And some of those high-performing neighborhood schools are getting results in facilities sorely in need of repair, while CPS is pouring millions into turnarounds, said Don Moore, executive director of Designs for Change, Catalyst reports. 

Public Schools has reached a deal with community leaders on the West Side to bring in a new neighborhood high school to replace Crane Tech, which is expected to begin a three-year phase-out next fall. (Tribune)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday sought to frame Monday night's protest outside his home by hundreds of people upset at his plans to close or restructure several schools as a response to the difficult but necessary steps he's taking to improve the education of Chicago children. (Tribune)

The Chicago Teachers Union, parents and community members will picket in front of the Board of Education in support of a massive call for a moratorium on CPS' actions that could lead to the closure and turnaround of several neighborhood schools.  The school board is expected to vote on the proposals during its regular 10:30 a.m. meeting.  All of the targeted schools are in Black or Latino neighborhoods. “CPS’ decision to starve some schools and resource others amount to education apartheid,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis. “Most of the students impacted by these failed policies are African American and Latino. All public school students deserve access to a high quality education; and anyone who works in these schools demands to be treated with respect.” (Press release)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chancellor Cheryl Hyman announced Tuesday a $479 million five-year capital plan to support City Colleges of Chicago’s College to Careers initiative. The capital commitment includes construction of a new Malcolm X College, including a new Allied Health Academy that will strengthen ties to the Illinois Medical District and prepare Chicagoans for the expected 84,000 local job openings in healthcare over the next 10 years. The new Malcolm X College campus, projected to open in the spring of 2015, will be located just south of the United Center, across the street from the current college site at Jackson and Damen streets on land already owned by City Colleges of Chicago. The 500,000 square foot campus will be composed of two 3-story academic buildings and a 1,500-car parking facility connected via an atrium. (Press release)

Chicago will build a new $251 million Malcolm X College and 1,500-space parking garage in the shadows of the United Center to create a state-of-the-art facility to train students for careers in health care, Mayor Rahm Emanuel disclosed Tuesday. (Sun-Times)

On the eve of the Board of Education vote on school closings and turnarounds, CPS leaders said they will reopen a neighborhood option in the Crane High School building, city council members questioned CPS leaders and activists and parents made final arguments that their schools have made gains and don’t need dramatic change. (Catalyst)

After months of intense fighting between officials and activists about whether or not to close the Near West Side’s Crane High School, Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard has signed on to a plan to keep the school open. Under the new plan, Crane will be shifting its mission, changing from a high school that’s solely neighborhood-focused to one that’s focused on training students for jobs in the medical industry. (Chicago Journal)

IN THE NATION
The Obama administration is working on setting nutritional standards for foods that children can buy outside the cafeteria. With students eating 19 percent to 50 percent of their daily food at school, the administration says it wants to ensure that what they eat contributes to good health and smaller waistlines. The proposed rules are expected within the next few weeks. (The New York Times)

Seniority rules and teacher transfer rights will remain intact in Oakland's public schools this year, despite the superintendent's call for a change. (Mercury News)

Many parents and Denver Public Schools community members vented in a survey that the district’s calendar features far too many weeks in which children are not in school for full days Monday through Friday. (Education News Colorado)

Across more than 30 topics covered in the Advanced Placement program, participation in geography is rising faster than any other. It's joined by AP courses like Chinese, environmental science, psychology, and world history that have been gaining ground most rapidly in recent years. (Education Week)

A trio of studies released last week by the Civil Rights Project, a social science research group at UCLA found that black and Latino community college students in Southern California are failing to advance because many have graduated from low-performing high schools that ill-prepare them for college work. These students then end up at similar two-year institutions with poor transfer records. (Los Angeles Times)

Also, an advocacy organization once again raised questions about whether turnaround schools produce results.

Tuesday’s last-ditch efforts capped two months of wrangling about the proposal by CPS to close two elementary schools, phase out two high schools and turnaround 10 schools. Six of the turnarounds—a process that entails replacing an entire staff—are slated to be managed by the Academy for Urban School Leadership.

This year, CPS leaders didn’t take any actions off the table. In the past, the district has in some cases backed off following community and parent opposition. 

The only concession made by CEO Jean-Claude Brizard was the announcement on Tuesday that Crane will house a health sciences high school. The current Crane High School will still be phased out and next year’s freshmen will be assigned to other neighborhood high schools.

But starting in the fall of 2013, area students will have the option of attending the health sciences high school. Whether Crane staff will automatically get jobs in the new high school is undecided and is an issue that will be grappled with by a committee that Brizard intends to create.

State Senator Annazette Collins said she thinks it is a “great thing” that CPS is ready to turn a proposal from the community into reality. She noted that Crane is close to the medical district and Malcolm X City College, which is going to become a medical specialty school.

“What a good place to train students for sustainable careers,” she said.

Parents and activists from other schools, however, say they have no reason to suspect Wednesday’s vote will bring a reprieve.   

Willie Williams, an activist whose wife is a security guard at Casals, said he believes that the “powers that be” don’t like to be told they are wrong. He spoke at a press conference held Tuesday in which parents and staff once again invited CPS leaders to visit their school and said that students are making gains based on standardized test results. 

“They want to tell is what they are going to do, not the other way around,” Williams said.

Parents in Humboldt Park forced attention to the situation at Casals and Piccolo elementary schools, which are slated to be handed over to the Academy for Urban School Leadership. On Friday, they, along with members of Occupy Chicago, staged a sit-in. On Saturday, they were promised meetings with board members.

After meeting with board Vice President Jesse Ruiz at the school, parents had phone conversations with three other board members and told them that the district should support their current principals, who are new and making changes. The parents want the schools to be spared a turnaround and instead allowed to remain open under a probation plan for two years. 

According to parents, board member Andrea Zopp asked them why they would oppose a turnaround.

"We are already being turned around,” Piccolo's local school council chair Latrice Watkins responded. “Give us a chance, we don't need AUSL. Give us some of those dollars you are giving AUSL. Why do we need more changes? We've already had 3 principals in five years."

But not one board member committed to voting against the turnarounds on Wednesday, a disappointment to parents.

“It was not just about us talking, it was about them really seeing this plan and a possible reality," says Latoya Walls, parent at Piccolo who was also on the calls. 

Piccolo and Casals parents and activists also pointed to a study released Tuesday by Designs for Change as another reason why the turnaround shouldn’t go forward.

Designs for Change analyzed ISAT scores and found that many high-poverty neighborhood elementary schools are out-performing turnaround schools. And some of those high-performing neighborhood schools are getting results in facilities sorely in need of repair, while CPS is pouring millions into turnarounds, said Don Moore, executive director of Designs for Change.

“Most people have never heard about these schools,” said Moore. “The turnarounds get a lot of publicity.”

Moore also looked at teacher turnover at turnaround elementary schools and found that only 42 percent of teachers at the schools in 2008-2009 were still there in 2011-2012. He said that anecdotally, teachers have told him that turnaround schools focus too much on test prep and sap creativity. 

This first round of school actions by Brizard’s administration has been challenged on many fronts. December’s board meeting was effectively shut down by activists. The Illinois Educational Facilities Task Force, which includes several state lawmakers, said that CPS wasn't complying with a new law aimed at making the process more transparent. Task force members demanded a meeting with Brizard and board president David Vitale, but that meeting never took place.

Though held on two Friday nights, one in the middle of a snowstorm, community hearings brought out dozens of parents and community members. Some of them supported the school actions, but admitted to being paid. Later, it was learned that a local pastor coordinated payment and that a consulting group linked to Mayor Rahm Emanuel was involved in the "rent-a-protester" controversy.

In recent weeks, a coalition of LSC members filed a lawsuit to try to stop the school actions, claiming that CPS didn’t give them specific probationary plans to improve—something that the law demands. The LSC members, whose lawsuit was paid for by the Chicago Teachers Union, are awaiting a hearing.

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)

Illinois' Supreme Court sided with Chicago Public Schools on Friday in a protracted legal battle with the Chicago Teachers Union over the fate of hundreds of teachers laid off in 2010. The court ruled 5-2 that, unlike other school districts throughout Illinois, Chicago's public school system does not have to take a candidate's qualifications or experience into consideration when filling a vacant teaching position. (Tribune)

Jim Warren, columnist for the soon-to-be-suspended Chicago News Cooperative, offers a wry take on the Noble Network of Charter School's fines for infractions system.

A white teacher who says he was disciplined for using the n-word in a “teachable moment” about the perils of racism with his sixth-grade class has filed a federal lawsuit, alleging his principal, who is black, and Chicago Public Schools violated his civil rights by suspending him without pay for five days. (Sun-Times)

IN THE STATE
Huntley Unit District 158 has received a $39.4 million grant to help pay off some of the district’s existing debts and offset portions of future construction costs. (Daily Herald)

IN THE NATION
A new superintendent Erroll Davis Jr. is working to heal Atlanta Public Schools, which had been scarred by a cheating scandal under the former chief.

An analysis of state, federal and local education funding shows that total school revenue has climbed in Missouri and Illinois in recent years at a rate that approaches or slightly exceeds inflation. In Missouri, spending rose to $9.3 billion in 2011, up from $8.9 billion in the 2008 fiscal year, just prior to the economic collapse. Illinois schools drew in $25.4 billion in state, local and federal aid in 2010, $1.8 billion higher than two years prior, though state revenue for schools has since declined. (Post-Dispatch)

On Jan. 1, the Missouri State School Board revoked the Kansas City public school district's accreditation. Now parents have a hard choice to make: leave or keep their children at a failed school? (NPR)

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that New York City was allowed to prevent dozens of religious groups from holding services in the schools. (The New York Times)

Even though one-third of Illinois schools have been placed on financial watch lists by the state Board of Education, leading Democrats are moving closer to a plan that would shift some teacher retirement costs from the state to schools. (The New York Times)

A growing number of school systems in Georgia are converting into charter districts under a 2007 law that frees them from class size and teacher pay restrictions, among other state education rules. (The Augusta Chronicle)

Data suggest that D.C. public charter schools are pretty quick to lower the disciplinary hammer on their smallest students. Officials reported 434 “suspension incidences” at the Pre-K (76) Kindergarten (112) and first grade (246) at public charter schools in 2010-11. (The Washington Post)

The court found that tenured teachers in Chicago don’t have the right to preferential re-hiring if they are laid off for economic reasons. Of the more than 1,200 teachers affected by the summer 2010 layoff, the several hundred who were not re-hired will not be eligible for back pay or preferential job placement.

More broadly, the ruling means greater discretion for principals in staffing their schools.

The court cited provisions of the 1995 law that gave the mayor unfettered control of the school system.

 “The 1995 amendment reflects a clear legislative intent to change the statutory rights of tenured teachers in a layoff,” the majority opinion states. (In the rest of the state, teachers still have a right to recall.)

As the court interpreted it, the law gives CPS the authority to factor in teacher performance, as it did when then-CEO Ron Huberman announced in June 2010 that “unsatisfactory” teachers would be laid off first.

The district also gets to decide whether – if at all – to create a procedure for recalling laid-off teachers.

Chicago Public Schools officials praised the court ruling, saying in a statement that it “upheld school reforms that empower principals to make hiring decisions that are in the best interests of their students to boost academic achievement during a time when too many students in our system are struggling.”

The Chicago Teachers Union slammed the ruling, calling the fact that the law treats Chicago different from the rest of the state an example of “Chicago’s separate and unequal practices.”

Under the current CTU contract, teachers who are laid off for non-economic reasons, namely school turnarounds and declining student populations, will continue to get the first shot at jobs that come open in CPS.

But the contract expires June 30, and it’s anyone’s guess whether the next contract will include that provision.

These actions have generated a backlash among communities who feel excluded from the school action process.

We have seen this movie before. When the School Board votes on these actions at its February 22 meeting, it will only serve to highlight how much more needs to be done. That’s because any realistic appraisal of the scale of the facilities problem is lost amid the controversy over school closings. The problem will only get more difficult to solve the longer it is deferred.   

Most of Chicago’s schools were built when housing patterns and population densities were dramatically different, but the school system has never adjusted to our new reality. Unlike state and federal laws that require legislative bodies to reapportion seats and redraw districts every 10 years in response to demographic and other changes, there is no such requirement for school systems.  As a result, school districts are notoriously slow to adjust to demographic change until their balance sheets are bleeding red.  That is exactly where Chicago finds itself today, a result of compounded inaction over many, many years.   

Crucial decisions have been deferred

This challenge is the predictable result of years of policies that have never adjusted CPS’ capital inventory to the shifting reality of where students live. Consider the results from the 2010 census. Over the past decade, the city has lost more than 200,000 residents, a decline of 7% overall. This trend goes back generations and has led to a steady decline in school enrollment over that time.  Over the past 10 years, Chicago has lost approximately 40,000 students.  To put this number in context, the second-largest school district in Illinois, Elgin, has a total of 42,000 students. During this same 10-year period, Chicago has opened more than 100 new schools of various types. Many of these schools are performing admirably and serving students well, but they also serve to highlight the fact that Chicago is losing students while adding building capacity—hardly a recipe for maximizing efficiency when the district’s budget is stretched thin.

In the wake of this problem, one proposed solution is to close more buildings and consolidate enrollment among a smaller number of facilities. Given the fact that Chicago has dozens of K-8 grammar schools built for 1,000 students that currently enroll 100 or 200 or 300 students, this idea certainly seems appealing. 

But this approach ignores a basic reality: Although there are hundreds of underutilized school buildings in Chicago, they tend to be in neighborhoods where students no longer live.  A quick review of the census data reveals that population losses have been concentrated in certain areas of the city, mostly on the South and West sides, though a swath of census tracts on the far North Side also lost substantial population.  Because of these realities, CPS should adjust its facilities approach geographically so it is tailored to these changes. While closing buildings will produce some efficiency, it does nothing to relieve the overcrowding that exists in other neighborhoods.  The overcrowding problem is particularly acute in heavily Latino neighborhoods, predominantly on the Northwest and Southwest sides of our city.  These neighborhoods have too few buildings to accommodate the current student population. 

Those of us in the charter school sector frequently underestimate the scale of this challenge. While charter schools certainly have a right to advocate for access to public school buildings, something we at Illinois Network of Charter Schools have done, it is rarely that simple.  Every decision to close a school necessarily involves reassigning current students to other schools. In addition, school performance is not distributed evenly throughout the city, so even if CPS decided to be more aggressive in consolidating schools, finding better ones – the core goal of any consolidation program – would be difficult.  Meanwhile, approximately 60% of charter schools are located in private buildings, forcing them to divert scarce operational dollars to pay for facilities.

Budget doesn’t address facilities problem

Since the budget reflects the district’s priorities, it is always helpful to begin with the budget when discussing policy challenges. CPS currently spends $5.9 billion to educate the district’s 402,681 students, a figure that includes operational and capital expenses. Of this $5.9 billion, $790 million is dedicated to facilities expenses. Thus, CPS spends approximately $2,000 per pupil per year on facilities costs. The 2012 budget is notable in another respect: The FY12 budget is an overall reduction from last year, representing a departure in practice from the previous 10 years during which expenditures steadily increased (although the operating budget has increased from last year).  In 2005, the district’s operating budget, excluding facilities, was $4.2 billion.  By 2011, in an era of limited inflation, the operating budget was $5.6 billion, an increase of 25%.  During that same period, enrollment fell by more than 18,000 students.  Reflecting the same dynamic at play in the facilities arena, the district has done less with more. 

The budget takes a few tentative steps to reverse this trend, but it does little to address the core facilities problem.  A review of the district’s facilities plan reveals attempts to catch up with deferred maintenance and a footprint that is still too large for the current enrollment. To a degree unique among educational policy issues, facilities decisions are really financial decisions. By that measure, CPS’ current facilities choices merely delay the structural decisions that are ultimately needed. 

One only has to look at the current CPS facilities allocations to appreciate the challenge. The current allocation includes $96 million for Jones College Prep, an appropriation that would take the total cost of that high school to $120 million. CPS also plans to spend up to $75 million renovating Chicago Vocational and Career Academy, a high school with over 1,000 students.  Despite the substantial expenditure, CVCA is still substantially underenrolled. Given the current condition of CVCA and the fact that its roof and building envelope are apparently a safety hazard, such expenditures certainly seem necessary, but they avoid the more difficult question:  In an era of shrinking capital expenditures, where should the district spend its money for maximum benefit?  On an aging school built in 1940 that once housed more than 4,000 students but now has approximately 1,400?  Or on new facilities or strategic renovations more aligned with population density and project growth?  Add to this question the fact that CPS has 56 currently operational school buildings that were built before 1900 and it doesn’t take long to conclude that the district needs to take action on facilities sooner rather than later.

A Way Forward

In face of these challenges, what should be done?  First, the district should examine all current school facilities with three features in mind:  (1) current capacity; (2) condition of the building; and (3) academic performance. Using these three categories as a guide, it is not difficult to build a matrix to guide facilities decisions. For schools that are substantially under capacity and academically failing, the decision to consolidate, transform, or close depends substantially on the buidling’s condition.  Such a school in sound condition is an obvious target for restructuring of some sort.  Such a school in terrible condition, by contrast, would require substantial investments that might be better spent elsewhere.  Likewise, a school that is academically succeeding and underenrolled is an obvious target to accept students in a consolidation or realignment.

Second, the district should decide where new buildings need to be built to relieve overcrowding and should find efficient means to build those buildings.  The days of $120 million high schools will necessarily come to a close. School buildings are still substantially more expensive than comparable buildings in the same geographic area, suggesting inefficiencies in the building process.  There are great examples of adaptive reuse in Chicago where older buildings are renovated at a total cost of $10,000 per student.  Under that model, one can establish a 1,000 student high school with a 30+-year projected life span for a total cost of $10 million. In fact, it has already been done in Chicago.

Ultimately, a holistic school facilities solution is possible that includes consolidation, phasing in new school options, and expanding school facilities in targeted neighborhoods. This will free up additional operational dollars that can be directed to effective programs.  We should use new school options, including high-quality charter schools, co-location arrangements, and similar models to reduce overcrowding and provide an incentive to school operators to locate in areas where the need is greatest. 

Andrew Broy is president of the non-profit Illinois Network of Charter Schools.

The changes could take effect as soon as this summer, but it’s not clear yet what they will be. The current process includes an application with essays and an initial interview; a scenario exam; a school data case study; a more in-depth interview; and a mock teacher observation. (Those could still be part of the revamped process.)

Steve Gering, chief of the Office of Leadership Development, announced the new skills at the recent Chicago Principals and Administrators Association conference. He says the new skills are simpler than the current set of five principal competencies and 12 “success factors” that are linked to the current principal eligibility requirements.

What’s more, the current competencies – and eligibility process – “do not say a word about” family and community engagement, Gering says.

The new principal competencies are as follows:

• “Creates professional learning systems” to improve teaching (implementing Common Core State Standards, using data analysis to improve instruction)
• “Champions teacher excellence through a focus on continuous improvement” (this includes observing each teacher weekly and supporting teacher leadership teams)
• “Establishes a college-going culture” among staff and students, including a strong “school brand”
• “Empowers and motivates families and community to become engaged”
• “Relentlessly pursues self-disciplined thinking and actions”

Currently, “I think the process is not as selective as we would like it to be,” Gering says. However, 70 percent of applicants initially failed the current process, prompting complaints from aspiring principals.

Part of the increased selectivity will happen on the front end – before candidates are recruited into principal preparation programs – and within the programs themselves. The newly created Chicago Leadership Collaborative will bring together several existing principal preparation programs and make sure their curriculum is in line with the new skills. (Officials issued a request-for-proposals from principal prep programs last fall, and are currently reviewing applications.)

The collaborative won’t just be about principal preparation, Gering notes, but will also offer other training to principals and principal candidates.

Gering, who was hired by CPS in August after working for the district as a consultant for years, is charged with coordinating that group’s work as well. He says that one goal is to triple the number of graduates from high-quality preparation programs – which now include the University of Illinois-Chicago’s Urban Education Leadership doctoral program, New Leaders for New Schools, and Teach for America’s Principal Leadership Pipeline – from 32 a year to 100.

The move comes as the district is poised to implement new state rules changing principal evaluations.

Starting in fall 2012, all principal evaluations in Illinois must rely on student achievement growth – such as value-added test scores – to determine at least 25 percent of a principal’s score. By fall 2014, achievement growth will be required to count for at least 30 percent of principals’ ratings.

Districts are also required to observe principals and rate their “professional practice.” In Chicago, those ratings will likely be based on the new set of principal skills.

Accomplishing these changes will be hard. Each requires administrators and teachers to shift from a focus on compliance to a focus on outcomes.  It also requires a willingness to experiment with new, unproven ways of doing things. It is inevitable that mistakes will be made and hard lessons learned.  

For the past three years, I have been helping SEAs, districts, teacher unions and schools to plan and implement some of these initiatives.  I am convinced that there is little chance of effective implementation unless state policymakers, SEA and district administrators, principals and teachers develop a level of trust that allows them to try new ways of doing things, fail and then try again. 

How can we approach the work in ways that will begin to build this trust?

Be realistic and focus

First, we need to balance a sense of urgency with a sense of reality. Asking schools to make too many changes all at once will result in failure. Rather than going along with arbitrary deadlines established to meet political requirements, SEAs and districts should schedule and sequence changes in ways that make sense to the people who will do the work. For instance, a district might adapt a multi-year plan that begins with implementing the Common Core, then adds new assessments, next incorporates student growth to the evaluation system and finally considers performance-based compensation. Schedules also need to include time to negotiate inevitable changes to rules and contracts. For example, Illinois’ new teacher evaluation law provides most districts with 180 days to negotiate a new evaluation system with their teacher unions.  These six months make it more likely that the district and teachers union will explore options, learn what is possible and reach agreement on a system that will be effective.

Second, we need to be open to the “75% solution,” recognizing that transformational change takes place incrementally. We need to privately recognize and publicly admit that we don’t know how to do all this work, but expect to learn together as we go. SEAs, districts and schools should be encouraged to begin with ”lower-hanging fruit” and demonstrate that success is possible before scaling the change to all schools, grades, subjects or classrooms.  For example, why not begin using student growth in teacher evaluations in core subjects with established assessments rather than trying to implement the new system across all grades and subjects all at once? Over time, as we show that growth data is useful in evaluating teachers in core subjects, we can begin to experiment with other types of assessments in non-core subjects.          

Third, for every new initiative, districts need to choose to stop doing at least one other thing.  We can’t continue to layer one “reform” on another.  If a district is committed to providing teachers with time to work on Common Core standards, it needs to stop other professional development in language arts and mathematics.  If a school adopts new formative assessments, it must stop administering other assessments that cover the same material.  Without clearing time and space for these changes, they won’t be successful.

Listen to teachers, principals

Finally, we need to listen to and learn from the people who do this work—teachers and principals. Despite what’s often portrayed in the media and by some politicians, most teachers, principals and union leaders support these changes. They favor higher standards, better assessments, meaningful evaluations, and better data, but they are skeptical about the system’s capacity to execute the changes without substantial unanticipated negative consequences.  They also doubt the commitment of federal, state, district and school leaders to sustain the changes beyond one or two funding cycles.

Their concerns are legitimate.  Over their careers, most educators have experienced a succession of well-intentioned, but poorly executed, reforms. Each has been heralded as a research-based answer to a fundamental education challenge.  Press conferences were held, expectations raised, materials and professional development delivered, and then the reform withered for lack of sustained attention and focus.

Trust begins with clear, honest, consistent, two-way communication. Communication needs to begin during planning and continue through implementation. It’s not acceptable to say that we don’t have the time or the resources to communicate, because if we don’t have an ongoing conversation with the people who need to do the work, the change won’t happen.  An email or presentation on the opening day of school, periodic newsletter and a website are necessary but not sufficient. School staff needs constant proof that this time will be different—the obstacles to change will be removed and the people in charge are learning from what is happening in their schools.  

The federal government has given us a unique opportunity to change our schools.  Let’s slow down, be clear about the challenges we face, listen, focus and make sure we get it right. 

Laurence Stanton served as strategy and planning officer for the Chicago Public Schools from 2003-2008.  He now consults with SEAs, districts, and teachers unions.  He is co-chair of the Illinois State Board of Education’s Performance Evaluation Advisory Council, which is charged with developing new teacher and principal evaluation systems incorporating student growth.