Sarah Karp and Rebecca Vevea (WBEZ-Chicago Public Media) Topics in Education from Catatlyst Chicago.org http://www.catalyst-chicago.org <![CDATA[For the Record: CPS budget favors special programs, charters]]> If a budget is a document that shows an organization’s priorities and direction, the CPS budget released last week reveals in stark black-and-white the undercurrent of much of the discussion so far: District officials are directing resources—and students—to magnet, specialty, selective and charter schools. An interactive map (below) created by WBEZ/Chicago Public Media and Catalyst Chicago showsthe school-level impact of the budget.

The number of teacher positions allocated to schools for magnet, selective enrollment and other programs increased by 615. The number of regular classroom teachers, allocated based on student enrollment, decreased by 515 positions.  

Some of the increase is due to a smattering of new special programs at former neighborhood schools, such as Chicago Vocational, which now will have a focus on science and technology, and South Shore High School, which will become a selective school.

In line with the district’s charter compact, charter schools are in line to get more money:  87 percent of charters will get more per-pupil funding, compared to just 30 percent of traditional public schools.At the same time, thousands more students are projected to enroll in charter schools, with the latest projections putting the number at 6,500 new students, substantially more than the 4,665 that district officials previously estimated.

The enrollment surge means that next year, 13 percent of all CPS students will be in charter schools.

CPS officials have touted the move to target more money to charters as an increased investment in “quality options.” However, teachers who attended budget hearings this week sharply criticized the decision, pointing out that not all charter schools are high-performing.

View Mapping
the CPS Budget - "choice" schools in a full screen map

 

View Mapping
the CPS Budget - "traditional" schools in a full screen map

At traditional schools, some of the loss in teacher positions was balanced by the fact that principals were given about $130 million more to spend in discretionary money. But even so, sometimes the gains were wiped out: Some schools got additional discretionary dollars, but lost money in other areas and ended up with a net loss.

CPS officials said principals are planning to hire 276 teachers with the discretionary money, 60 percent of whom will be regular classroom teachers in reading, math, science and other subjects. Another 54 will be art or music teachers and another 13 are gym teachers. The rest of the positions were spread among bilingual teachers, special education teachers, assistant principals and counselors.

Neighborhood schools that are losing students faced more pressure to use the money to fill gaps, and were the most likely to hire teachers to make up for losing board-funded positions, the analysis shows.

One principal whose school experienced a small decline in enrollment was surprised to see that the published budget information showed her school as having more positions. “If you look at my core allocation, that is not true,” says the pri