Obviously, Marshall’s long-standing academic failings weren’t lost on Tamoura, who went on to say that she “wasn’t even supposed to be here.” Marshall was her last option. Her family couldn’t afford the private school that was her first choice, and she wasn’t offered a slot at Raby, one of the newer high schools sprouting up on the West Side.  

Tamoura was one of the Marshall freshmen profiled in “Class of 2011,” the award-winning issue of Catalyst In Depth that examined the challenges of High School Transformation. (The issue was published in February 2008 and is available online at www.catalyst-chicago.org.) As Tamoura entered 9th grade, Marshall had just begun the initiative. The goal was to make rigorous coursework the foundation of high school improvement—an idea tailor-made to suit studious teenagers like Tamoura.

Discussions about the many academic and social ills of urban high schools tend to give scant attention to the Tamouras at these schools. In other words, the kids who don’t get into trouble, who show up to school regularly, whose parents support their education but lack financial resources. These teens, like Tamoura, are savvy enough to know that their best option for getting into a good college is to bypass the neighborhood high school.

As one researcher said, “What are you doing about all the smart kids?”

Last year, the district embarked on a turnaround at Marshall, sinking millions into campus renovations and bringing in a new principal and mostly new teachers and staff. The success of turnarounds, at Marshall and other struggling high schools, is of national as well as local importance: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made the strategy a key part of federal education efforts.

For this issue of Catalyst In Depth, Deputy Editor Sarah Karp visited Marshall regularly during its first year in the turnaround program. From her reporting, it’s clear that the school is making progress. The climate is calmer, the special education department no longer faces state sanctions, and teachers have begun to collaborate regularly and focus on good instruction.

Marshall, of course, still faces big hurdles. For one, school leaders must balance the need to keep enrollment up—or face losing staff, as Marshall did eventually—with the challenge to improve academics. Nationally, other urban districts are in similar straits, trying to figure out how to handle the challenge of reforming large, failing neighborhood high schools. That’s a very tough job when a school is expected to take virtually any student who walks through the door, from the one who is ready for accelerated classes to the student who wants to transfer in but has a transcript filled with F’s—and a bad attitude to boot.  

Part of the answer is to focus on serving the good students, the Tamouras of the world, first.

That idea will undoubtedly anger some reformers, who will view it as a call to abandon at-risk teens. It’s not. Society—not just schools—has to figure out how to help youth who are on the road to dropping out.  When students like Tamoura show up, they’ve already made a critical leap. They’re motivated to learn, and they need the adults around them to respond to that motivation.

For the neighborhood high school to survive, individually and as a larger concept, academics have to improve. Schools have to offer honors and Advanced Placement classes, for one. And teachers need students who, even if they aren’t quite ready for it, are at least motivated to tackle high school-level work.

Donald Fraynd, a former principal of Jones College Prep who now heads the CPS turnaround initiative, says that big neighborhood high schools still have a role to play in the district. The turnaround high schools are “getting better and better at catching students up,” with more students achieving higher-than-average growth in reading skills and recovering credits toward graduation.

These accomplishments are heartening signs that the turnaround program may, finally, put long-failing neighborhood high schools back on track. And they’re a sign that, while poverty and social ills can be significant barriers to learning, they are not insurmountable.

Chicago’s high schools still have a long way to go, although at Catalyst press time, a new report from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research showed that high schools are, in fact, doing better academically than many observers believed to be the case.

At Marshall, there’s another small but encouraging sign that academics are on an upward trajectory.

In her senior year, Tamoura finally started getting more than 15 minutes’ worth of daily homework.

It’s also a bad omen for communities. The last thing Englewood, Austin or any of the neighborhoods—most of them poor and black—that stand to lose schools need is another boarded-up vacant building. (CPS says it is “working with community and city departments on a comprehensive planning process to determine the best use for unused buildings.”)

With CPS losing enrollment, officials insist that the closings are needed to “right-size” the district, to save money and to provide more resources in schools that will stay open.

But many long-time observers and community activists aren’t buying that. They see no evidence that mass closings, the largest ever in a major urban district, will bring anything but more chaos and turmoil to communities that already struggle with social and economic woes. Our chart on page 10 gives readers some hard statistics on the challenges faced by the 54 schools and their neighborhoods.

As we report in this issue of Catalyst In Depth, members of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force, which was created by lawmakers, are already sounding the alarm about children “falling through the cracks.”

That fear is based in part on what happened last year, when CPS shut down four small elementary schools and displaced 467 students. CPS now cannot account for the whereabouts of 51 of those children, slightly more than one in 10 students. Yes, that’s a small number. But as task force members point out, what about the multiplier effect with 54 closings instead of four? If CPS can’t adequately track 467 children, why believe they can track thousands?

Critics also are skeptical of the promise that children will end up in high-achieving schools, which is the only way to make closings pay off academically. The district simply doesn’t have enough top-notch schools. And a University of Chicago Consortium on School Research study found that most students displaced in previous closings over five years ended up at schools that were only marginally better academically.

That’s what happened to Rose Traylor’s granddaughter when Guggenheim Elementary in Englewood closed last year. Guggenheim students were assigned to Bond, a Level 2 school that has since fallen to Level 3, the lowest performance rating. Traylor characterizes Bond as “rough.” Her husband says he has no confidence in its academics. 

CPS has promised to opeN new specialty programs at some receiving schools—in International Baccalaureate, arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) studies. But high-quality programs won’t happen overnight. Without ongoing teacher training and resources, the promise will end up as nothing more than public relations “spin” to sell closings as a sound educational idea.

“This is a group of people who historically have not done what they said they were going to,” says one knowledgeable observer. “For me to trust them, without vigilance, would be foolish on my part.”

The district has promised that none of the closed buildings will end up housing charter schools. But as part of this year’s plan, CPS has co-located charters with existing traditional schools. That practice has caused friction and controversy in the past.

Some 40 percent of previously shuttered schools now house charters or contract schools, and CPS plans to open more charters in coming years. Barring charters from closed buildings would be a 180-degree change of course from previous practice. Charters wouldn’t benefit either, as facilities are their top need. 

One promise that communities can likely have confidence in is that this year’s mass closings won’t be repeated next year. When CPS lobbied lawmakers for a bill to extend the deadline to announce this year’s closings, sources say the district refused to include in that law its five-year commitment not to close more schools. But there’s another factor: Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not likely to want more upheaval over closings next year if he plans to seek re-election in 2015.

Despite the anger and anxiety, one activist says communities are driven by an over-arching goal: “The bottom line is how do we keep them from destroying our children in the [closings] process?”

Parents across Chicago take their children to be tested for selective elementary schools and programs, the first step in a potentially make-or-break scenario. The district has 16 schools and programs for gifted students starting as kindergarteners—plus 10 more for older elementary students—and these schools and programs send large numbers of students on to the district’s gems: the selective high schools that invariably score at the top of the heap on state achievement tests and offer students a broad array of rigorous courses, engaging electives and enriching after-school activities.

Although the outcome is high-stakes, the scenario is not really much of a gamble. The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of children from higher-income families, who are disproportionately more likely to take the test and secure admission to gifted programs, according to an analysis in this issue of Catalyst In Depth. The trend is most apparent at the elementary level, the analysis found: Children who live in the highest-income census tracts are four times more likely to take the test for elementary gifted programs than children from the lowest-income tracts.

The analysis provides clear evidence of the opportunity gap: Lower-income children, most of them black and brown, are more likely to be shut out of the chance to attend elementary schools that offer rich curricula and would give them the best shot at gaining admission to top high schools. Students of color end up playing catch-up in a game that’s rigged against them from the start and favors students whose parents have more knowledge and financial means to give their children advantages at the starting gate.

The definition of what constitutes “giftedness” is not clear-cut, but science is clear on one point: Innate intelligence or talent is not determined by race or family income. A child living in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood is just as likely to have advanced intellectual capacity, or strong artistic or musical talent, as a child of the Gold Coast or Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Too often in education, higher-income students benefit from the Lake Wobegon effect: They all end up above average, no matter where they start out.

In contrast, lower-income children are likely to fall further behind even when they start out ahead. A 2010 report, “The Achievement Trap,” analyzed data from three national longitudinal studies and found high-achieving, low-income 1st-graders were more likely to fall behind academically compared to high-achieving children from wealthier backgrounds.

Stuck in schools with meager resources and classrooms with lackluster teaching, the low-income students quickly became bored, their potential going untapped.

*          *          *

Sometimes, small-scale efforts can change the equation.

Under former CEO Ron Huberman, the district was freed from a long-standing federal consent decree on desegregation. For years, the decree had maintained diversity at its most elite high schools by capping the percentage of seats awarded to white students. Once the decree was lifted, though, Huberman feared the schools would become too homogeneous and pioneered an initiative that gave 100 seats to promising students from the district’s lowest-achieving, virtually all-black elementary schools.

CPS has quietly continued Huberman’s initiative. Not every student to be offered a spot has accepted it. Not every student who accepted a spot has stayed on. Among the first group of students, now juniors, 20 percent transferred out to other schools.

The young people who persevered, despite being woefully underprepared academically, told Catalyst Chicago that their experience has been life-changing.

One young man, who chafed at the strict discipline of his elementary school, appreciates the more relaxed, creative atmosphere at Whitney Young. “I am not a bad kid,” he says. “I just don’t appreciate restrictions.”

Another young man, initially “freaked out” by the low grades he received on his first progress report, reached out to teachers for help and gave up his spot on the basketball team to devote more time to his studies. “I just thought to myself, if I try hard, I can do it,” he says.

Small-scale initiatives cannot be expected to erase broader inequities. The district is trying to level the playing field for students who end up in neighborhood high schools—offering more Advanced Placement classes, International Baccalaureate curricula and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs. The large-scale success of these plans is still a question mark, however.

What’s not in doubt is that students—including young black men, who are too often stigmatized and stereotyped as loud, unruly and unintelligent—are eager to excel and looking for a challenge.
A chance for a good education shouldn’t be a high-stakes gamble.

But an equally contentious fight over school closings is on the horizon. On one side will be grassroots activists and some parent groups accusing the district of neglecting neighborhood schools, leaving them to fail and then using failure as an excuse to close them and turn more buildings over to charter operators. On the other side will be district officials and their allies, insisting that they have no choice but to shut down under-utilized schools at a time of shrinking enrollment and scarce cash. (CPS has already claimed another rationale—the need to pay for raises in the new teachers’ contract—though officials have said for several years that they plan to shut down schools.)

Meanwhile, aldermen are entering the fray, with 32 of 50 aldermen adding their names to a resolution calling on district officials to explain their decision-making on school closings at City Council hearings. Some aldermen have even joined the chorus of voices calling for an elected School Board. Imagine that happening under Mayor Daley.

Before 1995, the public had some input into the composition of the board, granted by the 1988 School Reform Act. The mayor appointed board members from a list of candidates nominated by a committee that was comprised mostly of parent and community representatives. The Legislature killed that process and returned the system to complete mayoral control in 1995, so state law would have to be changed to create an elected board in Chicago.

One local representative, LaShawn K. Ford, held three town hall meetings in October on the issue and wants a task force to study it, though he has not taken a position on the matter.

The issue—a controversial one, with arguments both pro and con and differing opinions even among the Catalyst staff—raises critical issues of transparency and accountability. But controversy is sometimes a good thing. Issues like these must be addressed if the public is to have confidence in the school system’s leadership.

Perhaps a lesson can be drawn from the recent strike. After the strike, one reader of noted education historian Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote about what the strike taught her grandchild, despite seven missed days of school. Here’s an excerpt (with my emphasis added):

The strike taught my grandchild and so many more children like her that people should stand up for what they believe in; thoroughly read any document you sign; join with people who have the same causes because many things can’t be done alone, and that democracy is messy and hard to achieve, but worth it in the end.

*          *          *

At a recent panel discussion, the moderator asked those of us on the panel to talk about our views on the (very broad) question: The current state of education in the region is (fill in the blank).

One panelist cited a dearth of leadership that would rally the public, parents, civic groups and others around a common goal of better education. At the school level, though, is where the rubber really meets the road, and one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s strategies aims to raise the bar and improve the quality of principal candidates.  In this issue of Catalyst In Depth, Associate Editor Rebecca Harris reports on the Chicago Leadership Collaborative, the initiative that brings together four of the city’s top principal prep programs to share ideas and improve the quality of training.

The toughest test for a principal is in a failing neighborhood high school—where one reform after another, both locally and nationally, has brought little in the way of substantive, long-term improvement. Harris and Deputy Editor Sarah Karp also profile two very different principals who are facing the high school test. Doug Maclin of Chicago Vocational Career Academy is black, grew up not far from CVCA in Roseland and kept many of CVCA’s existing teachers when the school became a turnaround. Marcey Sorensen of Clemente High is white, grew up in the northwest suburbs and immediately became the center of controversy at the school when she fired nine teachers and edged out more by redefining their jobs.

Karp and Harris will continue to follow Maclin and Sorensen throughout the year and report on the progress at CVCA and Clemente. Our goal is to shed light on what makes a principal successful—or not—at this tough test.

 “At present, these parties are worlds apart and if the parties do not do more to compromise their positions, a crippling strike is inevitable,” Benn wrote, characterizing the relationship between the district and the union as “toxic.”

Benn blamed the district for imposing a longer school day during a fiscal crisis, and for withholding last year’s contractually-required 4% raise. But he also pointed out that teachers nevertheless received hefty raises in the just-expired contract and chided the CTU for “not compromising further on economic issues when it did so well.”

The 115-page report includes the formal written responses from fact-finding panel members Joseph Moriarty, the board’s member; and Jesse Sharkey, the union’s member.

Here are details and highlights on specific issues:

Contract length: Benn agreed with the district, which wants a 4-year contract, and cited the need for stability. He also recommended scrapping provisions in the just-expired contract that allowed the district to withhold last year’s raises. The union wants a two-year contract.

Pay increases: In addition to the 15% recommended raise for a longer day, Benn declined to accept the board’s proposal to scrap step and lane increases in favor of a performance-based pay plan. Though he acknowledged that such a plan might be a good idea, he said that the board had no evidence that the current pay system is “broken” and in need of such a sweeping change under the fact-finding panel.

As for the longer day raises, district officials are taking a hard line and asserting that the fact-finder overstepped his bounds: Under a provision of Senate Bill 7, CPS says, Benn illegally made a recommendation on an issue that can only be resolved in bargaining. Yet Benn wrote in his report that the question of additional pay for a longer day is “the elephant in the room” that had to be addressed.

Under the provisions in SB7 governing the fact-finder, Benn was to consider pay in other urban districts in his salary recommendation. The district, which often says that CPS teachers are among the best-paid among urban districts, and the union both submitted lists of large districts to consider. But Benn, saying the economic recession had a vastly different impact on different cities, chose to rely on the cost-of-living indicator instead.

Health care: Benn agreed with the district’s proposal to require teachers to pay more for health insurance, a proposal that raises family coverage at a higher rate. He cited health care costs for CPS that soared to $354 million in 2011 from $251 million in 2007. But he also said the matter should be revisited in two years, given the unknown impact of federal health care reform on insurance costs in general.

Depending on the health plan selected, coverage for an individual under the district’s proposal would continue to be capped at 2.2% of a teacher’s salary; coverage for couples would rise from 1.5%-2.5% to 1.7%-2.8%; and coverage for families would increase from 1.8%-2.8% to 2.3%-3.5%. The district also wants to increase co-payments for emergency room visits from $125 to $150.

Benn did not endorse the CPS proposal to have teachers on extended leaves of absence pay COBRA rates for insurance instead of the ordinary contribution paid by active employees. Benn said the board presented no evidence that employees have abused the extended-leave health benefit.

Sick leave: CPS estimates it will pay out $52 million in 2012 for unused sick leave to departing employees and wants to scrap a policy that allows workers to “bank” unused sick days. Instead, the board proposes adding a short-term disability benefit that will kick in after 10 days of illness. Benn agreed, but only if CPS and CTU can agree on how to compensate long-term employees who have accumulated substantial amounts of unused sick days.

Displaced teacher’s pool: The union wants job security and recall rights for laid-off teachers, saying that veterans should have preference over rookie teachers for new job openings. Benn declined to recommend the union’s proposal, saying that job security should be negotiated in the bargaining process.

Working conditions: The union raised other issues, such as reducing class sizes and staffing for non-classroom teachers, and has said that it is fighting for additional resources for students, like nurses and social workers. Benn declined to weigh in, saying changes must come through bargaining.

But look closer—there’s a connection. Union leaders want the district to negotiate on a host of issues, among them the lack of social workers and other mental health clinicians in schools. It’s a need that’s become more critical given this year’s upsurge in violence. By the first weekend in June, the murder tally for 2012 was more than 200, a 50 percent increase compared to the same period in 2011. Over 800 shooting incidents have been reported, compared to about 700 last year.

Clearly, violence is endemic in too many neighborhoods and, by extension, touches too many schools and leaves too many children traumatized. Is it reasonable to expect children to be attentive and eager to learn after they’ve heard about or seen violence, fatal or not?

Even adults feel edgy, unsettled and unfocused in the aftermath of shootings. When a shooting happens in my neighborhood, Woodlawn, half of my workday morning is taken up by discussing the details with a co-worker who lives nearby. Part of relieving the stress we feel is to share details we know or have heard—Was anyone killed? Where did it happen? Did you hear the gunshots? You know the situation is out of hand when you can discern and describe the difference between gunfire and firecrackers.

We have an outlet for our anxiety. But what about the schoolchildren who don’t?

Indeed, once the crime scene tape comes down, the media reports—if the shooting was sensational enough to make the news—are off the airwaves and the peace vigils and funerals are over, what’s left? Communities, including children, that must deal with the aftermath.

Ideally, schools would be a refuge in these cases, especially in poor communities that lack other institutions and social capital to provide support. But as the CTU and others have pointed out, schools do not have enough social workers and clinicians to meet schools’ mental health needs. The social workers that CPS provides—based on a school’s enrollment and the needs of special education students—instead spend most of their time managing special education cases. Each school has a counselor, but counselors have a host of duties that don’t include mental health support. Outside organizations provide counselors, but only to some schools.

Yet according to a survey by Communities in Schools of Chicago (CISC), mental health issues are more urgent than ever. The need for services to address the emotional and behavioral well-being of students ranked as a top priority among principals in the CISC network.

With the right training, teachers can provide in-class support for children to help them cope with the emotional after-effects of trauma. But the burden cannot, and should not, be on teachers. Society pays them to teach, not perform therapy. 

Yet the impact of trauma can easily lead to poor academic performance and a troubled school climate. Children who have lost a sibling, parent, friend or neighbor to violence are likely to act out and become angry in school or simply not pay attention in class. Teens who travel to high schools in rough neighborhoods can easily become “hyper-vigilant,” as one social worker puts it, against potential trouble. As a result, they are more likely to strike out at the slightest provocation, in the neighborhood or in the hallways at school.

Mental health programs and social-emotional supports, such as peace circles and therapy groups, can ultimately make it easier for teachers to teach and students to learn.

Barbara Shaw, head of the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority, applauds CPS for recognizing the potential impact of trauma and violence on children. The district has begun training social workers and counselors in research-based strategies to help children cope with trauma. But because these clinicians are already stretched thin, only about 13 percent of those who were trained have gotten therapy groups up and running.

The union is right to put clinicians on the negotiating agenda. Mental health needs must be part of the school improvement equation.

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The report, by Advance Illinois and the consulting group Mass Insight Education, analyzed outcomes for schools that received money in the first round of the SIG program, the 2010-11 school year. So far, Illinois has received $168 million from the initiative, which targets the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools in the country.

Initially, 10 Illinois high schools received grants, although 95 are eligible. But three in south suburban Thornton Township 205 in Harvey had their grants suspended because of problems with community support and legal issues, according to the report. Among the 10 were four Chicago schools: Harper, Marshall and Fenger, managed by the district’s Office of School Improvement; and Phillips, managed by the non-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership.

The report found that by the end of the first year of the program:

School climate improved. Attendance rose from 80 percent to 86 percent. Truancy declined from 30 percent to 9 percent. Mobility declined slightly from 28 percent to 27 percent.

Academics showed mixed progress: More students earned a 20 or higher on the ACT, the minimum required score for many colleges and university. Compared to similar schools, a higher percentage of students made expected gains between the 9^th-grade PLAN and the subsequent ACT. The one-year dropout rate declined, from 19.5 percent to 16.7 percent. In Chicago, the percentage of freshmen on–track to graduate rose at Fenger and Marshall, but declined at Harper and Phillips.

“This report confirms the academic improvement we have seen through turnaround efforts in some of our chronically failing high schools, and the need for continued investments in these initiatives to drive academic achievement in our lowest performing schools to better prepare students for success in college and career,” says Becky Carroll, chief communications officer for CPS.

Despite the billions flowing to schools nationwide—1,200 so far—the SIG program has mostly flown under the radar. But earlier this week, a national reporting project on the SIG initiative debuted. Spearheaded by the Education Writers Association, The Hechinger Report at Teachers College-Columbia University, and Education Week, the project concluded that it’s too soon to draw a conclusive verdict on the $4 billion program. Catalyst Chicago participated in the project with a look at how schools here are faring.

Meanwhile, a recent federal report found that a quarter of 700 schools showed some progress in math, and about 20 percent in reading.

Promise, but what's next?

The results in the Advance Illinois/Mass Insight report show promise and are a reminder of the difficult task of improving failing schools. Education experts say it typically takes several years for struggling schools to make significant academic progress. Other indicators, such as attendance and truancy, can show improvement quickly and are considered a necessary precursor to better learning.

Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, says it’s “encouraging that early results are as promising as they are.” But, as the report also notes, policymakers and educators must pay attention to the strategies that are making inroads in these long-term, chronically failing schools.

“We want to draw attention to it,” Steans says of the SIG initiative. “If you get a bump and then go back to normal, then we’ve learned nothing and didn’t change our thinking [about school improvement] at all.”

In Chicago, the report outlines the practices that schools have adopted. Teams of psychologists, social workers and counselors come up with interventions for struggling students. School leaders comb through weekly reports on data such as grades and attendance to identify students who are in danger of falling through the cracks and failing. Job candidates go through a group interview and then walk the halls of schools. Prospective principals identify what they would fix, and how. Prospective teachers teach a lesson. 

But still to be answered, though, is the critical question: What next? Even if these schools continue to improve, what happens when the money goes away?

Mary Fergus, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education, says the state is “working closely with these schools, with the intention that they are able to sustain these improvements. That’s the goal.” Since schools have to reapply for the grants in years 2 and 3, ISBE is pushing them to come up with a sustainability plan as part of their new application.

Fergus, noting that a 2011 study by ISBE found that the schools made significant progress on the Prairie State exam between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, says the grants are just one segment of a bigger reform picture in Illinois that includes new teacher evaluations and a new student data system. As part of its No Child Left Behind waiver request, the state plans to open a School Improvement Center that would serve as a clearinghouse for best practices and coordinating reform efforts.

“We’re aware that this money is going to run out,” Fergus says.

The report, by Advance Illinois and the consulting group Mass Insight Education, analyzed outcomes for schools that received money in the first round of the SIG program, the 2010-11 school year. So far, Illinois has received $168 million from the initiative, which targets the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools in the country.

Initially, 10 Illinois high schools received grants, although 95 are eligible. But three in south suburban Thornton Township 205 in Harvey had their grants suspended because of problems with community support and legal issues, according to the report. Among the 10 were four Chicago schools: Harper, Marshall and Fenger, managed by the district’s Office of School Improvement; and Phillips, managed by the non-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership.

The report found that by the end of the first year of the program:

School climate improved. Attendance rose from 80 percent to 86 percent. Truancy declined from 30 percent to 9 percent. Mobility declined slightly from 28 percent to 27 percent.

Academics showed mixed progress: More students earned a 20 or higher on the ACT, the minimum required score for many colleges and university. Compared to similar schools, a higher percentage of students made expected gains between the 9^th-grade PLAN and the subsequent ACT. The one-year dropout rate declined, from 19.5 percent to 16.7 percent. In Chicago, the percentage of freshmen on–track to graduate rose at Fenger and Marshall, but declined at Harper and Phillips.

Despite the billions flowing to schools nationwide—1,200 so far—the SIG program has mostly flown under the radar. But earlier this week, a national reporting project on the SIG initiative debuted. Spearheaded by the Education Writers Association, The Hechinger Report at Teachers College-Columbia University, and Education Week, the project concluded that it’s too soon to draw a conclusive verdict on the $4 billion program. Catalyst Chicago participated in the project with a look at how schools here are faring.

Meanwhile, a recent federal report found that a quarter of 700 schools showed some progress in math, and about 20 percent in reading.

Promise, but what's next?

The results in the Advance Illinois/Mass Insight report show promise and are a reminder of the difficult task of improving failing schools. Education experts say it typically takes several years for struggling schools to make significant academic progress. Other indicators, such as attendance and truancy, can show improvement quickly and are considered a necessary precursor to better learning.

Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, says it’s “encouraging that early results are as promising as they are.” But, as the report also notes, policymakers and educators must pay attention to the strategies that are making inroads in these long-term, chronically failing schools.

“We want to draw attention to it,” Steans says of the SIG initiative. “If you get a bump and then go back to normal, then we’ve learned nothing and didn’t change our thinking [about school improvement] at all.”

In Chicago, the report outlines the practices that schools have adopted. Teams of psychologists, social workers and counselors come up with interventions for struggling students. School leaders comb through weekly reports on data such as grades and attendance to identify students who are in danger of falling through the cracks and failing. Job candidates go through a group interview and then walk the halls of schools. Prospective principals identify what they would fix, and how. Prospective teachers teach a lesson. 

But still to be answered, though, is the critical question: What next? Even if these schools continue to improve, what happens when the money goes away?

Mary Fergus, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education, says the state is “working closely with these schools, with the intention that they are able to sustain these improvements. That’s the goal.” Since schools have to reapply for the grants in years 2 and 3, ISBE is pushing them to come up with a sustainability plan as part of their new application.

Fergus, noting that a 2011 study by ISBE found that the schools made significant progress on the Prairie State exam between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, says the grants are just one segment of a bigger reform picture in Illinois that includes new teacher evaluations and a new student data system. As part of its No Child Left Behind waiver request, the state plans to open a School Improvement Center that would serve as a clearinghouse for best practices and coordinating reform efforts.

“We’re aware that this money is going to run out,” Fergus says.

As reporting for this issue of Catalyst In Depth unfolded, a telling statistic emerged (shown in the accompanying graphic). Its point: Racial disparity in CPS reaches down even into small-scale programs that fly under the radar.

In this case, the disparity is in the district’s program for placing children with more severe disabilities in private, therapeutic day schools, designed to provide optimal support for learning. These schools are expensive, and placements in them have plummeted from about 3,000 children in 2000 to just 850 now.

Advocates and lawyers for the disabled say that children who should be in day schools can only get placements from CPS if parents have the money to hire a lawyer to fight the battle. As the data show, white children have the best odds, Latino children the worst.

There’s another issue with placements: whether and how CPS pays for them. Part of the district’s special education block grant is meant to pay for day schools, but advocates say CPS banks part of that money. It’s easy to see why advocates are suspicious. This year, the district got $86 million for therapeutic schools, but even at the high end of the scale, $32,000 per student, that adds up to just $27 million for 850 children. CPS says part of the money is being spent on better classrooms and services inside the district for children with severe disabilities, but advocates don’t buy that either.

Finally, what about the money that is being spent? CPS pays day schools a lower per-pupil rate—$28,000 to $32,000—than the state’s rate of $38,000, which other school districts must pay.

In exchange for day schools agreeing to a lower rate, CPS pays “regardless of attendance or enrollment.” Where’s the accountability here?

There’s a fiscally responsible and credibility-enhancing solution at hand. Make CPS account for its special education spending, just as other districts do. Start with legislation proposed in Springfield to require CPS to testify every year about its budget in order to be eligible for block grants. The bill, HB3871, is now stuck in the Rules Committee, where legislation goes to die. But the concept is still alive and well in the Capitol. Stay tuned.

Charter schools have become part of the equation for special needs students. On paper, the charter philosophy of innovation and freedom seems tailor-made for creating and implementing new practices for special education students. But reality isn’t that clear-cut.

Charters usually have their own codes of conduct and place strong emphasis on discipline, and children with behavioral problems may find it hard to fit the mold. Special education advocates say that charters sometimes—subtly or not so subtly—dissuade parents from enrolling their children with special needs, or push them out when they can’t conform. At a symposium last year, CPS officials basically told charters they needed to get their act together regarding special education students.

As part of a charter-district compact now in the works, charters are seeking more money to educate children with special needs. But any change in funding should come with a new requirement to give some measure of neighborhood preference in enrollment. Community pressure has already won neighborhood preference at some charters. That should be the standard for all.

With all the angst and mistrust of charters in Chicago, what better way to reinforce the idea that they’re truly public schools, open to all—including children with special needs?

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Catalyst Chicago has won two awards in the prestigious national contest held by the Education Writers Association. Associate Editor Rebecca Harris won for her beat reporting on early childhood education, including the Summer 2011 issue of Catalyst In Depth, “The ABCs of Kindergarten.”  Deputy Editor Sarah Karp won for the Fall 2011 issue of Catalyst In Depth, “The Right Move?” on Marshall High’s first year as a turnaround school.

Every issue takes intensive work, including data analysis and on-the-ground, inside-schools reporting. But as these awards show, the end result is high-quality reporting and stories you won’t find anywhere else. If you value our reporting, in print and online, help support us by becoming a member. To learn more, go to www.catalyst-chicago.org/membership.

Indeed, immigration continues to change the face of Chicago and the metro area. In the city, one in five residents is foreign-born, according to census data, and 12 percent of students are English-language learners. In the suburbs, the ELL population has doubled in a quarter of school districts, and educators are grappling with how to educate these students at a time when state dollars are shrinking.  

The problem was apparent when Associate Editor Rebecca Harris reviewed Illinois State Board of Education audits of bilingual programs. As she reports in this issue of Catalyst In Depth, all of the districts audited in the Chicago metro area were found to be in violation of the state’s bilingual education law.  (The state audits districts on a rotating basis.)

Perhaps more surprising, these dismal results aren’t unusual, state officials say—in fact, it’s routine for districts to be out of compliance.

In part, that’s because of Illinois’ strong law on bilingual education. For one, Illinois is one of just a handful of states to require that students be taught in their native language by certified bilingual teachers, with an increasing percentage of instruction in English as students learn the language. But failure to provide enough native-language instruction was among the most common problems cited by state auditors.

A state-appointed task force is recommending changes that would ease the law’s requirements on native-language instruction. But their recommendations could be controversial, and are somewhat counter to what experts recommend for children.

Judy Yturriago, a Northeastern Illinois University professor and former head of Evanston’s bilingual education program, pointed out to Harris that “most principals and policy makers do not understand first- and second-language acquisition. They don’t understand the role of primary language. They don’t understand that children who are proficient in the primary language will do better later on.”

Nothing in education is simple. But there is a guiding principle that could help solve the puzzle and better educate all students: Require every student to have at least basic proficiency in two languages to graduate from high school. Non-English-speakers would learn English but become literate in their native language as well. English-speaking students would have to learn a foreign language—something that students in other countries routinely do.

Illinois is one of a minority of states that, according to Education Week, does not use international comparisons to inform its education reform efforts. That doesn’t bode well. For students to thrive economically and socially, they need to be prepared to work and live in a multicultural, multilingual world.

Foreign-language coursework is now only an option under Illinois graduation requirements. One way for Illinois to bring its schools more in line with those in higher-performing countries—in fact, in higher-achieving districts elsewhere in the U.S.—would be to institute stronger language programs.

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Associate Editor Rebecca Harris began reporting this issue of Catalyst In Depth several months ago. She and Deputy Editor Sarah Karp are already hard at work on upcoming issues. Every issue takes several months of data analysis and on-the-ground, inside-schools reporting. That investment of time takes money, but the end result is the award-winning quarterly publication that is our hallmark.

Despite the cost, Catalyst Chicago provides free Catalyst In Depth subscriptions to members of Chicago’s local school councils. We post all of our stories on the web—also free. That’s because we are committed to providing high-quality education journalism to the public as a whole, not just the leaders at the top.

If you value our reporting and its widespread distribution, we ask you to join us as a member. To learn more about our membership program, go to www.catalyst-chicago.org/membership. Join us and help us keep the information flowing.

Although Brizard didn’t mention it in his speech, the state’s adoption of the Common Core Standards is likely, at least initially, to show an even wider achievement gap. The Common Core Standards adopted by Illinois and some 40 other states are considered far more rigorous than Illinois’ current standards—which means the new tests that are being developed to debut in 2014 will be tougher as well. In Chicago, 35 schools have signed on to be ‘early adopters’ of the Common Core.

According to one study, just 19 percent of CPS students would meet Common Core literacy standards and just 17 percent would meet Common Core standards in algebra.

Brizard spoke of his own experiences as a struggling immigrant student from Haiti, noted several schools in low-income communities that he said are making progress, and highlighted some of a list of statistics and research showing the extent of the achievement gap. The research includes a recent Consortium on Chicago School Research report that found virtually no progress in achievement in CPS, with black students faring worst.

Brizard said the statistics illustrated the need for a longer school day, and blamed “union politics” for scuttling a pilot program that prompted a Chicago Teachers Union complaint to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. (The board plans to seek an injunction against the program.)

Here are the statistics  on the achievement gap in CPS and Brizard's speech.

The board will have to ask Attorney General Lisa Madigan for approval to pursue the case. Should Madigan agree, the board can then ask a judge to issue an injunction against CPS, whose lawyers argued that taking away the longer day at the 13 schools that have already adopted it would harm those schools’ 4,000 students.

The specifics of the injunction—whether it would halt the pilot’s expansion, end the program at the pilot schools, or some other scenario—are not yet clear.

CTU said that it offered to settle the dispute with CPS by halting the program, but allowing the current 13 pilot schools to continue the longer day.

More to come.

Meanwhile, read our most recent story on the union’s longer-day dispute with the district, which sparked the union’s charge of unfair labor practices.

“To win the future, our children need a strong start,” Duncan said. Like the previous Race to the Top rounds, Duncan says he wants this one to be a game-changer that will strengthen early childhood programs. The goals: improve low-income children’s access to early learning programs; develop better coordination among the mosaic of programs already offered; provide better training for those who work in the field, who are often low-paid and lack college degrees; and create clear learning standards and age-appropriate, high-quality assessments for young children.

The $500 million is cause for celebration among early childhood advocates, especially since it represents the lion’s share of the $700 million that Congress allocated to Race to the Top this year. Even so, it’s a comparatively small amount of money compared to the $4 billion for the original Race to the Top.

Policymakers for The New America Foundation point out another caveat on the organization’s Early Ed Watch blog: 

“At a time when research studies like the Head Start Impact Study have shown the limits of relying too much on pre-kindergarten programs without any coordination with high-quality kindergarten and first-grade programs...this new grant program represents a lost opportunity.”

A smooth transition

To ease the path to formal schooling, children need experiences that help them become familiar with a new setting and new expectations. Activities that can help ease the transition include:

• Visits to the kindergarten classroom
• Workshops and networking for parents
• Attendance at school events, for parents and children
• “Get ready for kindergarten” sessions at school

Source: Transition and Alignment policy brief, 2010, Education Commission of the States

That lost opportunity is the chance to push states to strengthen alignment between early learning and K-3 education. It’s a strategy that the early education world is pushing, with good reason. What’s the use of providing children with a rich preschool experience, only to send them off to a school that doesn’t capitalize and build on what they’ve learned? Not only is doing so a potential waste of a child’s future—it’s a waste of the money poured into preschool.

In Chicago, the need for strong transition and alignment takes on added importance because of the gains low-income children are making in preschool. The Chicago Program Evaluation Project, a study of Chicago preschool programs, found that high-risk children (including those learning English or living in a single-parent home) made substantial progress in vocabulary development, literacy and math.

 “Some people have the idea that early childhood education programs are a vaccination,” says Barbara Bowman of the Office of Early Childhood Education in CPS. “[They think] if we just have this when you’re 3 and 4 years old, you need never go to a good school, you need never have a good teacher again.”

The Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education has begun a new national study of children who started kindergarten last fall. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 will provide data about children’s learning and development. A diverse group of children in both half-day and full-day classes will be included, and the study will continue through their 5th grade year. The research can be expected to provide more evidence of how full-day programs can provide the most benefit to children.

On this front, Chicago’s policy is out of sync with many other big districts. While the majority of children in Chicago are in full-day kindergarten, it comes at a price: The district only foots the bill for a half-day program, forcing schools to pay the rest of the cost of a full-day program with their discretionary money. The impact of the policy on schools, and children, became clear to Associate Editor Rebecca Harris during her reporting for this issue of Catalyst In Depth. At Ashe Elementary School in Chatham, the year began with a full-day kindergarten class of 14 children. By late September, late arrivals pushed enrollment to about 40, forcing the school to split the class into two half-day programs. Some parents pulled their children out, while others scrambled to find after-school or before-school child care.

At Catalyst press time, state lawmakers had proposed a budget that would slash education funding by $171 million. With such a bleak financial picture, it’s even more important for schools to spend smart. One way to do so is to target cash to full-day kindergarten across the board.

If Brizard makes good on his pledge, it would contrast sharply with the administration of former CEO Ron Huberman. And Brizard’s commitment should be heartening to the public, too, since an administration that is transparent with the press is likely to be the same way with parents and others invested in understanding and supporting school improvement.

The new CEO’s comments about transparency came at the tail end of our interview. At the outset, he spoke about his plans for a “listening tour,” a series of meetings with small groups of parents, community activists and others to get their input before drafting a long-term plan for the district.

“Schools belong to the community,” Brizard said. “It’s important to talk to the people who live there.”

Grassroots and community activists have heard that sentiment before. Many of them have no trust whatsoever in the central office and firmly believe that politics and expediency will trump what’s best for kids every time, regardless of who’s in charge at Chicago Public Schools.

But transparency and “listening tours," if they're more than window-dressing, would be a start at mending fences and building bridges between the various groups—parents, activists, educators, the business community, politicians and the general public—that care about education and must play a role in school improvement.

A broad agenda

What a difference nine months can make.

Back in September, as the school year got underway, Mayor Richard M. Daley stunned Chicago with the announcement that he wouldn’t run for re-election. Someone new would take over at City Hall and, by extension, at 125 S. Clark St., headquarters for CPS.

Now Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel is days away from his inauguration. He’s brought in a new School Board that includes prominent civic leaders and a schools CEO with a background that seems exactly what many community activists and parents have clamored for.

Brizard is not a City Hall transplant in the Daley mode—he’s not even from Chicago! He’s an educator, the first schools leader in years to come from the teaching ranks. He’s a former high school principal and so would understand the seemingly intractable challenges of large neighborhood high schools. He’s a person of color who understands the struggles of immigrants—Brizard’s parents fled Haiti during the regime of “Baby Doc” Duvalier, leaving him and his siblings behind until they could bring them to the U.S. when Brizard was 11.

Brizard’s background, however, didn’t do much to allay the initial suspicion about him because of his stormy tenure in Rochester: the rocky relationship with the teachers union and some community groups, the controversy over graduation rates and even his decision to come to Chicago, which riled School Board members since it meant breaking his contract.

Yet from his interview, it’s clear that Brizard is dedicated to education and is eager to put in place a broad, bold agenda. He and Emanuel have promised to usher in a longer school day and year (Brizard said “I’d like 200 days a year, if I could do it”), although it’s unclear how they plan to pay for it given the district’s projected $820 million deficit. He favors per-pupil budgeting to create more resource equity among schools, but concedes that imposing it would be tough since schools with veteran, highly paid teachers stand to lose under such a plan.

He spoke passionately about the need for sustained, high-quality professional development for teachers, and for principals too, since “no one wants to work for a lousy principal.” He wants to scrap what he calls an “antiquated” teacher salary scale in favor of one based partly on performance—a move that is sure to spark fireworks with the Chicago Teachers Union—and that incorporates peer evaluation. He plans to meet regularly with small groups of teachers and said “Teaching is an art. It’s not a science. And the art of teaching belongs to professionals.”

As for charters, Emanuel wants them, and Brizard wouldn’t have gotten the job if he didn’t agree. But he insisted that charters must “hold themselves to a higher standard—that’s why we give them freedom,” and said he wants to institute an “urban planning” approach that would put charters where they’re most needed.

On the turnaround front, Brizard came down squarely on the side of sweeping measures. He favors turnarounds that bring in new staff to change the culture of a school, rather than “transformations” in which all or most of the staff remain in place while trying to right the ship, something he calls “fixing the airplane as you’re flying it.”

Most importantly, Brizard understands that there’s no such thing as a magic bullet to improve education. “This is hard work, difficult work,” he said.

Teachers and others who work in schools will appreciate that sentiment. Those outside of schools need to remember it.

On the precipice

Whew. A lot to follow in the coming months.

But one thing is crystal-clear: Chicago schools are teetering on the edge. Push them too far one way, with too much top-down decision-making and neglect of neighborhood schools, and parents and community folks will give up on the system and abandon it if they possibly can.

However, leaning too far the other way, without making tough, unpopular calls on issues like school closings and accountability for everyone (including charters, no matter how much the business community favors them), and the system will stay stuck in the status quo.

If either scenario happens, it’s only a matter of time before we see headlines in Chicago echoing this one about a recently released study that illustrates the demise of a once-great city: “Nearly half of Detroit’s adults are functionally illiterate”

Try maintaining Chicago as a “world-class” city with that statistic.

Study after study, researcher after researcher, has made the same point: Holding students back when they are not achieving at grade level does not help them academically.

Still, the idea resonates with the public. And outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley garnered praise for instituting a ban on social promotion in 1996.

Now, like an aging, punch-drunk prizefighter who just won’t give up and leave the ring, the district’s promotion policy remains alive, if not well.

True, the policy has been watered down in the past 15 years because of outside pressure, including a major 2004 study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research that definitively showed the dramatic negative effects of retention—in particular, the far greater risk of eventually dropping out. More recently, the advocacy group Parents United for Responsible Education put the issue on the front burner when it filed a federal civil rights complaint against the district’s retention policy because of its disparate racial impact.

The story of a 6th-grader from Black Magnet Elementary, illustrates how the policy can be easily misused. The boy was sent to summer school because of low test scores in math. Over the summer, he did well and passed math. But he failed reading—a subject in which he had previously earned g