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After a lengthy statewide “listening tour,” the bipartisan, politically-connected group Advance Illinois released its recommendations for improving Illinois education.
The recommendations—among them, better teachers, tougher standards and more innovation—are timed to make a splash with state leaders as they grind through tough budget negotiations. Those talks are never far removed from the politically vexing problem of inequitable school funding.
But the mix of carrots and sticks laid out by Advance Illinois say little about funding. Instead, the focus is squarely on more affordable fixes, such as raising state standards, giving principals more hiring and firing authority and tying student performance directly to teachers.
Perhaps the most notable idea, however, is for a new incentive fund modeled on the “Race to the Top Fund” in the federal stimulus package. Like that fund, the state’s program would award competitive grants to districts and schools that pitch good ideas for fixing their own unique challenges.
Contending that the grant program would put school leaders in the driver’s seat, Advance Illinois co-chairman and former U. S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley says “Springfield shouldn’t order change.”
Advance Illinois leaders left it unclear how big such a fund should be or who should control the decision-making levers. But Robin Steans, the group’s executive director, says she’s looking forward to working with state legislatures on the issue.
The organization’s other co-chairman, former Governor Jim Edgar, says he welcomes the “elephant in the room”—the federal Race to the Top fund—as an agent of change. Edgar points out that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has signaled that Illinois needs to do more if it wants a cut of the nearly $5 billion in funding.
Duncan is scheduled to have breakfast tomorrow with Advance Illinois leaders, adding more political heft to the group’s proposals.
Raising teacher quality, improving data analysis
To make its case for radical change, the report notes that just one in four Illinois students will graduate from high school ready for college or a career.
Teacher quality: Advance Illinois wants a major overhaul of teacher tenure and evaluation, based on much more rigorous and value-added measures of student performance. Principals, principal preparation programs and teacher training should likewise be evaluated on student outcomes, the report argues.
Giving principals more control over hiring and firing of teachers is also on the group’s radar, a shift that may require changes to the state’s education laws.
Such recommendations are sure to ruffle feathers with the teachers unions, which fought to include rules limiting the use of test scores in teacher evaluations as the state works toward a new student data system.
But Steans contends that the state currently wastes nearly $400 million a year compensating teachers with advanced degrees despite a lack of evidence that advanced degrees lead to better student learning.
Better data: To make it all possible, Advance Illinois also suggests the state build a much more robust data system. To save money, the group also backs a rollout of an online platform for administering state tests, allowing schools to test kids later in the year to better gauge how much they have learned. It would also provide nearly instant feedback to educators.
Advance Illinois suggests the state commit to the following by 2020:
- Increase the state’s proficiency rates in reading and math on the NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) from 30 percent to 50 percent
- Increase the graduation rate from 75 percent to at least 85 percent
- Increase the number of students who take college- and career-prep coursework to from 45 percent to 70 percent
- Close the achievement gap to less than 10 percentage points
Photo: Courtsey Hill & Knowlton. Fmr. Secretary of Commerce William Daley discusses the report while Gov. Edgar and Robin Steans, Advance Illinois executive director, listen.
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MailAdvance Illinois/Duncan Event, 6/19/09, 8 a.m. – 9:30 a.m., Chicago Hyatt Regency
CHICAGO, IL 6/19/09 -- The Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) will hold a demonstration today in an attempt to warn the nation about the negative effects of Secretary of Education Duncan’s school turnaround program before he unleashes it on 5,000 schools nationwide. According to Jackson Potter, Co-chair of CORE, “There are many sordid facts that are often overlooked in Arne Duncan's reform initiatives. Veteran teachers, especially black veteran teachers, lose their jobs without due process. Students are forced out of their neighborhood schools. Local school councils -- parents’ only voice – are silenced.”
CORE member Ed Gallagher calls this the "Chicago Model" of educational reform. “[Turnaround] is not about improving schools. It is about putting money into the hands of political insiders and turning the schools over to the Mayor's political allies. It’s Chicago-style contract patronage.”
In a related action, on June 10, 2009, CORE filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that teacher dismissals resulting from school “turnarounds” have a disparate impact on African-American teachers. Currently, there are 2,000 fewer African-American teachers working in CPS than there were in 2002. The charges can be downloaded at www.coreteachers.org.
The protest will take place at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker Drive, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. where Secretary Duncan will be the guest of honor at an event sponsored by Advance Illinois.
In schools slated for “turnaround,” every employee is fired, including teachers, cafeteria staff, and administration. Many of these schools are handed over to management companies. This program falls under Mayor Richard Daley’s “Renaissance 2010” program to overhaul the Chicago Public Schools through the privatization and destabilization of the city’s schools.
CORE Co-Chair Karen Lewis questions the effectiveness of Chicago’s school reform initiatives. “Where's the proof of the success? Arne Duncan is perpetuating a fraud on the American public.”
One of the demonstrators’ slogans is “students are not parking meters” in reference to Mayor Daley’s privatization of Chicago’s parking meters.
The group’s local demand is a moratorium on all charter, contract and turnaround proposals until a new policy team of teachers, parents and students convene to create a reform agenda that reflects the interests of those constituencies.
Updates from the demonstration will be available at www.twitter.com/coreteachers.
CORE will hold a press conference at 9:15 a.m. outside the Hyatt Regency-Chicago.
CORE is the reform caucus of the Chicago Teachers Union that represents rank-and-file members. The group is comprised of teachers, retired teachers, educational staff and other champions of public education created to democratize the Chicago Teachers Union and turn it into an organization that fights on behalf of its members and the students they teach.
I have a problem with principals having this "power" of hiring and firing personal. In Chicago, principals are given a 4 year contract. That means that principals can be ineffective and the local school has to wait until this person's contract is up as to decide whether they want to renew the contract.
In sports, especially baseball, when the team is in a slump and not performing well, who is let go first? The manager, or coach. But, if the schools are not performing well, ALL of the teachers are painted with the same brush as being ineffective and the principal is giving a pass.
Just like in a classroom, students are motivated by what the teacher says and the teacher incentives the teacher gives. If a principal decides that their method of motivating their staff is with bullying techniques, the staff will only produce, "just enough." Where is the motivation in that? But, if the principal is on the side of their staff and doesn't mine working side by side with their staff, great and greater things occur.
Instead of politicans telling educators what we need to do, why don't they clean their own house of corruption before giving suggestions to another industry. You know, "People in glass houses..."
And yet, when you look at the 100 worst schools in the state, they are overwhelmingly from Chicago.
Throwing more money at bad schools isn't going to fix them.
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