This fall, students from Johns and its feeder school, Miles Davis, will move into a brand-new building built for Davis, which will become a magnet school for engineering. Although Johns students generally perform below standards required for the selective school, district administrators say Johns students will be admitted to the new Davis. 

Still, students were upset and the staff grew distracted and unfocused when they learned Johns, which is under-enrolled, would close.

Students “were confused and didn’t understand what was going on,” says guidance counselor assistant Mary Jackson, an 11-year veteran. Some students offered to scour the neighborhood and bring in new students, while other made signs and planned a protest outside the school—an idea that was nixed by the principal.

Hammond says the 4th-graders were particularly distressed. They had just come from Davis, now a pre-K through 3rd-grade school three blocks away, and they wanted to know what they had done wrong to be sent back.

Some students were crying openly in the halls, and discipline problems spiked. But Hammond pointed out to teachers that children “would be going to a magnet school, a brand-new school,” with top-notch resources. “I told them that this is what students needed to hear.”

In April, Hammond brought in counselors; she hopes to have them follow students to Davis next year for continued support.

Still, Jackson wishes the closing was not a done deal. “If we’d had more time, I believe we could have turned this school around.

Citywide, the picture wasn't much brighter back then: About one in three kids switched schools each year—many of them mid-year, which educators say is most disruptive to a child's education.

Williams noted the school's ongoing dilemma: raising achievement despite the turnover. "I remember a student who came in just when it was time to test. And I am to be held accountable for that child?" she told Catalyst in 1996. (Williams has since retired.)

Today, the picture is somewhat brighter at integrated and predominantly Hispanic schools, where mobility as measured by the Consortium on Chicago School Research has inched downward about 2 percentage points since 2001.

But the picture is not so bright at low-income African-American schools like Harvard. Data from the Consortium show that mobility remains highest in these schools, erecting yet another barrier to quality education for youngsters who attend them. Overall, 11 percent of students at predominantly black schools transfer mid-year, compared to only 7 percent at other schools.

At Harvard, for instance, 22 percent of students transferred into the school mid-year in 2005-06, and 20 percent of students transferred out before the school year ended, according to Consortium data.

"We have a high percentage of families who say they are homeless," says Principal David Hannsberry. "Some move out of the area and then come back."

"There has always been a gap between African-American and other students in terms of mobility, but data show that this gap [is] widening," says senior research analyst Marisa de la Torre. De la Torre is conducting a follow-up report on mobility, updating a 1994 study that provided the first in-depth look at the problem in CPS. (See Catalyst, April 1996)

De la Torre speculates that public housing demolition and school closings, which hit hardest in low-income black communities, are to blame.

Fermi Elementary, for instance, has one of the highest percentages of new students arriving mid-year in the district. The surrounding South Shore community has seen an influx of displaced public housing residents in recent years, and these residents, in turn, tend to be more mobile and to move more frequently to find affordable housing. South Shore is also undergoing redevelopment, notes Fermi Assistant Principal Steven Taylor.

"There is a lot of rebuilding, lots of vacant lots," says Taylor. "The area is changing and that's a major part of our mobility issue."

While the district has some policies that aim to curb student turnover, further addressing the problem is not high on the CPS agenda. Two initiatives launched in the mid-1990s—a task force and a public education campaign—quickly fizzled when the officials in charge left the district.

Yet some schools are making progress at cutting turnover.

A parent's choice?

New students face both social and academic adjustment, says Hannsberry. "What we try to do is make them comfortable and get an understanding of where they are [academically] and what services they need."

One national advocate notes that urban districts have yet to recognize the significant problems mobility can cause for schools and students, who miss learning critical skills and quickly fall behind their peers when switching schools.

"Ultimately, high turnover creates failed schools," says Chester Hartman, the director of research for the Poverty and Race Research Action Council in Washington, D.C.

But Jacqueline Anderson, head of the Office of School Coordination, says the district is limited in what it can do to stem turnover, given the high population of children who are homeless, in foster care, or whose families have moved in search of affordable housing.

"Mobility is in our system whether we want it or not," she says.

CPS policy allows students who move out of a school's attendance area to remain at that school until the end of year, as long as parents provide transportation. And 7th- and 8th-graders who move can remain in their original school until graduating, with the district providing bus cards to help with their transportation.

"This is a parent choice, not a school choice," says Anderson, who says she experienced the problem first-hand as principal at Young Elementary in Austin. "Principals beg parents not to move their children and they do it anyway. What does a school do? When it comes to mobility, it is tied to social and economic issues."

Core curriculum fizzled

One way for the district to minimize the educational harm of mobility would be a common curriculum so that students don't miss out on learning important skills. Yet one effort aimed in that direction went belly-up in the 1990s.

Back then, Orr High's feeder elementary schools realized that students were moving mostly within the community. The network of schools received a grant from the now-defunct Chicago Annenberg Challenge to create a single curriculum.

One former principal recalls what happened over time. "Schools started to change, principals retired, the new principals weren't interested and the thing dissolved," says Leon Hudnall, who then was principal of now-shuttered Morse Elementary. "We kept having meetings and no one showed up. However, there was value in a common curriculum because the students in that area were so mobile."

Other schools and communities are finding solutions, however. In high-mobility Englewood and West Englewood, Area 14 Instructional Officer Jose Torres asked principals last October to convene a "think tank" and develop strategies to address the problem.

Torres came up with the idea after speaking with a principal who said that he lowered his school's mobility rate with a simple tactic: meeting with every family who wanted to transfer and counseling them to stay or to at least wait until the end of the school year. (CPS recommends that strategy, officials say.)

Some of the task force ideas include: developing a buddy system for all new students, collecting information on why students are leaving the area and hosting events to welcome new students or send off those who are leaving.

Says Torres, "The intent was to look and say, 'These are the circumstances, now what do we do?'"

Build it, and they will stay

But the best defense, several educators point out, is creating a school that families simply don't want to leave.

"Families need to feel they have personal connections in the school, have resources and a reason to continue the relationship," says David Kerbow of the University of Chicago's Center for Urban School Improvement, who was lead researcher for the 1994 study on mobility. "Charter schools have mobility rates less than 5 percent, but families move frequently and [still] make efforts to keep their child in that school."

At Spry Community School in Little Village, Principal Carlos Azcoitia uses discretionary funds to maintain a full-day kindergarten—a hot commodity that is in high demand with parents. Spry also has four half-day preschool classes and has expanded to include a high school.

As a result, some families have preschoolers and teenagers enrolled in the same place, Azcoitia notes. "It is very convenient and students become so comfortable that they want to stay, especially in the high school."

Spry is also open from early morning until late evening, offering GED and English as a Second Language classes and other programs for parents, at times that are convenient for them.

Finally, Azcoitia makes a point of educating parents about the negative consequences of mobility, especially if students are transferred mid-year.

"We tell them to wait until the end of the year, unless they just can't avoid it. We let parents know that staying put is critical for success," says Azcoitia. "And the ones who move but plan to stay in the community, we tell, 'Don't move too far. Stay within the attendance boundaries.'"

The strategy appears to be working, Azcoitia says. "We have been sustaining our growth every year. People are attracted to us. They want to stay." CPS data show mobility rates for Spry elementary and high school were 16 percent and 3 percent respectively. The percentage of new students who arrived mid-year was only 6 percent.

Across the street, Saucedo kept mobility low with a similar plan. Last year, its mobility rate was 3 percent, according to CPS data; the percentage of new students who arrived mid-year was less than 1 percent.

The school has a magnet program in fine arts that attracts students who are bused in from across the city, but a large percentage of students are from the neighborhood. Saucedo's former principal notes that students stayed at the school even if they moved.

"I remember we always had a lot of cars pulling up to the school in the morning and the evening," Karen Morris recalls. "We were very focused on individual students. We really got to know every child and every parent. We made them feel like they belonged to Saucedo."

Arie van der Ploeg, a senior researcher at Learning Point Associates, a nonprofit education consulting firm, agrees. "The most stable schools are the gifted centers, and some of those children travel for hours to get to them."

Intern Sarah Levy contributed to this report.

To contact Debra Williams, call (312) 673-3873 or send an e-mail to williams@catalyst-chicago.org.

The school's mobility is significantly better now, but transfer statistics from back then proved eye-opening: Over a five-month period, 177 students transferred in but left again before being assigned to a classroom; 170 new students transferred in and stayed; and 198 students left, most to nearby schools. (See Catalyst, April 1996)

"We used to remark that every single day, there was a transfer in and a transfer out," says Emil DeJulio, the principal at the time. "In over a year, half of our kids would leave, but the enrollment would never drop."

Students moved in and out so often teachers there accepted it as "a fact of life," he adds, but tried to help new students cope by, for instance, assigning them a buddy from among their classmates. (DeJulio retired last year from an area instructional officer's job.)

Swift's mobility seemed a reflection of the neighborhood, which included a homeless shelter for families and a preponderance of rental units. The school was among more than 100 elementary schools in the city pegged by a 1994 University of Chicago study with having significant mobility problems.

All of those schools now have more stable enrollments, although schools in gentrifying communities like Edgewater have improved slightly more than those in lower-income and predominantly black neighborhoods.

Schools now 'draw people in'

At Swift last year, 88 percent of students who were enrolled at the start of the school year remained the entire year and only 9 percent of students transferred in mid-year. In 1994, those figures were 62 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

But while an explosion of new condos and retail stores has attracted middle-class residents, those families haven't rushed to enroll their children at the school. Swift's poverty rate is 91 percent, above the citywide average of 85 percent. And 41 percent of students speak little or no English, compared to 14 percent citywide.

In Swift's case, gentrification worked in reverse to help stabilize enrollment, DeJulio points out, as improvements in the neighborhood and the school led parents to make efforts to keep their children enrolled.

"The neighborhood was improving and our school was doing a good job," says DeJulio. "Families were not running away from the school and the community."

South of Swift in Uptown, gentrification appears to have had a similar effect at Stockton. As rents rose and apartment buildings converted to condos, "the cost of housing priced people out," says Anna Correa, Stockton's former principal. In 1994, just 55 percent of Stockton students stayed at the school the entire year and 26 percent of kids transferred in mid-year. Now those figures are 91 percent and 7 percent.

Stockton's current principal, Jill Besenjak, like DeJulio, points to change at the school as well as the community. Stockton still has an 80 percent low-income enrollment, but test scores have risen and the school now has a math and science magnet program.

"That is an attractive feature," says Besenjak. "That draws people in."

By the end of this school year, Cortez predicts, "We're going to go through the same thing all over again."

Midway's students come and go because the Garfield Ridge school serves solely as a receiving site for students shut out of their overcrowded neighborhood school. A typical Midway student switches schools at least twice—once when they arrive at Midway (from another school in CPS or outside the district) and a second time when their home school finds an open seat.

But this practice, a kind of forced or sanctioned mobility, Cortez says, tends to hurt more than help by compounding the academic and social problems students face in adapting to new schools.

Given the district's longstanding problems with overcrowding, Cortez would prefer to keep her students. But CPS dismisses that option and plans to phase out its receiving schools by pushing overcrowded schools to adopt year-round schedules. (Two schools, Tonti and Edwards, are slated to adopt year-round schedules next year.) But year-round schedules are unpopular in some communities, and, given ongoing concern about the accuracy of the district's enrollment projections, it's questionable whether plans for handling overcrowding are feasible.

Academics, staffing must shift

Next year, Midway will continue to take in students but is set to lose one of its two buildings to Pasteur, an overcrowded school nearby that has sent some of its students to Midway temporarily. CPS has told Midway it will become a 1st- through 6th-grade school—sending 7th- and 8th-graders back to their neighborhood school or another receiving school.

James Dispensa, director of school demographics and planning, says the move is a good decision. "It's really difficult for one to suggest that Midway must have higher priority over the need for Pasteur to have that space for its neighborhood school."

Having such a transient enrollment makes it difficult to maintain educational programs, Cortez says. For instance, a good number of this year's new students had test scores below grade level and were especially weak in reading and writing. Midway had already worked to bring returning students up to grade level in those areas, so teachers had to shift gears to help new students catch up. "We found out what we had created in our school improvement plan had to be totally redone," Cortez says.

Meanwhile, inaccurate enrollment projections forced Cortez to make a last-minute search at the start of the year to re-fill four teaching positions cut last year. Cortez believes the district should have known new students would replace those transferring out, but instead, the projections were so low that Midway didn't have a teacher for every grade level at the start of the year.

"That teacher should have been there from day one," Cortez says.

Complaints about inaccurate projections in overcrowded communities are not new. (see Catalyst, May 2005) But Dispensa says accurately predicting a school's enrollment is difficult, in part because enrollment growth is slowing. Next year, he predicts only about 1,000 students will be displaced systemwide to receiving schools by overcrowding—half this year's number.

Some parents have opted to keep their children at Midway when seats became available at their neighborhood school. This year, 18 students opted to stay even though they lost their right to bus transportation. Kids who do leave, Cortez says, do so "because of the transportation, not because of the school. They like it here."

Yet CPS officials say most parents want their kids to move into the home school. "They won't be wasting so much time on transportation, and they'll be able to benefit from the after-school programs," says Carmen Navarro in the Office of Instruction and School Management.

Cortez admits that her students suffer from the long rides to and from Midway early in the morning, and says she is still trying to find a way to fund an after school-program. Yet she insists the district should allow the receiving schools to develop programs and keep students rather than move them multiple times.

Principal Jewel Diaz feels much the same about Ashburn Elementary, another Southwest Side receiving school. "I know I would like Ashburn to be definitely considered for a new building. That way we could have enough space to keep the same children from year to year," Diaz says.

Ashburn faced a challenge when it became a receiving school last year: Latino students from overcrowded schools joined the previously all-black school, which had been losing enrollment. "At first we thought, 'Oh wow, kids coming from different areas, that could be a bad thing,'" Diaz recalls.

To ease the transition, the school developed an English as a Second Language program and added Latino and Afro-centric programs to foster cultural understanding, such as an annual multi-cultural fair and a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

It's only too bad, Diaz says, that once the children get used to this atmosphere, it's time for them to leave. "They're learning from each other. They come together."

"I had one student who transferred [out] toward the beginning of January, and she was back last week," says 6th-grade teacher Erica Fox in early February. "They're in, and then they're out."

Mobility is high throughout the West Pullman neighborhood, particularly at West Pullman Elementary, where 26 percent of students enrolled at the start of school left before year's end—the highest percentage in the district, according to 2006 data from the Consortium on Chicago School Research. Another 22 percent of students transferred in mid-year. Citywide, those figures are 10 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

For the most part, students come and go from nearby schools. "You just have a lot of kids moving right in this little circle," says Rosalyn Faulkner, a counselor who oversees enrollment. Many students transfer to and from Metcalfe, Higgins and Songhai—all in the West Pullman community—and from Haley, in neighboring Roseland.

Area 18 Instructional Officer Thomas Avery acknowledges that mobility is a significant community-wide problem. At West Pullman Elementary, the principal and teachers are working to make academic progress— "they've got good leadership, and the staff seems to be very committed," Avery says—but the school faces a difficult task given the conditions in the area, such as boarded-up housing and high crime.

Hard times for families, kids

Principal Darlene Reynolds says mobility goes up when families face tough economic times. "If you don't have a job and you can't pay the rent, then of course you lose your home. In this particular area at this time, there's a lot of that going on," she says. Some students move in with relatives when parents become incarcerated or have substance abuse problems, she adds.

Reynolds invites parents and guardians—especially those new to the school—to visit any time and to volunteer.

She also encourages teachers to share strategies for helping newcomers adjust, which is especially critical for students in 5th grade and up. These students tend to have the hardest time adjusting to a new school because they feel the need to prove themselves to classmates, she says.

"A lot of them are not coming in behind, but they get behind when they're not concentrating on academics," Reynolds says.

Veteran 7th-grade science teacher Deborah Lewis helps mid-year newcomers adapt with a special routine. All her homeroom students introduce themselves individually and then talk for a few days about "one thing good and one thing new" that happened recently. "I try to show them that change is okay," she says.

Lewis also provides a welcome pack of notebooks, pens and other supplies and watches out for special needs that may not be taken care of at home.

Fox talks to new students informally for the first few days to gauge whether they are on track academically. If a student is behind or has trouble with lessons, Fox spends time explaining the material one-on-one or pairs the student up with a classmate for peer tutoring. "Since they came during the middle of the year, it's generally too late to sign up for the after-school program," she says.

The district launched the center in partnership with county social service agencies to provide a safety net for students who have recently moved into the district and have been referred for extra help by school or district officials. While the program does not aim to curb mobility, district officials recognize that the problem exists—and that students who have moved around or face other challenges need more support to succeed.

Many of the students are in foster care, and studies by the district found that these students struggled academically and often had incomplete school records, had breaks in schooling or had attended several schools, according to Dale Rauenzahn, the district's executive director of student support services.

"If they jump around too much, no one knows what instruction they have had," says David Lloyd, principal of the Bridge Center. "There is no continuity in their education." (Baltimore County school district does not include schools in the city of Baltimore.)

Students benefit from longer class periods and small class sizes. Each day, students take 75-minute classes in reading, math, English and a "life skills" topic: drug education, personal development, social skills, study skills or technology. The average class size is 12. Counseling and social services are also provided.

Students attend the center for one to three weeks before transitioning to their home public school, but teachers and social workers from the center provide support for up to six months. "Roving" teachers co-teach classes and provide group or individual tutoring at the student's home school, to help the new students feel more comfortable and acclimate more readily. Teachers also check in on the students at least once a week, and social workers stay in contact with students and their families.

"We help pave the way for the kid to be successful," Rauenzahn says. "For the kid who moves around three and four times, we hope they finally have a great time once they arrive—and from the stories they tell us, we know this is true."

Last year, 174 students attended the Bridge Center.

But in the last few years, districts have begun to address the issue on a systemwide basis.

"You see it written about more and talked about more. There are policies about it. It is not high on the agenda, but it is at least now on the agenda," says Kerbow, the lead researcher on a major 1994 study of mobility in Chicago Public Schools conducted by the University of Chicago and the now-shuttered Chicago Panel on School Policy. Today, that report is used by other researchers as a template for how to study the issue. Kerbow says he gets calls once a month from districts working on the issue.

In 2003, the Fund for Colorado's Future, a non-profit civic and education group, commissioned a study of mobility in Denver Public Schools and bordering districts.

As part of the study, researchers followed 7,000 Denver Public Schools 5th-graders and found that over three years, 57 percent of students switched schools at least once; of those, 29 percent moved twice or more. Of students systemwide who switched schools, Hispanic students were more likely to move to lower-performing schools than black or white students.

Researchers made three recommendations: implement a statewide tracking system to keep up with students if they move; have schools develop a plan to meet the needs of new transfer students; and examine, and possibly reallocate, funding for low-income students, who were found to be the most mobile.

Colorado has since put a tracking system in place and begun giving schools additional dollars to use as they see fit for highly mobile students. However, there is no state oversight for these funds, and schools self-report how they use the money.

The state hasn't required schools to develop a plan for mobile students.

"We are a strong local-control state. Every district can adopt a plan or not," explains Terri Rayburn, the executive director of the Fund. Some schools may have crafted plans, Rayburn adds, "but we can't say how many."

With a student tracking system now in place, Rayburn says the Fund may examine mobility again.

In Columbus, Ohio, the Columbus Foundation sponsored two studies in 2003 and 2005 and, as a result, sought to lower mobility with multiple strategies—convening a two-day summit to develop solutions, creating a group to examine policies that might affect mobility, and initiating a campaign of public service announcements, posters and parent education groups.

So far, officials credit the strategies with producing a 7 percent reduction in mobility.

With charter schools and vouchers making inroads in the city, those results are significant, says Lisa Courtice, a vice president at the Foundation. "Our public schools are losing students, so a reduction in mobility meant a lot to us."

But a closer look at data for these schools from the Consortium on Chicago School Research shows how this official method for calculating mobility can mask the extent of the problem in some schools.

Pulaski experienced an influx of 11 newcomers during the year for every 100 students already enrolled, while Sandoval got an influx of only two newcomers for every 100 enrolled students.

Consortium researchers note that mid-year newcomers have the most impact on a school and, to account for that, include this figure as one measure of mobility. The Consortium also measures the percentages of students who stay and leave the school over the year.

"A teacher who has to deal with students joining the classroom in the middle of the year faces very different problems than a teacher who is losing a few students," says researcher Marisa de la Torre.

To accommodate new students, teachers must adjust their instruction by reintroducing concepts and spending additional time getting new students acclimated and, if they are behind, bringing them up to speed.

In contrast, the Illinois State Board of Education uses one measure: the number of kids who transferred in and out during the year as a percentage of average daily enrollment. Officials concede this formula may double count individual students who transfer more than once—which happens in some CPS schools—and say the formula is not likely to change.

"We have not seen a reason to," says a state board spokesperson. "Our formula was developed as a result of many hours of deliberation by school superintendents, principals, teachers, business people, parents and researchers when [state] report cards were first mandated."

But this time, the backlash extended to black and Latino state lawmakers, who are demanding to be part of any future discussions on school closings.

Initially, they threatened to withhold funding for the district's school construction projects, then quickly they switched gears to draft legislation that provides voters a way to keep a school in their community open.

The measure passed the House overwhelmingly, 102 to 7, and, at press time, is in committee in the Senate. No doubt it has support there as well. For one, it was state Sen. Ricky Hendon who first issued the public threat to withhold funds. Later, he met privately with School Board Chairman Michael Scott and CEO Arne Duncan, a last-ditch effort to save Collins High School.

Kimberly Lightford, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, was still feeling the sting of being left out of the loop two years ago when CPS decided to close Austin High School. Then it happened again. Shortly before the district proposed the latest closings, Scott paid her a visit to lobby for more construction money—a proposal that would net $100 million for Chicago is on the table—but he did not mention the closings. Instead, she heard about them from Hendon, who had gotten word about Collins a day before the announcement was made.

Particularly galling to Lightford is the district's request for $16 million to fix up Austin's facility, which will be home to the new Business and Entrepreneurship Academy next fall. A few years back, when she had pushed CPS to put more money into Austin, nothing happened. "I'd been trying to get them to add an alarm system and fix the windows, and there was no interest," she recalls. "Now that Austin is a Renaissance school, they want $16 million and [there are] no kids over there."

She has reason to be disheartened about what is happening to the 580 juniors and seniors left behind at Austin as it phases out. "We don't have drama or band anymore," says senior Tremaine Smith. "They took away our sports and we don't have gym class. They took away a lot of the after-school programs, too."

Austin's teachers find it difficult to be motivated, too. "We know we still have to educate the children, so we try not to let ourselves get too frustrated, but it's hard," says William Bowman, chair of Austin's history department. "I know the kids sense it profoundly."

Meanwhile, grassroots advocates have been working with Ald. Michael Chandler to help pass a city ordinance later this month that would halt school closings entirely until a study is conducted on how children displaced by closings are doing in their new schools. Under that plan, the board would agree to release quarterly progress reports. "If we're restructuring schools, we should do it right," says organizer John Paul Jones of the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group. "The district is putting all of these kids in the same predicament."

CPS is defending closings with a recent analysis of test scores that shows some of those students who were displaced had higher pass rates and higher gains a year later. The report, which tracked children who were moved out of 10 elementary schools in 2004, found children from only one school, Douglas, had done worse on average in their new schools. A couple dozen students who were diverted from Austin said they were happy not to be there.

It all adds up to slow progress amid a lot of strife. Perhaps there's a better way. One school to watch next year will be Sherman Elementary, which was spared closing and instead, will be restaffed with new faculty. It will be run by a proven nonprofit, the Academy of Urban School Leadership. Students get to stay.

No outrage. No protests, save routine grumbling from the teachers union. No displaced kids. Hopefully, it's not too good to be true.

In Springfield, a proposal is under consideration that would require Chicago Public Schools to give six months notice before closing a school. It would also establish a process for the public to give input and, if enough oppose it, put the question of whether to close a particular school to voters.

At the same time, a coalition of African-American and Latino state legislators, under pressure from angry constituents, threatened to withhold $100 million in school construction money from the district if the school closings continue. They later relented.

And one Chicago alderman wants a moratorium on further public school closings until a study is completed to determine how displaced students are faring in their new schools.

Schools CEO Arne Duncan defends closing low-performing schools as part of the district's overall school improvement strategy. "I don't want to lose another generation to the streets," he appealed in front of television cameras at a January press conference. "These students in these neighborhoods need something dramatically better. And they need it now."

Yet critics charge that children displaced by closings are landing at schools that aren't much better, and may endanger their safety.

At first, CPS announced freshmen who next year would have gone to Collins High School, slated for closure this June, would instead be sent to either Manley or Crane, where test scores are the same or not much better. At a town hall meeting in early February, Collins' founding Principal Grady Jordan drew this analogy for an indignant crowd gathered to oppose the closing. "Your children are on a sinking cruise ship when a call comes that a rescue boat is on the way," he said. "However, that boat is also leaking. What they're talking about doing makes just about as much sense."

Since the closings began in 2002, more than 8,000 students have been displaced from 23 neighborhood schools, and despite signs of academic progress, most are enrolled in schools that are not much better than the ones they left. A Catalyst Chicago analysis of public school enrollment and student performance data found:

*Only 11 percent of all displaced elementary children are enrolled this year in charters or new contract or district-run schools opened since 2002.

*Just 10 percent of displaced elementary school students are now attending schools where at least half of children enrolled pass a standardized reading exam. Only 1 percent, or 47 children, are going to schools in what the district considers to be its top echelon—schools where pass rates are 70 percent or higher.

*This year, 67 percent of elementary school students displaced by closings were enrolled in schools on academic probation, though considerably fewer are in the worst of the bunch. Only 7 percent are now in schools where 20 percent or fewer hit targets on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills; previously 53 percent were in those schools.

*Students displaced from elementary schools that closed in 2004 posted higher gains in reading in their new schools the following year, yet their overall scores remain low.

An analysis by the Consortium on Chicago School Research found that a sample of high school freshmen from the Austin community improved their attendance by an average of six days and failed slightly fewer courses.

Also, some of the elementary and high schools that received an influx of displaced students were struggling to get a handle on student safety and discipline. At least one elementary school hired an extra crossing guard to protect incoming displaced students who cross busy streets on their longer walk to school.

Switching schools once is not necessarily a big deal, says student mobility expert David Kerbow of the University of Chicago. But repeated moves from school to school—such as those forced on some children by multiple closings in the Mid-South area—and moves without supports can wreck havoc on a child's academic performance.

CPS launched its school closing strategy in 2002, when it shuttered three elementary schools—Dodge, Williams and Terrell—and announced that two of them would reopen a year later.

They would be run by outside nonprofit groups and serve as prototypes for the Renaissance 2010 new schools initiative that would be unveiled two years later.

Students displaced by the Dodge and Williams closings were invited to return when those schools reopened, Dodge under the management of the non-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership, and Williams with four small schools. Children who did return posted higher test score gains than they did previously, according to CPS.

Since then, the district shut 16 more elementary schools, and began phasing out high schools by allowing existing students to remain but sending freshmen elsewhere. The first, DuSable, began in 2003, and was followed a year later by Calumet and Austin, and in 2005, by Englewood.

High school closings have forced displaced 9th-graders to enroll in high schools farther away from home, often in unfamiliar neighborhoods. When high school students are forced to trek across the city, possibly into rival gang territory, it can lead to poor attendance and dropping out, contends William Leavy, director of the Greater West Town Community Development Project.

At the end of this school year, Collins will no longer admit freshmen and three more elementary schools will close: Frazier in North Lawndale, Morse in Humboldt Park, and Farren in Grand Boulevard. A fourth elementary school, Sherman in New City, will get new staff but keep the same students.

Where are they now?

Displaced students and their parents describe a potpourri of experiences at their new schools.

Brittnay Bates, a 10th-grader who lives near Calumet, got sent instead to Hyde Park. She doesn't mind the 30-minute commute and thinks her new school has a better academic reputation. But her mother, Brenda Bates, believes she would be more likely to stay after school for activities and tutoring if her school was closer to home. "She doesn't participate," she says.

Lucretia Davidson's 3rd-grade twins landed in McCorkle after Hartigan closed in 2004. She doesn't like the half-mile walk, but says the school is a big improvement despite being on academic probation. She rattles off a few pluses. McCorkle has a parents night, a science fair and Saturday tutoring. Teachers stay for after school tutoring; Hartigan had outside tutors who often didn't show up. "There's a vast difference," she says.

Jeremiah Clay, a 7th-grader, returned to Williams after its yearlong closure and picked up immediately on the difference in faculty, who had intensive screening before they were hired.

"Before Williams closed down, the teachers didn't care about you, what you got on your test or what went on in the school," he says. Now, "the teachers really care. They'll help you."

Diane Hassell, former local school council chair at Grant, cried when the school board shut her alma mater last year, but was later thrilled to transfer her 8th-grade daughter to Bell Elementary in North Center, a high performing elementary school. "It turned [out] it's a good opportunity for Shekia."

Shekia was one of a tiny fraction of displaced students who were fortunate enough to land in a top-performing school. For the first time last spring, CPS offered kids from the three elementary schools slated for closure the opportunity to transfer to better-performing schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. About 1,000 kids from Bunche, Grant and Howland got dibs on this year's 585 spots.

However, only 25 percent of the eligible students applied for the NCLB transfers, says David Pickens, deputy to the chief executive officer. Each closing school held an open house to announce the option. But many parents objected to sending young children across town, even on a school bus and to a better-performing school, he says. "'It's too far a distance for my child to go for me to feel safe,'" he recalls hearing. "Safety overrides everything."

To find out whether children displaced by elementary school closings were doing better or worse academically, Catalyst analyzed reading test score data for students who were displaced from eight schools that closed in 2004. The results show some improvement: These children were closer to the district average in reading test score gains than they had been previously, only 6 percent below average instead of 23 percent.

For high schools, Catalyst asked the Consortium on Chicago School Research to conduct a case study of freshmen who were displaced when Austin High was closed. Students who went to one of the neighborhood schools that Austin freshmen were assigned to this year posted better attendance than their counterparts did a year earlier, down to an average of 26 days absent from 32 days.

Those freshmen also failed fewer courses, down to 3 from an average of 3.3, and their dropout rate declined from 10 percent to 9 percent. (However, the improved dropout rate may be due to a new law that raised the legal drop-out age to 17.)

Still, these freshmen on average earned only five course credits, too few to guarantee graduation in four years, says Macarena Correa of the Consortium."Across the board they're doing poorly," she observes. "It doesn't matter where they go."

Violent incidents increase

Community residents also see safety risks for their children—longer walks and busy street crossings for elementary kids, and longer commutes on public transportation for high school students, sometimes into areas with rival gangs.

Indeed, a number of high schools with displaced freshmen have reported increasing violence. Gang fights at Harlan in Roseland are up after receiving 135 students from Calumet, the disciplinarian reports. Last year, Hyde Park received displaced students from Calumet, and violence doubled from the previous year. This year, with an influx of freshmen from Englewood, fighting is down, but still higher than before displaced students arrived. (See related story)

The Austin phaseout generated the most controversy, likely because two of the receiving schools—Wells and Clemente—are predominantly Latino, and residents from both the sending and receiving communities warned that racial differences would intensify gang conflicts. Both West Town high schools reported an increase in violence within the past two years. Clemente's discipline office reported more than 20 group attacks on individual students, and an increase in fist fighting. Many teachers and students believe the violence was triggered by opposing gangs, although administrators were unable to verify that suspicion.

Still, Wells and Clemente reported fewer incidents of serious violence than did the old Austin High. Clemente's figures rose from 35 incidents last year to 48 in the first half of this year alone. The year before Austin closed to freshmen, it reported 157 violent incidents, and total enrollment then was smaller than Clemente's is today.

Catalyst interviewed 20 students from the Austin community who attend either Clemente or Wells, and all but two preferred to leave the neighborhood for schools farther away. Dexavier Vaughns, a 10th-grader, says his whole family attended Austin High, yet he feels safer at Clemente.

Little planning, few resources

Elementary schools reported fewer safety issues. Children from closed schools were often assigned to others nearby, where they often knew other kids. Those transitions tended to go more smoothly, school officials say. But in some sparsely populated areas, children were forced to walk farther into less familiar neighborhoods. At Gladstone on the Near West Side, discipline problems were serious enough last year for CPS to assign a part-time police officer, says Principal Gary Moriello. But disruptions died down this year as the displaced kids from Jefferson settled into their new school, he adds.

Pope in North Lawndale got almost 40 students from Howland when it closed, boosting its enrollment to 221, but also forcing children to cross a six-lane thoroughfare, says Principal Jacqueline Baker. When one child from the Howland area broke his leg, it took a month for the district to assign him a bus, she adds. "The kid had a broken leg and he had to walk."

Meanwhile, school reform advocates complain that CPS has shuffled displaced kids from school to school with little planning and no extra resources. This year the board agreed not to close any elementary school that had been designated as a receiving school for displaced kids within the past two years.

Some schools receiving displaced children waited months for their school records to transfer. Many had been misplaced in a central office warehouse, according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, which uncovered that fact during investigations for a lawsuit.

Receiving schools didn't get any extra support to bring the sudden influx of new underperforming students—anywhere from 20 to more than 200—up to speed. At Johnson Elementary, teachers were stretched thin when 85 extra students increased class size from 23 to 29, says Principal Sallie Pinkston.

And Laura Ward Elementary in Humboldt Park received 160 students, many of whom were functioning three to four years below grade level, reports Principal Relanda Hobbs. "It was very difficult for my teachers."

Hobbs says she would have liked to ease the transition with a family night for her new students before the 2004 school year started. "When you sit down and eat with people, you build a rapport, and it doesn't become an adversarial relationship." But the names and records of her new students didn't arrive until late summer—too late for her to host such an event.

Earlier this year, new guidelines for the district's school closings policy were aimed at addressing some of those concerns.

Under pressure from politicians and community groups in North Lawndale, CPS agreed in March to open places at 14 other high schools for displaced Collins students who didn't want to attend Manley or Crane.

"That's positive, very positive," says Julius Anderson, a retired principal and a leading organizer against the Collins closing.

Pickens says the board also intends to provide at least some receiving schools with extra resources such as reading or math coaches, security personnel, teacher training and supplies left over from the closed schools. But the district has not yet determined how much it can spend, he adds.

Laurene Heybach of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless says CPS ought to devote ample funds, given the millions they've raised for Renaissance schools that displaced kids may never attend. "They say, 'We're closing these low-performing schools.' If that's so, aren't the kids who suffered there most deserving of help?"

Springfield correspondent Matt Adrian and intern Emily Horbar contributed to this story.

Contact Elizabeth Duffrin at (312) 673-3879 or duffrin@catalyst-chicago.org.

Most new schools are now open to applicants citywide and many do not reserve seats for students displaced by closings. New schools are also cropping up in neighborhoods where real estate development is encroaching and low-income residents are being priced out.

Zakiyyah Muhammad, one in a small band of protestors who descended on Clark Street this winter, has seen six elementary schools close within a mile of her Bronzeville home while condominiums spring up all around her. "The plan was to squeeze us out," she insists.

Since 2003, Chicago Public Schools has opened 52 new schools that now enroll over 15,000 students. Some were built to relieve overcrowding, others were created when large high schools were replaced by several smaller ones. But new schools that caused the most controversy are the 13 that replaced neighborhood schools that were closed for low test scores or under-enrollment.

As a group, these schools—seven elementary or middle schools and six high schools—are enrolling students who are similar to those who were displaced, a Catalyst Chicago analysis found. Of the 2,200 students who are enrolled, 90 percent are African American and 90 percent are low income. Three high schools that opened on DuSable's campus, for instance, have poverty rates ranging from 82 percent to 98 percent, identical to rates for the old DuSable High School.

Yet there are exceptions at individual campuses where poverty levels are significantly lower than they were before.

* Suder Montessori opened this year with a student population that is 61 percent low income; previously it had been 100 percent, with nearly every student it served living in the nearby Henry Horner Homes, which is being torn down and replaced by mixed income housing. Students are admitted citywide. (See related story)

* Donoghue Charter, run by the University of Chicago, also opened this year with fewer poor students than it had before, 85 percent as compared to 99 percent. Students who live in the attendance area for Donaghue, one of only five charters to have such boundaries, get preference for admission. The surrounding community is also the site of a former public housing development that is being replaced.

* Pershing West, a new magnet middle school that replaced Douglas Elementary, closed in 2004. Pershing West's students are 71 percent low-income; Douglas had 92 percent. Next year, Pershing will convert to a neighborhood school and aims to continue attracting more better-off students than Douglas did. Children from other communities may be admitted if space allows.

CEO Arne Duncan sees the economic integration of new schools as healthier for children and the city's tax base. "For far too long, middle class families have gone private or Catholic or fled to the suburbs. We're starting to reverse that trend," he says.

'Kids nobody wants'

Unlike neighborhood schools where any child living in a prescribed attendance area may enroll at any point during the school year, new schools can limit the number of students in the community who will be admitted, and set a deadline.

Once those targets are met, schools are not obligated to enroll more. For example, the new Business and Entrepreneurship Academy, set to open next fall in the old Austin High School, has 200 slots for freshmen and will not accept any students after Sept. 15, says Michael Bakalis, president of American Quality Schools, the non-profit contracted as the school's manager.

Neighborhood schools receive transfers all year long, and students who change schools frequently are often the neediest—foster children transferring in and out of care, those who are dislocated by family crisis or public housing demolitions. One study on CPS student mobility found that kids who switched schools three times by 6th grade were a year behind stable classmates in math and reading.

Troubled families are less likely to research and apply to the new, choice schools, observes Bill Gerstein, principal of a small neighborhood high school on the South Shore Campus. By default, their children land in neighborhood schools, he says. "I spent almost the entire morning with kids with a lot of issues," he says.

And it's those mid-level students, he believes, who are most likely to benefit from the new schools. Often those kids reading below grade level and unable to win admission to selective schools end up instead in large, failing high schools, he explains.

The new Renaissance schools offer an alternative for below-average students who are not well served by neighborhood schools but can not get into selective schools, says Gerstein. "You empty out the old toxic culture and you bring in new teachers. Students have to go through [an application] process to prove that they are worthy," he says. "That's not a bad idea."

"But still," he adds. "What are you going to do with those kids who nobody wants?"

Intern Emily Horbar contributed to this report

The first wave came in the fall of 2004, after Suder Elementary's doors were shut. This past September, a second wave came from the shuttered Grant. A few more strayed in from closing schools outside of the community. This fall, Herbert's student body includes some 91 children who transferred in from closing schools, some 22 percent of total enrollment.

Herbert's principal and faculty report a relatively smooth transition for the displaced students.

"Suder students have adjusted well and feel they are Herbert students," says Principal Denise Gamble. She adds that Grant students are "still in the adjustment phase."

Two nearby public housing developments—Henry Horner Homes and Rockwell Gardens—are being demolished and replaced with new housing for a mixed-income community. While Herbert's attendance boundaries have grown to accommodate nearby school closings, its enrollment continues to shrink. From a high of 566 students in 1999, the figure has steadily declined to 447 in 2003, the year before Herbert began accepting displaced students, to 419 this fall.

Some of the children who transferred in to Herbert from Suder last year have already moved away, notes Gamble.

Still, the district provided Herbert with extra resources—three additional teaching positions, a bump up from half-day to full-day Head Start and a crossing guard to help some displaced students navigate their longer walk to school, which now requires them to cross busy streets. The district also kicked in additional funds for textbooks and supplies.

Gamble also made an effort to make displaced students and their families feel welcome. She hired three former Suder staffers—a 5th-grade teacher, a Head Start teacher and a guidance counselor. It helped because "the students saw familiar faces," she says.

Families were invited to attend monthly parent training workshops and join a parent book club, Gamble adds. Herbert's parent liaison helped out with everyday needs such as bus cards or clothing. A message on the marquee outside the school said, "Welcome Suder School."

Herbert also sent fliers to families whose children were already enrolled, asking their help to welcome the new students "with open arms," says Cloria Duckins, chair of Herbert's local school council. Today, she says, "we can barely distinguish who [displaced students are]. We made them fit right in."

In three classrooms, 80 students ages 3 to 5 are learning how to discover the world on their own terms, guided by teachers who were trained in Maria Montessori's acclaimed educational model.

"I've been happy with it," says Julie Pomerleau, mother of a 4-year-old boy enrolled at Suder. "I really like this teacher. I've observed her in action. So far, the principal seems like she's in charge and has the wherewithal to look out for the school."

The principal, Deborah Hammond-Watts, arrived with rave reviews from Poe Classical on the city's Southeast Side and knew the Montessori model from her experiences as a parent. Suder received everything from a fresh coat of paint to brightly colored, tactile materials used in all Montessori classrooms. One top district official has a child enrolled there.

The new school is just the kind that parents want, school officials say, and that the district intends to open more of under Renaissance 2010, Mayor Richard M. Daley's initiative to create 100 new schools to replace those that are failing.

But some educators and grassroots leaders still question why the old Suder—a struggling school that had gained notoriety from Alexander Kotlowitz's bestseller "There Are No Children Here" and had begun to make progress—was closed. They also doubt that the reopened school is serving the poorest children in the neighborhood, those most in need of high-quality education programs.

Suder's former local school council chair, Angela Ware, who works as a community advocate in the Miles Square Health Center directly across the street from the school, has that feeling every day.

"To see those cars pulling up and bringing children in, and your kids, who once attended Suder, cannot attend, it's very disappointing," she says.

Some parents thought the old Suder "was working fine," says Hammond-Watts. "I tried to inform them that [the new school] is, indeed, going to serve their younger children. Some of them understood; some of them were not happy."

Children who attended the old kindergarten through 8th-grade school were effectively shut out when it closed in June 2004. The new Suder admitted only 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds, and plans to expand each year to admit children up to 13. (Montessori classrooms are grouped by age, not grade levels.) The district school closings policy guarantees slots for displaced students in reopened schools, but only if the new school offers the same academic program and grade levels.

Every child enrolled in the old school was poor, African-American and lived within the neighborhood attendance boundaries.

The new Suder is more diverse: the poverty rate is 61 percent, black students comprise 75 percent of the student body (15 percent are Latino and 8 percent are white), and only 58 percent of all students live within a mile and a half of the school.

Yet one community organizer says only four of Suder's current students live in nearby Henry Horner Homes, the public housing development where the old school drew most of its students. By the time Suder hosted an open house for area residents in August 2004, says community organizer LaShunda Gonzalez, the school already had received 80 applications. "I'm assuming they did the word-of-mouth thing," she says.

'Hot property'

Besides holding a community forum, the new Suder was featured on the Chicago Public Schools' website and advertised in the Chicago Defender and Chicago Journal newspapers, according to district officials. Fliers were also distributed to area residences, churches and social service agencies.

In the end, the effort generated some 200 applications, a lot from neighborhood people, but not as many from Horner residents, explains Michelle Frazier, a project manager with the CPS Magnet Schools Assistance Program. "We tried to get the information out as widely as possible," she says.

Yet, the district "didn't actually get out and talk to people" and encourage them to apply, says Crystal Palmer, president of Horner's local advisory council. "They just stuck fliers in the doors. People didn't know what it was."

This year, Hammond-Watts says applications to fill next year's 58 seats went out early, and by the December deadline more than 200 had applied. She does not know the geographic breakdown, however. The admission lottery was held in early March and parents of accepted students will be notified later in the month. They will have to formally accept slots by April 17, a citywide deadline for magnet schools.

Meanwhile, public housing continues to be replaced by new developments in the gentrifying community. Before Suder closed, its enrollment had dwindled to 277; the school's capacity is 400.

Formerly known as the Near West Side, the neighborhood itself was rechristened West Haven. "It's a hot property," says Cathy Elgazar, a Herbert Elementary guidance counselor who worked at Suder before it closed. The district "wanted to reopen it as a better school, which they did."

According to CPS, the genesis of Suder Montessori was a three-year, $8.9 million federal grant that the district received in 2004 to open five magnet schools across the district. The West Side has relatively few magnet schools and Suder's facility was suitable and available, says Shenita Johnson, deputy director of new schools development for CPS.

A proposal to open a Montessori school was presented to an advisory council charged to help select a new program for Suder. Three other proposals were pitched as well. "Initially, the [advisory council] did not recommend any," Johnson acknowledges.

Members of the council, however, say their input was ignored. "It was clear to us that they had already selected the proposal," says activist Gonzalez.

Businessman and community leader Earnest Gates says he saw where things were heading and resigned from the council. "I told them in a nice way—well, in a not so nice way—that I was not going to participate in a sham."

Others remain miffed that all former Suder students were left out of the new program. "It didn't look like there was much consideration for the neighborhood," Hallagan says.

Frazier explains that it would have been difficult to introduce Montessori practices to older children who were used to a traditional academic approach where teachers tell them what to do. "That would be a difficult transition," she says. "The best practice is to open it at the younger grade levels."

Ed Finkel is a Chicago-based writer. E-mail him at editor@catalyst-chicago.org.

Each year, hundreds of Chicago Public Schools students are placed in special education because of learning disabilities—often in 3rd grade and later, which experts say is too late to make a real improvement in their education.

Each year, several hundred special education teaching jobs sit vacant, at a time when such jobs are even more critical. That's because CPS, like other districts, needs the best-trained teachers to help raise the achievement of special education students to meet mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

And each year, several thousand special education students are suspended, cutting short instruction for students who can least afford to miss school.

The reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, known as IDEA, is meant to help Chicago and other districts improve special education services. The law goes into effect July 1.

As Catalyst went to press, public hearings on draft regulations for putting the law into practice were scheduled to be held in downtown Chicago.

But already, special education advocates question whether the new law, especially those provisions regarding student discipline, will end up benefiting children.

Checkered track record

The new IDEA does not include additional funding for schools. Elliott Marks, a resource and information specialist for the reform group Designs for Change, says limited funding already hampers efforts to create effective services for all children in special education. Marks, who trains parents to advocate on their children's behalf with the district, says the school system "is set up to keep [parents and children] from achieving their goals."

"Is CPS qualified to implement [the new IDEA]? That would be about the biggest joke in the world," says Johnny Holmes, a parent advocate for Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE). Holmes notes that CPS has a checkered track record on special education and is still subject to a federal consent decree stemming from a 1992 lawsuit charging the district with illegally segregating special education students.

"They didn't [fully] implement that," says Holmes. "What makes you think they're going to do this law?"

Policy changes stemming from the new law will be hammered out by the Illinois State Board of Education by early 2006, and districts will have until June 2006 to put those changes into practice.

Christopher Koch, assistant superintendent for special education at ISBE, is confident that CPS will be effective with the reauthorized IDEA. "They have many positive things that they can build on and expand."

More help or more mislabeling?

To show the challenges special education students face and gauge the potential impact of the new law, Catalyst traced the school histories of four learning-disabled children.

Three of the four students had at least one roadblock in common: A late diagnosis of their learning disability. The new IDEA aims to push schools to identify learning problems earlier by using a new approach called response to intervention, designed to make sure children who are at risk of failing in the primary grades receive research-based help as early as possible, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

With the new model, teachers would be required to use proven, research-based reading programs with children who are having trouble learning to read (the primary signal that children have learning disabilities) before referring them for a special education evaluation.

Under the current model, schools typically rely on what is called the discrepancy formula, which compares a child's standardized test results with his or her expected performance based on IQ scores. If the difference is more than two years, the child is referred for special education.

But the two-year gap in achievement typically doesn't show up until 3rd grade or later, leading to late diagnosis.

By that time, "[learning] problems are much harder to remediate. It would benefit kids to have their issues addressed sooner rather than later," says Sue Gamm, an education consultant and former chief specialized services officer for CPS. "What the research says is, if you really get the kids early, and give them the kind of intervention they need, almost all kids will catch up. The ones who don't are the ones who truly have a learning disability."

The discrepancy formula also doesn't explain why the child isn't performing, says Matthew Cohen, an attorney who represents families in legal disputes with the district over special education services.

"They might be sick. They might not have been taught properly," Cohen explains. "If you haven't been taught algebra, you're not going to perform well on an algebra test. It has nothing to do with your intelligence or whether or not you have a learning disability."

The draft federal regulations give states the power to decide whether or not to force districts to adopt the new model. Koch says ISBE is not likely to do so, but adds that "it's something we certainly would want to encourage." ISBE will probably offer professional development and incentive funding for districts that sign on, he says.

Renee Grant-Mitchell, chief specialized services officer for CPS, says the district wants schools to adopt the new approach.

"We believe in response-to-intervention. Philosophically, we are right there," Grant-Mitchell says. "We just have to figure out how to get schools to implement it. We're going to really have to plan carefully and train well."

But some see drawbacks to the new method.

It may not be appropriate to identify a child as learning-disabled simply because he or she is not responding to early reading intervention, notes Kathleen Gibbons, senior assistant general counsel for CPS, who earned certification in special education and is a former Catholic school teacher. "If the main concern is the child can't read, I really do think you need to give the child more time," Gibbons says. "They could just be a late bloomer. That's my concern—that we're going to have so many more little ones [mis]labeled."

Cohen notes another concern. "Very few teachers have been trained in these research-based methods, so schools don't have the capacity to provide the service. And it will be many years until they do."

Using the intervention approach could also lead to more bias and, potentially, mislabeling and over-referral of minority children to special education, Cohen believes.

"If it's up to a teacher, if they want to get rid of a kid, they can make a personal judgment on it," he says. "They can give intervention, say, 'He didn't respond,' and send him to special education."

Any approach that could increase the possibility of bias troubles Holmes of PURE, who says his son—now a sophomore in college who is studying to go to law school—was mistakenly labeled as emotionally disturbed while in CPS, solely because he stuttered.

Mislabeling, Holmes says, "is a way to railroad and exclude minority kids."

Making the shortage worse?

The reauthorized IDEA was rewritten to specify that special education teachers be "highly qualified" by June 2006, bringing the law in line with the No Child Left Behind Act. States have the power to set the standards, however. And Illinois may decide to go with a tough standard: Requiring special education teachers who teach self-contained classes in which multiple subjects are taught—typically, in middle schools and high schools—to have endorsements in every subject.

"Our inclination is, that's how we're going to have to interpret that," says Koch, who concedes that doing so "would have a large impact."

While higher standards would benefit students, says Gamm, "Teachers aren't going to be highly qualified overnight. It's really going to take collaborating and figuring out how to make this happen. The state has not had a good history in that."

Cydney Fields, principal at Ray Elementary in Hyde Park, questions the value of requiring multiple subject-area credentials.

"Do you want someone who teaches special ed who's got a lot of reading classes but not a whole lot of classes in strategies and techniques for learning? Or do you want someone who's got a lot of education in how to diagnose problems and figure out strategies for students who have special needs?" Fields asks. "I'm not sure [subject certification] is going to make them better teachers."

Tougher standards would also aggravate the persistent statewide shortage of special education teachers, which is especially acute in Chicago. Many special education teachers don't have subject endorsements, Gibbons point out. And under this scenario, she adds, "self-contained instructional classes probably won't exist" because teachers would not have the credentials to teach multiple subjects.

Grant-Mitchell says the issue is problematic. "I'm concerned about getting people up to where they need to be in the period of time we have to do it, because we do have shortages," she says.But self-contained classes probably won't be eliminated, Grant-Mitchell predicts. "I think we should always have a continuum of services," she says, adding that CPS is working to move special education students out of separate classes in any event.

ISBE is considering a system that would allow veteran teachers to attain highly qualified status through a formula that would take experience and other factors into account.

Koch says the state is "looking at allowing for greatest flexibility. The reason for that is obvious: the shortage of teachers."

But new teachers could well face the prospect of additional coursework, no matter what, because they would have to obtain general elementary or secondary certification.

Even that requirement, however, would be "a huge problem because most of our special ed teachers don't have that," Gibbons says. "The great fear is that, if they have to go back to school, they won't."

Chicago already has difficulty obtaining teachers with proper credentials, Koch notes.

"In our monitoring of Chicago, which is extensive, we have found classrooms that are not properly staffed," he says. "We're trying to work with them on recruitment efforts. But it's a tenacious problem, and it's a large problem, and one that every urban area in the country has."

Poor behavior caused by disability?

In 2003, more than 7,000 special education students were suspended for violating the district's Uniform Discipline Code, according to data from ISBE. Data from 2003 are the latest available, and ISBE officials say the state will no longer compile data separately for special education students.

Special education activists say the reauthorized law will lead to even more suspensions, and even expulsions, by making it harder for parents or other advocates for students to show that a student's poor behavior is related to their disability. Doing so is often difficult, since misbehavior may not be directly caused by a disability, but may have an indirect connection. Many experts say special education students often misbehave out of frustration over their learning difficulties or as a reaction to being labeled and perhaps singled out for teasing by peers.

For one thing, Gibbons—an advocate of the new discipline provisions—says a school's procedural mistakes will no longer result in a case being thrown out. "It absolutely brings it more into balance," she says. "I just know the frustrations schools faced under the old one."

But Cohen foresees greater frustrations for children and parents. "More kids are going to get excluded," he says. The discipline process is already weighted in favor of schools rather than children, he says, "and it's going to get worse. Many kids are going to be put into alternative settings or get expelled."

Holmes agrees: "They are already shafting [parents] and ram-rodding kids through," he says. "This streamlining just gives them extra ways to get rid of people they didn't want in the first place."

Fields sees a potential for frustration either way. "I've got mixed feelings about that one," she says. "I don't want parents to have the opportunity to use that as a scapegoat, but I also don't want kids who really do have those kinds of issues to fall through the cracks and be kicked out of school. I'm pretty ambivalent."

Senior Editor Elizabeth Duffrin also contributed to this report.

Ed Finkel is a Chicago-based writer. E-mail him at editor@catalyst-chicago.org.

Through interviews and a review of school records, Catalyst tracked the stories of three learning-disabled 6th-graders at Casals Elementary in Humboldt Park, which has a higher-than-average special education referral rate and a higher-than-average percentage of learning-disabled students.

All three students were diagnosed late—one, not until this year, despite years of academic failure. The three are in an inclusion class—i.e., with regular education students—which is co-taught by a regular teacher and a special education teacher.

Children are rarely identified at a younger age now because CPS, like most districts, relies in large part on a federal guideline that requires a two-year gap between a student's scores on standardized tests, and his or her expected performance, based on their IQ scores. It typically takes until 3rd grade for such a gap to show up.

These children's stories show that late diagnosis of learning disabilities—a problem the revamped federal law governing special education aims to address—is only one barrier to effectively educating students. Poor attendance, discipline problems, family mobility and even administrative delays by schools are among the other challenges. To protect their privacy, the children's names have been changed.

Maria: Speech therapy might have helped

As a bilingual pre-schooler in 1997, Maria was unable to speak in complete sentences. She could not describe or name objects in the classroom, even in her native Spanish.

Many children living in poverty enter preschool lacking those skills, but Maria did not acquire them during the year.

Now, at the end of 6th grade and with more than three years of special education behind her, the intelligent, soft-spoken girl who dreams of becoming a teacher still struggles to decipher simple words.

Her language difficulties didn't go unnoticed. Maria's kindergarten teacher, Elba Rodriguez, thought Maria's speech might improve on its own since children develop at different rates. But by 1st grade, Maria still had problems remembering letter sounds and naming letters, even in Spanish. Her records show that her teacher used strategies such as peer tutoring, small-group instruction and individual attention to help her.

By March of her 1st-grade year, however, Maria still could not read, and her teacher wrote a referral for a special education evaluation.

In districts with a high percentage of special education students, the federal government requires a team of school staff to review referrals and either proceed with a special education evaluation or recommend additional interventions.

The review process usually takes at least 10 weeks, according to Casals special education case manager Barbara Richey.

But Maria's case stalled for more than a year. Although she missed more than 40 days of school over the course of 1st and 2nd grade, Maria's records do not explain whether the absences, or some other factor, caused the delay.

Richey, who was new at Casals at the time, did not remember the specifics of Maria's case. In general, she says, delays are due to specific problems such as frequent absences or difficulty getting parental permission for testing.

By 3rd grade, Maria was reading at only a 1st-grade level in Spanish and barely reading at all in English.

The school psychologist's report states that Maria's hearing and intelligence were normal, but she had difficulty processing spoken language, even in Spanish. She also had a hard time remembering sentences that were read to her and dropped or misused words when speaking in her native tongue.

But on one point, Maria was clear. "The most salient item," the psychologist wrote, "which she mentioned a number of times, was her desire to learn to read."

The psychologist also recommended a bilingual speech and language evaluation, but speech and language therapist Denise Trahd says Maria's case was never referred to her. She doesn't know why. Children with speech and language delays are at risk for becoming poor readers, notes Trahd.

Between 3rd and 5th grade, Maria made exceedingly slow progress learning to read English. She also had poor attendance, missing more than 80 days over the course of 4th and 5th grade due to illness.

Finally, in 5th grade, Maria had something of a breakthrough in her pull-out class. Maria hadn't mastered lessons in the 1st-grade reader yet, but resource teacher Vivian Shane decided to move her up to the 2nd-grade level anyway. "I kept encouraging her, 'I know you can do this."

Maria practiced at home and soon began outscoring the other kids on weekly tests. "She was just beaming," Shane recalls. "Once she started getting A's, she wanted them all the time."

Despite her progress, Maria continues to struggle.

During one recent lesson, her class reads along silently while special education teacher Yolanda Hammond plays a section of the story on audio disc, mainly for Maria's benefit. When it is time to re-read and summarize each page, Maria writes, but with little re-reading and many misspelled words.

About once every other week, Hammond pulls Maria out of science class for a 45-minute phonics lesson. But she sometimes mixes up words, reading "fuzzy" for "fussy" and "egg" for "age." At age 11, she reads at only a 2nd-grade level.

Sam: School mixups, repeated suspensions

Sam, a likable but temperamental 13-year-old, has fallen into a destructive cycle common among older, struggling readers. Painfully self-conscious about his reading difficulties and special education status, he doesn't ask for help, ditches homework, and acts out in frustration.

In 1st grade, Sam—who according to his mother, did not talk until age 3—received speech and language therapy at Bradwell Elementary in South Shore. In 3rd grade, he was one of 41 children who were retained.

During his second year in 3rd grade, Sam transferred to May Elementary in Austin. But his continued poor performance prompted his mother to ask for a special education evaluation when he began 4th grade.

The psychologist found that Sam had poor short-term memory and difficulty processing information. His Individual Education Plan, or IEP, specified that he was to receive 200 minutes of reading instruction per week from a special education teacher and accommodations in other classes, such as shorter assignments and more time to complete them.

But when Sam transferred to Casals at the beginning of 5th grade because of a family move, he did not receive services for a year, according to his mother and his 5th-grade teacher Julie Hutt. Sam's IEP was not transferred immediately to Casals, and it is unclear exactly why.

Sam's mother says that staff at Casals asked her to pick up the IEP and she took a day off work to do so. But, she recalls, May staff insisted they had already sent Sam's file, while Casals staff told her it never arrived.

"That's ridiculous. That should not happen," says CPS Chief of Specialized Services, Renee Grant-Mitchell. To eliminate these mix-ups, she adds, the district has plans to begin storing IEP's electronically so that receiving schools can retrieve them quickly.

IEPs are updated annually, and the one that Casals finally received (exactly when is uncertain) had an end date of late October 2003. For reasons that also remain unclear, no one at Casals wrote Sam a new plan until last summer, following his 5th-grade year, according to his special education file.

Still, Sam progressed enough in reading to earn a C. Hutt says she used a variety of strategies to help him, and he seemed most motivated when working in a small group with higher-performing students.

But because Hutt did not have Sam's IEP, she did not know about modifications for other subjects in which his poor reading skills put him at a disadvantage. For instance, he enjoyed hands-on projects in science and social studies, says Hutt, but couldn't read the textbooks. As a result, he failed both subjects.

At the end of 5th grade, Sam was more than two years below grade level in reading and more than a year below in math, according to his 2004 IEP. In 6th grade, he was scheduled for 400 minutes of small group math and reading instruction per week.

But as a 6th-grader, Sam was embarrassed by his special education status and hurt by the taunts of other children, Hammond says. "Sometimes in the hallway, I would hear, 'Oh, you're special ed. You're dumb.'"

Ashamed to be pulled out of his regular class, Sam disrupted or even cut it, says resource teacher Shane. Children in special education often misbehave, experts say, out of frustration over their learning difficulties or, like Sam, embarrassment at being labeled as "special ed."

During his regular classes, however, Sam has rarely made trouble, his teachers say. And when he does misbehave, calm corrections work better than sharp reprimands, which tend to set him off.

"Once his mouth gets going, it's difficult for him to stop," says his math and reading teacher William Jackson.

Between late March and May, school records show Sam was suspended for at least 20 days altogether. In one case, he disrupted ITBS testing, and Hammond suspects he was embarrassed because special education students are tested separately.

"He's not the type of student who can afford to miss school," says Jackson. "All the progress he's made, I think he's lost because of the suspensions."

Repeatedly suspending students, even when obviously ineffective, is the norm in CPS, in part because of the lack of resources for alternatives, according to William McMiller, assistant professor of clinical child and adolescent psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center. A Catalyst analysis found that elementary school suspensions are on the rise, especially for African American boys like Sam (See Catalyst, December 2004).

Sam is also hampered because he is reluctant to ask for help. He once failed a science test because he didn't understand the directions, his mother says. When she asked why he didn't raise his hand for help, she recalls, "He said, 'Because everybody else in the class understood it and I didn't.'"

Sam's mother insists that he needs more support, explaining that he has to repeatedly reread stories to understand them and needed extra repetition to learn multiplication tables. "If you don't explain it to him, break it down for him, he won't get it at all," she says.

This year Sam hasn't brought home any homework at all, claiming he completed it at school. His mother says she got no help when she asked Hammond to call her once a week if Sam neglected his work.

Hammond, who at the time was a science and homeroom teacher, concedes that she told Sam's mother she had too many children to oversee and claims that she was also under pressure trying to teach an unfamiliar subject until the school found a 6th-grade science teacher.

Now as the 6th-grade inclusion teacher, Hammond has a caseload of four special education students, including Sam and Maria. Inclusion teachers in other grades have as many as 12.

But she still feels that weekly communication with Sam's mother would be inappropriate. "Students that age need to take responsibility for their own learning," she insists.

Hammond also says she doesn't give Sam special attention because he can earn passing grades without it. "If he's having difficulty, it's because he's not applying himself."

Sam's report card shows he is passing, but just barely. He earns mostly D's.

Alex: Multiple moves, multiple failures

Alex, a mild-mannered boy with a flair for drawing cars and gym shoes, sits quietly in front of his open notebook during a reading lesson, while the rest of the class summarizes a story. It's clear he cannot keep up.

In fact, the first day he sat in William Jackson's math class, it was obvious he couldn't handle 6th-grade work. "I wanted to give the boy a hug and send him to a self-contained [special education] classroom," says Jackson, now Alex's reading and social studies teacher, as well. "He's just lost."

His school records show the 13-year-old is at only a 1st-grade level in reading and a 2nd-grade level in math. Yet his learning disability wasn't diagnosed until earlier this year.

Alex was retained twice at Grant Elementary on the Near West Side, first in 2nd grade and again in 3