As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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For the record: Closed schools, more students for turnarounds
By: Sarah Karp / February 24, 2012
When Chicago Public Schools officials talked about closing Price Elementary School in Bronzeville and Guggenheim in Englewood, they stressed that students would transfer to better schools.
What they didn’t talk much about publicly was where future students living in the Price and Guggenheim attendance boundaries would go. In fact, most will be assigned to schools that are currently no better than Price and Guggenheim, but are slated to be turned around next year. In turnarounds, the district fires the current staff, including the principal, hires a new staff, and provides them with more resources.
New students in Price’s territory will go to Fuller and Woodson South; those from the Guggenheim area will go Stagg. The turnaround process at Stagg and Fuller will be handled by the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a not-for-profit educational management organization, and the turnaround process at Woodson South will be managed by the CPS Office of School Improvement.
CPS spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus says CPS officials explained the change in attendance boundaries to parents and community members in letters and in person.
Margo Murray, a special education teacher at Price, said parents realized the distinction, but were confused. “That is the whole ball of wax,” she said. “They have lower test scores than us. It doesn’t make any sense.”
CPS officials said that with the track record of turnarounds, the new students can expect a better experience. Turnarounds, they said, have been proven to raise expectations for children and improve a school’s climate and culture, as well as increase test scores.
“The students will be walking into a dramatically better school than Guggenheim or Price,” Sainvilus said. She said Guggenheim was the worst school in the city last year so virtually anywhere else would be better. (Fuller’s composite ISAT score was worse than Guggenheim’s.)
CPS officials point to overall trends, but their data show that the narrative of each turnaround school is different. Several saw a decrease in test scores during the first year, and then rebounded in subsequent years. Many saw increases in composite test scores that were driven mostly by math, but minimal gains in reading.
Sherman, the turnaround school run by the Academy for Urban School Leadership since 2006, still has only half its students reading at grade level. Meanwhile, Fulton, a turnaround run by the Office of School Improvement since 2008, has only 43 percent of students reading at grade level—10 percent less than at Price.
The assignment of future students in the Price and Guggenheim attendance areas is part of a trend. Increasingly, students from closed schools are being funneled to turnarounds, most of which are being run by AUSL.
Students from Dyett, a phase-out, will be assigned to Phillips, a school in its second year of being turned around by AUSL. Students from Lathop, another closing school, will be rerouted to Johnson Elementary, a 2009 turnaround run by AUSL.
More such reassignments can be expected. CPS leadership has been clear that in a district with 251 schools on probation and 310 schools underutilized, more closings are on the way.
The problem, according to Chief Portfolio Officer Oliver Sicat, is that there aren’t enough better-performing options. “Turnaround schools create high-performing options,” he told board members in December.
Hrm
Wednesday the Board of Education sent 7,500 kids to better futures by sending many of them to worse schools or no school at all. But those schools are managed by some of our friends, and those streets too, so it'll certainly, definitely work out.
Nuts, they've already broken their promise and the first kid hasn't even moved yet.
ausl
so what happens in those schools that have been 'turned'.? why don't we hear from them.? (any success, failures....) how is that 'revolving door' going.? does the tfa after their 4 years are up finding jobs they 'really' want when their 'community service learning' years are over.? if tfa teachers were so smart, they would have landed their 'real' jobs already, before going into teaching, like after graduation.
if rahm wants to privatize all schools then stop giving our tax dollars to them, if they got such a good business model, then let them invest in it. if it works, then people will buy it. the only thing cps and rahm knows how to do and does it well is waste money. if my child graduated from an ausl school with flying colors and got admitted into an ivy league school with full tuition paid for, i would be shouting it from the roof tops. any takers?
our rights are being striped away and we get to pay for it.
(no caps to call attention)
AUSL has plenty of
AUSL has plenty of information on its website about its track record. I have not heard about any response to the Designs for Change publication yet, but I hope that one will be forthcoming.
By the way, TFA and AUSL have nothing to do with each other. And your implied standard of success for an AUSL turn around high school seems unrealistic; surely there's a middle ground between school failure and a diamond-in-the-rough story of a full ride to the Ivy League.
AUSL
I agree with Mr. Johnson that the "no caps" sets the standard of success unrealistically high, but I do think he/she is making the point that for all the AUSL hype, promotion, and actual accomplishments, it has fallen far short of what it promised. I have noticed that AUSL has begun to make excuses for its lack of progress that I did not see in the past, which is ironic considering that is always what they slammed neighborhood schools for doing. We are beginning to see that the "special sauce" is actually decorative glaze.
UNO's Rangel does'nt like whites
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/unos-juan-rangel-talks-charter-scho...
ACTION FOR CTU !
I just got an idea for an action for the Displaced Teacher Committee of the Chicago Teachers Union. Why don't all the teachers who have lost their jobs and are losing their homes, get a ladder and climb upon the roof of their homes. Demand that someone somewhere pay off your mortgage or you're not coming down. ( A great time to do it is when the Sher if comes to evict you). Then you can pledge to open up a charter school in your home. ( I'm going to turn mine into a church) I think this will
I just got an idea for an
I just got an idea for an action for the Displaced Teacher Committee of the Chicago Teachers Union. Why don't all the teachers who have lost their jobs and are losing their homes, get a ladder and climb upon the roof of their homes. Demand that someone somewhere pay off your mortgage or you're not coming down. ( A great time to do it is when the Sheriff comes to evict you). Then you can pledge to open up a charter school in your home. ( I'm going to turn mine into a church) I think this will make the mayor very happy! Do I have anyone interested?
Turnaround Schools
As usual a lot of people want to talk about a situation without having a clue about what is really going on. The fact is Chicago Public Schools became a scam when the Mayor decided he was going to take over. So what other cities have the Mayor as the lead in the education of the city's children. CPS became a place to send patronage workers after Shakman took effect. If you needed a easy job and worked for his election campaign, you got a easy high paid job at CPS, not with the children mind you but pushing papers. Check at the education credentials of the last heads of CPS. Jean-Claude Brizard was run out of Rochester, Huberman worked at the CTA and I don't know what Duncan did but play basketball at Harvard. Now the entire school board is appointed by Mr Emanuel so what ever way he points they go. If you want to really know what is gong on here its simple, follow the money. The school are being turned around at an ever increasing rate to one group in particular, AUSL, who by the way have their former chairman on the board of CPS. Each time the AUSL gets a school the initial fee paid to AUSL is $300,000, plus staff stipends over five years averaging about $1,178,240, plus the first year extra Asst. Principal salary of $153.770. Well as long as they do what they are paid to do what is wrong?? The test results do not back up their claims, that is what is wrong. No Turnaround School scores above the city wide average. They do not have to take the problem children, the non readers, the chronic tardy students. They have the luxury of expelling any student that does not follow their rules. The neighborhood schools do not have that luxury. They must take every one that walks through the door, the problem children, the homeless children, the chronic tardy children, the non readers and they can not expel those students without several court hearings. The most a teacher can do after they are cursed out in front of the whole class is write up the student and send them to the dean's office. Next day the child is back in class. If you really want to change the educational direction of the Chicago Public School's you need to start in the 4th grade and make sure every child knows how to read and write at grade level before pushing them to the next grade just to get rid of them. To read the full report and get all the details look at:
http://www.suntimes.com/10791645-417/study-disputes-turnaround-stats-for...
Deidre Fear Not
I double dare you to put your full name. Look how they did you. Change starts here. We'll protect you.
full name
why would someone risk ther job? we have no protections!!
True
There are no protections. Deleverage as much debt as possible. If need be, "reset" one's financial life, so if a job is lost, one and one's family will still be ok. Because there are no protections in this working climate for the middle class and the poor. The union can not save us, they are despite their boasts, powerless.
Orr high school
AUSL was given Orr to work their "magic" on and guess what, AUSL failed miserably, was turned around and got a second bite at the apple. Orr has been the CPS lab rat poster child for over a decade and little has changed there. They get screwed over on such a regular basis that they never have time to actually settle down and move forward. I've talked to kids from Orr and they hate what CPS has done to them and their community. http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2217
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