More than half of freshmen expected to attend CPS high schools this fall signed up for Freshman Connection, a districtwide initiative that aims to prepare soon-to-be 9th-graders for high school.

About 19,000 8th-graders signed up for the program, according to CPS. But that figure includes more than 8,500 students who fell short of 8th-grade graduation requirements and needed to enroll in mandatory summer bridge programs to enter high school.

Without those bridge students, the number of new 9th-graders who signed up voluntarily falls to 10,493—about one in three of next year’s freshmen.

Freshman Connection, combined with early assignment of students to neighborhood high schools, are hallmarks of CPS’ effort to ease the transition to high school and also cut the number of students who register late for school—a phenomenon that disrupts instructional plans and can cause scheduling headaches during the first weeks of school. (See related story.)

Freshman Connection by the numbers

Last September, 31,492 8th-graders were enrolled in CPS. This September, CPS projects that 29,596 of those students will be high school freshmen. Of those, 19,091 students registered for Freshman Connection—10,493 in voluntary programs and another 8,598 in summer bridge programs for students who need to complete 8th grade. The district is paying for 110 counselors and 500 teachers to work in Freshman Connection at 95 high schools, and also hired 900 upperclassmen to serve as youth leaders for $7.25 an hour.

Once school begins this fall, neighborhood high schools will, for the first time, be charged an absence if one of their projected students fails to show up—a new policy intended to force schools to take responsibility for connecting with kids and getting them into class.

“Given that this is the first year we’ve done this program, and it’s the first time the district has tried to do something this extensive, we’re pretty satisfied,” says Greg Darnieder, CPS’ point person for Freshman Connection. CPS counts the summer bridge program as part of the effort because, for the first time this year, classes were moved into high schools to give freshmen one more opportunity to become familiar with their new schools.

John Easton, executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, says the results for Freshman Connection so far look promising. “It should be more stable and calmer at the schools at the beginning of the year.” In comparison, he notes, a similar effort launched recently in Pittsburgh’s public schools had considerably lower turnout.

Easton suggests CPS follow up with students—perhaps with surveys or focus groups, and including students who didn’t show up—to find ways to increase participation next year.

CPS is still compiling school-by-school enrollment and attendance figures, but officials estimated that about 80 percent of students who signed up for the voluntary programs have attended the summer sessions so far. (Attendance for the bridge programs has not yet been determined.)

To attract students, CPS offered thousands of free MP3 players and Chicago White Sox tickets to participants. The initiative—an expansion of voluntary programs designed to give students a boost in basic skills—began June 30 and runs through July 25. CPS also hired upperclassmen to serve as Youth Leaders and added staff to help run the program at schools.

Darnieder says attendance seems to be better in the schools that have run similar programs in the past. Proactive schools, he notes, have also been more successful in driving up participation.

All told, he estimates that 15,000 to 17,000 students have visited their new high schools as part of the initiative—a good showing, he maintains, for a district that is trying to smooth the often bumpy transition to high school.

Getting ahead of the high school curve

While attendance at Freshman Connection has been spotty at some schools, teachers and administrators say that they expect a smoother start to the new school year because of the effort to connect students and schools, including the district’s automatic assignment of 8th-graders to their neighborhood high school on April 25.

“We’re trying to get way ahead of the curve this year,” says Darnieder.

Karen January, a counselor at Fenger Academy in Roseland, is upbeat about Freshman Connection. “We’re teaching them about GPAs, about postsecondary [options], about career choices,” she says. “We’re going to be addressing their social, personal and emotional needs.”

Still, she notes, just 48 students are attending at Fenger, out of about 401 freshmen currently projected to attend the school this fall.

At Multicultural Arts High School at the Little Village campus, Principal Jose Rico notes that 45 students are attending Freshman Connection, out of 65 who signed up. Going door-to-door to encourage students to come would help, Rico notes, since many families likely don’t have phones. But the school doesn’t have the resources for that.

At Manley Career Academy in East Garfield Park, counselor Teffiney Ferguson says students are getting to know the “ins and outs” of high school, including credit requirements, the importance of attendance and what it takes to stay on-track to graduate.

As Ferguson puts it, “it takes the fear out of high school.” But just 28 students have been attending regularly, out of 175 who were registered and 337 freshmen who are projected to attend Manley this fall.

Schools are expected to use the summer to develop a class schedule for every incoming freshman

At Foreman High in Portage Park, Assistant Principal Erich Schlismann says the 100 students who attend Freshman Connection—out of 600 to 700 freshmen currently projected for the fall—will “have made a better connection to some of our staff and also our [other] students.”

Eighth-graders who came for High School Investigation Day on May 29 were given a prospective schedule, Schlisman notes. “That’s one less question they will have when they come.”

Interns Brandon Beech and Rebecca Harris contributed to this report.

Since taking over Chicago schools in 1995, Mayor Richard M. Daley has directly appointed each member of the Chicago Board of Education. But a parent advocacy group says the board has become unaccountable to anybody but the mayor, and the time has come for board members to be elected by voters.

Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) is circulating petitions calling for a citywide referendum on the November ballot on whether the school board should be elected. The Chicago Teachers Union is supporting the petition drive. At least 40,000 signatures of registered voters are needed by Aug. 18.

Leaders of PURE and the teachers’ union say that anger against the board has been building for some time, and hit a critical mass in February when a decision was approved to close or consolidate 18 public schools for low attendance or poor test scores. The closures are part of a sweeping plan to overhaul failing schools and to open 100 new schools under the Renaissance 2010 plan.

Hundreds of parents protested the closings—particularly of the small schools at the Orr High campus—and jammed the board meeting and hearings. They argued that some schools with effective programs were being targeted, and accused the board of making decisions too quickly. The proposed closures were announced in January, and the board finalized its decision a month later. Only one school, Abbott Elementary, was spared.

“It seemed as if the board was determined to close 18 schools in complete opposition to community input,” says Julie Woestehoff, executive director of PURE. “There’s just a sense that they’re not really accountable to the community.” Two other groups, the South Austin Coalition and Blocks Together, support the effort, she says.

Sandra Schultz, educational issues coordinator for the teachers’ union, says many teachers are concerned that the board is “railroading” public opinion. The union isn’t taking an official position on elected versus appointed boards but says the question should be raised with voters.

CPS spokeswoman Ana Vargas says the board is listening to the public. “The Board of Education is appointed by the mayor, who is an elected official,” she says. “So therefore, we’re held accountable to the community. We hold an open meeting every month that is televised where the Board of Education hears public opinions.”

The district declined to make board members available for comment.

Advisory, not binding

PURE faces formidable obstacles to realize its goal of an elected school board. Woestehoff does not have an exact count, but estimates that hundreds, rather than thousands, of signatures have been gathered since May. Even if enough signatures are collected to get the referendum on the ballot, and it receives a majority of votes, the school board would not change immediately. Under state law, referendums are advisory and not binding.

Woestehoff says PURE’s initial focus is to educate people about the issue. The outpouring of protests over school closings shows that the community is ready for change, she says.

“There is more interest and involvement in public education in Chicago than there used to be,” Woestehoff asserts. “The electorate is positioned to make better decisions about the school board.”

The petition drive comes at a time when the Board of Education and local school councils are in a power struggle. Currently, elected councils of parents and community members, created in 1988, have the authority to approve individual school budgets and select principals. School Board President Rufus Williams has made no secret of his desire to neuter LSCs by taking away some of their power around hiring and firing principal. (See related story.)

Earlier this year, representatives of three LSCs sued Chicago Public Schools after their councils had been replaced with advisory groups appointed by the Board of Education. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in April. According to the ruling, the law that created the councils allows the school system to change a council from elected to advisory when a large campus is being converted to new, smaller schools. (The representatives have said they plan to appeal the dismissal.)

Most school boards elected

School reform efforts in other urban districts have often resulted in more authority for mayors and changes to the school board structure.

Nationwide, 96 percent of school board members are elected, rather than appointed, according to the National School Boards Association. Beyond Chicago, exceptions with appointed school boards include Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. In New York City, the mayor and the schools chancellor oversee schools; community education councils, jointly selected by parents and borough presidents, serve as advisory bodies.

In Illinois, Chicago is the only district with an appointed, rather than elected, school board. Before 1995, board members were chosen by the mayor from a slate of nominees that were provided by the Chicago School Board Nominating Commission. The 28-member commission, most of whom were community leaders, screened applicants and gave the mayor a choice of three candidates for each position. Critics of the system, including the mayor, complained that the nominating process was cumbersome and rife with politicking.

But proponents of an elected school board say the current appointments are just as political. Schultz says that many teachers feel that Daley has stacked the board with business executives. No board member works as an educator.

“I’m sure there are some things in the schools that could benefit from a business background,” she says. “But each student body is different—the demographics and the teachers themselves. Each school needs to make certain decisions for themselves and not just the blanket business-type decision approach. There are too many variables.”

Reginald Felton, director of federal relations for the National School Boards Association, says the group does not take a position on whether a board should be elected or appointed.  Each structure has advantages and disadvantages.

“Obviously if you’re elected, you’re more likely to represent the views of your constituents,” Felton says. “If you’re appointed, you may have to represent the view of the person who appointed you.”

Felton adds that appointed members tend to be people who bring a certain skill to the board that is needed. If the school district is dealing with finance and bond issues, the mayor may appoint a member who is an expert in that area. Elected board members may not have such skills.

A few school districts have “hybrid” boards made up of both elected and appointed members, Felton says. During reform initiatives, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., had hybrid boards and later switched to appointed members.

According to research from the school boards association, takeovers of school districts have yielded mixed results.

West Virginia took over one school district in 1992, but the district was turned over to local control four years later. New Jersey lawmakers axed the Jersey City school board 13 years ago, and the district still has not been able to meet standards set by the state for making the district independent.

Since Daley took over Chicago schools, test scores and graduation rates have improved. Still, teacher turnover remains high, and more than half of all students do not meet academic standards.

Phuong Ly is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

A decade ago, concerns that too many students were being mistakenly referred for costly special education services led Chicago Public Schools to adopt a process to stem the tide.

The goal was to use teaching strategies designed to help students who had fallen behind—such as changing a child’s seat in the classroom or working with him or her in a small group—before evaluating a child for a learning disability.

The results were mixed, and after the better part of a decade, most participating schools apparently stopped using the process. CPS data show that between 1998 and 2008, 437 schools opened cases under the process, called school-based problem-solving, but by Sept. 2006, 73 percent of them (317 schools) had stopped using it.

Why this matters

The state of Illinois is requiring schools to use a new strategy called Response to Intervention (RTI) to ensure that special education placements are accurate and timely.

• Teachers and administrators say the district still pressures schools to keep down the number of special education referrals.
• Advocates say that children too often fall through the cracks. Those with mild to moderate disabilities often go without needed supports. Other children are mislabeled with a disability.
• Proponents of RTI are pushing to include it as part of a reauthorized version of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Some case managers at schools admit scaling back the program, blaming lack of staff. Some say they feel pressure from the district to keep down the number of referrals, a charge the district has denied. Special education advocates maintain that schools began using the process to keep down the number of children referred for special learning services. (The number of students in special education fell 10 percent over the past five years.)

Now, CPS and other districts throughout the state will be required to institute a similar process intended to make sure special education referrals are accurate and timely.  In addition to using teaching intervention strategies, schools will have to track hard data on children’s progress before referring students to special education. Under a policy adopted by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), school districts must institute the new approach, called Response to Intervention or RTI, by 2010.

(ISBE encouraged districts to use school-based problem-solving, but did not require it.)

The ultimate goal is to avoid unnecessary placement in special education, which accounts for 16 percent of the CPS budget and is a growing percentage of suburban district budgets, as well.

RTI focuses on children who show signs of having a learning disability, the most common reason for special education referral. CPS is now in the third year of a five-year pilot intended to help the district craft the best way to roll out RTI on a districtwide scale. So far, staff at the pilot schools say the approach is making a difference. (See sidebar.)

Illinois’ policy is in line with a national push for RTI, which promotes tailoring instruction to student’s individual needs and abilities and collaboration between regular and special education teachers. Under the process, students who need help are placed in one of three “tiers,” or groups, based on how much additional support they need to improve skills such as reading comprehension. To ensure that children are not mislabeled as needing special services—or that children who need such services go undiagnosed—teachers must use provide extra support through interventions such as working with the child individually or in a small group, talking to parents about attendance issues or even suggesting a student get glasses.

Proponents of RTI are pushing for the strategy to be adopted in a reauthorized version of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Recently, Vanderbilt University professor Doug Fuchs, a leading RTI expert, told lawmakers at a congressional hearing that the U.S. Department of Education needs to fund pilots on how to implement RTI on a large scale. Federal education officials are currently funding studies of RTI in California and Tennessee.
The Council for Exceptional Children, a national special education organization, supports RTI—with the caveats that it must be adopted schoolwide, that schools must have sufficient resources to implement it and that it “must not” be used to delay special education referrals.

Here in Chicago, some special education advocates, and even some school staff, point to the experience with school-based problem-solving as evidence of possible pitfalls with RTI.

Just ‘best practice’

Officials in the district’s Office of Specialized Services argue that RTI simply asks teachers to tailor their instruction to children’s learning styles, a practice they should be doing anyway.

“This is about meeting the needs of all students,” says Amy J. Dahlstrom Klainer, who is running the district’s pilot and will help develop a districtwide plan. “This is best practice.”

Participating schools must also do a self-assessment and focus their resources effectively, she adds.

Teachers, psychologists and reading specialists throughout the district were trained over the past year on RTI strategies, including how to use interventions and measure student progress; for instance, by tracking the number of questions a child answers correctly on the district’s literacy assessments, compared to the CPS average.

But case managers who have worked with school-based problem-solving warn that staffing shortages will make it virtually impossible to fulfill RTI’s requirements.

Claudia Kusek, a counselor at Field Elementary in Rogers Park, says school-based problem-solving worked well at her school—as long as Field had a staff person with enough time to coordinate the program. But that staffer left, as did other teachers who were familiar with the process. New teachers don’t always know how to do their part, Kusek says.

“It is hard getting them to do the paperwork, the follow-up and the assessments,” she says. “We are at a standstill until then.” (The school, like others in CPS, is still using school-based problem-solving; the district has not fully rolled out RTI.)

Karen Tipp, a CPS special education teacher who divides her time between two schools, says school-based problem-solving only worked well when a staff person at a school takes responsibility for oversight. Tipp, who also serves as co-president of the North Side chapter of the Learning Disabilities Association, says that in some suburban districts, staff shortages have forced schools to use janitors and lunchroom aides to implement interventions with children.

Klainer, however, disagrees with the argument that schools need additional personnel or money to implement RTI. Schools should assess their existing resources and put the priority on supporting students who need extra assistance.

“It is about being strategic,” Klainer says.

Who decides? How long?

In testimony to Illinois state education officials, and in a follow-up letter to the state superintendent from the Attorney General’s Special Education Advisory Committee, advocates noted “a number of uncertainties [about RTI] have appeared, causing serious concerns.”

Specifically, advisory committee members want ISBE to spell out who should decide which students need interventions and what type of interventions should be used. Also, they want the state to set a timetable for keeping students in RTI, to make sure that referrals are made in a timely fashion.

There’s some evidence for that concern. In 2002, the state investigated allegations that CPS was delaying special education evaluations. Following the investigation, ISBE sent a formal notice to Chicago directing the district to stop blocking referrals. (See related story.)

In response to the committee’s letter, ISBE has promised more clarification is in the works.

Done right, Klainer says she sees no reason for a timetable.

“It really comes down to the individual,” she says. The question is, “Is the student progressing at a sufficient rate to close the gaps? Are the interventions sufficient?”

Klainer emphasizes that RTI is not about avoiding referrals, but making sure that only the students who really have disabilities are placed in special education.

There is good reason to be careful about referrals. Research has shown that some 85 percent of students who are evaluated end up placed in special education. In a best-case scenario, these children would get extra help to overcome their disability and then transition back to regular education, but that scenario is rare.

Donald Moore, executive director of the group Designs for Change, points out that children sometimes remain in the school-based problem-solving process too long. “Often nothing much happens,” he says.

Schools have often delayed referrals, he adds, although the law is clear that any time a parent requests an evaluation, the school must honor that request, Moore says.

Posted May 30, 2008: Forced to announce another year of disappointing ACT scores, Schools CEO Arne Duncan last summer sought to temper the news by talking up the district’s investment in strategic improvements, highlighting some $3.5 million earmarked for test preparation.

Later, after the school year began, high school officials say they quietly decided to “repurpose” that money to ramp up the curriculum. Michael Lach, who last August took over the office of high school teaching and learning, says he worried preparation programs, where students were given strategies rather than learning content, weren’t worth the investment.

Echoing previous research, a study released by the Consortium on Chicago School Research this week shows test preparation activities, especially those done during class time, do not improve scores on the ACT. In fact, schools where 40 percent of class time was spent on test prep mostly scored worse than schools that spent only one-fifth of their class periods on test prep.

“This is not a test that you can game,” says researcher Elaine Allensworth, co-author of the report. “There is no quick fix on this.”

Research summary

“From High School to the Future: ACT Preparation—Too much, Too Late” by Elaine Allensworth, Macarena Correa and Steve Ponisciak
 
In this era of high-stakes testing, the Consortium on Chicago School Research examined the impact of test preparation on ACT test scores. They found:

• Schools where teachers spend more time doing test preparation post lower ACT scores than schools where teachers devote less time to it.
• The misconception that strong test-taking skills leads to higher ACT scores is widely held by CPS students and teachers.
• Students who do well on the ACT are the ones who exceed state academic standards when arrive as freshmen. Most high school students barely meet state standards.

The report comes at a critical time for Chicago Public Schools. As elementary school pass rates on state standards tests rose some 20 points in the past five years, high schools overall have failed to make such performance gains, with scores creeping up less than one point.

The benchmark high school test is the Prairie State Achievement Exam, which is given to juniors and includes the ACT and a job-readiness skills test.
Chicago’s average ACT score is 17.2—less than the statewide average of 20.5 and the minimum of 20 that students need to get into selective colleges.

Consortium researchers found that the only type of test preparation that resulted in higher scores was taking a full-length practice ACT test. But even that had diminishing returns as students took it multiple times, according to the authors.

Instruction and content mattered more than test preparation. Researchers found surefire indicators of improved ACT scores were higher grades in junior year classes, attentive students who cared about their school work and more students with 8^th grade score that exceeded state standards.

The district’s high-profile High School Transformation effort is geared toward improving instruction and cultivating students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills, Lach says. The $80 million effort also provides teachers with support on how to best relay the new curriculum to students.

(A Catalyst report released earlier this year showed that High School Transformation is having some success with motivating students and getting teachers to improve instruction, but obstacles at the lowest performing schools—late freshmen registration and high student absence rates—are getting in the way. See Catalyst Special Report Spring 2008.)

Pressure is on

Over the next several years, including this school year, the district is spending only about $500,000 on two online ACT test preparation programs: ACT Prep Online and Keytrain, according to Lach. But many high schools use their own discretionary funds to buy test-prep programs and training from private vendors.

Teachers and principals have misconceptions about the value of test prep, Lach says. According to the study, juniors say nearly every day, classroom teachers devote time to preparing for ACT. And close to 60 percent of teachers surveyed say they believe student scores are determined by test taking skills—a proposition that the study refutes.

“Most teachers want to do right by kids,” Lach says. “Our job is to get them smarter about how to do that.”

Meanwhile, the pressure on educators and students to do well on this high-stakes test is widespread, says Jason Nault, assistant principal of Global Visions, a small high school in
South Chicago. Students know that their ACT scores determine which colleges they will have access to, and schools are judged—and sanctioned—in part on those scores, too.

“So much is put into the test. The pressure is tremendous,” he says. “I really think it is unfair.”

Still, Nault says he and the principal don’t want teachers to overdo test preparation, but they recommend teaching students certain skills, such as the process of elimination.

Next year, Global Visions pilot a new curriculum designed by ACT. It promises rigorous content and better preparation for college, Nault says. Eventually, the school may join the district’s High School Transformation initiative.

Almost no chance

On average, freshmen arrive at Global Visions scoring well behind their peers in the city—a sign that it will be nearly impossible for them to score 20 or more on the ACT, researchers say. Last year, only 30 percent of students made expected gains on the standardized tests from freshman to junior year.

And even those who are on grade level have a long way to go.

Researchers point out that most students come to high school meeting standards, but while they may have conquered the basic skills necessary to hit targets, they are not learning the deeper critical thinking and problem-solving skills needed for high school tests.

Of the 58 percent of CPS students who met 8^th-grade reading standards, fewer than one in four will hit the reading benchmarks on the ACT three years later.

This is especially true for black and Latino students. Not only do black and Latino students come into high school further behind academically, they also post lower gains on tests than white and Asian students—further widening the achievement gap from about three to five points.

Researchers argue that this is at least partly explained by white students being more likely to perform better on tests in 8^thgrade and more likely to go to better high schools where they post larger gains.

Ferdinand Wipachit, principal at
Phoenix
Military
Academy, says he realizes that there are no easy answers. His school, which is almost 100 percent black, Latino and low-income, has seen a modest 1.7 point improvement in ACT scores since its first junior class took it in 2003. Still, the average score is 15.2.

The uptick at
Phoenix is the result of teachers focusing on reading skills, such as how to analyze, synthesize and infer. Traditional test preparation activities are offered after school or on Saturdays. 

At schools with more advantaged students, test prep is seldom substituted for content and curriculum. At
Chicago
International
Charter
Northtown
Academy, about 30 percent of students are white and the average ACT test score is 19.9—a 1.6 point improvement since 2004.

Jamie Troiano, the school’s humanities chair, says building students’ ability to think and learn is the best form of test preparation. Anything else would be “cheating” students, Troiano says.

After school, a private consultant holds test skills classes that about a third of students enroll in for $250 each. The school subsidizes the cost for students who receive free or reduced-price lunches, so some students pay as little as $50.

Researcher Allensworth says test preparation that does not interfere with classroom instruction seems to make a modest difference if students show up to each class. But the primary reason for this boost may be that these students are especially motivated to do well, she notes.

Consultant Gary Solomon of Princeton Review, which sells test preparation material to some CPS schools, says he tells principals that his products are not a replacement for academic content and instruction. 

Yet Solomon contends that Princeton Review’s strategies—like finding and eliminating answer options that are meant to distract—can help students perform better on the ACT.

Princeton Review also offers several versions of a full-length practice ACT test, a strategy that researchers say works to some degree.

“I would never, ever say that this should take away from class time, but with the right balance it can be good for the kid that just needs a little nudge,” he says.

Students want to do well

Given where they are academically, when Global Visions freshmen take the ACT and see how hard it is, they get frustrated, Nault says.

“It makes them feel stupid,” he says. “They get discouraged.”

At the Black Star Project on the South Side, students often show up disenchanted after a poor showing on the ACT, says Kirsten Rokke, who runs the tutoring program at the advocacy and educational organization.

Before taking the test, students who are doing well in school think that they will also do well on the ACT.

“They think I will get a 20 or a 25, but then they wind up with 14 and they don’t understand,” she says.

At the Black Star Project, they veer away from teaching strategies and instead have the students take practice tests and then hone in on what questions they are getting wrong and why.

Schools also are taking steps to make sure juniors understand the importance of the exam. Wipachit at
Phoenix says sophomores decorate the halls with encouraging signs and banners for the juniors. “It’s almost like homecoming.”

He says almost 100 percent of juniors came to school on testing day this year.

However, research shows that students are already motivated to do well on the ACT.

Another Consortium study released in March also showed that the vast majority of high school students want to go to college. (Both studies are part of the consortium’s ongoing Chicago Postsecondary Transition Project, which uses a combination of surveys and interviews with
Chicago
Public School students and analysis of data.)

The earlier study showed that some 90 percent of seniors say they want to go to college, but only 61 percent of those who aspired to attend college were enrolled in one by fall.

Allensworth notes that never in the past have high schools been called upon to prepare all their students for college. This change for high schools means that they need to alter their curriculum to not just have a college track, as was often done in the past.

“It is a very ambitious goal,” she says. “No one anywhere has ever done it.”

Friday Feb. 29

Today was another boring day full of testing.

We had to take two practice tests today for the PSAE (Prairie State Achievement Exams) or Work Keys. The state of Illinois requires that every
Chicago
Public School take a practice ACT and PSAE test. One teacher told us that our goal should be to get a four or five on this practice test, so a good way of taking the test would be to try to get the first 20 questions correct. That way, we would automatically score a 4 or 5 without having to answer the rest of the questions.

The first part of the test was science. Another strategy would be not to read the instructions in the beginning of the test because we should know they pretty much say the same thing. The only difference is a different subject in each instruction.

I felt much unprepared for the science part of the test because I barely knew anything in that booklet. Our teacher did not prepare us at all. Taking that test was a rude awakening.

The second part of the test was one of my favorite subjects—math. I know I passed that portion with flying colors. The third and final part of the test was reading. I don’t like reading that much, but I did it anyway and it seemed pretty easy to me. My teacher told us that Work Keys is basically to make sure that we know to read and follow instructions.

We started testing at 8 a.m. and were finished by 11 a.m.

When it was over, we went to lunch and then to the auditorium for a black history assembly. It was a pretty good show.

Tuesday March 4

Today in first period British literature, we are reading a play called Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Instead of watching a movie on it, we are listening to a cassette tape, which is very boring. At the end of class, the teacher told us we have to write a college essay to prepare us for the essay on the ACT. He gave us a rubric and an example to follow.

In my second period economics class, we just finished taking the practice ACT test last week. Now, we are taking a break from ACT work and going back to doing work on the government.

My last class, chemistry, is the worst class of them all. I leave that class everyday not learning anything. And it just so happened today that we come to class and there was a gas leak. The teacher didn’t even tell us about it. We had to find out was going on. Once we found out, I went with a couple other students to the main office and complained about it. They put us in another classroom for right now.

Thursday, March 6

Today, they announced a new program. They have assigned a certain number of juniors to a teacher. In these groups, we prepare for the ACT test coming up in April. Whichever team scores the highest on the ACT gets a day at Dave & Busters.

Friday, March 7

Today in chemistry we talked about how important it is to pass the ACT test in order to go to college.

Friday, March 14

Today was the last day before we go on spring break. Some teachers gave us a lot of work for the vacation.

In first period, our teacher gave us three poems to read. Still I Rise by Maya Angelou and
Harlem and Ballad of the Gypsy by Langston Hughes. We have to do a report on the poems. This exercise is to help us to read over break so we can stay focused and be prepared for all the reading on the ACT coming up in April. We have to read each of the poems at least three times. We also have to read an autobiography on Langston Hughes and do a report on it. We have to answer questions like listing three significant facts about Langston Hughes. The teacher also wants us to go to a website and tell in 250 words or more which poem is our favorite and why.

In second period we have a packet that is preparing us for the constitution test at the end of the year. He told us as soon as we get back we are going to start back practicing for the ACT test.

All of the juniors had a 10 minute meeting or so with the counselor to let us know whether we were on the right track to graduate next year. My counselor told me that I was on track. I was happy when I heard the news. She gave us a website to go to for different scholarships or if we wanted to take college courses for college credits while we are juniors.

Monday March 24

Today in first period (British lit), we didn’t have anything to do because our teacher wasn’t there and he didn’t leave any type of work for us to do.

In second period (economics and government) we had another substitute teacher. Our regular teacher had given us homework over the spring break, but I don’t trust the sub with my homework that is worth a lot of points.

In geometry, we went over different kinds of triangles. We discussed that no matter what kind of triangle it is, all of the angles have to equal to 180. We also learn that congruent means the same.

In chemistry, our teacher gave us an assignment to do but about 10 minutes after she gave us the assignment the fire alarm went off. So I went to my locker and grabbed my coat. By then the staff was directing us outside. I don’t know if a real fire happened, if somebody pulled the alarm, or if it was just a fire drill.

Since they had us standing outside in the snow so long, I went to the bus stop and went home.

Tuesday March 25

Today in second period, our teacher gave us a little strategy guide to help us out on the reading part of the ACT test. The strategy guide basically tells us to not read the whole passage because it will waste too much time. It also said that we should read the questions first so we would know what we are looking for and then only to read about the first or second sentence in each paragraph because it basically sums up what the paragraph is talking about almost like an introduction to an essay. It also says avoid extreme answers such as always, never, all, and none, because most of the times those answer are wrong.

The teacher also gave us homework in our ACT practice book. All we have to do is tell what type of question the question is. It could be a line reference question, vocabulary in context, paragraph reference, or lead word question.

• Line reference question – a question that asks you to look at a specific line
• Vocabulary  in context question – a question that asks you the meaning of a word in the passage.
• Paragraph reference question – a question that asks you to look at an entire paragraph.
• Lead word question – a question that does not contain a line reference, but will contain an important word or phrase that will lead you to the right part of the passage.

Sixth period was lunch and division. While we were in division, the teacher told us that they will be having workshops after school to help us prepare for the ACT. She also said that even though they have split us up into ACT groups, we still can attend another group’s workshop.

Thursday March 27

Today in second period [government], our teacher assigned us a question in our ACT practice book and told us to identify what kind of question it was. My question was a general question. A general question is a question talking about the whole passage that you have to read. The clue I used to help me come up with my answer is the word overall, because it asked me a question about the overall development of the passage and overall in this case means the whole passage. So I chose general question.

In third period [computer], we didn’t have to do any work because we had a speaker from the
Northwestern
Business
College. She talked to us the whole class period. She gave out pens and an informational book about their school. We also did an activity on the word “leader.” For each letter in the word, you have to write a word that starts with that letter and has something to do with being a good leader.

I put for L - loyalty; e – enthusiastic, eager; a- achiever, admirable, attitude; d – desire, destiny, determined, dashing; r- responsible, readiness.

In chemistry, we did nothing but balance an equation. Since most of the juniors complained, saying that our chemistry teacher can’t teach and we won’t know anything for science on the ACT, they put our biology teacher from sophomore year in charge of preparing us for science on the ACT.

Tuesday April 1

Today in first period we went over a worksheet with some words that we are expected to know on the ACT test.

In government, we took another break from ACT work and worked in our government books today.

In geometry, I asked for our homework from yesterday because I didn’t receive it. It took me half of the class period to get a response from my teacher. And then, once I got a response from her, I still didn’t get the homework assignment because she told me that she had to go and make copies for me and some other classmates. But by the time class ended she had a meeting to go to and didn’t even make copies. This is slowing me down because teachers turn in their grades next week and I am trying to make sure I am not missing any assignments.

In chemistry, we listened to the Temptations while we worked on balancing equations.

Tuesday April 8

In geometry, we did some practice math problems in the ACT book. We had 10 math problems to answer in 10 minutes because our goal is to spend no more than one minute on each problem.

Wednesday April 9

In geometry we did more ACT problems but this time we had 20 minutes to answer 20 questions. On the ACT in the math section, we will only have 60 minutes for 60 questions.

Thursday April 10

In chemistry we didn’t do any kind of work for some odd reason. We moved from the new classroom back to the old classroom and just sat there the whole class period.

Tuesday April 15

Today in [Brit lit], our teacher had us fill out some brackets for the ACT test. It asked for our address, phone number, social security, and school id number. It also asked us what colleges we wanted our scores to get sent to.

In geometry we did some math problems out of a practice ACT book. This time, the teacher assigned a problem to every two people and they had to go up to the board and explain. She didn’t get a chance to get around to me.

In chemistry, we did some science problems reading graphs out of the practice ACT book.

Friday April 18

Today we continued to fill out the ACT information packet. We had 72 questions to answer about things that we like or dislike and our top two career choices.

In second period, we did some science questions out of the practice ACT book. Our teacher told us that it was basically just graphs and charts. I don’t if this is true or not. Some people say the ACT is basically all the things that we have learned until now. But if that is the case, how come people say there is no way you can study for the ACT?

In Spanish, we had a substitute. When we walked in, she told us that the teacher left us some work on the board. I was probably the only student to do the assignment. Sometimes when the teacher leaves work for us to do, it is worth two test grades.

In geometry, we went to the computer lab and did nothing but get on the computer.

In chemistry, we did some work out of our old biology books from last year.

Monday April  21

In first period we finished the packages for the ACT.

In second period, we did some more problems from the ACT book, and we went over more strategies for the ACT.

Instead of going to Spanish fourth period, the principal had us taking yoga to calm us down for the test. I have to admit yoga is one of the best stress relievers on earth. At first, I didn’t think it would do anything, but once I did it, it actually helped. The only thing that is bad about yoga is some of the positions. Those positions are very painful to me.

In geometry, we went to a website (http://keytrain.cps.k12.il.us/) that can prep you for the ACT. But the only way you can access the website is if you are connected to a Chicago Public Schools network. It basically helps you with reading, math and science.

In seventh period, we went on the website again. While we were in there, I did some math.

In chemistry we didn’t do anything because the teacher didn’t leave us any work.

After school, I talked to some of my classmates and they also thought that yoga was a good experience. Everyone I knew felt calm after we finished doing yoga. The principal even joined us.

Monday April 28

The first day of the ACT  (April 23) was the hardest test I ever took in my life. The only thing that can compete with it is the test you have to take to get into schools like Whitney Young.

My teacher was right. There is no way you can study for the ACT because all the work that you did in school is not even close to what is on that ACT. The only thing on the ACT that was fairly easy was the English and Writing. Math was in the middle until the end. They had a problem that I didn’t know how to set up the formula for.

Science was the hardest. If your teachers tell you that science is nothing but reading charts and graphs, then I say don’t believe them at all. If you do, you are in for a rude awakening. The ACT will have problems that you never saw in your life. Some of the problems are long and seem impossible, but if you work the problem out you will be able to answer it.

A tip before taking the test is to put your cell phone, keys, mp3 players, CD players or anything that will make noise in your locker because if they hear or see it during the test then you will automatically have to take the ACT over. Another thing is you only have one 15 minute break, so use it wisely.

Day two was Work Keys.  It’s really easy compared to the ACT. WorK Keys consists of three subject tests: math, reading and science. It starts off with questions or problems that you should have learned in 3^rd grade, but, it gets a little tough at the end.

The only real hard part on the math is trying to stay focused while answering a very long problem. The reading wasn’t tricky. All you had to do was read the question and answer section, and then look for it in the passage. The science was just reading graphs and charts.

I think the teachers had the ACT and the Work Keys all backwards.

He wants parents of Roque De Duprey students to feel equally welcome when they move into the building at 2620 W. Hirsch St. this fall. To that end, Kalamatas has already set aside a room for De Duprey parents; parents from the two schools have already met, and an assembly is planned to bring together the two faculties.

De Duprey, a block away at 1405 N. Washtenaw Ave., is one of 10 of schools CPS is closing or consolidating this year. De Duprey will move its students, staff and faculty into the Von Humboldt building, but continue to operate as a separate school.

Six of the other schools, however, will be closed altogether and their students integrated into a receiving school, a plan that has some parents worried and teachers and students upset. Among receiving schools, however, there is little planning underway about how to accommodate the influx of new students. A few, including Von Humboldt, are focused on safety issues. Academically, however, none contacted by Catalyst had created plans for combining the two student bodies.

Chicago is the largest effort, with 21 Teach for America teachers now committed for two years to community-based early childhood programs on the South and West sides. Next year, 30 additional teachers will be placed in community preschools. (The initiative is also in place in Washington, D.C., and New York City.)

It’s all a response to the need for high-quality early childhood teachers in community preschools, says Teach for America’s leadership.

Josh Anderson, executive director of Teach for America in Chicago, points out that research on child development and academics “suggests that preschool is an area where we can make a profound difference. We can give children the tools early, so they don’t fall behind.” Community-based centers consistently have a hard time attracting and retaining the best teachers, especially when the district offers higher wages and shorter work days.

This year, the state’s Preshool for All program was unable to open 58 classrooms in community-based organizations because the centers could not find certified early childhood teachers, which the program requires. CPS does not have a shortage of certified early childhood teachers.

In addition to teachers, Anderson adds, the initiative’s goal is to create a pipeline of early childhood advocates. “In K-12 education, we have alumni who are teachers, principals, who work in central office,” says Anderson. “Who takes over when Maria Whelan (director of Illinois Action for Children and a well-known, veteran advocate) eventually steps down? Germinating future leaders is a solution.”

Moving into preschool has brought a new set of challenges to Teach for America teachers. Classroom management has proven to be a particular sticking point, as has teaching structure and student needs, all of which are very different from K-12 education.

Still, getting Teach for America teachers has been a win-win situation, says Gail Nelson, executive director of the Carole Robertson Center. New teachers (the center has eight) are learning from experts who run successful early childhood education programs, and the preschools are getting a teacher committed to staying for at least two years—the length of time a child stays in preschool. “And if they want to stay, great,” Nelson says.

Teach for America asked Dominican University, which trains its K-12 teachers, to create a second, similarly structured program specifically for early childhood; there is a summer institute before the start of school, and when school begins, teachers take classes at night and teach during the day.

The content, however, is different.  Thus far, the biggest challenge has been classroom management.

“You cannot send a child to the office. That is not an option for a 3-year-old,” says Kimberly Garrett, assistant professor at Dominican University. “We’ve had to work with them on how to manage this group, and not use traditional techniques.”

Pacing lessons is critical in early childhood education. “With 3- and 4-year-olds, you have to get to the point and engage them. If I’m sitting too long at circle time, I’d want to bite someone, too,” Garrett says.

Teachers receive training in classroom management in the summer institute, but Garrett says they need more. “It should be woven through the coursework throughout the program.”  
Teachers have also had to adjust to team-teaching, the norm in early childhood programs.

“In elementary school, the lead teacher is the boss. In early childhood, the paradigm is shared responsibility, and the roles are interchangeable. Children can go to any of the adults in the classroom. They all take turns teaching, caring and cleaning up,” says Garrett.

Teach for America candidates, who traditionally are trained to step in and lead the classroom, “were not fully prepared to share a classroom,” Nelson says. “But we made sure they knew they were expected to work together and they were not the experts. It really has gone smoother than if we’d had a Type 04 [certified preschool teacher] from somewhere else. They are very receptive.”

Finally, Teach for America teachers have to know more than just how to teach young children. “Teach for America prepared me to understand education and standards,” says Kaleen Enke, who teaches 3- and 4-year-olds at the Robertson Center. “Here, you need to understand things like family-style meals, toileting and family relationships.”

Teach for America is still searching for a way to assess the new program’s impact. “We are a data-driven organization,” says Anderson. “And figuring out what that means in an early childhood setting, with the help of great partners at the centers, we are still working through that.”

Whether the centers will be able to retain Teach for America teachers, or lose them to the lure of higher pay at public schools, is anyone’s guess.

“Once they find out about all the accountability measures at CPS, some may stay,” Garrett says. She notes one potential advantage to community preschools: “They may feel they can be child-centered without walking a tightrope.”

Call Debra Williams at (312) 673-3873 or send an e-mail to williams@catalyst-chicago.org.

Anew coalition of community groups is working to involve parents in what has been a controversial initiative: school turnaround efforts on the West Side. There, three small high schools at the Orr campus will close in June and reopen this fall as one high school, and two feeder elementary schools will get an academic overhaul, too.

Starting with Orr and its feeder schools, the coalition, called PRISE Reform (for Parents and Residents Invested in School and Education), is looking to tackle such “big picture” issues as achievement gaps and the lack of community involvement in schools, says founder Patricia Watkins, who also is director of TARGET Area Development. The ultimate goal, says Watkins, is to develop a comprehensive vision for community-based school reform and recast the district’s relationship with parents and community stakeholders as a partnership.

The coalition will tap the organizing resources of its five member community groups, which, besides TARGET, includes Westside Health Authority, West Town Leadership United, the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) and the People’s Development Association of Chicago.

Yet activists who have protested the School Board’s actions at Orr and the lack of community involvement in them wonder who is calling the shots at the new coalition. The reason is that both PRISE Reform and the Academy for Urban School Leadership, the nonprofit chosen by the School Board to run the Orr turnaround, are funded by the same foundation—the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Cecile Carroll, an education organizer with Blocks Together in West Humboldt Park, says she respects PRISE Reform and the people connected to it, but she is troubled by the funding connection.

“Our agenda is steered by our membership,” Carroll says. “A lot of the community members—including the local school council at [Orr small school] Mose Vines—are disappointed that there was no communication about the turnaround.”

PRISE Reform organizers, she says, “don’t have the same skepticism we do.”

Watkins agrees that the district made its turnaround decisions without enough input from parents or the community. Still, PRISE Reform decided to work with rather than against the effort. “Orr was already slated for closing,” she says. “There was nothing that we could do.”

Changing focus

Watkins initially planned to launch PRISE Reform on the South Side, but the Gates Foundation steered her west last October in an effort to contribute to the turnarounds’ success.

(The contract still includes a smaller South Side component; PRISE Reform will survey residents in Englewood and Auburn-Gresham about their public education concerns beginning in June.)

Watkins came up with the idea for the parent coalition after the foundation asked her what it could do to expand support for her projects. So far, Gates has committed $225,000 to PRISE Reform for the first year, and the door is open for more funding in the future.

A West Side resident, Watkins says she has always wanted to work in a neighborhood where she lives. The move also complements TARGET Area Development’s expansion to the West Side with a program that offers training to parents of children in grades K-3.

The goal of groups such as PRISE Reform, says Kelly James, a program officer with the Gates Foundation, is to give parents information so that school reforms have a better chance of succeeding.

“As the district rolls out different reform efforts, sometimes it’s hard to interpret or understand what’s going on,” James says. “The more information that’s available to everybody only helps the success of these efforts.”

Watkins says she understands why parents get upset about the district’s approach to communities, but she says a new strategy is needed to change what often has been an adversarial relationship.

If nothing changes, “there will be reform after reform after reform met by negative response after negative response after negative response,” Watkins says. “We want to develop enough power on the West Side to change that dynamic. We don’t want to wait until a school’s closing.”

Program officer Jeffrey T. Pinzino of the Woods Fund says PRISE Reform is part of “a new generation of school reform advocacy coalitions”—like A+ Illinois, the Federation for Community Schools and Grow Your Own Illinois—that connect smaller community organizations and garner substantial resources.

“Foundations are acknowledging the success of community organizing as a strategy of school reform,” he says. “Taking this to scale means funding these groups collectively so they can be effective advocates.”

He hopes the district will take note of the increased attention and resources going to parent organizing. The Gates Foundation sees parent engagement as “an important ingredient in the transformation process,” Pinzino notes.

Positive relationships

PRISE Reform got off to a robust start in November, when it hired 26 temporary staffers to go door-to-door last November and survey 600 people about public schools. Results will go into a report on the community’s needs for school reform, which PRISE Reform expects to release in August. Also, residents’ comments will become part of the group’s platform.

Survey takers were also looking for parents who were interested in becoming school reform organizers and advocates. So far, 50 parents have attended at least two of the four training sessions PRISE is offering, including how to understand test score data, how to be a spokesperson and how to run parent focus groups.

“I learned some critical things about the schools,” says Sandra Ramsey, a parent who attended a training session. “[T]he way that we’re taught is different from the suburban schools and the white schools. I learned about low attendance. I learned about how children are being passed on from grade to grade not knowing anything.”

PRISE Reform currently has five staff members at four organizations who spend part of their time working on coalition work. A full-time PRISE Reform staffer will begin working in June, when TARGET Area Development opens its office in East Garfield.

Thanks to doors the Gates Foundation opened for her, Watkins already has met with more than half a dozen CPS administrators. She is looking to begin working with the district on a number of issues, including funding inequities, teacher professional development and giving parents better access to data.

In addition, coalition members visited two other schools run by the Academy for Urban School Leadership—Dodge Elementary and Collins Academy High School. “We thought it was one of the best models we had seen as far as the pedagogy they used, [particularly having] the teacher residents in the program with master teachers,” Watkins says.

A framework for strong community engagement was missing from the models, but Watkins says that’s what the PRISE demonstration project will address.

At a recent luncheon, PRISE organizers and dozens of community residents—including a handful of current and former Orr parents and students—listened to a presentation about the turnaround strategy and met the new principals for Orr and its feeder schools Howe and Morton.

“We’re always looking for our schools to be more successful in working with parents,” says Brian Sims, managing director for Academy for Urban School Leadership. “One of the challenges of doing turnaround schools is coming in and getting to know the community.”

But turnout was mixed at two recent PRISE Reform events. The luncheon that introduced the new principals to the community drew about 133 people, but few of them have children in the turnaround schools. A strategy session drew only 38 people, though about 60 were expected. Organizers blamed a scheduling conflict.

Meanwhile, Carroll of Blocks Together criticizes Academy for Urban School Leadership for not meeting with the local school councils at Orr until after the turnaround was announced. “That’s why you had such a large turnout to [Orr’s] hearing and to the board meeting,” she says.

Since councils were excluded on the front end, Blocks Together wants the school turnaround operators to support an elected LSC at Orr, share its criteria for teacher re-hiring, and implement a restorative justice model for student discipline.

E-mail Rebecca Harris at editor@catalyst-chicago.org.

Principal Sean Stallings of Manley High School admits that he cringes a bit whenever he sees such a fax coming through.

“In truth, we are not excited,” he says. “We are already juggling a lot of tough tasks and [this fax] means one more will be coming.”

Conceding that these returning students sometimes fall through the cracks, Stallings is embracing a new district initiative designed to transition young people from the juvenile detention center school back into the schools in their neighborhoods.

The initiative, called Youth Engaged In Schools or YES, will also provide Manley and five other participating high schools with resources to address the needs of students whose behavior and academic records indicate they are most at-risk for dropping out and, perhaps, falling into the juvenile justice system. 

Other schools are Crane on the Near West Side, Clemente in West Town, Dyett in Washington Park, Fenger in Roseland and Hirsch in Greater Grand Crossing.

A two-year, $4.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor is picking up the tab for the Youth Engaged in Schools effort, which is one arm of the district’s dropout prevention strategy. (The other part of that strategy involves opening “on-track labs” at six other high schools.)

YES has two major goals: to significantly increase (by as much as two years) participants’ academic performance and to hold schools accountable for retaining the most at-risk students., says Molly Burke, who is overseeing the project for the district.

Each high school will work with their feeder elementary schools to identify 75 8th-graders who are frequently absent from school, getting bad grades or acting out, Burke explains. Another 50 students will be added to each high school’s program as freshman year is underway and behavior and attendance issues become apparent.

Burke says a majority of students in the juvenile detention center are over-age freshmen, which points to the fact that failure in school often coincides with getting in trouble with the law. “The first thing we want to do is prevention,” Burke adds.

As they begin freshman year, students in the program—they’re called YES Scholars—will spend extra time after school working on developing social, emotional and study skills that will help them succeed in high school. The program will be led by teachers who have shown success in working with at-risk students. The curriculum is from John Hopkins University’s Talent Development model. A select group of 25 or so will also work with a student advocate, who will create personal learning plans for each of them.

Outside of participating high schools, a special team of case managers at the Juvenile Detention Center will work with some 200 teenagers (in any grade) who live within the attendance areas of the YES schools. Some of these students, upon their release, may enroll in alternative schools. Big neighborhood high schools may not be the right place for them, Burke comments.

Advocates and school administrators say focusing attention on students coming out of the detention center is long overdue.

For one, the school and juvenile court systems don’t communicate, says Edith Crigler of the Chicago Area Project, a social service organization with a focus on preventing delinquency. Crigler notes that many students inside the detention center have diagnosed mental health and special education issues. Sometimes evaluations are done, but often that information is never passed on.

“There’s no continuity,” she says. “These [students] are seen as the screw ups. They cycle in and out of the two systems.”

Often, there’s no immediate follow-up, and it can take days, sometimes weeks, for probation officers to learn that a teen never showed up at school. 

Some teens need time and therapy before going back to school, but it rarely happens, Crigler points out.

“I had one principal call me about a 7th-grader who spent 10 days in the juvenile detention center for retail theft,” she says. “The student was a big kid but was not a problem before this happened. After it happened, the child was acting out and couldn’t seem to focus.

“This principal wanted to know what kind of resources there were to get him some help. The answer is, there are none.”

‘It is hard for them’

The lack of effort or forethought about how a young person makes the transition from detention to school makes it difficult for both sides, says Manley’s Stallings.

These teenagers are often more focused on survival than on education, he says.

“It is hard for them to come into an environment where other kids are dealing with boyfriend-girlfriend issues when they are dealing with a whole different set of issues,” he says.

Janice Wells, Manley’s assistant principal, adds that the students come in at all academic levels. Some have never set foot in high school, while others were enrolled at Manley before winding up in the detention center. It takes a while to get a handle on their needs, she says.

Another challenge is motivating students who are only attending school because their probation officer is forcing them to, Wells says.

Case managers hope to stoke motivation by finding the right schools for former juvenile inmates, providing counseling and making sure that schools get information on the teens’ mental health and learning issues. They will also teach workforce skills, such as resume writing.

“A lot of these kids have a problem seeing a path and vision for their future,” Burke says.

Call Sarah Karp at (312) 673-3882 or send an e-mail to karp@catalyst-chicago.org.

Chicago International Charter Schools has partnered with the NewSchools Venture Fund, based in San Francisco, to form a new nonprofit subsidiary to handle turnarounds. Dubbed ChicagoRise, the subsidiary plans to take over at least one elementary school by September 2009.

Elizabeth Purvis, executive director of CICS, says the district and her organization discussed the idea for years before moving forward, since stepping into an established but struggling school and making sweeping changes over the summer poses high hurdles.
“It’s the right thing to do, but it’s hard,” Purvis says.

CPS recently issued a special call for turnaround projects with its annual request for Renaissance 2010 proposals—a move that prompted an initial rebuke from a spokesman for the Chicago Teachers Union, which opposes the firing of teachers under the turnaround approach and wants the district to turn over more schools to the union-run Fresh Start program. (See graphic.) The union’s rocky relationship with charter operators adds yet another combustible element.

The new Office of School Turnarounds has met with charter operators in California—including the well-known Green Dot—to discuss the turnaround strategy. Another prospective deal appears to be in the works with Victory Schools, which operates several East Coast charter schools and already runs two charters in Chicago under the CICS flag.

Meanwhile, the head of one group notes that CPS must do more to pave the way for prospective operators by addressing community concerns about the turnaround strategy.
Invited to the fast track?

In November, CPS invited Victory, CICS, American Quality Schools and the Academy for Urban School Leadership—all management groups with Renaissance 2010 schools in their portfolios—to pilot the turnaround application process. Two months later, AUSL was selected to take over Orr High (which houses three small schools) and Morton and Howe elementary schools this fall.

The invitation suggests these organizations are on the fast track to win turnaround contracts for 2009. The new schools office, however, says each proposal—solicited and unsolicited alike—will be considered carefully and equally.

Michael Bakalis, president and CEO for American Quality Schools, says it’s premature for any organization to consider its bid a shoo-in. It’s also premature for the district to assume his group will reapply, he notes.

Under the pilot process, AQS submitted a plan to turn around an unspecified elementary school in the Austin neighborhood that would feed into the group’s new Renaissance high school, Austin Business and Entrepreneurship Academy. Bakalis says he may very well submit an updated proposal this spring, but only if the district has a well-formed plan to address community concerns.

“This is as much political as it is educational,” Bakalis says. “The first step is that the community has to believe that the schools they have are not serving their kids well.” Even if schools are low-performing, he adds, “sometimes, people are very attached to their neighborhood schools.”

Alan Anderson, who heads the CPS turnarounds office, says the district is “trying to work very much in sync” with CICS and other potential operators. “We try to meet frequently around some of the challenges with regard to how to create a school, how to deal with issues of climate and so forth.”

Margaret Harrington, Victory’s chief operating officer, says she needed little coaxing to consider getting into Chicago’s market, where financial and organizational help for new school operators abounds. Victory is well-schooled in the turnaround game, she contends, having launched six turnaround efforts in Philadelphia six years ago.

Victory’s nonprofit spin-off, Chicago Schools Performance Group, appears poised to jump into the game. Harrington says district officials have all but assured her that the group will take over at least one elementary school in 2009. Also under consideration, she says, are turnarounds at a high school and another elementary.

Union wants input

The ChicagoRise school, if it wins its bid, will operate as a contract school. The NewSchools Venture Fund—which has already committed nearly $150,000 to find the right senior leadership for ChicagoRise—will chip in another $200,000 once a deal is inked with CPS and other milestones are reached.

CICS, like Victory, is a charter operator, and getting it into the business of running a contract school that operates outside its charter could stir up trouble with the teachers union. The union has long opposed lifting the cap on the number of charters allowed to operate in the city. Legislative proposals are in the works in Springfield to bring more charters to Chicago.

John Ostenburg, chief of staff to union president Marilyn Stewart, says the CTU will wait for more details before attacking district plans to further expand the turnaround initiative. But the union’s opposition seems assured.

“Even principals tell us that the board is just gung-ho on the idea of contracting out [school operations],” he says. “Chicago International is a good example of the public education system being turned over to a private system. The only thing that is public about them is they’re using public dollars.”

The CTU recently filed a grievance with the district over turnaround schools, arguing that the district violated the union contract by failing to engage a joint union-board committee to negotiate over turnaround expansion.

Says Ostenburg: “We want to have legitimate input.”

Ready, willing, able

Under CEO Arne Duncan, the district has warmed up considerably to the turnaround approach. Rather than closing schools outright—and sparking community anger—the district has used the turnaround approach.  New school leaders are brought in to hand-pick new staff and overhaul the curriculum over the summer, creating a radically different learning environment for kids the following school year.

To date, the district has tried the strategy only with AUSL, which specializes in developing new teachers and their skills. Under that group’s watch, test scores have increased faster than citywide rates at Sherman and Dodge elementary schools.

In January, CPS announced a major expansion of turnarounds, with AUSL’s takeover at Orr and two of its feeders and the district’s own turnaround of Harper High and two of its feeder schools.

The new Office of School Turnarounds will manage the Harper initiative, but it’s also charged with drumming up more management groups for future turnarounds. Having several operators fits neatly into the district’s overall strategy to create competition at every level of school governance, says Anderson.

“[Duncan] is a big competition guy,” notes Anderson. “He wants to be able to say, ‘Hey look, here’s a model that’s shown successes in this regard, and here’s another model that can show success in this other regard.’ ”

One of the first jobs that Anderson assigned to his staff: Visit Green Dot and St. Hope, both California-based charters with burgeoning reputations, to begin a dialog.

“The point is, they’ve gone out to just identify all the potential folks who may want to be looking to do this in future years,” says Anderson. “If there were 30 providers that were ready and basically positioned to actually do the work, we’d probably be using [them].”

To contact John Myers, call (312) 673-3874 or send an e-mail to myers@catalyst-chicago.org.

Under the bill sponsored by state Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), five new slots would be shifted to Chicago, giving the city 35 charters—more than half the statewide cap of 60. The new charters would be solely for truants and dropouts; each charter would be allowed up to 25 campuses.

A more ambitious bill, sponsored by state Sen. Iris Martinez (D-Chicago), would raise the state’s charter cap to 100 and abolish the geographical restrictions on charter location.
 
“We’re beginning to see waiting lists,” Martinez says. “We’re beginning to see that parents want to be able to send their kids to a smaller setting because there is more one-on-one. We’re seeing that test scores have improved dramatically [in some charters]. And at the end of the day, it’s still a public school.”

Both bills passed in the Senate on April 17 and are now awaiting a vote in the House. Most Chicago lawmakers favored both measures.

Supply a problem

Although Lightford’s bill was forged to appease charter opponents—primarily teachers unions—the Chicago Teachers Union opposes the plan, and its statewide affiliate is backing another bill to tighten the reins on charters that don’t meet achievement goals or other standards. Lightford’s bill also would not cap the number of campuses at existing charters—a potential sticking point with opponents, given the proliferation of multi-campus charters in Chicago.

Lightford says she is trying to address a critical need—getting high school dropouts and truants back in school—but by holding tight on the overall number of charters available across the state.

“You have a lot of people who oppose expansion,” Lightford says, referring to teachers unions. “Charters aren’t unionized, so you can expect that there will be opposition.”

State law allows 30 charters in Chicago, 15 in the suburbs and 15 in downstate Illinois. Chicago is using all its charters, but the suburbs have just two and five are downstate, according to the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, known as INCS.

INCS supports Martinez’s bill, but opposes Lightford’s because it would reduce the number of charters in the suburbs and downstate.

“It’s the wrong solution to the urgent problem of the moment, which is the charter supply overall,” says Executive Director Elizabeth Evans. “In an ideal world, it would be a great bill. But we don’t want to start shuffling around our too-small supply.”

Fresh Start vs. charters

Meanwhile, the CTU stands firmly opposed to charter expansion, even in Lightford’s relatively limited plan. Chief of Staff John Ostenburg says the union might support more charters if they are organized in line with the vision of the late American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker. That means, Ostenburg says, “unionized schools, with certified faculty members, where the faculty is given opportunity to work around the bureaucracy with innovative teaching techniques, etc.” The union-run Fresh Start schools operate along these lines.

“If we got to the point where we could negotiate some type of arrangement where [charters] fell a little more fully under the fold of traditional public schools, then we might be more willing to be supportive,” Ostenburg adds. “But at this juncture, certainly that’s not the case.”

He says charters should focus on developing new teaching techniques that, ultimately, flow back to regular schools.

“More than 10 years have passed with this experiment, and nothing has been implemented in the traditional schools that has come out of the charter schools,” he says.

Revoking charters

The Illinois Federation of Teachers is backing legislation to put pressure on charter schools to meet achievement goals and to comply with charter terms and other standards, including fiscal standards.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Esther Golar (D-Chicago), would require charters that are falling short on these measures to submit a plan to their charter authorizer—i.e., the Chicago Public Schools—with specific plans for improvement. If the charter does not improve, the proposed law would require that the charter be revoked. Current law does not include such a requirement.

Charters are given flexibility and freedom from some state regulations, but “in exchange for that flexibility...the schools need to be held accountable for achieving the goals set out in the charter as well as the law,” says IFT spokesman Dave Comerford.

Golar’s bill is pending before the full House, which could vote on it later this month.

To contact Springfield Correspondent Aaron Chambers, send an e-mail to editor@catalyst-chicago.org.

The scenario looks like a science fair, but it isn’t. For the last six months, aspiring principals have been creating school improvement projects for the schools where they intern. With this exhibition, organized by the CPS Office of Principal Preparation and Development, they will showcase what they’ve done. 

The projects give these aspiring leaders hands-on experience in areas such as budgeting, management and creating school improvement plans—skills they will need to run a successful school.

“This project allowed me to work on an important initiative, which was to help a core group of students that we didn’t want to fall through the cracks,” says Principal Mathew Ditto of Jackson Language Academy.

Ditto continues to use the project he developed last year as a principal intern to help struggling middle-grade students. Teachers identify children who need help, and Ditto meets with the students every week to help them develop behaviors, such as studying regularly, that are essential to school success. Adults in the building give the students positive feedback when they see improvements. The school sends letters home every two weeks to keep parents up to speed on children’s progress.

This year, 35 principal interns from New Leaders for New Schools and the University of Illinois received $2,500 each for their projects from CPS’ principal preparation office. Now, all aspiring principals from the two programs are required to participate.

The U.S. Department of Education was so impressed with the program that it has replicated it in school districts in 20 states. 

The projects were funded with part of a $3.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. (The grant is up for renewal and CPS plans to ask for an increase for the next five years; the grant also covers other initiatives from the principal preparation office.) Next year, the district wants to include aspiring assistant principals in the program.

The recent exhibition was open to principals, local school council members and area instructional officers. Erika Hunt, a member of the Illinois School Leadership Task Force, came to scout out ideas and share them with some of the 30 universities that are currently licensed in Illinois to provide principal preparation.

“Chicago is on the cutting edge,” says Hunt. “Districts are starting to see what they can learn from Chicago.”

Gail Ward, who heads the Office of Principal Preparation and Development, calls the activity “small, but it’s a million-dollar idea.”

Interns say the experience has been invaluable.

Knox says she learned strategies for boosting student achievement in her Englewood school, as well as how to motivate teachers and help them improve. 

A case in point: Knox wanted to increase the literacy skills of students in a 5th-grade classroom, 35 percent of whom are special education students. But the regular education teacher was frustrated. The special education students needed extra attention, and the teacher worried that she wasn’t meeting their needs.

So Knox created a team-teaching model that allowed the regular and special education teacher to divide the class and teach the same lesson at the same time. She also showed them another strategy in which one teacher leads the class, while the other monitors students and provides feedback later to the other teacher.

“I wanted to change the face of team-teaching,” explains Knox.  “Usually [in an inclusive class], the special education teacher just sits with a few students and is not being used fully.”

Steven Askew, who is interning at DuBois Elementary in Riverdale, zeroed in on how to boost the literacy skills of young black males.  One lesson he learned is that students do better when they are engaged.  When he had male students polled about why they weren’t reading more, they said the books were for girls. So Askew bought books that had young men as the main characters and touched on topics they could relate to, such as avoiding gangs. 

“The boys started reading more and some of the discussions that took place were very deep,” reports Askew.

“I was walking around trying to see what [one] student had written, while keeping [other students] focused on the assignment. And they all wanted my attention,” says Hansen.

She took her concerns to Arthi Rao, her teaching coach, who suggested she meet with students in small groups every other day to ensure that she spent a fair amount of time with each child. The strategy worked. Once students knew they each would have personal attention at some point, they settled down and concentrated more diligently on their assignments.

“It is a much more organized workshop, and my students’ writing has improved,” Hansen reports.

Hansen is among 56 new teachers in Area 8 in North Lawndale to get coaches from the Chicago New Teacher Center, the two-year-old branch of the well-regarded teacher induction program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. After starting out with a small-scale pilot serving just 18 teachers, CNTC merged with the now-shuttered New Teacher Network and quickly expanded: Almost 300 teachers are now participating, from schools in Area 8, Area 14 in Englewood, Area 13 in Grand Boulevard, and Area 15 in the Hyde Park, Kenwood and Woodlawn communities. 

For next year, plans are in the works to move into Area 17, which includes South Shore, Calumet Heights, South Chicago and Chatham. Ultimately, CNTC hopes to provide mentoring and coaching for new teachers throughout Illinois (the program expects to receive about $480,000 this year from the state, which is increasing its support for better teacher induction).

Still, the 279 teachers now being served by CNTC are a drop in the bucket compared to the 2,000-plus new teachers typically hired each year. Most of these newcomers are still being mentored through GOLDEN, the district’s own program, which critics say is underfunded and cannot provide the highest-quality induction. And the high cost—about $6,000 per teacher for a top-notch induction program like the Santa Cruz model—is a barrier to expansion.

Taking the challenge

CPS leaders see the work as key to retaining and developing new teachers in schools that have had high attrition and low performance.

“You can probably do less intensive support than we do and retain teachers,” says Lisa Vahey, the director of CNTC and the former head of the New Teacher Network.  “We want to impact teacher practices. The number one impact on student achievement is teacher quality.”

Ellen Moir, who heads the center in Santa Cruz, affirms this view. “By partnering with CPS, we can together accelerate new teacher development, support principals and support the district’s focus on literacy,” Moir says. “Ultimately, children benefit.”

Leaders in Santa Cruz approached Chief Education Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins two years ago about working in Chicago. Eason-Watkins threw down the gauntlet, and they accepted. “I asked if they were willing to work in our most struggling communities,” she says.

 First-year results were promising: Just four of 87 beginning teachers in Areas 14 and 15 left, a 5 percent attrition rate that compares favorably with the districtwide rate of 7 to 9 percent for beginning teachers. (See Catalyst Chicago, April 2006.) Eason-Watkins then got the group to move into Areas 8 and 13. 

That first year, as the University of Chicago began to focus on charter development rather than teacher induction, university officials met with Moir and Eason-Watkins to forge the merger—giving teachers greater support.

“We went from some coaching and some development, to a lot of coaching and a lot of development,” says Vahey. “This is a huge change, and Santa Cruz has made the difference.  It is much more rigorous.”

Principals in the mix

New teachers get online support through a special teacher listserv, monthly group meetings and a two-day summer institute that focuses on planning the first weeks of school. The one-on-one weekly coaching visits, however, have had the most impact, teachers say. For Hansen and Rao, the visits include discussions about lessons and classroom concerns. Rao also observes Hansen’s teaching and gives feedback.

Jensen Principal Catherine Jernigan, who has four new teachers in CNTC, sees “better teaching, differentiated teaching and growth in classroom management. My new teachers used to send disruptive students to my office.  That hardly happens any more. They know what to do. The coaching is working.”

Principals get professional development to help them understand what beginning teachers need, and new principals—14 this year—even get a coach.

Second-year principal Paula Powers at Wentworth Elementary in Area 14 is working with Virginia Vaske, the former Area 15 instructional officer.

“Having an experienced person who has a vision like yours, who is able to help you make changes and implement structures that you want, and to have someone to talk to about ideas and strategies has been great,” Powers says.

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

In Chicago, a district with one of the shortest school days and years in the nation, this phenomenon hits especially hard at schools where many students are starting out behind. At these schools, students lose out on instruction time and teachers must backtrack on lessons and do more to get kids up to speed.

"It is a huge, huge problem," CPS CEO Arne Duncan says.

Prodded by the head of the transformation initiative, district officials are taking steps to confront the issue, Duncan says. Among those steps: A complete overhaul of the timeline and process for applying to and getting into high schools. (See sidebar)

Duncan also is toying with the idea of having freshmen start two to three weeks early, though that notion is still in the brainstorming stage.

The problem of late registrants rose to the forefront as the district began implementing its systemwide high school reform effort, which began just over a year ago and so far has at least $80 million committed to it by the district and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A large part of the initiative focuses on ramping up classroom instruction with intensive teacher training, new curricula and resources.

A special Catalyst Chicago report analyzing the effort so far—to be released in March—describes transformation as it is taking place at Marshall High School in the West Side's East Garfield Park neighborhood. There, freshman enrollment rose from 85 on the first day to 322 in the fifth week.

As a result, many teachers didn't present serious lessons for weeks into the school year, all the while worried about not keeping up with the prescribed curriculum.

While districtwide enrollment data do not show such dramatic enrollment creep, the data do show that many other neighborhood high schools struggle with the problem. In 17 high schools—all of them low-performing—enrollment increased by more than 10 percent after the first week of school. By stark contrast, enrollment creep at selective schools was virtually non-existent after the initial week.

For instance, Robeson High School's enrollment rose by 228 students following the first week of school up through December, while Payton, a selective school on the north side, only got two additional students during that time.

Eight of the high schools most affected by late registrations were created when the district implemented a previous reform that broke up large high schools into smaller ones. These small schools at Orr, South Shore and Bowen wind up having seismic enrollment shifts—as much 17 percent in a school of 488—over the course of a school year. Research has found that because these schools lack control over enrollment, it has been difficult for teachers to improve instruction.

Amy Ellifritz, a first-year English teacher at Orr's Mose Vines (who just found out she will have to reapply for her job as part of yet another district reform), says in the first weeks of school, teachers try to lay down the rules and establish the routines.

"It is the time you get to know the students," she says. "(Late arrivals) almost ruin it for everyone else."

Allan Alson, head of the transformation effort, acknowledges the difficulties. "It makes it hard for the teachers and it makes it hard for the kids," says Alson.

Family circumstances hinder enrollment

The reasons for enrollment creep are varied.

Marshall's Principal Juan Gardner says sometimes parents have not gotten their children ready to enroll on time; for instance, immunizations aren't up to date or a parent doesn't have money to buy the school uniform of khaki pants and maroon polo shirt.

"We can help them on all these issues if they just come in," Gardner says. "But they don't know that, and they keep their children home."

Shirley Ewings, the principal at Beidler Elementary, says too many of her students think it isn't cool to show up for the first day, or even in the first few weeks.

"They have to do something to make it appealing," she says.

At Farragut High School—where 253 students arrived late, adding 12 percent to the school's enrollment—teams of counselors, administrators and teachers took to the streets in September to track down students who had failed to register even though their 8th grade files had arrived. Each of the six teams had 20 to 25 homes to visit, says Farragut counselor Elise Remond.

In some cases, parents told the teams that students were not registered because the family would be moving, Redmond reports. Some other parents, however, were not pushing their sons or daughters to attend school, and the students themselves were not motivated, she adds. "It goes back to parental involvement and preparing for the first day," Remond says.

In a few instances, she says students were already attending high school elsewhere, but the elementary school had mistakenly sent files to the wrong school.

Assignment before leaving 8th grade

Late registration is also a side effect of the current high school admissions process. Chicago boasts a huge system of high school choice, with students free to compete for seats in selective schools, magnet programs or charters.

Elementary schools usually help students figure out where and how to apply for high school. But much of the application process, touring of schools and registering is left to students and parents to navigate.

Unless a student informs his or her elementary school that they are going to a magnet or selective high school, the school is supposed to send 8th-grade records to the neighborhood high school in June. But parents still need to formally register students—by bringing in immunization records, proof of address and birth certificates—before a class schedule is generated for them.

Some elementary schools invite neighborhood high schools to visit and register incoming freshmen every spring. Ames Middle School in Logan Square does as much with Kelyvn Park High School. But in most cases, parents are expected to follow up by visiting high schools during the spring or summer, or go to freshman orientation and register.

Yet, come the first day of school, main offices in many high schools are crowded with students and parents attempting to sign up.

Under a new student assignment system, all 8th graders will be assigned to high schools and will have until April to let their elementary schools know if they are going to attend somewhere else. The goal is to get the vast majority of students registered for high school before 8th-grade graduation.

The process will force high schools to be accountable for connecting with these students over the summer, and on the first day of school.

It also should help the district get a firmer handle on freshman enrollment. Alson notes that when the district under-projects enrollment in schools, it means that teachers are hired late or shuffled around. High School Transformation, which starts out in freshmen classes and moves up with the students, has intense teacher training over the summer. But every year, the shuffling means that some teachers are assigned too late to attend training.

Navigating school choice

Principals say changing the procedure for applying, being assigned and registering for high school will be an improvement. But some point to the whole system of choice as the reason for the late registrants.

What ends up happening, they say, is that students leave 8th grade without a spot in a specialty high school, but still hoping against hope to get in.

A principal from one of the small schools at Orr on the West Side says his school is left in a bad predicament. The principal, who declined to be identified, says that students end up at his school, but don't really want to be there.

"They come to this school and the only people they see are all the fools from the elementary school," he says.

This principal says the situation has worsened since the infusion of charter schools in the West Side's Humboldt Park area. Now, not only are top students siphoned away by the district's selective schools, but motivated students with average performance go to charter schools.

His school is not part of the transformation initiative, but Orr was recently named a "turnaround" school, meaning that he will be fired and all of his staff will have to reapply for their jobs. Even so, he still worries that the school will continue to be a last resort option and that student achievement will not increase.

This is what's happening at Beidler, says Ewings. Eighth graders are supposed to feed into Marshall, yet most of them want to go to Al Raby, a small school that accepts students through the lottery.

Discouraged, those students not accepted to Al Raby don't run to their neighborhood school.

But Duncan believes in school choice and says the goal is eventually to make every high school one that students want to go to.

In addition to new high school admission procedures, Duncan is implementing programs to ease the transition from elementary to high school. The district has met with elementary school principals and counselors to press them to provide more guidance to 8th graders, who will be allowed one day out of school this spring to visit their prospective high school.

Private funders have bowed out of the LSC business and the district has budgeted $135,000 for the process. Under a new pay-for-performance plan, organizations will receive only $250 in start-up grant funding. Each candidate recruited will be worth an additional $6 or $7, up to a total grant of $2,500, says Jose Alvarez, director of external affairs and LSC relations. To earn the full grant, a group would have to recruit more than 300 candidates.

Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, says her organization received $25,000 to help recruit candidates for the 2000 election. The money allowed PURE to hire staff to recruit candidates, run election programs on cable access networks and present workshops on the basics of LSC operations.

This year, PURE is one of 19 recipients getting $250 up front, with more promised only under the pay-for-performance plan. But Woestehoff says, "We just don't know what we'll be able to do this year, given the lack of resources." The initial $250 is enough to print flyers, but not much more.

Funding for LSC candidate recruitment has decreased dramatically since the late 1990s, when support for the councils was at its zenith. From 1998 to 2002, an ad-hoc fund administered by the School Leadership Cooperative through Leadership for Quality Education used money supplied by private foundations to give local organizations grants for candidate recruitment and campaign assistance. Donations peaked in 2000, with more than $400,000.

But support fell off quickly. The fund last operated during the 2002 election cycle; its resources then totaled only $80,000. Since then, CPS has been the source of LSC cash. During the 2006 election cycle, organizations received $2,500 grants from CPS—all delivered up front—to recruit candidates, which committed $70,000 to the effort. This year, CPS plans to spend $135,000 to fund the recruiting organizations, as well as district recruiting efforts.

Changing priorities

While Woestehoff says the pay-for-performance program undercuts her organization's ability to recruit, Alvarez says he thinks "$7 per applicant is a fair amount on top of the startup funds that we gave them." LSC application forms that the district distributed to organizations were numbered so his office can track who recruits candidates.

There are approximately 5,700 open spots on about 550 local school councils.The deadline for filing has been extended to March 24.

Gudelia Lopez, senior program officer in education for the Chicago Community Trust, says the foundation no longer funds LSC elections because it has narrowed its priorities.

"It's an issue of where the country is, where Chicago is, in terms of student achievement," she says. "Now it's much more tightly focused on the curricular areas of instruction, and this is also in line with what the district has been doing since Barbara [Eason-Watkins] and Arne [Duncan] took over. They've been focusing more on curriculum and instruction."

The Wieboldt Foundation, which also used to contribute to the election fund, has had less money to give away in recent years. It now funds community organizing groups that include education among their issues.

"There was always the feeling that [election funding] would be institutionalized by CPS," says the foundation's associate director, Carmen Prieto. "It was never going to be that private philanthropy would forever be the source of support for this. The philanthropic community felt that it should be supported by a dedicated revenue stream."

Big goals

This pay-for-performance approach is new for the district. Alvarez expects the recipients of the $250 recruiting grants (see list on page 16) to find 20 to 25 candidates for each council. That would be a whopping 10,000 candidates, a dramatic increase over the 7,000-some that have signed up in previous years.

Alvarez blames the lack of LSC participation on a dearth of knowledge about the councils. His office is trying a new tactic this year. With help from members of successful LSCs, the district will host LSC information sessions in each cluster and most areas.

As in years past, the district will run a $35,000 to $70,000 marketing campaign to promote LSCs through advertisements in neighborhood, community and ethnic newspapers such as Chicago Journal, Hoy and Chicago Defender, as well as radio stations such as WGCI, WLIT and WGN. Although ads are not as effective as direct recruiting, Alvarez says, "we're doing both to make sure that we don't leave anyone out."

Recruiting candidates has been difficult for years, but it may get even tougher. As the parents who started the school reform movement get older, interest and participation in LSCs is waning, says Jitu Brown, an education organizer for the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization.

"A lot of people who join LSCs now have no sense of the history of Chicago school reform," Brown says.

Mary Williams, 68, is the LSC president at White Elementary Career Academy, in West Pullman. She knows the problem well. She has served on the council nearly every term since its inception. Most of the council members at her school are her age—grandparents, great-grandparents and foster parents.

"It seems that the younger parents are just not interested," she says. At one point, she resorted to cooking and serving a four-course meal at every LSC meeting in an effort to encourage attendance. She doesn't want to run again, but she may if there is a shortage of candidates.

The lack of participation in LSC elections in Chicago mirrors difficulties that school boards have recruiting candidates nationwide, according to Kathy Christie, who is vice president of ECS Clearinghouse (the research arm of the Education Commission of the States). "Sometimes there's a perception that they're not given real work to do," she says.

Legislative battles

There is little research about the effectiveness of LSCs that applies to Chicago, she says, because few areas have councils with as much power. But even here, it is easy for boards to "get dragged down into nitty gritty decisions they probably shouldn't be spending their time on," such as extracurricular activities and playground equipment.

"All of those things certainly need to be dealt with," she says, "but even local councils, like district boards, need to at least try to keep some emphasis on curriculum and instruction."

Don Moore, executive director of Designs for Change, blames the district's past failure to educate LSCs about their rights and powers for the lack of parental interest and understanding.

Nor has the district reached out to LSCs for support for its initiatives such as back-to-school campaigns, he says. And then there are the board's ongoing attempts to pass legislation that would take away principal selection powers.

"The current board president, Rufus Williams, has said once again that he wants to take the powers away from the LSCs," Moore says, referring to a statement Williams made in an address to the City Club of Chicago. "So we're preparing for another legislative battle this spring."

For more on the history of LSCs and the turmoil at Curie High School that led to a call for limiting LSC powers, click here.

To contact Rebecca Harris, send an e-mail to editor@catalyst-chicago.org.