One of the most interesting things about these procedures is that the Transition Advisory Councils (TACs) are more and more populated by political hacks (usually at least two aldermanic of state people, who owe Daley) and Board hacks (the ubiquitous James Deanes has probably served on more TACs than ... well, all of my metaphors this morning are out of "Deadwood", so I won't go there).
The whole thing's a scam. Like the school closing and school changing "hearings" last February, these things are just meant to be a formality so that CPS can go into court (if sued on this stuff) and say "We held a public hearing." Even if the public wasn't told about it.