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: Neighborhood group seeks to head off CPS
By: Cassandra West / May 15, 2012
The Logan Square Neighborhood Association is establishing the Logan Square School Facilities Council to make sure no closed-door decisions are made at the Board of Education about the future of Ames Middle School.
Three elementary schools currently feed into Ames (Mozart, McAuliffe and Nixon), but starting next year Mozart will keep its 7th graders, and 8th graders the following year. LSNA says this decision was made behind closed doors, without local principals or the network chief being made aware of the decision until it was a done deal. LSNA learned later, from the CPS website, that a public meeting was held March 12 regarding the decision, but the organization can find no one who was aware of this decision. LSNA is concerned that enrollment at Ames will drop, making way for a closing or co-location. (Academically, Ames is not at risk for turnaround or closing.) LSNA has a very strong history at Ames. The school was built as a result of an LSNA school overcrowding campaign in the mid-'90s. The LSCs of Ames and surrounding schools have all voted to endorse the Logan Square School Facilities Council.
Deborah Campbell, a 7th grade science teacher at Josephine Locke Elementary School in Chicago, left Monday to work with scientists studying the ecosystem in Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Georgia. She plans to incorporate this experience into her lessons to better engage students in the sciences. Through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Teacher at Sea program, Campbell is will spend11 days working on a ship, living the life of a field scientist. Campbell will be blogging about her voyage. You can read her posts here.
Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey filled in for union president Karen Lewis on FOX Chicago Sunday. A lot of the decision centered on teacher pay, a recent poll gauging teachers' willingness to strike, the union's reaction to school closures and the union's upcoming pep rally.
State education officials stepped up involvement in North Chicago public schools last month, announcing plans to replace the locally elected school board. (WBEZ)
IN THE NATION
Education Week is doing a special series on education advocacy groups and the influence these emerging interests are having over education policy and practice, particularly at the state and local levels. This week's content includes three stories, a video and an interactive game related to "The Changing Face of Education Advocacy." Read the entire series here.
"Degrees of Debt," a new series by The New York Times, examines the implications of soaring college costs and the indebtedness of students and their families.
It appears that DCPS is finally prepared to comply with the early retirement provision of the contract it signed with the Washington Teachers’ Union. The 2010 collective bargaining agreement says that teachers with good evaluations and 20 years of service who lose their jobs in the annual “excessing” process are eligible for early retirement with full benefits. (The Washington Post)
Degrees of Debt was an amazing series
I was wowed by the NY Times college student debt articles. I still have a difficult time believing that only 6% of college students in our nation can graduate with no student debt. My youngest daughter, a graduate of Payton Prep, graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign Urban just last Saturday with her BA in agricultural economics. She apparently is one of the lucky 6% without debt hanging over her head.
But it could have easily been otherwise. When she graduated from CPS she had strong ACT scores and was accepted at several Universities. One of the most expensive was Northwestern, and it was also her preferred school. But the reality was her 529 educational trust that we established for her at age six months would not have been sufficient to cover the full four years at NU, and even with high ACT scores there were no academic scholarships available to her at NU, nor did she get an athletic scholarship she had been hoping for, and our family income was beyond any possibility of receiving aid based on financial need. Our daughter came close to begging us to let her take out loans to cover the balance of what she would have needed to attend NU, but we pretty much forced her to opt into U of I based on the actual value of the degree and the ability of her trust to pay the entire costs for four years.
She will be pursuing her PhD in agricultural economics with a full academic scholarship and research assistant position at the U of I next year. When I read in the NY Times article the horror stories of the bad choices students and their families made in paying for college and the choices of colleges they made I came away feeling both incredibly lucky and maybe a little guilty.
I know of very few families that were as disciplined as ours was in actually saving for their child's college education, most CPS student's families unfortunately simply do not have the resources to even dream of establishing a trust for their child. I get the impression that actual financial counseling for lower income CPS students who are eligible to enroll in a four year college is virtually non-existent at most high schools. I have never heard of a CPS high school counselor actually costing out a loan deal for a senior and explaining about how much money they were likely to be paying a month in loans after graduation. If there are some doing this I would like to hear about it and the software packages they are using.
Normally low income families are amazed that their children do get the aid they do from my experience teaching at Calumet High School before it became a charter school, and the portion of the bill being picked up by loans seems relatively small even at local private colleges or historically black colleges. But these loans do add up, and as the article demonstrates create real problems for these students upon either graduating or leaving college without completing a degree. Thanks for the link to these interesting articles.
Rod Estvan
cps teachers
Rod,
I am a single income family and a cps teacher who was forced to live in the city. I cant afford to send my kid to any college ! I wouldnt feel guilty but feel lucky, if I were you! Times have changed...when I went to college a credit was 164 now the same place 20 years later is about 700 per credit hour..This is another reason why I don't listen to the CPI infaltion reports. It doesnt account for the REAL inflation going on in thiscountry!.Teachers arent even going to get raises.Obvioulsy if my family eats roman noodles and lives in a basement apartment we can save up! However, I dont have that level of fortitude. i know we have to sacrafice for our childrens future...but its tough sacraficing your childs childhood for his future....My parents saved so I could be a teacher...now look what lies ahead of me? Uncertainty .....
However, it makes one wonder? What is the point of being a teacher? Who will be the next generation to teach the next generation of students? What is their incentive? If teachers are going to be treated and paid like CPS wants, what will children even think of thier teachers? Teaching will become once again, the back up plan!
Once again Rod I respect your opinion..I wouldnt feel guilty...feel lucky yes and proud!!!
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