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Dawn Turner Trice profiles a pre-med student who opts to teach in a South Shore elementary school instead. (Tribune)
"You know the social problems. But it's not just that," he said. "It's the school system's inadequacies. It's the budget constraints. It's the No Child Left Behind law. It's the almost exclusive focus on reading and math for standardized testing. Sometimes, it's bad administrators or a system so thick with bureaucracy it's almost impossible to get through."
* All 107 seniors at Urban Prep are are off to four-year colleges, a major milestone that drew praise and a surprise visit from Mayor Richard Daley. The school is the nation’s first all-boys public charter high schools comprised entirely of African American students. (Sun-Times)
More from WBEZ and the Tribune.
* Grow Your Own program faces high funding hurdles in state’s fiscal crisis. (Chicago Talks)
* CPS students are plan more budget protests, this time over specific cuts to sophomore sports. (ABC7)
In state news
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s deficit plan could result in 17,000 teacher layoffs. (AP)
* Pensions for teachers, police and other public employees across the state face an $18.5 billion shortfall—roughly $6,000 for every Chicago resident, calculates the Civic Federation. (Daily Herald)
* The Illinois Monetary Award Program records a 34 percent increase in eligible students seeking financial aid for college. (Sun-Times)
Because of the experience last year and the state's bigger budget deficit this year, the word is out that forms need to be filed early, said Andy Davis, executive director of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which runs the MAP program.
* Naperville teachers approve three-year contract with no base pay increase in year one. (Naperville Sun)
* Elgin Schools Chief Jose Torres emails teachers by mistake with warning shot on ISAT cheating. (Courier News)
* Meridian schools angle for Partnership Zone grant and turnaround support. (WSIL3)
* Rich East High School rewarded for spiking test scores, but some say the district isn’t testing enough students. (Southtown Star)
In national news
* Postmortems begin for states like Wisconsin and Connecticut—losers in the first leg of the $4 billion Race to the Top competition. (JS/HC)
* California officials will release a list of the state’s 187 chronically failing schools to better align with a federal push to reform troubled schools. (Mercury News)
* Ed. Sec. Arne Duncan promises better enforcement on civil rights laws in schools and colleges. (Washington Post)
* Duncan’s administration is also urging educators to embrace a new technology plan for schools. (Ed Week)
[The plan] recommends enabling every student to learn through digital technology in school and at home, a 1-to-1 computing approach using cellphones, laptops, and other mobile-learning devices that is taking hold in a growing number of school districts.
* Protests and aftershocks persist after President Obama backs plan to fire teachers at Rhode Island school. (Ed Week)
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MailMeets or exceeds state standards, juniors:
15% Urban Prep Academy
62% CPS
A few other statistics of note from IIRC, averaged over the last three years.
Low income population:
66% Urban Prep Academy
84% CPS
Mobility rate:
9.3% Urban Prep Academy
21.5% CPS
Limited English Proficiency
0.47% Urban Prep Academy
14.4% CPS
166 students were enrolled at Urban Prep Academy in the spring of 2007. 107 of those students remain in this graduating class, an impressive feat in and of itself. But WHAT happened to the 35% of students that are no longer enrolled? Did they drop out of school? Were they counseled out? Were they removed for poor academic performance? How many of them ended up at local neighborhood schools, and why?
It is interesting that the main lessons learned, according to quotes from the students themselves, involve not book learning so much as citizenship, discipline, and personal responsibility.
Any school in the city could match this 100% college acceptance rate by mandating application to college for all graduating seniors.
Education reporters should really dig a little deeper and look at such claims with a critical eye.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
CPS proposes to be hiring hundreds of new teachers while Ron Huberman says he has to prepare to cut thousands of jobs because of a near billion dollar 'deficit'
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1237§ion=Article
Um. No. They are admitted by lottery: Urban Prep Academies operates non-selective enrollment high schools that admit students via lottery. (http://www.urbanprep.org/admissions/)
" b) limit class sizes and enrollment,"
Yes, that is frequently the point of a charter school. Glad to see you caught on.
" c) remove or lose 35% of their students,"
I don't have a witty reply, except you can't just kick out students for poor performance. That is against the law for Charter schools. There are 33 students listed as chronic truants which drops to 6 in 2009, so there is part of the missing group. As far as what happened to the rest, who knows? Some students simply don't want the self-discipline and education that their parents desperately would like to see them receive... or they don't have the parental support in the first place.
" d) perform below most CPS averages,"
Sooo... we're supposed to be pissed that the students have a low Limited English Proficiency percentage because they are African American? Also, low mobility rate is a GOOD thing.
In addition, Urban Prep had a 16.5 ACT score average (CPS is 15.4).
Finally, it was stated that the Low Income % was at 66% when it was 91.6%, 27.9%, and 78.7% respectively. Clearly using an average to make a point is a bad idea. I would wager a guess that paper work was poorly filed or turned in for the 2008 year.
" and e) still have the marketing skills and pinache to receive accolades for a trumped up accomplishment of paperwork proportions."
When your school gets 100% of the students accepted into a 4 year college, then maybe they'll get a pat on the back and a free prom too. Sounds like you're jealous.
I have no ties to Urban Prep. I teach at a Charter school on the North side, for what it's worth. We require students to apply for college as part of a class, but we've never had 100% acceptance to a 4 year college. I think it is shady for teachers to slam success when teachers, administration, and students have worked so hard to achieve 100% acceptance at a school located in the middle of hell on earth. Bless their hearts, I hope they are prepared for the future. I hope each of those young men go on to graduate college and lead a prosperous life.
i know personally of at least 50 teachers with multiple certificates in high needs areas all not able to get an assignment after displacement.
Stop the Lies.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
We dont hate this school ...we just dont like being compared because it is a BIG difference when parents are invested in a school ...I can tell this one has great parents who went out of thier way to put these kids in...however some of us have rooms with 10 ELL , 8 Special Ed kids plus another 13 kids at various levels ..(SOME WHO CALL US NAMES YOU WOULD NEVER PRINT ON THE INTERNET Plus 20 to 30% mobility ...we are never going to see these results.
That's all...let's leave the IDIOT comments for the teenage blog site!!
I'm encouraged by the success of UP but demoralized at the same time because I know CPS and the state would never provide for or arrange funding for the supports UP. We would love internships for our 700+ graduating seniors. And extracurriculars for all of our 3500 students? Yes, please! We have a large number of after school opportunities but are still only able to reach a small fraction of our students due to a lack of resources, space, and support. Our class sizes are routinely in the mid-40s and the restrictions on removing problematic students are much more strict than at charters. Irrespective of one's value judgements regarding charters and neighborhood schools stories like this nearly always fail to recognize that they operate under wildly different circumstances and rules. For me it isn't the UP success that is disturbing, it is the unfair comparisons to and the condescension towards neighborhood schools that are so infuriating.
So, congratulations to UP for pulling and pushing those students through. I recognize and applaud that success, but also ask that reporters, administrators, teachers, and families acknowledge in their comparisons the very different and far more severe challenges plain old neighborhood schools face.
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