Brave new world for Chicago schools

articale
www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-chicago-school-reform_29jan29,0,5268474.story

BBS link
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/chicago-tribune/TAD2RKD334IS7NNJ5

Excerption from BBS

"Brenda Hunter"
I've been to both city schools and suburban schools. My test scores were above average while attending grade school in Chicago and below average while attending school in Naperville. What changed? I became a ward of the state and couldn't concentrate on school work. I didn't notice any difference in the teaching. Now I'm an adult and have three master's degrees--two in education and won't step foot in an urban classroom. Why? Because I know that staffing is only a small part of why schools fail. The truth of the matter is: Good schools have good students. Many city students don't live in environments that support succeeding in school. A more comprehensive approach is needed to improve test scores--one that battles crime and poverty, too. Urban students need fewer distractions.




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The artilce is following
Brave new world for Chicago schools
Turnaround strategy ambitious, unproven
By Kayce T. Ataiyero and Carlos Sadovi

TRIBUNE REPORTERS

January 29, 2008

No school district in the nation has yet managed what Chicago officials proposed last week: a sweeping, simultaneous overhaul of a cluster of failing schools.

Experts say the plan to fire the staffs of eight schools and replace them with better qualified educators is somewhat of a gamble, one that will require an almost perfect alignment of stellar principals, committed teachers and re-invigorated curriculum and programs to succeed.

But that's no guarantee.

"No one knows if turnarounds work," said Andrew Calkins of the Mass Insight Education and Research Institute. "We spent two years looking at turnarounds and could not find a single example of turnaround work that was successful and sustained and done on scale, not just one school."

As Chicago parents began to digest the proposal first reported in the Tribune on Thursday, many seemed willing to roll the dice -- in part, an acknowledgment that even partial success is better than what their children face now.

Fara Bell, a Morton Career Academy parent, said turning around both Orr High School and Morton, an elementary school that feeds into it, is the only way to guarantee wholesale change.

"There's a little thing going on with every grade, and there's no progress. I believe [the teachers ] get to the point where they're ready to give up," said Bell. "I think we need stricter and dedicated teachers. Just because they come to work don't mean nothing. I see a lot lacking."

The school district is proposing replacing the staffs at Harper High School and the three small schools on the Orr High School campus.

Both Harper and Orr have undergone repeated efforts to be reinvented, but those efforts have been unable to improve student performance. Fewer than 25 percent of students at the schools met or exceeded state standards last year.

The plan also calls for a restaffing the the elementary schools that feed into Harper and Orr -- Fulton, Copernicus, Howe and Morton. At the elementary level, 40 percent or fewer of students met or exceeded state standards.

The proposal is part of the district's Renaissance 2010 initiative, which aims to create 100 new schools in underserved communities by 2010.

Schools chief Arne Duncan acknowledged Monday that the goal is ambitious but attainable. He said early success at Sherman and Harvard Elementary Schools prove the district has developed a workable school-improvement model that can be expanded.

"The only way you take it to scale is by having this critical mass of extraordinarily talented, committed people working together for all the children, not just their one, small piece," he said.

But Daria Hall, assistant director for K-12 policy at Education Trust, an education advocacy group, said finding that high-caliber staff won't be easy. She said some teachers are reluctant to work in the challenging turnaround school environment, one in which students often have needs that extend beyond the classroom.

School officials have said they are confident that they can recruit successfully to fill the roughly 200 teacher and seven principal positions that would be open under the plan.

"These are schools where the students need the best that the district can offer, the best teachers, the best principals," Hall said. "Just replacing them with more of the same is going to get you more of the same results."

Calkins is co-author of a study called "The Turnaround Challenge," which spotlighted Chicago, along with Miami-Dade, Philadelphia and New York as school districts that are ahead of the pack when it comes to school reform. The field of school turnaround is in the process of being defined, and Chicago is a pioneer in creating that definition, Calkins said.

"This isn't about fixing broken schools. It is about reinventing urban education," Calkins said. "To Chicago's credit, they are asking more interesting questions about how they can change the nature of services being offered to Chicago's most needy children and are doing it in a more organized way."

William Guenther, president of Mass Insight and a co-author of the study, said Chicago's plan is a promising proposal that could work.

"The fact is, doing the same thing we've done before we know isn't going to work. Sending in another team with another improvement plan ... is a waste of money and time and isn't going to improve circumstances for kids," Guenther said. "There is absolutely no guarantee of success. But if we don't try something more dramatic and fundamentally different, we know we are going to fail."

At a meeting Monday with about 50 teachers in Orr's auditorium, Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart said the district does not have evidence that the turnarounds will work. She said the district should also look at other issues that contribute to low student performance, such as poor education funding, overcrowded classrooms and unstable neighborhoods. When she asked teachers to raise their hands if they had master's degrees, nearly every hand went up. "They are telling you you're incompetent but nobody here has an unsatisfactory rating," said Stewart. "Everyone wants to tell you how to be a teacher but no one wants to do it."

The teachers defended themselves and their students, saying many had excelled. The district did not allow enough time for student improvement, teachers said. Many of the children have problems at home and are wards of the state, they said.

At Copernicus school, some parents were divided about the proposed changed.

But Carolyn Smith, who has a child in 7th grade and a niece and nephew in 5th grade, applauded the changes, pointing to sagging test scores. But she said she hoped the good teachers would be allowed to return. "I think it will be better for the community and the kids. They can get teachers who teach them better to get their grades up," Smith said.

Linda Rivera whose son Malachi, 5, is a kindergartner at Howe Elementary, said she opposed the plan to get rid of all of the teachers. She said that instead of blaming teachers, parents have a responsibility to work with their children especially if it means improving test scores.

"Parents have to do their part. The test scores have to do with the parent's initiative to help their children," Rivera said. "The staff can't home with the kids."

Tyeisha Lockhart, whose daughter Arianna a 2nd grader at Howe, said that if getting rid of all the teachers meant improving test scores and better educational opportunities for her children, she approved of the plan.