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.
Recent Notebook Entries
Right Now On Notebook
By:
By:
By:
By:
Other Blogs
catalyst-chicago.org feeds
Current Issue
Huberman's performance SWAT team
By: John Myers / April 20, 2009
Newly-installed Schools Chief Ron Huberman—championed by Mayor Richard Daley for his managerial deftness—has assembled a small, elite team to hammer out “performance management” in the district’s Central Offices.
The effort puts administrators on the hot seat, where they must establish new ways to measure their own success.
“It’s a very formulaic process,” says Sarah Kremsner, who heads up the effort and has worked with Huberman in a variety of top jobs controlled by City Hall. “Ron has taken it with him wherever he has gone.”
Newly-installed Schools Chief Ron Huberman—championed by Mayor Richard Daley for his managerial deftness—has assembled a small, elite team to hammer out “performance management” in the district’s Central Offices.
The effort puts administrators on the hot seat, where they must establish new ways to measure their own success.
“It’s a very formulaic process,” says Sarah Kremsner, who heads up the effort and has worked with Huberman in a variety of top jobs controlled by City Hall. “Ron has taken it with him wherever he has gone.”
Those familiar with the process say department heads endure grueling sessions to mete out operational goals and find ways to articulate the “brutal facts.” The set-up has the potential to pit the performance team against departmental leaders, and Kremsner says it requires members of her team to use a tactful approach to ensure both sides work together.
“You have to be a critical friend to folks,” she says. “In the end, [department leaders] have to own these metrics.”
The push for a “data-driven culture” has already put four departments—human resources, procurement, facilities and the office that oversees tutoring and after-school programs— through the grist mill, forcing them to look closely at their work and bottom line results. Each crafted detailed performance metrics for departmental goals that impact student learning. For example, the human resources department will, among other measures, keep close tabs on the number of candidates who apply for open jobs, the amount of time it takes to process applications and the success rate for paying employees on time.
The office is currently working with nearly a dozen departments, and hopes to complete the process for a new department each week. Kremsner says the team is starting to think about how to evaluate educational services that are less tangible and more difficult to quantify. “How do you measure the effectiveness of a social worker?” she asks, hypothetically.
Kremsner’s team steps up the focus on data-driven decision making and performance, but it’s not entirely new. Under former CEO Arne Duncan, district strategists and researchers forged ahead on many of the same fronts, particularly in schools and area offices. What’s left is central office, and Kremsner says the goal is to push the envelope and find ways to expand and improve data-management, including the newly revamped “dashboard” computer system that gives administrators easy access to student data in the oft-maligned IMPACT system.
The performance management team, a temporary unit that falls under the CEO’s office, will eventually grow to around 10 of the “best and brightest” administrators. Peter Goddard, former director of CPS’s Office of Research, Evaluation and Accountability, is one of them, but Kremsner declined to name who else staffs the influential group until next year’s budget is finalized.
It’s unclear how long the performance management team will operate, but their goal is to put systems in place so they are no longer needed.
“It’s very labor intensive on the front end,” she says. “We know we’ve been successful when we no longer have a job.”
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Two statements in this post are a bit troubling: the notion of a "formulaic process," which doesn't bode well for encouraging innovations and programs that might not result in measurable 'bottom-line results' but are nevertheless worthwhile; and the statement about department leaders having to 'own these metrics.' Leaders, especially good ones, are not going to be likely to 'own' something imposed from above, especially given the nature of the 'grueling sessions,' which have reportedly been less-than-friendly in some cases.
Time will tell the worth of this endeavor.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
I heard they were beyond grueling. Some people came away in tears (and those were the men!!!) As we all know, spit runs downhill, so the little people are the runs who will suffer. The clerks, the teachers etc.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Who dubbed it SWAT team? If it was him , he just can't let go of the police lingo can he?
Huberman's performance SWAT team
It's about time managers had their feet held to the fire at 125 S. Clark. Hopefully what will come out of these sessions and the data-gathering process is the reality that about 50% of the staff at Central Office consists of patronage hacks doing make-work jobs. If Huberman has the political will he must then realize the money should be channeled into actual schools where the school system is supposed to do business. It's unlikely he will make such significant changes, however, unless he looks deep into his soul, decides to tell Daley to go stuff it and kisses his career goodbye.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
This the most irrational proposition. Why have folks who are so far away from the classroom make decisions that affect principals, teachers and most of all the students. This is a joke. His team couldn't straighten out the CTA, so now they are going to work on the schools! Marilyn need to get her butt out there and out these clowns!
Huberman's performance SWAT team
“'It’s a very formulaic process,' says Sarah Kremsner, who heads up the effort and has worked with Huberman in a variety of top jobs controlled by City Hall. 'Ron has taken it with him wherever he has gone.' Those familiar with the process say department heads endure grueling sessions to mete out operational goals and find ways to articulate the 'brutal facts.' The set-up has the potential to pit the performance team against departmental leaders, and Kremsner says it requires members of her team to use a tactful approach to ensure both sides work together. 'You have to be a critical friend to folks,' she says. 'In the end, [department leaders] have to own these metrics.' The push for a 'data-driven culture' has already put four departments—human resources, procurement, facilities and the office that oversees tutoring and after-school programs— through the grist mill, forcing them to look closely at their work and bottom line results. Each crafted detailed performance metrics for departmental goals that impact student learning..." (Catalyst's latest a-historical fairy tale).
One of the reasons that Catalyst is such an odious example of propaganda as journalism is the a-historical reality of 14 years behind this piece of jargon-filled nonsense. Instead of bothering to retrace their own steps all the way back to their breathless adulation of the Vallas-Chico Miracle Management Team of the pre-Duncan era, Catalyst simply repeats the latest tank of jargony bilge and spews it over the landscape.
There is a useful public service to having this nonsense in print.
It saves some people the trouble of satirizing it.
The job was done quite well four and five years ago, in "The Wire", and nothing that Catalyst is today hyperventilating about on behalf of the latest iteration of Daley worshipping nonsense contradicts the brutal fun that was implicit in how The Wire portrayed that small scale version of Chicago -- Baltimore -- and "data driven management" back then.
One of the craziest things implicit in this particular brand of reporting is that it's simple mindedly repeating the official narrative about the glorious history of Ron Huberman and the glories he brought to each of the activities he rendered more dysfunctional while giving each of those "leadership." A closer look at the destruction of the public transportation system in Chicago under Huberman (and of course that other boy wonder of Daleyland, Frank Kreusi) would do the job, and there are hundreds of people willing to talk about it all, on and off the record.
Every reporter who write such gooey PR on behalf of Daley's henchmen (and women) should be sentenced to travel by CTA buses -- and pay cash each ride -- between nine p.m. and nine a.m. across the city for the next seven days. I'll draw up the routes. That's what the working class of Chicago faces every day while certain orgiastic forms of "journalism" go from frothing to screaming on behalf of the latest bit of pretentious ruling class nonsense.
Also, don't denigrate SWAT teams by comparing these arm chair tyrants with the men and women who actually risk their lives on the front lines. These petty tyrannies and petty tyrants who convene these bullying sessions have more in common with the bureaucrats who were unseated from power from Berlin to Moscow and beyond 20 years ago. What Huberman is going has more in common with Nicolai and Elena Ceausescu than it does with any tradition we honor in the United States of America. Right down to cooking the books and utilizing police state tactics (such as were used against the principals of Julian and Ogelsby on April 3) as examples to potential dissenters.
If the principals association and the teachers union had any sense, they'd boycott these events, then hire a couple of satirists to portray Huberman, his PR team, and the rest for You Tube and other Internet parody.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Wow! Huberman has a great track record. He flits from job to job and wanted a police pension. Look at the track record of him and the slugs that he brought over from the CTA. Everybody knows they left a mess.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
I love that CPS continues to get even better. Kudos to Ron and his team for improving the central office. I can't wait until it hits the classrooms. I know that we will see the needle move on student achievement even more. Kudos for Catalyst for capturing this significant improvement at 125 S Clark. It will be one of Ron's most important legacies. Go Ron, Sarah, and company!
Huberman's performance SWAT team
To the person that talked trash about the CTA...do you ride the CTA? If you do, you'll notice in the last year or so, the buses stopped travelling in packs and are on time. I sold my car because I can count on the CTA. If Ron keeps this up, I just might put my kids in a CPS school. Ron's approach works.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
i got a good laugh off your funny story! Right a story! Say no to trolls!
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Peter Godard was the manager of data management, NOT the former director of CPS’s Office of Research, Evaluation and Accountability. Ginger Reynolds has been the Director of Office of Research, Evaluation and Accountability for nearly two years.
I find it fishy they will not mention the other names.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Something's truly fishy with the post from I LOVE IT! Some of those phrases sound way too much like Huberman soundbites. Seems like someone's posting from the 5th floor at 125 S. Clark. Time to check those IP addresses, Mr. Blogmaster.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Sure put your kids on CTA, there is a robbery per day on those busses .
Residency Policy
Does anyone out there know the board policy when two people work for CPS and one is "grandfathered" into the system?
Huberman's performance SWAT team
I also question why Kremsner doesn't give the names of the other staff on the performance management team.
Huberman's performance SWAT team
Dear Huberman,
AMPS has let new principals run wild! Will you make Melisaa hold them accountable to parent complaints or LSC concerns? Principals with their first contract should not be AMPS out of the area! They need to earn it! Many of them know how to decieve you. They talk a good game and walk the walk. Please look into Melissa's schools a little more. She does nothing to look into parental complaints or LSC complaints. I am considering enrolling me children in a private school because I may not be able to take it anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Add your comment