Those are the chief findings of a Catalyst Chicago analysis of ISBE records from fiscal year 2009 to the present. Other compliance problems commonly cited in the records: teachers who lacked required bilingual or content-area endorsements, content teaching that did not meet state standards, and not giving students yearly English skills assessments. 

These dismal results are not new or unusual, says Reyna Hernandez, assistant superintendent of the Center for Language and Early Childhood Development at the Illinois State Board of Education. Hernandez noted that, over at least the past decade, it has been relatively routine for most districts to be found out of compliance in at least one area.

Non-compliance could result in school districts being stripped of state money for state bilingual education, but districts are given multiple chances to correct problems, and that has not happened in recent memory.
Illinois has one of the strongest bilingual education laws in the country and is one of only a few states that require native-language instruction taught by certified bilingual teachers. However, these rules may soon get less stringent. A state-appointed task force has recommended changes that are likely to be controversial and would reduce the number of schools required to have certified bilingual teachers and allow some to provide far less native-language instruction.

State officials recognize that some school districts are in a bind, with rapidly growing enrollment of English-language learners and fewer state dollars to pay for bilingual programs. The number of ELL students in Illinois increased 10 percent from 2009 to 2011, state data show, while state money for bilingual education fell by 16 percent.

“There is a lot of hardship to comply,” Hernandez says.
The state’s money is only meant to be supplemental and districts should use their general funding to address the education of ELLs, she adds.

Last year, the Illinois General Assembly appointed a task force to look into whether the rules on native-language teaching should be relaxed.

In its December 2011 report, the group—comprised mostly of administrators, bilingual program directors and district superintendents—recommended changing the trigger for requiring students be taught by a certified bilingual teacher.

Currently, schools with 20 or more students who speak the same native language must offer anyone who is just starting to learn English—even if it’s only one student—a “full-time” bilingual program, with all academic subjects taught in the student’s native language by a certified bilingual teacher. More advanced students can be placed into a “part-time” program, which may be mostly in English.

Under the report’s recommendations, districts would find it easier to comply with the mandate. Schools would not have to provide a full-time program until they had 20 new English learners in the same or consecutive primary grades, 60 students in middle grades  and 75 in high school.

Adequate native-language instruction is critical to developing grade-level literacy skills in a students’ native language, says Judy Yturriago, a Northeastern Illinois University professor and president of the Illinois Association for Multilingual Multicultural Education. 

“Most principals and policy makers do not understand first- and second-language acquisition,” Yturriago says. “They don’t understand the role of primary language. They don’t understand that children who are proficient in the primary language will do better later on.”

Many preschools use the Creative Curriculum, which emphasizes exposing students to language in its natural context but offers little in the way of explicit instruction, notes Terry Carter, a past principal of Barton Elementary who is now director of learning and organizational development for Academy for Urban School Leadership.

So when Carter came to Barton, he decided to strengthen the curriculum by adding some beginning phonics (plus math materials developed by the University of Chicago). But he still sought to maintain a delicate balance: keeping learning enjoyable and expectations appropriate. 
Adding literacy instruction “wasn’t about kill-and-drill or phonics,” Carter says. Instead, the goal is to help youngsters become familiar with literature.  “When you tell children a story, can they tell you what was going on? How do you hold a book? What is the spine of a book?”

The Ounce of Prevention Fund’s Educare early childhood center also aims to strike such a balance. In a classroom with 3- and 4-year-olds, two boys trace worksheets, learning to write their names.

“That’s something we start right when they come into the classroom,” says teacher Rena Johnson. “Even if they can’t, we provide hand-over-hand assistance.”

As students get older, they take part in activities that include writing sentences with sight words.

But even though parts of Educare’s reading instruction may be more structured than that of other preschools, the reading instruction that comes after preschool can be challenging to Educare children if it is “very rigid, very rote, very drill-like,” says Brenda Eiland-Williford, director of program and curriculum at Educare Center.

At Disney Magnet Elementary in Lakeview, Principal Kathleen Hagstrom is a proponent of direct instruction and says she believes that preschools should explicitly teach reading—a view that is controversial among her staff.

Disney provides direct instruction with preschoolers who are thought to be working at high levels, as well as with lower-performing kindergarteners who don’t read well enough to take part in the school’s basal program.

“You do it as a remedial approach, as a foundation to get the children’s language skills strong enough,” she says. “Are there some children that are 3 and 4 that are not ready? Absolutely, [but] there are more 4-year-olds you can teach to read, than not.”

Hagstrom would like to see a strong central mandate for more reading instruction in CPS preschools. “I think the preschools need to be more academic,” Hagstrom says. “We should be teaching reading in preschool. I don’t think we should just be doing early literacy.”

• Fewer English-language learners held back
• More time engaged in reading and math lessons and greater gains
• Teachers have the time to plan better lessons

In general, CPS forwards to schools only enough money for them to offer half-day kindergarten. It forces the majority of schools to use their own discretionary money if they want to have a full-day program.

The Illinois State Board of Education counts children in full-day kindergarten like any other child when allocating state aid, providing the full amount. Students in half-day only get half as much as a full-day student.

For those schools that have only half-day, the district is losing out on state money. But for those with full-day, the district is using some of the state allocation elsewhere in its budget, rather than covering the schools’ costs.

About 1,680 CPS kindergarteners are in half-day programs, according to a CPS projection. If they switched to full-day programs, CPS officials say it would cost the district an extra $2,000 per student or $3.4 million, not including furniture, equipment or facilities. The extra teachers would cost $2.1 million, based on an average salary of $70,842.

However, by offering full-day kindergarten to every student, the district would stand to get an additional $3,000 in state aid. But there are other financial brakes. State aid is volatile and can be stagnant or reduced each year, even as teacher salaries are on the rise. The allocation is based on the average number of students in attendance and could be offset by declines in enrollment or a spike in truancy. And the district would end up fronting the money for full-day for one to three years.

Plus, not all schools want or can offer full-day kindergarten. Some parents think young children should not be in school for a full day, and children are not required to attend kindergarten in any case, since the state’s compulsory school age is 7.

Some schools don’t have enough classroom space to accommodate full-day programs.

One solution might be for CPS to expand its four-hour kindergarten programs—the half-day program is only two hours and 35 minutes of instruction. The state counts students in four-hour programs as full-time. Yet one teacher could teach two four-hour groups in one classroom, thus minimizing the extra cost. There are 75 four-hour classes in CPS, according to district projections.

The response of the principal was swift and always the same. Jermaine says he was suspended so many times, it felt like going through a revolving door. “I would get there, and two days later I would be back home,” Jermaine recalls.  In 7th grade, he was suspended multiple times for eight to 10 days.

By 8th grade, he had missed so much school that there was no way he would be able to pass his classes and be ready for high school.

In the 2006-2007 school year—Jermaine’s first time around in 8th grade—more than 7,000 elementary school students in Chicago were suspended more than once, according to data from the Illinois State Board of Education. Almost 60 percent were black males, like Jermaine.  While there is no data linking multiple suspensions to eventual retention, Jermaine’s story makes the correlation clear.

When he received the letter notifying him that he would be held back, Jermaine was bummed out. “I didn’t get to graduate with my friends,” he says. “I had to stay back with all their brothers and sisters.”

Jermaine got another shock the following year. Harvard Elementary School—where Jermaine had been enrolled since kindergarten—became a turnaround school. The principal and virtually all the staff were replaced. Jermaine says the next year, discipline was stepped up and the school became calmer. But he resisted. Again, he was suspended a number of times.

Jermaine says teachers tried to help him improve his behavior, but their efforts didn’t accomplish anything because he was suspended so much.

Jermaine failed 8th grade, again. He was sent to summer school, again.

In August, he was told that he wouldn’t be spending another year at Harvard. Already 15, he would have to go to Robeson’s achievement academy. Jermaine was excited. He was ready to be out of elementary school.  In high school, he would be able to be more independent. 

This year—his second year at the achievement academy—Jermaine decided he would finally buckle down and get to work. He has a 3.5 GPA.

Jermaine credits teachers with getting him on track. “They are non-stop,” he says, stopping him in the hall and checking on him to make sure that if he isn’t in school, he still turns in his work.

Bonita Furcron, the assistant principal at Robeson who runs the achievement academy, says that she thinks a nurturing environment helps students. “If you feel as though someone cares about you, you will do well,” she says.

But Jermaine has a long road ahead. The achievement academy curriculum requires students to double-up on reading and math coursework to catch up academically. So when students enter 11th grade, they must take a large number of electives and classes in science and social studies to meet graduation requirements. The transition to a regular high school is rocky for many achievement academy students: A large number give up and drop out.

And in a regular high school, there will be no one standing over Jermaine to make sure he stays on track.

Outside of Chicago and Illinois, though, social promotion is re-emerging as an issue, although research studies have shown repeatedly that holding children back is harmful. This spring, for instance, Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent pushed a bill through the state legislature that required 3rd-graders to pass a reading test to go to 4th grade. In Florida, a statewide ban on social promotion since 2002 means that students take the standardized test in 3rd grade and must earn a certain score to move on to 4th. 

Other districts are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Wilfredo Ortiz, the School District of Philadelphia’s deputy chief of counseling and promotion standards, says the district shies away from tests as the sole means of evaluating students for retention. 

“We have an old way of thinking,” he says.

Kathy Christie, the chief of staff of the Education Commission of the States, says the organization is seeing increased interest in the issue. About five years ago, the commission tracked promotion policies across the country and is thinking of starting to do it again. “I am seeing it raising its head again,” Christie says.

In New York State, where incoming Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard hails from, tough promotion policies have been a major issue in the school debate.  At the press conference announcing Brizard’s appointment, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel praised him for implementing in Rochester a tough high school promotion policy that requires students to earn more credits as they move into their junior year of high school.

Rochester’s promotion policy for elementary school students is unclear—there is no mention of it in the district’s policy guidelines and officials did not return calls from Catalyst.
In New York City, where Brizard spent most of his career, Mayor Michael Bloomberg made ending social promotion a major part of his education platform. Students are tested every year between grades 3 and 8, and promotion depends on scores. In high school, the focus shifts to course requirements.

New York City’s policy emphasized early intervention for students before they were at the point of being retained. A 2009 RAND Corp. study found that these supports helped students meet the promotion criteria and, in fact, few students were held back.

Because the students have not yet made it through high school, researchers have yet to see whether retained students do better in high school or are more likely to drop out, as previous studies on retention have shown.

Also, the RAND study notes that the capacity to provide support differed from school to school. Schools with a high percentage of children needing extra assistance were not always able to provide it to each student.

In Los Angeles, money became the deciding factor: Budget constraints forced officials to abandon the promotion policy because the district could no longer afford summer school.

In Illinois, some charter schools and districts reiterate a point made by other educators: If children are to be held back, the ISAT is a poor tool to use in making the decision.

“The ISAT is a single data point and, quite frankly, they are not high-performance tests,” says Tom Hay, the assistant superintendent for curriculum at Carpentersville Community Unit School District 300.

In Chicago, charter schools are free to adopt their own promotion policies and some, like Providence Englewood, opt for tough standards. At Providence Englewood, students most score above the 35th percentile on the TerraNova (a standardized test used by districts across the country), pass their classes and not have major behavior problems. Students who are held back are automatically enrolled in after-school tutoring two days a week for all subjects.

Overall, though, charters hold back fewer children than traditional public schools—in 2010, just 2 percent of students, according to CPS data.

Another indicator used by some charters and districts is the Light’s Retention Scale, which evaluates students based on a number of academic and developmental criteria. Grades or class credits underlie most promotion decisions, and these indicators often supersede test scores.

“One of the misconceptions we work to ‘un-inform’ people about is that you can’t fail or pass the ISAT,” says Lisa Kenner, the principal at Legacy Charter.  “We don’t feel that a single ISAT score should trump all these other pieces.”

Other charters aim to get struggling children back on the right track with intensive help. Namaste Charter employs an entire literacy intervention team that works with 65 to 75 students a week.

LEARN Charter, which rarely retains students, has class sizes of 25 students with two teachers each. The charter also has “academic interventionists,” who are certified teachers charged with pulling out students who need the most help and working with them one-on-one or in small groups.

Dao Kambara, director of academics for LEARN, says that teachers and administrators use tests throughout the school year to monitor where students are and how they are progressing. They also monitor attendance and whether the student is getting above a C-minus in their classes.

“We don’t look at one data point because it doesn’t make sense,” she says.

1996

The School Board approves a new policy requiring students in 3rd, 6th and 8th grades to go to summer school if they fail to meet specific minimum scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, which provides “grade equivalent” scores that correlate to grade levels. (For example, an 8.0 signifies the typical level of achievement at the beginning of 8th grade.) Students are tested again at the end of summer school and are held back if their scores do not sufficiently improve. In the first year, the policy applies only to 8th-graders.

The new policy sets the advancement bar a year and a half below grade level for 3rd- and 6th-graders and almost two years below for 8th-graders.
The previous policy discouraged retention, saying that it should be used only after an intervention plan had been tried without success.

1997

Transition centers are created to provide support and smaller class sizes for 8th-graders who fail to meet promotion requirements but are considered too old to remain in elementary schools. To be eligible for a transition center, a student must turn 15 by Sept. 1.

The new promotion requirements go into effect for 3rd- and 6th- graders. More than 10,000 elementary school students who attended Summer Bridge fail to score high enough for promotion and have to repeat a grade.

1999

All retained 3rd-, 6th- and 8th-graders are given a chance to be promoted mid-year by taking a retest.

The minimum test score for 8th-grade promotion rises for a third time, to 7.4, roughly the middle of 7th grade. But students who narrowly miss the promotion criteria are automatically eligible for waivers. 

2000

School advocates convince CPS to alter the policy so that grades and absenteeism, in addition to test scores, are added as factors in retention decisions.

2002

The policy is amended to use national percentile scores rather than grade equivalent scores.  Students must score above the 35th national percentile to be promoted automatically.  The 50th percentile is the national average. Upwards of 13,000 students in benchmark grades are retained—the most since the 1996 promotion policy went into effect.

2004

The Consortium on Chicago School Research releases its most critical assessment of CPS’ promotion policy. Not only do retained students not perform better academically than those who were socially promoted in the past, but retained students are more likely to drop out.  These findings echo other studies across the country.

In response, CPS bars multiple retentions within any three-year period and drops math scores from promotion criteria.

2005

CPS stops using the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and replaces with the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). The ISAT is supposed to be more closely aligned with Illinois standards. Thirty nationally normed questions, called the SAT 10, are embedded into the test and are used to determine promotion at all three grade levels.

Math returns as a criterion for promotion. Students who score below the 35th percentile in reading or math, fail a class or have 18 or more unexcused absences must go to summer school. For the first time, not all students who are required to go to summer school must retest to move up; only those who scored below the 24th percentile on the SAT 10 are required to pass a re-test at summer’s end.

2006

The policy is revised to allow district officials to use the “highest score from the last two annual assessments” in making promotion decisions.

2007

Eighth-grade students who fail a writing assessment must attend a summer writing workshop. The benchmark for having to attend summer school goes back to below the 24th percentile.

2009

Current policy: Students who must go to summer school are those who (1) score below the 24th national percentile on the SAT 10, (2) receive a D or F in reading, writing or math (3) have more than nine unexcused absences. 

The only students who must retake the SAT 10 to be promoted out of summer school are those who fail to meet all criteria. 

In order to be promoted out of summer school, everyone else simply needs to attend classes and get a passing grade in math, reading and writing.

2010

Some students required to attend summer school are enrolled only in classes addressing their particular deficiencies—reading, math or writing. They must pass only those courses to move on.

In fall 2010, STEP-UP expanded to include Auburn Gresham, a predominantly African-American neighborhood on the South Side. Robert Lee of Illinois State University, the director of Chicago programs and partnerships for the Pipeline, says ISU is still working with the Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corporation, Westcott Elementary, and Simeon High School to shape the Pipeline’s work in that community. Another neighborhood will join by fall 2012; Lee says he’s looking for one with a strong community-based organization that has ties to local schools.

The Pipeline received a three-year federal teacher quality grant in 2005, then won another five-year federal grant in fall 2009 that so far has provided $3.4 million and could reap up to $8.2 million over the next three years (depending on federal budget appropriations). At Catalyst press time, federal funds were in jeopardy for 2011.

STEP-UP participants were initially promised a three-year teaching contract with CPS once they obtained their teaching license. They had to commit to staying in the district for all three years. But the contract idea fell through because of the district’s budget problems, and graduates will be able to work wherever they can find a job.

Lee says he doesn’t expect this to hamper recruiting. Last year, the program drew nearly 40 applicants; by late January 2011, 32 students had already applied, with more expected. (Lee is a member of the Catalyst Chicago editorial board.)

But this year’s budget crisis has meant that far fewer new graduates ended up in Chicago’s neediest neighborhood schools. “The significant budget cuts this last year deeply impacted our graduates’ capacity to find work,” notes Kavita Kapadia Matsko, director of the University of Chicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program, which includes a year of education coursework plus a year-long paid residency in a school.

The percentage of the program’s graduates who are teaching at charter schools instead of neighborhood schools increased dramatically this year.

Another factor that consistently prevents CPS from taking advantage of the new talent is late hiring. Robert Lee, director of programs and partnerships at Illinois State University’s Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline, says that unlike graduates from some other programs, his students do not have a guaranteed job upon graduation—and they are not offered loan or tuition forgiveness if they work in CPS.

And because CPS hires teachers in August or September, far later than competing suburban districts, “we find that our best graduates receive job offers early and accept those positions outside of CPS,” Lee says.

Top candidates want to spend the summer getting ready to teach and learning about the school where they will work, not “continuing to scour the job market, interview after interview, forced to wait until the days right before the school year begins to receive an offer,” Lee adds.

Roughly 43 percent of all Chicago Teacher Education Pipeline graduates were hired by CPS and a large majority—80 percent—are in neighborhood schools. The 139 teachers who were trained in Pipeline schools in recent years are a small fraction of those who graduate from ISU’s education program each year (between 1,300 and 1,500).

Now, Hay Elementary has a promising peer jury program launched with the help of the district’s pilot restorative justice program.

Principal Wayne Williams says the peer jury began with strong teacher training and student recruitment.

Williams first met with the Office of Specialized Services about the grant in late February 2009. By March 27, teachers had gone through an introductory training. Later, they got more training, including instructions on how to refer behavior issues to the peer jury.

Next came student recruitment. A social worker for SGA Youth & Family Services, Rebecca Davis—who Williams says was “absolutely pivotal”—went to each 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade homeroom to give a presentation about the program and answer questions.

“It was kind of a sales pitch, if you will,” Williams says. “We got a real good mix. We had a couple of kids who, prior to the training, would have been prime candidates for peer jury cases.”  The training changed that by helping them see things from others’ perspective, “which is not the strength of any adolescent,” Williams notes.

Even though student training did not start until early May, nearly the end of the school year, 26 students participated. “The kids loved it, so we had them fully trained by the end of the year,” Williams says. One or two parents also participated, as did about half a dozen teachers – an indication of strong staff support.

Last year, about 10 to 15 peer jurors heard cases, Williams says, under the guidance of social worker Rebecca Davis.

The school has also used peace circles, targeted toward groups of students that have a high number of conflicts with peers. The first year, 3rd-grade boys were the focus; last year, it was 4th - and 6th-grade girls.

Williams says setting clear expectations for teachers was important. They knew they had to be involved in helping facilitate the circle, and they were expected to translate the training into a weekly class meeting.

Restorative justice became a frequent topic at staff meetings, Williams says. Teachers also brought concepts from the school’s social-emotional learning curriculum, Lion’s Quest, into peace circle discussions.

Although the grant has run out, the peace circles are still taking place in some classrooms. And Williams is working to sustain and spread the program by identifying which teachers are most skilled and having them train the rest.

The peer jury program is still going strong this fall as well. Ten 8th-grade students have returned to the program. Though they are still in the process of recruiting and training 6th- and 7th-graders, they have already heard two cases this fall from students as young as 3rd grade.

START EARLY

“Start teaching kids at a young age that violence isn’t normal.  We’ve grown so accustomed to it being normal, like, ‘Hey, let’s box it out.’ If you could start mentoring kids at an earlier age, 3rd grade [and] even kindergarten, then as they grow older... that won’t be their first resort to solve a problem.”

At Robeson High in Englewood, Principal Gerald Morrow used to grumble about the students coming from Urban Prep Academy Charter, as well as those sent to him from Harper High School, a turnaround school. This year, a new Noble Street charter campus opened in Englewood, not far from Robeson.

But at the beginning of the year, Morrow declined to say much about the issue, except to say that the influx of students has ebbed a bit. When students do transfer in, Morrow tries to make the transition seamless, by calling to talk with principals when one of their former students shows up.

“When it comes down to it, we are a school for all students,” he says.

Morrow says he and other principals who received money from Huberman’s “culture of calm” initiative toured charters to see what they are doing to instill order. Now, he’s using what he learned to try to foster a better enviroment at Robeseon.

For example, the school now requires students to wear uniforms and has banned cell phones. “We are enforcing it from Day 1,” Morrow says. “It is a non-negotiable.”

At Wells Community Academy, school advocate Georgina Williams agrees that charging students for demerits—like Noble Street does—forces them to take behavior more seriously.

Even so, Williams is not in favor of the practice, fearing that it would discourage low-income students from coming to school. She notes cases in which students have transferred to Wells from Noble Street because they owe the charter school hundreds of dollars and are on payment plans.

Williams estimates that about 20 percent of students who transfer into Wells are from charters. Three Noble Street campuses and a charter high school run by Aspira are within a mile of Wells, which is in West Town.

(Michael Milkie, co-founder of Noble Street, confirms that about 10 to 20 percent of families at each campus are on payment plans.)

Wells Principal Ernesto Matias says his school must accommodate all students and can’t just put out those who don’t follow rules and regulations.

“Our neighborhood schools are becoming like neighborhood hospitals,” he says. “We have to be equipped and proactive at all times.”

Matias is proud that he has brought more order to Wells in the three years since he arrived. The environment has become calmer because staff members have shown students that they care about them, not because of punitive measures, he says.

Competition from charter schools, he notes, has forced neighborhood high schools, including Wells, to try to improve.

But that hasn’t happened yet. Instead, schools have had to use grade-level performance data because classroom-by-classroom data hasn’t proven reliable enough, says Sheri Frost Leo, who oversees the TAP program in the district’s Office of Human Capital.

The problem: Because of factors such as team teaching, the researchers who calculate value-added data haven’t been able to determine whether all students are being correctly linked to the right teacher.

“We don’t want teachers to worry that their performance awards are based on iffy data,” Frost Leo says. “There were some concerns raised... that [researchers] wouldn’t be able to be close to 100 percent confident that the data linking teachers to students was correct.”

The program’s second-to-last round of bonus payouts, for the 2009-10 school year, will be finalized this fall. It isn’t clear yet whether the data linking students to teachers will be accurate enough for CPS to phase-in the classroom-level bonuses, although the district hopes to be able to do so after the 2010-11 school year ends.

CPS did not have an achievement formula for high schools during TAP’s first year. Rather than postponing the payouts, the program paid bonuses to high school teachers, staff members and administrators based on average student achievement across TAP elementary schools—a payment that had nothing to do with their school’s progress.

That was a temporary move while CPS worked out a solution, Frost Leo says. Starting with the second round of payouts, the district has used a school-wide high school achievement formula that takes into account EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT test results, as well as the school’s freshmen on-track, student attendance, and dropout rates.

Intern Rachel Schneider contributed to this report

In Illinois, it is nearly impossible to get a good read on similar financial information from charters. Doing so, however, could help direct policy, serve as a guide for future charter schools and give authorizers specific information about which charter schools are in financial trouble.

According to Illinois’ new charter school law, charters are only required to submit an audit and a copy of their tax forms to the state. Audits are done by independent companies. Some are detailed, others not.

While CPS, the state and the federal government provide the biggest chunk of the operating budget for charters, some charters maintain they shouldn’t be subject to the same reporting requirements as other public schools. In 2009, more than $200 million in public funds were provided to Chicago’s 71 charter schools.

State Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago) notes that last year, Illinois lawmakers approved new legislation meant to increase accountability by forcing charter schools to report data by campus. But she concedes that none of the newly required information will detail expenditures and revenues.

A task force recently recommended that lawmakers pass legislation that would create an independent charter school authorizer. Steans says she could see including language in that legislation to raise the financial accounting required from charter schools. “There is probably more we could be doing on it,” she says.

For its May study on charter school funding, Ball State University contracted with Meagan Batdorff, the founder and lead consultant of Progressive EdGroup, to collect data on funding from 25 states. Illinois’ charter schools were among the hardest to get information on, Batdorff says.

Some of the states post detailed information online. But in Illinois, Batdorff had to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the state and the district. In response, she received only audits, which are not standardized and hard to pull detailed information from.

On audits, it is often difficult to discern the source of revenues or specifics on expenses, Batdorff says. As a result, Illinois’ information is murky. According to the study, some $9,000 per student in charter schools is from non-public but indeterminate sources. Much of that is likely from private fundraising, but Batdorff could not tell specifics.

Without specific financial information, such as textbook spending or average teacher pay, other questions about charter schools can’t be answered, Batdorff says.
 
“There is no way to tell how school funding is impacting actual performance or how teacher pay impacts performance,” she says.

Five months ago, Catalyst ran into roadblocks as we sought information that is readily available for traditional public schools, such as revenue, expenditures and the names and positions of employees.

Catalyst submitted FOIA requests to each of Chicago’s charters. Twenty charter operators provided the requested information, in hard copy or electronically. Those that responded included larger networks—Noble Street Charter and the University of Chicago among them—and small, individual schools such as Namaste.

Even so, transparency was uneven among the 20 operators. Several schools declined to release teacher names, arguing that the names are private. Yet, the names of all public employees are regularly published in budgets released by government agencies.

Another 13 operators either denied the FOIA request or failed to respond after numerous attempts to reach them. Among the five that denied the request were United Neighborhood Organization’s charter school network and three of the four education management organizations that run the campuses of Chicago International, the city’s largest operator.

In UNO’s denial, Homero Tristan from TGC Partners, a downtown law firm, argued that UNO is not a public body. Civitas, whose teachers unionized last year, made the same argument.
Catalyst appealed the denial to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, which has not yet issued a formal ruling but suggested that Catalyst make its request to CPS. As the government agency that contracts with charters, the district is required to provide the information. Armed with language from the attorney general, Catalyst went back to CPS, which in June provided budget information and employee lists.

Andy Shaw, executive director of the watchdog Better Government Association, says charter schools are clearly subject to the FOIA. He points out that they receive “our” tax dollars so they are “our” business.

“Academic outcomes are only one measure of their success, and watchdogs like Catalyst or the Better Government Association are entitled to review and assess other measures that depend on disclosure and transparency to gather the necessary data,” Shaw says.

However, some of the data was difficult to analyze because there is no standard form for reporting, and therefore no uniformity. (Teacher service records compiled by the Illinois State Board of Education for all public school teachers include standardized, detailed information on, among other data, salaries, years of experience, grades taught and degrees held.)

But Renaissance 2010, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s grand 2004 plan to closelow-performing schools and replace them with better ones (mostly charters), has not been the main spark.

Charters, on average, are performing slightly better on test scoresthan neighborhood schools in their same community. But of the 56schools whose scores have risen above state averages since 2004, fewerthan a third are new schools.

Test score gains in existing neighborhood schools on the North Side did much more to drive scores up.

• Performance Map
• Snapshot of Top Schools
• Latinos Left Behind
• Graduate Success
• School Demographics