CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett will recommend that 54 school programs be shut down. Nearly 90 percent of the students in the closing schools are black, though African Americans make up only about 40 percent of the district’s entire student population.

The impact of school actions on black communities has been a major factor driving opposition among activists as well as the Chicago Teachers Union, which held a press conference attacking the actions. 

Under this proposal, the communities that would have the most closings are: West Town, Auburn Gresham, Austin, West Englewood and West Pullman.

In addition to the 54 shut-downs, 11 schools will co-locate with another school, eight of them with charter schools. Two severely underutilized high schools—Bowen and Corliss—will share their buildings next year with new Noble Street charter high schools. CPS officials said this will give people in the area two “good, strong” options in one building, but some community members and others are likely to worry that the charters will drain away more students from the neighborhood schools. 

Finally, the non-profit Academy for Urban School Leadership will get six more schools to “turn around,” a process that entails replacing virtually an entire staff. AUSL is a politically-connected teacher training program that has won national recognition from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. One AUSL school, Bethune Elementary in East Garfield Park, will be closed. Also, Dodge and Morton, two AUSL school, will co-exist in the Morton building. 

The board is set to vote on this proposal at its May 22 meeting. Before then, CPS will hold three hearings on each recommendation, two in the affected communities and one with an independent hearing officer at its downtown headquarters.

Cost savings, teacher layoffs

Initially, these moves will cost CPS money but over 10 years, the district will save about  $1 billion, said Chief Transformation Officer Todd Babbitz. The savings are a combination of $560 million in capital costs and $430 million in operating costs.

Critics will likely argue that less than $1 billion in savings over 10 years is not a lot of money, considering CPS has a $5 billion yearly budget.

But Babbitz and other officials said the school district is not only closing schools to save money, but also to make the remaining schools better. 

At the welcoming schools, CPS plans to make $155 million in capital investments and spend $78 million in “up front” operating costs. 

The initial investment is high as CPS officials have spent the last week announcing the various things they plan to provide for welcoming schools. Each will get air conditioning,  a library, a science lab and computer lab, as well as a social worker and other social supports for students. In addition, safe passage workers will watch over students as they make their way to their new school. Students at a handful of schools will get bus transportation.

CPS leaders earlier today announced that 19 schools will get specialty programs, such as International Baccalaureate or fine arts programs. These will be magnet cluster programs, which maintain an attendance boundary, but can take students if they have space. Officials could not say on Thursday how many extra staff these schools will get for these programs.

Spokeswoman Becky Carroll argued that the district is prioritizing these welcoming schools, many of which will become the neighborhood schools. 

“These are communities that have been under-resourced and underserved for years,” she said. “We want to give them all the things that they need that they do not have now.”

At the Chicago Teachers Union press conference, President Karen Lewis lambasted Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who reportedly is on vacation with his family. “This is not going to save money, it is going to cost money and it is going to leave abandoned buildings,” she said.

CPS officials could not immediately say how many teachers will be laid off as part of the upheaval. As part of the new teacher’s contract, those teachers from closed schools get to follow their students to a new school, if they are tenured and highly-rated.

But at the press conference, little was said about the fate of teachers. Lewis, parents and teachers said they worried most about the students.

Kohn lunchroom attendant Takeeva Thompson said that at her school, a 7-year-old was killed and other students have been shot. She said the school is a haven for students. “We are either giving them a gun or a book,” she said.

Nina Gibbs, a parent of a student at Mahalia Jackson, said the plan calls for her daughter to go to Fort Dearborn Elementary. “That is on the other side of the tracks,” she said. “What kind of safety and security are they going to have? You have already got a lot of children here been shot, beat up, kidnapped. What about the parents who will no longer be [in] walking distance from the school?”

Safety a top concern for parents

Adam Anderson, the district's officer of portfolio, planning and strategy, said that officials took into account the concerns about safety that parents and residents expressed at the 28 community hearing held this winter. 

Among the things that CPS officials heard were that people want a school in their area and they don’t want children to have to cross barriers, such as railroad tracks, to get to school. Anderson said it also was important to him and other school leaders that children were sent to better facilities and better schools. 

But all these criteria created quite a puzzle for CPS leaders and this is evident by the plan they laid out. In several situations a school program closes, meaning the administration is displaced, but the children stay in the building. The principal and staff from a better-performing school take over that closed school program, leaving their building empty.

For the first time perhaps ever, CPS will try to combine three schools into one building and, in at least one case, the district will split children from one closed school up between two schools.

These unusual combinations left some people in the community with their head spinning. Dwayne Truss, an activist in Austin, said he was trying to get his head around all the proposals for his community. 

“Some of this is just crazy,” he said.

ACTION LIST

If CPS doesn’t get the extension, the district may not move forward with the closings this year. “As Barbara has said, we cannot close schools without engaging the community,” CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said before Byrd-Bennett’s Monday afternoon talk at the City Club of Chicago.

The bill is being sponsored by State Sen. Iris Martinez, who is a co-chair of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force, a body that has in the past been critical of the way CPS carried out school actions. Martinez is also on the closings commission.

Martinez said State Rep. Cynthia Soto is co-sponsoring the bill with her. But Soto did not return calls confirming the sponsorship. Some grassroots activists and the Chicago Teachers Union said they were unaware that Soto was sponsoring the bill.

If the extension bill gets the support of Martinez and Soto, it likely it will be approved. However, Martinez said that there will probably be many amendments to the bill that put more stipulations on CPS, such as requiring that students in targeted schools get to apply to magnet, selective enrollments and charter schools once the decisions are announced.

At a speech at the City Club on Monday, Byrd-Bennett said that if CPS doesn’t close schools this year, the results will be dire.

“We are facing a daunting fiscal future,” Byrd-Bennett said in the speech, which also noted the district’s ballooning pension obligations. Byrd-Bennett said that the district’s fiscal crisis “will threaten everything.”

Byrd-Bennett said the district has seats for 500,000 students, but just over 400,000 children are enrolled.

CPS leaders could be gearing up to close as many as 100 schools, though Byrd-Bennett insisted “there is no number” that district officials are now aiming for The main criterion they are looking at this year is school utilization, and as many as 140 schools are considered underutilized.

Taking questions from reporters after her speech, Byrd-Bennett conceded that the utilization formula may not be accurate for some schools – such as those with special education students who require smaller classes. She said the district is currently analyzing which schools might be exceptions to the formula.

She also said the plan to stop closings after this year was a product of conversations with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and argued that it could actually create richer, better-resourced neighborhood schools in the long run. When asked if the plan would tie the hands of future CEOs, Byrd-Bennett replied: “I’m going to be here for those five years.”

Plan faces union opposition

CTU President Karen Lewis says the union is lobbying legislators to tell them teachers oppose the extension. Among other issues, CTU leaders have said the district leadership is in disarray and that closings will not result in substantial savings.

Rather than announce a moratorium after this round, CTU leaders would like a moratorium to start now – and include a halt to school turnarounds and phase-outs. Vice President Jesse Sharkey says the union wants more information about how CPS will ensure student safety and give neighborhood schools enough resources, as well as what charter schools the district plans to open.

“It’s not just a school closing policy, it’s a school opening policy,” Sharkey says. He adds: “There are reasons behind the December 1 deadline,” like allowing families to plan which schools their children will attend.

Byrd-Bennett says community members, too, distrust the district. In her meetings with the community, “the resounding refrain was, ‘We don’t trust you. We don’t believe you. You have been doing things to us,’” she said.

At the commission hearing, the first of at least six that will take place, Northeastern University professor Robert Starks also issued a warning. He said that community groups are gearing up for a fight against school closings that “will make the strike look like child’s play.”

He presented the commission with a laundry list of questions they need to be able to answer, and said commission members need to deal with the issue of charter schools and the privatization of public education. Also, they need to address safety and transportation issues.

“This is to [former police superintendent] Terry Hillard, under your administration when schools were closed or consolidated didn’t violence escalate?” he asked. Hillard is on the commission.

Commission Chairman Frank Clark reiterated that the commission is charged with looking at school utilization and was not to consider what, if anything, will open in their place. But other commission members seemed interested in the question.

Ald. Howard Brookins (21st Ward), who is on the commission, asked CPS Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley how much of the district’s money is spent on charter schools.

At first, Cawley said that charter schools are public schools and so they are not considered a separate entity. Then, he explained that 12 percent of the district’s students have their education contracted out to either charter schools or private schools for special education students, but that only 9 percent of the district’s budget is spent on these students. However, he stopped short of saying the district saves money by sending students to charters or other contract schools.

Class size and utilization

Another question that was brought up at the commission meeting is whether class sizes and structure should be considered in looking at utilization. Several people have brought up why there are overcrowded classes in under-utilized schools.

“This raises eyebrows,” said the CTU’s Brandon Johnson. “You have classes with 38 kids split between kindergarten and 1st grade. My son turns five today. Owen deserves better than that.”

Small schools without enough students in a grade (CPS allocates one regular classroom teacher for every 28 students) often have to combine grades or pay for an extra teacher out of discretionary money.

DePaul University education professor Barbara Radner told the commission that splitting classes is detrimental to students, especially those in the younger grades. In high school, she said small schools mean that teachers often have to teach several subjects, including those they aren’t certified to teach.

“What we have is an educational shrinkage,” she said.

Yet Radner did not necessarily advocate the closings of schools. Rather than look at efficiency, she asked the commission to look at efficacy or what is best for students. She said they need to think about using empty school space for health care clinics or for community colleges classes.

Radner also suggested looking at having a primary center in one building and a middle school in another. This way each would draw more students of the same grade from a wider geographic area.

“We need to think outside the box,” she said.

CPS officials have said that they plan to close as many as 100 schools this year in order to deal with an overcapacity issue of more than 100,000 seats. The situation is a “crisis” because the district is facing a deficit next year of $1 billion, said Todd Babbitz, CPS chief transformation officer.

 “For years we have made ends meet, but we are out of options,” he told aldermen at the hearing.

CPS officials said they will save between $500,000 and $800,000 a year per closed school, which, at best, will take care of 8 percent of the projected deficit. Babbitz admitted Tuesday that consolidating schools is “only one piece of the puzzle,” but said it will allow CPS to provide remaining schools with better facilities, including libraries, playgrounds and air conditioning.

The Education and Child Development Committee hearing was on a resolution that calls for CPS officials to tell aldermen which schools they plan to close, how they chose those schools and why they plan to open more charter schools when the district already has excess capacity.

Committee Chairwoman Latasha Thomas (17^th Ward) did not sign onto the resolution, but said she always holds hearings on school closings. She also said this is the first of several hearings that she plans to hold.

Aldermen in year’s past have had hearings on school closings and debated calling for a moratorium (but have never approved such a resolution). Because Chicago has mayoral control over the schools, aldermen have no power in realm of school district business.

At one point, Ald. Bob Fioretti (2^nd Ward) asked CPS officials if they would commit to putting off the opening of charter schools for at least a year, as they try to “right-size” the district.

Babbitz said he was not in a position to make that promise. CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett was not in attendance at the hearing.

Frank Clark, former Com Ed chairman who was recently appointed by Byrd-Bennett to serve on a school closing commission, also did not speak about charter schools. He said his commission was charged solely with looking at utilization and to come up with a list of schools to be closed. The commission will consider such factors as safety, transportation and the value a school has to the community.

Clark said he was not anti-charter schools, but that charter schools were not within the purview of the commission.

To that, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32^nd Ward) said that the commission has too narrow a focus. “Charter schools are part of the bigger picture,” he said.

Babbitz said CPS has already committed to opening up 9 charter schools next school year.

And there could be more could be approved soon. CPS put out a request for proposals for new schools in August and, through that, got 13 applications.

Charter advocates say they have been told that CPS officials will make their recommendations on new schools to the Board of Education as soon as at the December board meeting. Babbitz also said the charter operators whose proposals that are not recommended could appeal the decision to the state.

On top of that, The Chicago Tribune reported in May that CPS jointly submitted a grant proposal to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation promising to open 60 more charter schools over the next five years.   

Testifying at the hearing, Chicago Teachers Union Organizer Joseph McDermott summed up the question that seemed to linger over the hearing, and perhaps the entire school closing situation.

“If we are to believe that we are closing schools for austerity and there is to be 50,000 charter seats added, are we going to be facing the same fiscal cliff in five years?” he said. “This seems like a zero-sum game.” 

The hearing comes less than a week before the state legislature’s veto session at which lawmakers are expected to vote on an amendment allowing CPS officials to extend the deadline on announcing proposed school closings from Dec. 1 to March 31. Once the school action proposals are announced, CPS still will have to hold official community hearings.

Babbitz said the details haven’t been worked out, but recommendations likely won't make it to the CPS Board of Education agenda until the May board meeting—making it the latest such moves have been made.

Several aldermen and representatives from the CTU said they think that CPS should just wait until next year.

Fioretti said he has had schools in his ward close late in the school year and that parents were left in a bad situation. By then, deadlines to apply for magnet, selective enrollment and many charter schools will have passed.

Byrd-Bennett has said she plans to make sure that parents of targeted schools can still apply to these options. But she and district officials have yet to announce how that would work, especially given that acceptances to such schools will already be in place.

Ald. John Arena (45th Ward) pointed out that state law also calls for CPS to develop a master facilities plan, which isn’t set to be finalized until July. “I think you are putting the cart in front of the horse,” he said.

Arena and other aldermen pushed Clark and Babbitz about the timeline for things to happen, should the deadline be extended. For example, Clark said the commission will review utilization standards and hold community hearings in each neighborhood. The commission's first official meeting is next Tuesday.

Clark said he doesn’t know when different elements of the commission’s work will take place and even suggested it could go beyond the March 31^st deadline.

“I think we can do what we have to do before March 31^st, but I am not sure,” he said.

This story has been corrected.

It is unclear if the CTU is happy with this new proposal, but leaving negotiations, CTU President Karen Lewis indicated she is hopeful that on Friday students could be back at school.

In addition to teacher evaluation, a sticking point in this contract is the fate of teachers laid off because their school or position was closed.

In this contract, it is a major issue because CPS has over 300 schools that are under-enrolled. On Thursday, Board President David Vitale acknowledged that the district must take action to address its supply issue.

The district could move to close as many as 100 schools over the next few years, leaving thousands of teachers without jobs.

Initially, CPS wanted to reduce the protections for displaced teachers. While promising teachers could follow their children to receiving schools, CPS wanted to reduce the amount of time teachers would spend in the displaced teacher pool to five months from 10 months. They also were offering three months' severance pay.

CPS has fought hard against giving displaced teachers preference for future jobs—something the union is demanding. On Wednesday, Jean-Claude Brizard held a round-table with principals in which he again framed the issue as one of principal autonomy. 

"As a principal, I lived and died by the folks in my school, my teachers," Brizard said. He said he has not been to negotiations, but instead keeping abreast of happenings and making sure the contingency sites were running smoothly.

Clemente Principal Marcey Sorensen said it is important to her to find the "best quality" teachers, not just to keep her job, but to make students college and career ready. "And I want you to send students to me who are high-school ready," Sorensen said to the elementary school principals at the roundable. 

CPS did not change its offer for teachers laid off because their school is being turned around or phased out, or whose position is closed out due to low enrollment.

In the offer for teachers whose schools have closed, CPS would create something called a "quality teacher" pool only for teachers of closed schools. Teachers with good ratings would be allowed to stay in this pool for one year. 

It is unclear how much this changed from Sunday night, but one thing that appears new is that principals would have to interview at least three displaced teachers to fill vacancies. If they rejected all of them, they would have to explain the move to the Talent Development Office and would have to prove that their reasons for rejecting them were not arbitrary.

The CTU wanted the principals to be forced to hire a displaced teacher should three apply for one position. It remains to be seen if the union will agree to this compromise. 

Here is the district's latest offer.

[View the story "A look at the latest CPS offer" on Storify]

The CTU and CPS have major ideological differences of opinion on the two remaining issues—teacher evaluation and treatment of laid off and displaced teachers—perhaps making compromising more difficult than if the disagreement was over pay. Union leaders have identified a long list of unmet demands, but agree with Emanuel that these issues are sticking points.

Emanuel said he told his negotiators to “finish up” contract negotiations, but would talk to his legal team about filing an injunction should the strike drag on.

Emanuel, making remarks at Maranatha Church on the Southwest Side, said negotiators were back at the table but had no updates. “We have offered an honest compromise that does right by our kids and is fair to taxpayers,” he said.

Meanwhile, CTU ratcheted up the pressure on Monday. After getting teachers out to picket from early in the morning til 10:30 a.m., they held a massive rally outside of CPS headquarters downtown.

Many teachers on the picket lines referred questions to their leaders. However, at Till Elementary, a group stopped walking to describe the bad conditions they teach in.

“A few of our classrooms had to stop taking a standardized test because mice were running around,” one said. A kindergarten teacher added she had 38 children in her class and no aide. And, so far this school year, books and other supplies haven’t arrived.

“This is the type of environment we teach in,” one said.

At Bowen High School, union delegate Denise Forbes said the school has more than 500 students and only one computer and music teacher.  “The most important issue is resources,” she said.

Teachers said the lack of resources for children both inside schools and outside schools is why they are nervous about having too much of their evaluations tied to test scores. CTU President Karen Lewis has said too many factors outside of schools have an impact on test scores, she said.

But on Monday, Emanuel made it clear he was committed to ensuring that student performance, including student growth on test scores, were part of the evaluation. Emanuel pointed out that as chief of staff at the White House, he helped orchestrate the passage of Race to the Top. Race to the Top is a federal grant program in which states competed for billions and made themselves more attractive by passing laws that included revamped teacher evaluations tied to test scores.

He said that teachers helped design the new teacher evaluation system and part of the compromise was allowing them to be a part of making future adjustments.

He also discounted union claims that the evaluation system could lead to the firing of 6,000 teachers over two years. “I am optimistic that more teachers will pass,” Emanuel said. “I am more confident in them than their union.”

Emanuel also reiterated his perspective on the treatment of laid off and displaced teachers.

This is an important issue to the union as it is speculated that the district will close down dozens of under-utilized schools in coming years. The union would like these displaced teachers to have preference for open positions.

But Emanuel doesn’t talk at all about displaced and laid off teachers. Instead, he emphasizes that principals should have full discretion to hire who they want. As a prop at his news conference, he held up a list of 50 high-achieving schools in Chicago.

“If we are to hold the principals accountable, then we need to give them the ability to pick the best qualified people for the job,” he said.

Watching movies, contingency plans

Maranatha Church on the Southwest Side, where Emanuel spoke, is one of the sites running a Safe Haven program for children during the strike. CPS activated its strike contingency plan on Monday morning, opening up 144 schools to provide half-day activities and paying churches to run programs.

CPS officials said they did not know how many students showed up at the contingency sites. Opening schools and paying churches to hold programs is costing CPS $25 million.

The union had blasted the contingency plan as a waste of money and some parents who stopped by seemed unimpressed. Danielle Coleman, whose child attends kindergarten at Gale, and Aurora Marquez, who has three children at Stone Elementary, walked inside Gale Elementary, observed the activities and left with their children.

“I thought about it. We got them up and dressed,” Coleman said. “[But] I don’t like how the volunteers talk to the students.”

At Clemente High School, some teachers stood in the median on Western Avenue holding signs. As cars went by, many of them honked. 

A community watch volunteer said around dismissal time that of the up to 4,000 students eligible to attend Children First at Clemente, just five had shown up. At Amundsen High, just 50 of 1,500 students showed up.

Some students joined the picket lines with their teachers. At Bowen High School, four friends showed up and put signs around their necks. “We love our teachers,” said Jasmine Bennett, a junior.

The group said that the school has gotten a new burst of energy with a principal who started last year.  “Value-added learning,” said Aaliyah Travis, also a junior. “It just means that we take our learning seriously and enjoy it.”

The four friends said that at first they were happy about the strike, but now they are worried about it cutting into their summer and making it difficult for them to get summer jobs.

Younger students, however, were not thinking too much about the future and just enjoying the nice early fall day. “Yay,” said four boys, raising their arms in victory, describing how they felt when they heard about the strike. They spent the morning sitting on their grandmother’s porch across the street from Till Elementary.  When they saw their teachers, they called out to them.

“Hi, honey,” one responded.

Their grandma, Antoinette Bean, said she told the teachers they could come to her house to use the bathroom and that she would send the boys to the store, should they need food. “I just think it is a shame,” she said. “Teachers should get what they want.”

Jose Maya, a 1^st-grade student at Gale Elementary in Rogers Park, and his older brother Gustavo Gutierrez, who attends 8^th grade, said they had a great day planned to take the place of school.

“First we are going to watch a movie. Then we are going to eat,” said Gutierrez.  His younger brother added that the two planned to play a “really scary” zombie video game. 

At an alternative site in Hyde Park set up by supporters of the union, about 35 students played soccer, learned crocheting and made sailboats. Parent Tigist Bekele helped her son, Sam, who attends nearby Ray, make a boat and said she supports the teachers. "I am not working right now, so I showed up to help out," Bekele said.

Contributing: Rebecca Harris, Nicole Koetting

With these extra teachers and some scheduling changes, such as eliminating a morning prep time and putting lunch for teachers back into the middle of the day, the workday for elementary school teachers won’t be lengthened and will be only slightly longer for high school teachers.

While both sides declared victory, they also said numerous issues still need to be resolved and that a strike was still a possibility.

“We have a 98 percent strike authorization vote, and that has not changed,” CTU President Karen Lewis said. “We have a long way to go before the contract is settled, but this is a very good start.”

“We are still looking at healthcare, pay, evaluations, discipline, clinician staffing,” Lewis said, naming – in addition to raises – a litany of issues that CPS isn’t required to bargain about with the union.

Lewis would not say how this agreement impacts the union’s salary demands. Citing the longer workday among other things, CTU had asked for nearly a 30 percent pay increase. CPS had offered about 2 percent.

CPS officials did not say how they planned to pay for the additional teachers, which they estimate to cost $40 to $50 million. The proposed CPS budget empties the reserves and makes program cuts to fill a $665 million deficit. With no reserves, the budget leaves little wiggle room.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel shrugged off the question of how he can afford the additional teachers. “The question is how can we afford not to do it,” he said.

Board President David Vitale said it is now time for district leadership to “get to work” to find savings. There’s also a possibility that Emanuel and his team will have to make more costly concessions to the union.  

Still, Emanuel and his team declared victory. He said he was never prepared to compromise on the issue of the longer school day.

“A longer school day has been a goal and a topic of negotiations before,” he said. “But each time students took a back seat.”

Union leadership also saw the agreement as a win. Since the beginning of negotiations in November, CTU leaders said they wanted additional art, music and physical education teachers. They stressed that students shouldn’t only have a longer school day, but also a “better school day.”

With the additional teachers, each school should have at least 1.5 teachers providing art, music or other enrichment classes, Lewis said.

CPS officials said the details of how the teachers will be allocated have yet to be worked out and that principals will have the discretion to decide what type of teacher they need, whether it be a reading coach or a dance teacher.

Another victory for the union was the district’s agreement to give preference in hiring for these positions to displaced teachers. If three displaced teachers apply for one of the positions, then the principal will have no choice but to hire one of them, under the agreement, Vitale said.

The deal only applies to displaced teachers with satisfactory or better ratings. Also, the teacher will be on probation for a semester and the job is only guaranteed for a year.

With yearly school closings, the issue of displaced teachers is a big one. CTU fought a legal battle to ensure broader protections for them, but lost.

The announcement that the longer day was not in jeopardy as contract negotiations are ongoing brought statements from advocacy groups that support it. 

Stand for Children was planning to hold a press conference Wednesday morning to urge CPS and CTU not to forsake the longer school day. Now, they are partnering with Education Reform Now Advocacy to applaud the agreement.

“It’s time for both sides to finish the job and finalize a contract,” said Rebeca Nieves Huffman, Illinois State Director of Democrats for Education Reform, an affiliated group. “As we have always said, teachers have a difficult and critically important job and they deserve a raise, but it must be a compromise that taxpayers can afford.”

“As negotiations continue, we hope that both the CTU and CPS will continue to put students first and protect the critical investments our students need like the longer school day, funding for charter schools and maintaining class size.”

High school students will have the 7.5 hour day four days a week, but will be released 75 minutes early once a week.

Emanuel said he never contended that 7.5 hours was a magical number, but that CPS’ current 5 hours and 45 minutes was short-changing children. He refused to acknowledge that he gave in a little to pressure, but insisted that with a 7-hour day he will reach still reach his goal of more classroom time.

Emanuel also pointed out that the new school calendar, passed at March’s Board of Education meeting, adds 10 more days to the year by eliminating some holidays and days when students are not in school because of professional development and report card pickup.

CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said the decision was made after meeting with more than 60 groups of parents.

“We want them to know that we didn’t just listen, we took action,” he said.

The decision comes amid mounting opposition to extending the school day to 7.5 hours. Different groups had slightly different reasons for their opposition, but had a unifying concern that the district doesn’t have enough money to fill the day with high-quality, engaging activities.

CPS officials announced in March that the district is facing a budget deficit in the range of $700 million this year. Soon, principals will receive their school-level budgets.

Given the projected deficit, it is difficult to see how the school budgets could include much extra money for activities in a longer day. Officials have alluded to the fact that they plan to give principals more discretion.

Emanuel said that the emphasis has been getting money out of central office and into schools. “It is about prioritizing,” he said.

Costs still in question

Jonathan Goldman, a member of Raise Your Hand, said that he thinks that Emanuel’s announcement is “a step in the right direction.” “At least CPS is recognizing that parents want to be at the table,” he said.

But he and his fellow group members still have reservations about how the district plans to pay for the longer day. In meetings, CPS officials have acknowledged that extra time will not automatically result in better learning, but that the additional time must be coupled with quality classes.

Maureen Cullnan, who is part of a group of parents from the 19^th Ward on the far South Side, said that when Emanuel talks about having time for every subject, including science, it is disingenuous if no money is attached.

“Do you know how expensive science labs are?” she said.

Steven Guy, a member of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization whose grandson attends Fuller Elementary, questioned whether even the 7-hour day would be an improvement.

“How is it going to make a difference if you add an hour to something when you’re not financing what the kids need [now]?” he said. “How are they going to pay for it?”

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis reiterated the union’s call for more money in its report “The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve.”

“Today, the mayor moved his toe half an inch from the starting line,” she said. “The mayor still needs to tell us how he intends to pay for this.”

Parents on both sides

At the press conference announcing the change, Emanuel and Brizard were flanked by politicians and principals and parents from schools that had pioneered a 7.5-hour day. Thirteen schools were given grants of between $75,000 and $150,000 to go to the extended schedule this year, before the pilot program screeched to a halt when a judge ruled that the district’s program violated fair labor practices.

Disney II Magnet Elementary teacher Adrienne Garrison said the extra time gives her space to differentiate instruction. She uses some of the time to allow her 3^rd-graders to do independent research. They ask question and find the answer and put the results on the “wonder wall.”

Schools that adopted the extra time, like Disney II, must alter the schedule so it fits within the 7- hour time frame. Principal Bogdana Chkoumbova said she isn’t sure what the school will cut back on next year, though she suspects it will be “specials,” and not core subject instruction.

“It is to be determined,” she said.

Skinner North parent Chris Gladfelter, whose school also was part of the pilot program, said that many parents at his school will be relieved by the decision. A survey of parents at the school found that less than half liked the 7.5-hour day.  Those who didn’t like it were divided among wanting to move to a 6.5-hour day and a 7-hour day.

Gladfelter said he took his 2^nd-grader out of some afterschool activities so that she would have time to come home, do homework and play. “We get to 7:30 at night and we have done nothing all day but school,” she said.

Gladfelter, however, admits Skinner North may not be a great barometer for whether the longer day is needed or successful. The students arrive at the school already achieving at high levels.(Skinner North is a classical school.)

Mary Anderson, executive director of the Chicago chapter of Stand for Children, said she thinks the vocal opposition is not representative of most parents. Anderson said her group still wants to see a 7.5-hour day implemented.  

“We are going to hold them accountable to their original proposal, she said.

Anderson said her group represents the silent majority. This weekend, the Chicago chapter will have a kick-off event and Anderson said 200 parents from all over the city will attend.

“We are concerned about the 120,000 students in failing schools that need the extra time,” she said.

When the vote finally took place after 5:30 p.m.--seven hours since the meeting got underway—the small group of parents and activists still in the audience started chanting "rubber stamp." Jitu Brown, an education organizer for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization and a Dyett local school member, booed. Dyett will be phased out next year.

Latrice Watkins, chairwoman of the Piccolo local school council, sat in a chair outside the board chambers and cried. "We did everything we could do," she said. "They will reap what they sow."

After the board meeting, school board member Mahalia Hines defended her action. In going out to public hearings, she said she was disturbed by the numbers of parents who seemed to be okay with schools whose low test scores only increased 5 percent over two or three years.

"It is not okay," she said. "Whether I was elected or appointed, I would have voted the same way."

School board member Jesse Ruiz added that he felt good that he had done "something, even if that something wasn't perfect" for students going to poor performing schools. 

The following actions were approved:

• Crane and Dyett High Schools will begin phasing out next year, though Crane's building will house a charter school next year and a health and science academy in the fall of 2013. Chief Portfolio Officer Oliver Sicat said there were no plans to put another school into Dyett.
• Price and Guggenheim elementary schools will be closed. 
• Chicago Vocational Career Academy and Tilden High will be turned around, as will eight elementary schools. Wendell Smith and Woodson South will be turned around by the CPS Office of School Improvement. Piccolo, Casals, Fuller, Stagg, Marquette and Herzl will be turned around by the Academy for Urban School Leadership. Chicago Vocational Career Academy will be allowed to keep its career programs, and a Montessori program at Stagg will still be available in the community either at Stagg or at another school four blocks away.
• In addition, the board approved measures that will allow several new schools or charter schools to share buildings with existing schools and will close three schools that were on their way to being phased out.

Activists look to legislature, courts

A few supporters of the plans also spoke during the three hours of public participation. Rebeca Nieves-Huffman, director of the Illinois chapter of Education Reform Now, worked at Piccolo years ago as a City Year corps member before a career working for national charter school advocacy organizations.

“I support the closure, I support the turnaround strategy because it appears to be working,” she said.

Another was Hibbard Elementary LSC member and parent Aureliano Vazquez. “These changes are going to be a benefit for all the students and will have a good result in the future,” he said through an interpreter.

But the vast majority of speakers denounced the plans and said their fight was not over.

Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin said the next step in the union’s fight would be “taking it to the courts” and to Springfield, in the form of bills that would halt school closings, consolidations and phase-outs. Proposed legislation already in Springfield calls for a moratorium.

Chicago Principals and Administrators Association President Clarice Berry also is taking part in lobbying on the bills’ behalf. “I’m concentrating my efforts on school closings in Springfield,” she said, rather than addressing the board meeting.

Jesse Jackson was one of a number of speakers who threatened that more lawsuits would be filed over the closing and turnaround dispute. 

Jackson asked board members to put a moratorium on school actions until the board can study education equity in the  system and he warned the board members that if they don't back off, he and other activists will “ask the General Assembly and court to come to our rescue.”

Another was Rev. Paul Jakes, president of the Christian Council on Urban Affairs, which he said represented over 100 churches.

“We certainly believe there has been a violation of our equal rights,” Jakes said, before asking CPS to help defray the cost of funerals for young people who are killed if the school closures and phase-outs contribute to gang violence. That has happened in the past, as students must travel through different neighborhoods to get to their new schools.

“It’s a moral issue,” Jakes said. “Those who are in positions such as this need to have sensitivity to lives being lost.”

After addressing the board, Jakes said he has met with several “top-30” civil rights attorneys such as Thomas Todd, Standish Willis, and Lawrence Kennon.

Many of the parents and teachers at schools slated for turnaround said they wanted their current principals to have more time to try to improve their schools. Before the meeting, demonstrators from Action Now picketed outside board headquarters and sang “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around, turn us around, turn us around. We’re going to keep on fighting, keep on marching. Education is a human right.”

Board members asked questions

CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said it is up to CPS officials to heal the communities following the vote.

Some of the people who spoke criticized the CPS leadership for failing to listen to them. Matt Farmer, a parent activist, pointed out that the hearing officers who listened to public comment at the turnaround hearings—and later endorsed the board’s plans—were lawyers with firms that work for CPS.

Board members asked several questions about safety and school culture.

“How will you monitor the safety plan?” board member Penny Pritzker asked. She said she would like to hear how the safety plans are being implemented.

CPS Chief of Safety and Security Jadine Chou said that the Safe Passage program, in which community members are paid to shepherd students home, will be utilized in the schools.

Ruiz said he pushed CPS officials and that now is the time for board members to support it. He said CPS officials need to harness the passion expressed by those who opposed the turnarounds.

Board member Andrea Zopp asked about whether AUSL expels more students. Some speakers said they worried about students who were pushed out of turnarounds. But Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley, who formerly worked for AUSL, says the children who were there before the turnaround are still there and enrollment is going up at many of schools. (However, CPS data shows that AUSL turnaround schools do issue an extraordinary number of misconducts.)

Katie Osgood, who teaches at an inpatient mental health facility that works with many former CPS students, complained that she sees students who were pushed out of turnaround and charter schools.

“Where I work, we don’t charge them $5. We don’t kick them out and tell them they don’t fit in there,” she said. “These kids need the most resources, but instead CPS gives them the least."

Even so, CTU President Karen Lewis pled with the board to change their minds.

“Children who need the most resources get the least. Parents who cry out the loudest get their voices drowned,” she said.

The impact of the new rules will be wide ranging, affecting, for example, the state's recognition of teacher  preparation programs as well as teacher tenure and layoff decisions.

The public will have 45 days to comment on the rules before the Illinois State Board of Education takes a final vote. The rules spell out how the state’s  Performance Evaluation Reform Act is to be implemented. That law requires that student performance be a “significant factor” in teacher and principal evaluation.

Some school reform advocates maintained that 25 percent was too low; teacher unions maintained it was too high.

Calling 25 percent “almost negligible,” Mary Anderson, executive director of Stand for Children, said, “An educator with proficient or excellent practice ratings would never receive an evaluation other than proficient or excellent – even when student growth is unsatisfactory.”

She said she is also concerned that the rules allow schools to exclude high-mobility students. “Without a rule in place, districts would be permitted to exclude students with high truancy rates or who enter mid-year from the growth calculations. … We don’t want to see any incentives to push out these at-risk students or enable them to slip through the cracks.”

The Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers both said they thought the 25 percent was too high, given that growth evaluations are uncharted territory for the state and concerns over their reliability.  

 “We believe student growth should be at 20 percent during the phase-in period," said the IEA’s Daryl Morrison.

The phase-in reflects the staggered start for the new evaluations, which begin next fall for principals throughout the state and for teachers in 300 Chicago schools.

 “We are at the point where this seems like the right direction,” said Larry Stanton, co-chair of the council that drafted the rules, “but it seems like a huge execution challenge.”

 One challenge is training the evaluators before the effective dates.  ISBE Deputy Superintendent Linda Tomlinson said the state recently learned it will get $28 million under the federal Race to the Top program. Some of that money will be used to train principals and superintendents to do good evaluations, she said. 

“Everyone who does an evaluation must be certified,” she noted, and that will require passing a test.

A number of advocates have questions about how the evaluation rules will affect teachers of English language learners and special education students. Those issues may be addressed in a future rule, the state board noted.

Phase-in, the result of public comments, stirs more controversy

The percentages that the state approved for student growth are a floor. Under state law, districts and unions negotiate the process and could go higher.  However, if they deadlock for at least 6 months, the percentage would default to 50 percent (except in Chicago, where it defaults to CPS’ last proposal).

According to the law, the student growth portion of the evaluation must show “demonstrable change in learning between two or more points in time.”  The law treats Chicago and the rest of the state differently on a number of points, which is not unusual.

It allows CPS to use value-added state test scores as its only measure of student growth. But it instructs other districts to use several other measures and rules out use of the states ISAT and PSAE tests.

 “We have been very up-front about the fact that the ISAT and the PSAE were not designed for teacher evaluations,” Darren Reisberg, the state board’s general counsel, said during an explanation of the rules at Friday’s meeting.

Principals, however, will generally be evaluated based just on state tests or district-wide assessments, unless they are at schools where most students don’t take such tests (for instance, because the students are too young.) Assistant principals can be evaluated on student growth data that relate to their duties – for instance, attendance and discipline progress. (No new evaluations are required for CPS assistant principals.)

Eventually, Tomlinson said, the state may suggest that districts use the assessments that are being developed to align with the Common Core State Standards, a new set of more rigorous standards that Illinois is in the process of implementing.

Using teacher practice

The evaluations must also account for “teacher practice,” measured by observations using a tool supported by research. Districts also can come up with their own evaluation framework or choose one like Charlotte Danielson’s “Framework for Teaching,” a well-regarded evaluation tool. A University of Chicago Consortium on School Research study of a Chicago pilot program on the Danielson framework found that the ratings principals gave teachers reflected growth in student test scores.

At a future meeting, the Illinois State Board of Education will likely adopt “model” teacher and principal evaluation processes – intended largely as resources for districts that lack time and money to design them from scratch..

Chicago Board of Education Chief of Staff Bob Runcie is interviewing for the job of superintendent of Broward County, Fla. Public schools. (Grand Rapids Press) According to an earlier report in the Miami Herald, he is a top candidate for the job.

CTU President Karen Lewis is quoted in a short profile in the Chicago Tribune as saying: "What continues to give me hope is that our members love our kids... They hate having to work in fear."

In coverage of the ongoing battle between teachers union and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board comes out squarely in favor of lengthening the school day and says it needs "Emanuel the Bulldog" pushing it through. However, it says Emanuel should rein in some of the more aggressive tactics.

The Sun-Times makes hay of CTU president's Karen Lewis' accusation that the mayor errupted in an hour-long meeting with her over extending the school day. Emanuel didn't deny it, but said that they hugged at the end of the meeting.
 
The Sun-Times' Rosalind Rossi also points out that Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that he would like to double teachers' salaries. But admitted that the situation is a far cry from that with mass teacher layoffs and school districts having to raise class sizes and do away with art and music.

Among the myriad of stories about Sept. 11, 2001 comes a short article about CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard who was a principal at a Brooklyn high school and watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center from his school's rooftop. (Sun-Times)

Also, Old St. Mary's Catholic Church opened a new school in the South Loop. (Sun-Times)


IN THE STATE

Some suburban community colleges are seeing a decline in enrollment, the Daily Herald reports.
 
The Illinois Math and Science Academy, a tuition-free boarding school for students adept at math, science and technology, celebrated its 25th anniversary last week. (Sun-Times)


IN THE NATION

Several new advocacy groups are promoting teacher voices in school policy while providing an alternative to teachers unions, Education Week reports.

Legendary member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Robert Moses is now promoting middle school algebra. Because taking algebra early helps foster careers in math, science and technology, he says starting rigorous math early is a civil rights issue.(Washington Post)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan came back to Chicago on Friday to pat state and local leaders on the back for two things: passing state legislation on education and paving the way to accomplish one of the things he didn’t as schools CEO: lengthening the school day. 

 But his successor won’t avoid labor strife as district officials try to accomplish a move that Duncan and his boss, former Mayor M. Richard Daley, could not. 

On Friday, Brown Elementary on the Near West Side voted to join four other schools—STEM Magnet, Mays, Melody, and Skinner North—in approving a contract waiver to add 90 minutes to the day. Several CPS principals contacted by Catalyst Chicago said they, and their teachers, were still considering the district’s offer. 

 At the same time, the teachers union filed a legal challenge with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board against the district. 

 Duncan was in town on Friday to participate in a panel discussion about Senate Bill 7, the legislation passed this spring that, among other provisions, allows the mayor to unilaterally set the length of the school day. Duncan said he was so impressed with the legislation that he “felt as though he is in a dream” and that he touts the bill’s provisions as he travels the country. 

 Duncan was in town on the last part of a midwest Back-to-School bus tour that included stops in six states. Duncan also touted the jobs bill introduced by President Barack Obama on Thursday evening. The bill would provide $60 billion in education funding. Illinois would get $1.24 billion that Duncan said that could save 14,500 teaching jobs. The state would also get $1.1 billion for school infrastructure. Of that, Chicago would get $609 million. 

 Members of the panel, which included Gov. Pat Quinn and State Senator Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), praised the legislation as a collaborative effort that included the voices of the teacher unions, school management and advocacy groups. 

“It is the right way to do things,” Duncan said. “No one was shut out of the process.” 

This air of collaboration, however, stands in sharp contrast to what has happened since. 

Though the law gave Mayor Emanuel the power to lengthen the day, he couldn’t do it immediately because the union contract setting the school day and year is still in effect until June 2012. 

Emanuel, though, didn’t want to wait. “It is not a question of whether it is going to happen, it is a question of when,” he said Friday. “If it is good for 2012, it is good for now.” 

Emanuel and CPS leaders tried to use a back-door approach. First, the CPS Board of Education said it had no money to pay contractually-promised teacher raises of 4 percent. Then, CEO Jean-Claude Brizard immediately made it clear that he wanted to use the raises as a bargaining chip, offering elementary teachers a raise of 2 percent in exchange for a longer school day. 

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis balked, saying that her union was not going to vote to terminate the current contract. 

Since then, five schools have voted for a waiver that would allow the extension of the school day. In exchange, the teachers were offered a $1,250 bonus, which amounts to a 2 percent pay raise. The schools also got an extra $150,000 if they were going to start immediately or $75,000 if they started in January. Emanuel said on Friday that more schools will vote in the coming weeks. 

Kent Nolen at Chalmers Elementary, a predominantly black, low-income school in North Lawndale, says he would like his teachers to pass the measure, but the reception has been “lukewarm” because of Emanuel's involvement and the political fight.

 “Our kids are ultimately going to benefit from an extended school day,” Nolen says. “Our school community, our parents, our local school council, all agree.” 

He notes that many teachers already work off the clock, running activities before school as early as 7 a.m. and after school as late as 6 p.m., as well as on Saturdays. Last year, the school posted strong reading and math gains, and is determined not to be a “one-hit wonder,” Nolen adds.

It is unclear exactly how the district plans to pay for the initiative, although Emanuel said Friday that the district would have to find ways to cut the bureaucracy to do so. To give 480 elementary schools $150,000 each would cost about $72 million. And to give the 20,000-plus elementary school teachers an additional $1,250 would cost about $25 million. 

Added together, that’s more than it would cost the district to pay all teachers the 4 percent raises that officials rescinded. 

As for more cuts, the board recently passed a budget that already calls for another $50 million in central office cuts and $30 million in program cuts.  

Legal challenge to the district 

In addition to pushing its legal challenge against the district, the union faces a steep public relations challenge in the weeks ahead. Under Lewis’ leadership, the union has sought to build strong ties with community organizations while arguing for democratic, locally controlled schools and drawing attention to the inequalities that affect urban schools. 

 But the mayor and the district are portraying the waiver votes as a sign that teachers are being given the chance to have a voice on the issue, and points out the strong support for a longer day among parents, others in the community and teachers themselves. 

The union’s legal argument against the district, according to the complaint, is that: 

 • Schedule waivers should only be used to change the start and end times of the school day, but not its length, “which is unambiguously capped at 7 hours.”

 • By offering teachers money in exchange for schedule waivers, and by making waivers part of a system-wide effort, CPS is working directly with teachers in an effort to avoid dealing with the union.

 • The district conducted votes that in some cases were not secret, did not have voting procedures approved by each school’s CTU delegate, and included staff who are not members of the CTU – in violation of the waiver procedure outlined in the union’s contract.

 But CPS attorney James Franczek sees it differently. 

“The statute and the contract is extremely clear that the staff, the teachers and the principals have the right to make these decisions at the local school level, and that’s what happened here,” Franczek says. “There have been scores of contract waivers that have dealt with a multitude of issues, including the day. This is not all that unusual.” 

Franczek also denies allegations in the union complaint that accuse the district of improprieties: that the principal at STEM Magnet offered teachers iPads and a paid comp day each quarter in exchange for approving the longer day; that a principal questioned teachers about union activities at STEM Magnet, which “unlawfully intimidates an employee”; that a principal at Melody noted that a vote could stave off school closure; and that at Laura Ward, where the union claims another vote was held, teachers were told the extra discretionary money could prevent layoffs. 

“We do not believe, and certainly do not know, that any principals or anybody at CPS acted at all inappropriately,” Franczek says. 

Ward’s Principal Relanda Hobbs says the incident – in which, the complaint states, she asked teachers to mark on sample schedules whether they agreed with the idea or not -- was just an informal survey to find out if there was enough interest to justify a vote. 

If she were going to hold an actual vote on a schedule waiver, she adds, she would do it properly, with approval from a union delegate. But for now, she’s still trying to figure out where her teachers are. 

Some merit to legal challenge? 

 Mike Zimmer, a labor and employment law professor at Loyola University, says the union’s argument may hold water. 

“The whole principle of our collective bargaining system, both for private sector and public sector employees like these teachers, is that the union is the exclusive bargaining representative of all of them,” he says. “The employer has to bargain with the union for all of the employees. It can’t bargain with anyone else, including the individuals.” 

He says that if the union can prove its claims about special favors like the iPads and comp days, it “has a pretty good case.” 

But even aside from that, he says, CPS’ attempt to use the contract waivers on a citywide scale raises a red flag. 

 “They are trying to do an end run around the union, which is exactly what the law doesn’t allow,” he says. “They have got to bargain with the union, and if the union says no during the term of a contract, that’s the end of it.” 

Matthew Finkin, a labor law professor at University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, said that the issues involved in the complaint are complicated. 

But “to deal with an individual [instead of] the union is to question the integrity of the union. It’s to question its role,” he notes. 

Unless the contract allows it, “individual dealing” would be an unfair labor practice, he says. The question of how the district has used waivers in the past, and how state law allows them to be used, may become key questions. 

 If the CTU were to succeed, the labor board could order CPS to roll back the extended day and extra pay, “and I’m sure the losing party would take it to court,” Finkin says. Since the board doesn’t have the power to enforce its rulings, it could also seek a court order against the district. 

Yet one of the most far-reaching items, one that could lead to savings for the CPS budget on tap to be approved Wednesday, has yet to be accomplished.

Within these first three months, Emanuel pledged—and on Monday, checked off that he had done so—to complete a facilities plan for CPS. Such a facilities plan would most likely identify the district’s under-used schools and help direct officials as they determine which schools should be closed.

Closing schools saves big money. For example, the previous administration decided to consolidate Logandale and Avondale schools to save CPS more than $2.6 million next year, according to the CPS 2012 budget.

Asked about the facilities plan, Emanuel said the district has just hired someone to undertake the process of completing it. “We have some schools that are under-utilized and some that are overcrowded,” he said. “Our resources are misaligned.” 

CPS Spokeswoman Becky Carroll said that later this week the district will announce who they hired to be the Chief Portfolio Officer and the Chief Community and Parental Engagement Officer--two newly created executive positions designed to point to the district's new priorities.

The chief portfolio officer's job will be to make sure there are good schools in every community—and likely, which schools are no longer needed.

On Monday, Emanuel said that the district has never accomplished the task of figuring out what schools are needed. That isn’t exactly true. Just last year, CPS put out the 2010-2011 elementary school space utilization report, which showed that 157 elementary schools were only half-full.

But closing schools is politically unpopular and would have been difficult for Emanuel to do, considering that he just took office in May, as students and teachers were wrapping up a school year. A new state law, signed by Quinn this past Saturday, requires CPS to do a comprehensive facilities plan and to announce which schools they plan to shutter by December 1.

Lots of attention to education

Still, in his short time in office, Emanuel has focused significant attention on schools. Repeatedly, he said on Monday that creating a strong school system was at the top of his priority list.

“When a child is cheated on education,” he said, “they can’t do it again.”

The most specific action Emanuel has taken is to get the state Legislature to approve a bill that will allow him to unilaterally extend the school day. The CPS administration now must figure out the details, including how to get teachers to work that extra time without paying them additional money that the system doesn’t have.

Last week, Emanuel also announced that the district was going to offer bonuses for principals who exceed performance benchmarks set for them. The bonuses will be paid for by the Education Innovation Fund, for which Emanuel has already started raising cash ($5 million has been secured so far). CPS will form a tighter relationship with a group of chosen principal preparation programs and will require them to offer long-residency programs for principals.

The other school-related items on Emanuel’s 100-day list were those for which he said he was going to get the ball rolling, and he and his administration did that.

For example, Emanuel has talked a lot about parental involvement, saying the most important door students walk through is the front door of their house. On Monday, he said parent-teacher conferences and report card pickup should be more convenient for parents. 

But as of year, CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard has just had discussions with parents about what they would want to see in a contract.

Emanuel also promised to identify a leadership structure to facilitate development of a high school strategy. CPS has overhauled its area offices, but nothing has specifically happened for high schools, which have struggled for a while.

Another of Emanuel's promises was to make sure that the immigrant youth had access to opportunities, including scholarships and financial aid for college. To that end, he opened the Office of New Americans. 

Sylvia Puente, executive director of the Latino Policy Forum, says that Emanuel's announcement of an Office of New Americans is a step in the right direction. But, she says, the mayor hasn't yet laid out what resources he will devote to the office or even how many people will work in it.

“Whether it's going to provide (information to immigrants) or coordinate with all the different agencies, it's more than a one-person job,” Puente says. “There are a lot of things that can be done to improve services to immigrants across the city... that are more than just about outreach and referral.”

For instance, she says, the City Colleges could evaluate how effectively they serve immigrants and city departments could evaluate whether they have bilingual staff who speak the most common foreign languages “at key entry points into the city's service system.”

“The creation of the office is a good symbolic gesture,” she says. “The office will require resources to fulfill the promise of what Mayor Emanuel has committed to. Until we see that it's a question mark.”

She is more heartened by the attention Emanuel is paying to early childhood education. He has convened a task force on the issue to look at resource allocation (such as the number of child care, Head Start and Preschool for All slots in each neighborhood), aligning the programs, measuring their outcomes, and parent engagement.

The transition plan says that the group will try to make it easier to navigate the city's maze of early childhood programs, and also make curriculum more consistent across different settings. But task force work groups haven't yet come up with concrete policy recommendations, Puente says.

“We just hope that's a reflection of attention these issues will continue to get in his administration,” she says.

In talking about past efforts to reform the school system, Emanuel said he wouldn’t call them a failure, but he also wouldn’t call them a success. Yet he wanted to make sure that voters knew he was making good on his promises to reform the system.

“Too often politicians make promises and never follow up on them,” he said.    

Another boy, David, is called on first. He says, “I am afraid of snakes because I think one day they are going to bite me and I am going to die.”

Frustrated, Michael stands up, plops back down, shoves his chair back and loudly complains that he was going to say that. Michael’s turn comes next, and he talks about the time his godfather showed him a rattlesnake.

But when another student answers and ties the topic to the storyline of the movie “The Lion King,” Michael disrupts the class again by getting up, walking over to another desk, sitting down and hanging his head. “You lame,” he says to the student.

Michael’s face is scowling and his behavior quickly becomes the center of the conversation in class. So the next time he stands up, Elrod is there at his side. She puts her arm firmly around his shoulders and holds him still, while keeping her eyes on the student who is talking. At once, Michael becomes quiet, even attentive.

Leaving the room at Faraday Elementary, Principal Cederrall Petties says he was wowed by the skillful way Elrod handled Michael’s disruption. Elrod, unlike other teachers he’s seen, is not likely to send students to the office, dole out harsh punishment or holler at the children. But before today, he didn’t know exactly what tactics she used to manage her classroom. A firm but sympathetic gesture seemed to be just what Michael needed.

“The fact that she was totally able to settle him down was amazing,” Petties says. “Did you see that? His behavior changed immediately. It was night and day.”

WHY THIS MATTERS

Schools of education are under pressure to better prepare teacher candidates, especially those who will work in urban schools. One strategy is to give prospective teachers the knowledge and tools to relate to students who come from a different background, through classes on race, class and culture; longer stints as student teachers; or community internships. The skill of cultural competence has become important at the same time that a shift is taking place in the CPS teaching force.

• More new teachers are white, while the student body is more than 80 percent black and Latino. In 2010, 62 percent of teachers with five years experience or less were white, up from 48 percent a decade ago.
• The hiring mix from schools of education has also changed over the past decade. Predominantly black Chicago State University has lost its position as the top provider of new teachers to CPS to Northeastern Illinois University, where 6 percent of education students are black. 
• With federal support, Illinois State University has created two innovative programs that get teacher candidates into Chicago neighborhoods and classrooms early on. Experts say early exposure is important in getting teachers ready for the realities of urban schools. Scaling up these initiatives will be expensive.
• Principals say they are struggling to find teachers who can relate to students. The Chicago Public Education Fund is backing the design of a tool to help principals determine which candidates have the characteristics to be effective teachers.

Elrod will celebrate her first year handling a classroom by herself on March 1, and says that her teacher training did a good job helping her develop teaching strategies for reading and math. But there was little about how to deal with students like Michael, who appears impulsive and angry. The sole class on child development was online.

So Elrod draws on her personal experience to develop a relationship with her students. While she’s green, she’s a career-changer and is not as young and overly idealistic as some new teachers are. And as a black woman who spent time in foster care while growing up, Elrod says there are “tremendously important ways” in which she can relate to her students.

“I tell them ‘You might not be in an ideal situation, and neither was Mrs. Elrod,’” she says. “I let them know that we are one and the same, and look at where Mrs. Elrod is now.”

Black teachers like Elrod are an increasingly hot commodity in Chicago Public Schools. In fact, Petties says, one of his colleagues has already tried to steal her. Latino teachers are scarce as well.

A Catalyst Chicago analysis of state teacher service records for 2010 and 2000 shows a distinct shift in the racial makeup of new teachers in CPS and thus the teaching force as a whole. More teachers are white. At the same time, other trends are emerging: a move to increase clinical practice among teacher candidates, especially those headed for urban schools, and an emphasis on helping teacher candidates learn about and understand the communities where they will teach.

The Catalyst analysis found that:

• Among teachers with five or fewer years of experience, 62 percent are white. A decade ago, 48 percent were white.
• In charter schools, two-thirds of teachers are white. 
• In turnaround schools, where CPS replaces most of the staff, the racial balance has shifted from 70 percent black to less than 50 percent black. At two turnaround schools, Fulton Elementary on the South Side and Bethune Elementary on the West Side, the shift was especially dramatic: The number of black teachers fell by more than 40 percentage points and is now at 35 percent. 
• Only 15 percent of teachers are Latino.

The end result: More schools have a mismatch similar to Faraday’s, where all of the students are black but just a third of the teachers are. 

One factor behind the demographic swing is a shift in the hiring mix from schools of education and teacher training programs. Over the past decade, Chicago State University—the No. 1 producer of black teachers—lost its position as the top provider of teachers to CPS. Illinois State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where the majority of teacher candidates are white, are now among the top five providers of new CPS teachers.

Second, the district is now drawing more teachers from out-of-state. In 2010, nearly 40 percent of teachers with five years of experience or less were from out-of-state colleges and universities, and the vast majority—80 percent—were white. In 2000, just 29 percent of newer teachers were from outside Illinois.

David Stovall, associate professor of educational policy at the University of Illinois-Chicago, has noted the racial shift. He says some of it is caused by black and Latino teachers quickly being scouted to be principals before they’ve spent much time in the classroom.

“We’re seeing a lot more black and Latino young teachers transfer into the principal [pipeline],” says Stovall, who cites “very extensive recruiting efforts, here at UIC and in other education administration programs around the country. And the current charter movement likes young leaders of color. That’s a [move] we haven’t seen in quite some time.”

At today's meeting, school board members passed a resolution to lay off teachers based on performance, instead of
seniority.

The move signals even greater challenges for Chicago Teachers Union president-elect Karen Lewis, whose members are already facing up to 2,700 teacher layoffs and class sizes of up to 35 students due to a $427 million budget deficit.

Under the new layoff plan, teachers who are under remediation, and those with job performance ratings of �