As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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In the News: CPS' parent engagement not connecting
By: Cassandra West / February 21, 2012
Despite a well-publicized commitment to involve parents in the city’s public education system, some of them are not happy with how Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his school team are following through. And some say they are still not familiar with the new Office of Community and Family Engagement, according to the Chicago News Cooperative.
Two days before the Chicago Board of Education votes to close or restructure failing schools, several community groups marched to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home on the city's North Side to protest the proposed changes for chronically under-performing schools. (Tribune)
About 200 protesters marched from Lakeview High School past the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel Monday night, protesting Chicago Public Schools' plans to turn around or close 16 underperforming schools. (ABC7News)
CPS officials announced Monday that all elementary schools beginning in the fall will be taking the Northwest Evaluation Association test three times a year. (Tribune)
Last week, a group of residents from some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods took their protest over Chicago school closings to Winnetka, where CPS' chief administrative officer Tim Cawley lives. (WBEZ)
Sara Spurlark, who influenced thousands of students as a Chicago Public Schools teacher and administrator before joining the University of Chicago to help launch what is now the school's Urban Education Institute, died Sunday. She was 88. (Tribune)
IN THE STATE
Uncertainty still looms for Illinois' regional school superintendents. (State Journal Register)
IN THE NATION
The use of “value added” information appears poised to expand into the nation’s teacher colleges, with more than a dozen states planning to use the technique to analyze how graduates of training programs fare in classrooms. (Education Week)
The Obama administration wants to trim $6 million from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a key measure of U.S. student achievement across disciplines relied upon by educators, policymakers, researchers, and journalists. The proposal is part of a $70 billion budget request for the U.S. Department of Education that, overall, would increase the agency's discretionary coffers by 2.5 percent. The NAEP cut would bring the testing budget down to $132 million, a reduction of 4.3 percent. (Education Week)
States try to fix quirks in teacher evaluations. (The New York Times)
LSD is in CPS water at 125
LSD--longer school day is about longer student testing. Look at all the student tests released today--the CPS assessment calendar. They are crazy with even MORE student testing next year. It is not about enrichment--it is about TESTING students even more!
Stop this insanity.
The more we test, the less we instruct;the less we instruct
the lower the scores; the lower the scores, the more we are failing kids; the more we are failing kids, the more school closings; the more school closing, the greater the unemployment; the greater the unemployment, the greater the poverty; the greater the poverty, the lower the scores; the lower the scores, the more school closings…these bastards know exactly how they are destroying public education….
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