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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Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of this year's school turnarounds
As he announced the list of 14 schools to be closed and turned around next year, CEO Ron Huberman took pains Tuesday to stress that he was incorporating lessons learned from the mistakes of past administrations and reform efforts--including the lesson that it makes no sense to close a school only to send its students to another school where performance is just as bad or worse.
As he announced the list of 14 schools to be closed and turned around next year, CEO Ron Huberman took pains Tuesday to stress that he was incorporating lessons learned from the mistakes of past administrations and reform efforts.
One of those lessons is that it makes no sense to close a school, only to send its students to another school where performance is just as bad or worse. That is exactly what happened in many cases in the past, according to a recent study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Huberman said school officials stayed up late many a night to make sure that doesn’t happen again. At a press conference on Tuesday, Huberman went through a presentation to prove that this year's receiving schools are better performers than those being closed.
Meanwhile, the district has plans this year to take special care of the students who are displaced. They will each be given individualized learning plans and given help with transportation. The receiving schools will get money to extend the school day, providing more time for learning.
A Catalyst Chicago analysis found that, indeed, Huberman did pass up closer poor-performing schools to send students to better ones.
“When you close a school, it is never easy,” he said as he explained the decision to close Curtis Elementary School in the far South Side neighborhood of Roseland. With less than 40 percent of students at or exceeding standards, Huberman said Curtis was one of the worst schools in the district.
“We had to ask ourselves, 'What do Curtis students need?' " Huberman said. "As unpopular as closing a school is, students in that community deserve to go to a school where they can succeed academically.”
Huberman noted that for the first time, the district also will reserve seats in two magnet schools for students of a closed school.
The district will hold hearings on the proposed closings and turnarounds over the next month, and the actions must still be approved by the School Board. Two of the elementary school turnarounds and one of the high school turnarounds will be handled by the not-for-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership. The district will manage the others.
High school lessons
Another lesson learned, especially when it comes to high schools, is that what happens in the classroom is only a part of the battle. Just as important is the culture of a school: When that is chaotic or dysfunctional, the school will continue to tank.
Huberman noted that at Marshall and Phillips, a dysfunctional culture kept High School Transformation, Arne Duncan’s $80 million program of new curricula and teacher training, from taking root.
Those schools will be turned around, issuing pink slips to those teachers that the district spent money training. Still, Huberman said the district “learned a lot” from High School Transformation, which is still in place in about 40 schools.
In addition to new staff and leadership, turnaround schools get an infusion of cash, much of which is spent on social-emotional programs and teaching teachers better classroom management. The amount given to each school has differed, and CPS officials did not say how much schools will receive.
Jitu Brown, education organizer for the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, agrees that school cultures must improve. But Brown said the turnaround process has been too top-down. He also suggested that Phillips, which is low-performing but is not the worst among city high schools, was targeted because of gentrification.
“We think that these schools are being changed to accommodate the people moving into the neighborhood,” Brown said. “They don’t want to send their kids to private schools, but they want the public schools to give a good education to their kids.”
Students and teachers at Phillips received the news today. Some of the students were caught off-guard and blamed their classmates for the school’s poor performance. But others said they welcomed the change, criticizing some of the current teachers as disrespectful or confusing.
At Gillespie in Roseland, most parents were not happy, and local school council member Anthony Stallworth said there is an effort underway to protest the turnaround. He says the school has vastly improved under Principal Michelle Willis, who has been there about three years.
“She walked into chaos – when I first got here four years ago, the school was totally out of control,” Stallworth said. “The school’s doing a lot more things better right now than it used to.”
He credits Willis with bringing two new computer labs, a math specialist, and a science lab to the school.
Stallworth also says Willis conducted something of her own turnaround by firing much of the old staff and hiring new people, adding that doing it again will only mean more disruption for students.
Contributing: Rebecca Harris, Dominique Baser
CLOSINGS
Curtis Elementary
Guggenheim Elementary
Prescott Elementary
Las Casas Occupational High School
CONSOLIDATIONS
McCorkle
Paderewski
Marconi
Mollison
PHASE-OUT
Schneider
TURNAROUNDS
Deneen
Gillespie
Bradwell
Phillips High
Marshall High
Huberman's presentation
do you have the slides / text of what huberman himself said? the link in the article does not work
Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of
I fixed the link. It is a pdf and will take a moment to open because it is very large.
Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of
Very few of these poor students will get into a Magnet School! Monitor this and make sure they do not only take the students with higher stanines--watch--the 'magnet student tranfer' will be a lie. Magnet schools do NOT want these kids OR their parents or guardians. Magnets have skilled ways of keeping these students OUT. Even IF they get in--and they wont, Magnets will NOt keep them in the school. There will be transfers out!
Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of
Individualized student transition plans:completed by the district? Right! Just another burden on the receiving school! The CAO or an Admin at Central Office Must be COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE creation of EACH INDIVIDUALIZED student TRANSITION Plan. Bet they don't do this, Bet they don't help at the 'new' school level. Bet they NEVER set foot and spend a full day in the receiving school.
Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of
Peace circle are very useful in creating a school community. Restoritive justices practices also are very helpful methods in dealing with school
issues: teachers,administration,security etc.
When these particular students are transfered to another school gang issues must be taken into account. Students are territorial and will lead into violence. Seems good in theory i wonder if their is a hidden agenda behind this agenda? It is very difficult to move people or make decisions for someone if they don't speak about it together and resolve it. Special ed students take my heart in what they go through my son is one of them and he loves his teacher.
egonzalez@enlacechicago.org
Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of
Let's make the turnaround schools Magnet schools?. Small classes, selective admission, real books and notebook computers....! Let's give them to the same students who are there now.....Let's enforce absence/tardy and cuts like OP/RF does 12 tardies and you are dropped from a class. Chronic cuts--goodbye. Free seminar period; to do your work! On your own! Let's require off level students to go to required homework/tutoring after school. Let's give classes in socially accepted behavior, so the next boy who shouts across a room to a girl, :I want to do you: knows that's a no, no. Let's have students who shout and scream what they will do and will not do in class spend a week at New Trier...and see what their success rate is...
Student learning plans, improving school culture will be part of
No offense, but why should a school or a teacher be forced to keep students who DON'T want to be there and whose parents DON'T care? We sacrifice the education of 29 other students to "save" 1 student. And that 1 student is very rarely saved.
It isn't worth ruining a school or a classroom with gang members, bad behavior, and bad attitudes. If a magnet school, or any school, could get rid of the students that waste oxygen, WHY SHOULDN'T THEY? Why not save as many kids as possible and prepare them for college, the work force, and life?? Why do we spend billions of dollars trying to fix students who are the product of drugs, alcohol, bad parenting, and gang environments? We are fighting a losing battle, and the rest of the children are suffering because of it. It is time to cut the losses and focus on the huge impact we COULD have if we made the choice to focus on the kids who want to learn.
I am not, nor would I ever, suggest getting rid of special education students. Making accommodations for a kid who is LD or has ADHD is more than reasonable. Trying to teach reading to a child who already knows he will grow up to deal drugs, be in a gang, and talks about fighting dogs (at the age of 8) is a futile effort. It's time to focus on the kids who want to be there; and they know coming in the door at 1st grade if education is important -- their parents already instilled a belief that we will never change.
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