The Notebook

Understanding that the Chicago Public Schools district leadership and Board of Education faced difficult decisions regarding the school actions, we, the Federation for Community Schools’ members, staff and board, have a serious concern about those closings and the transitions of children to new schools. 

We are concerned about the severe reduction or total loss of high quality wrap-around support services for children in our highest needs communities as they transition from one school to another. Particularly, the loss of support provided by the existing services coordinated and managed under the leadership of local agencies working in partnership with some of the closing schools will have grave and detrimental impacts on students transitioning to new schools.

We are equally concerned about the new demands for such services in the schools to which these children will transition – and the welcoming schools’ capacities to meet these new demands without additional support.  Almost all of the impacted schools are in neighborhoods serving children who need not only high quality schools but also multiple kinds of academic and non-academic services and supports. As such, the transition plans – in the case of each and every school – must take into account not only the use of space in a facility, but also the supports (mental and physical health services, out-of-school time programs connected to classroom learning, resources for families, and more) organized by the closing schools, especially those that are community schools.

Community schools are schools that actively engage and coordinate an array of resources to strengthen the learning and development of their students, and to engage families as partners in children’s educations. Some of the closing schools have long-term partners – community-based organizations or social services organizations, oftentimes – working to provide coordination of and access to services, such as arts and enrichment programs, academic supports, health supports and supports to adults and families in the communities served by the school. Because community schools are so effective in these efforts, $1 invested in a community school yields a $1-$3 return in the form of supports that would otherwise be disconnected from the school and not accessed by students and families.

We are concerned that those supports will be interrupted and possibly lost for these children and families moving from closing schools.  The welcoming schools may or may not have these supports or the resources to expand them considerably to accommodate new students and families. In addition, the welcoming schools – including those that were already community schools – will be asked to provide more supports and services both to their current students and to the students that will join them in the fall.

Detrimental impact?

Specifically, three critical questions have emerged in our conversations with our members about the impact of the closings on the access to and availability of supports:

1) To what extent does each plan for closing and “welcoming” schools address these multiple services and ensure that they will not be lost to the children and families who need and depend on them?

2) To what extent do new schools know about the services that transitioning children accessed at the closing schools and do the welcoming schools have plans for putting supports in place for all the new children and families entering their communities? 

3) To what extent do the schools have individuals in place – dedicated staff members – to coordinate services across multiple providers and partners, and a plan to work in partnership with school leadership to facilitate the engagement of these services during and after school hours? 

Successful transitions and sustained academic improvement at the welcoming schools will not be dependent on how many partners can provide how many programs during the 2013-2014 school year. Instead, success will hinge upon the level of coordination that exists to maximize each partnership, to ensure that programs are effectively and efficiently reaching students in need, and to connect new resources to the welcoming schools. This is not about more partners and programs; it’s about creating long-term strategic partnerships that realign resources in ways that best meet the needs of students and families – during the transitions over the 2013-2014 school year and beyond.

Chicago has been a national leader in utilizing the community school strategy to put in place coordinated supports and partnerships for more than 15 years.  The Federation and its members, including nearly 50 community school lead partners, urge CPS build upon and sustain the its strong history of community school work and address students’ and families’ needs in coordinated, efficient ways.

Melissa Mitchell is the executive director of the Federation for Community Schools.

Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett offered an upbeat vision of the district's future during a Tribune-sponsored event Tuesday night, a dramatically different take from that given by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis in a speech earlier in the day at the City Club of Chicago.

Byrd-Bennett went so far as to predict an end to an often-contentious relationship with the teachers union. Lewis offered a more stark assessment, saying she feared the layoffs of 850 CPS teachers and workers announced last week were "just the tip of the iceberg" for a system facing a $1 billion deficit.

CHARTER GAINS: Illinois elementary charter school students made more academic gains than students in comparable district-run schools, according to a new report from Stanford University. Latino charter students posted the most impressive results, in math. Yet there are plenty of caveats to be gleaned from the report’s other findings, especially for African American students, who continued to fare worst academically in both traditional schools and charters. To download a copy of the state report, click here. (Catalyst)

MONEY FOR EARLY EDUCATION: The Robert R. McCormick Foundation will be awarding nearly $6 million in grants over two years to 19 nonprofit organizations to support a quality system of early care and education in Illinois. The Foundation will be awarding Illinois Action for Children a $250,000 grant to support improvements in Chicago’s early education programs. Action will collaborate with Chicago Public Schools and the Department of Family Support Services, which together operate more than 700 early-learning programs, to help align standards and advance a more unified early childhood system. The grant will help identify early education programs with high needs and will create group trainings and learning communities to support quality improvement. (Press release)

TEACHER PREP UNDER FIRE: An effort to rate the quality of teacher preparation programs around the country is drawing fire from local colleges of education. The National Council on Teacher Quality, which released a similar report on Illinois universities in fall 2010, panned a majority of the 1,100 programs it reviewed, saying they lacked important elements needed to train high-quality teachers. (Catalyst)

IN THE NATION
To help schools meet the new requirement to evaluate teachers based on student achievement, Virginia officials created a method for calculating how much students learned in a year. By extension, they believe that the same method can show how well teachers are doing their jobs. (The Washington Post)

Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett offered an upbeat vision of the district's future during a Tribune-sponsored event Tuesday night, a dramatically different take from that given by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis in a speech earlier in the day at the City Club of Chicago.

Byrd-Bennett went so far as to predict an end to an often-contentious relationship with the teachers union. Lewis offered a more stark assessment, saying she feared the layoffs of 850 CPS teachers and workers announced last week were "just the tip of the iceberg" for a system facing a $1 billion deficit.

CHARTER GAINS: Illinois elementary charter school students made more academic gains than students in comparable district-run schools, according to a new report from Stanford University. Latino charter students posted the most impressive results, in math. Yet there are plenty of caveats to be gleaned from the report’s other findings, especially for African American students, who continued to fare worst academically in both traditional schools and charters. To download a copy of the state report, click here. (Catalyst)

MONEY FOR EARLY EDUCATION: The Robert R. McCormick Foundation will be awarding nearly $6 million in grants over two years to 19 nonprofit organizations to support a quality system of early care and education in Illinois. The Foundation will be awarding Illinois Action for Children a $250,000 grant to support improvements in Chicago’s early education programs. Action will collaborate with Chicago Public Schools and the Department of Family Support Services, which together operate more than 700 early-learning programs, to help align standards and advance a more unified early childhood system. The grant will help identify early education programs with high needs and will create group trainings and learning communities to support quality improvement. (Press release)

TEACHER PREP UNDER FIRE: An effort to rate the quality of teacher preparation programs around the country is drawing fire from local colleges of education. The National Council on Teacher Quality, which released a similar report on Illinois universities in fall 2010, panned a majority of the 1,100 programs it reviewed, saying they lacked important elements needed to train high-quality teachers. (Catalyst)

IN THE NATION
To help schools meet the new requirement to evaluate teachers based on student achievement, Virginia officials created a method for calculating how much students learned in a year. By extension, they believe that the same method can show how well teachers are doing their jobs. (The Washington Post)

An effort to rate the quality of teacher preparation programs around the country is drawing fire from local colleges of education. The National Council on Teacher Quality, which released a similar report on Illinois universities in fall 2010, panned a majority of the 1,100 programs it reviewed, saying they lacked important elements needed to train high-quality teachers.

“The results were dismal,” said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The review centered on criteria like course content and length, selectivity, and the quality of the student teaching experience.

“The quality of training in the U.S. for elementary math… is so far below international standards for training teachers as to be a grave, grave concern,” Walsh added.

Overall, not one elementary education program in the U.S. earned the highest-possible rating of four stars, and just 20 earned at least three stars. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education issued a statement blasting the report, saying it is "based on a review of documents with such inconsistent participation and fragmented inputs that it would not be published by a credible, professional research organization."

Yet the review also raises concerns about whether teachers have enough content knowledge to teach to the Common Core State Standards. Using measures like the number of subject matter courses students are required to take and their incoming standardized test scores, the review asserts that just one in nine elementary education programs ensure that students know the material they’ll need to teach.

Another issue it found was a lack of safeguards to ensure the teachers who work with student-teachers are master practitioners. “When a student teacher has a great experience, it’s primarily because they lucked out,” Walsh said. Schools “simply say we’ll take anyone a school district might offer, as long as they have three years of experience.”

Illinois’ schools of education did better in some areas and worse in others. Three-fourths of the state’s programs were as selective as the review’s standards called for.

But just 6 percent of Illinois programs, versus 19 percent nationwide, had strong elementary math components. Just 8 percent of the state’s programs were met criteria for classroom management, compared to 23 percent nationwide.

And just 4 percent met NCTQ’s standards for secondary content-area preparation, compared with 35 percent nationwide – likely because of differences in state requirements.

Programs not happy

Vicki Chou, dean of the University of Illinois-Chicago’s College of Education, said that “the whole exercise was an enormous waste of money, time, (and) resources.”

She added: “The universities are doing excellent work trying to prepare good teachers. It’s discouraging that these distractions come up.”

Southern Illinois University’s Acting Director of Teacher Education, Kelly Glassett, notes that a number of schools of education decided not to participate in the review.

As a result, the findings note that some of the ratings are based on information that NCTQ collected in 2010, and may be out of date. In other cases, “they counted zeroes because we didn’t give them any data,” Glassett says.

And, he points out, schools of education are now in the middle of revamping their curricula to meet new state requirements – among them, including more emphasis on reading instruction, an area where many programs nationwide lost points.

He was also concerned about the ratings’ focus on just five elements of effective reading instruction, saying it could lead to prospective missing out on the larger context of how, for instance, a child’s exposure to language at home affects their reading development.

Perry Schoon, dean of Illinois State University’s College of Education, says that his school sent NCTQ the information they asked for.

“Their approach was very thin, with sweeping conclusions,” he said. “We completely disagree with the inaccurate assessment and the rankings. We don’t believe they can draw the conclusion they did from the information they had.”

Illinois universities were rated as “not applicable” for program effectiveness because the state doesn’t yet publish data on ties between teacher preparation programs and student achievement. But, he noted, many universities keep their own data on effectiveness and improvement.

Rationale for ratings

Walsh, on the other hand, said that schools of education “believe that their charge is to prepare a teacher who will have the professional disposition, the confidence…. to come up with their own system for teaching children, for managing children.”

This, she asserted, leads to too little “imparting specific knowledge and skills that will allow a teacher to be ready to teach on day one.”

She also blamed academic freedom, the tradition of professors being allowed to choose their own course content, for teacher preparation’s challenges.

“There were 866 textbooks that were used to teach readers how to teach reading. You wouldn’t find that in any other field,” Walsh said.

She admitted that the ratings were “not a deep review.”

“There’s a lot of really great teachers who come out of weak programs. The wrong message for you to get today is that an institution is turning out bad teachers if it gets low rankings from us,” Walsh said.

Illinois elementary charter school students made more academic gains than students in comparable district-run schools, according to a new report from Stanford University. Latino charter students posted the most impressive results, in math. Yet there are plenty of caveats to be gleaned from the report’s other findings, especially for African American students, who continued to fare worst academically in both traditional schools and charters.

The study expands on a previous, much-cited 2009 report that looked at Chicago charter schools--the vast majority of those in Illinois--as well as charters in another 16 states and found that the city’s charters performed better overall. Both reports are part of ongoing research on charter school effectiveness at CREDO, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which plans to publish a full study covering 26 states next week. (The reports can be found at CREDO’s website.)

The gains touted in the latest report, which covers 2008 through 2012, are statistically significant in research terms, albeit modest in the real world. On average, Illinois elementary charter school students gained two additional weeks of learning in reading and one additional month of learning in math over the course of the school year, according to the study. And only about one in five charters performed significantly better in reading than traditional schools.

Those findings might not be striking, especially to charter critics. Andrew Broy of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools acknowledges that. “One thing revealed by this report is that we don’t have enough high-performing schools of any type in Chicago," he says. "We view charters much more as part of the solution [than critics do]. But that doesn’t hide the fact that we all have to do better by our students.”

Chicago’s older charter schools drove much of the improvement. Newer charters have a positive effect, but less than in the 2009 study, according to Dev Davis, research manager at CREDO. However, the new report does not provide breakdowns for the two groups.

The study used the same methodology as the 2009 report, comparing reading and math scores for Illinois elementary charter school students, in grades 3 through 8, with a “virtual twin”--a demographically similar student from a traditional district-run school that the charter student would have attended. (The report included 65 charter campuses and 18,689 students.)

Other findings:

-- In reading, 21 percent of charters performed worse than traditional schools, while 20 percent did better and 59 percent showed no difference. In math, 21 percent of charters did worse, 37 percent performed better and 42 percent showed no difference.

-- Black and Hispanic students continued to lag behind white students in reading, and received “no significant benefit or loss from charter school attendance” compared to students in traditional schools

-- Latinos in charter schools made far more significant gains in math than in traditional schools, even when compared to white students, effectively erasing the achievement gap in the subject.

-- Low-income charter students made slightly more gains in reading than low-income students in traditional schools, but had similar performance in math.

“Clearly, there is room to grow,” says Broy. “We have substantial achievement gaps, especially with black students, poor students. The same challenges as faced by public schools are faced by charters.”

The study also found that students in their second and third years at a charter performed better than new, first-year charter students. English-language learners in charter and traditional schools had similar performance.

The study found evidence that charter students were more likely to hold students back, and retained students made stronger gains in charters than in traditional schools. Still, the study says that the difference can’t be considered significant, since retained students are a small group whose academic performance varied widely.

Local school council members of about a dozen Chicago Public Schools lamented proposed budget cuts for their schools Monday morning and called on Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to audit CPS finances, the Sun-Times reports. The LSC members also want an elected school board, which CPS has never had. Last November, voters in over 300 precincts approved an advisory referendum calling for an elected board.

EXACERBATING INEQUALITY: CPS released next year’s individual school budgets to principals last week and, according to the CTU, schools across the city are seeing 10 percent to 25 percent cuts in funding. The union and education experts predict these cuts will lead to eliminated positions and more split-level classes, among other negative outcomes. “What we’re going to see is a degradation of education in neighborhood public schools, which is likely to result in even a widening of the inequalities that we already have in CPS,” said Pauline Lipman, professor of educational policy studies and director of the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Progress Illinois)

IN THE NATION
INDUSTRY OF MEDIOCRITY: The U.S. teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running classrooms and are quickly overwhelmed by the job, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The review found "an industry of mediocrity," with the vast majority of programs earning fewer than three stars on a four-star rating scale - and many earning no stars at all. (Reuters)

CUT TO THE BONE: Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, many who play supporting roles — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will be gone  by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band.

In fall 2010, Illinois became the first state in the nation to require bilingual education for English language learners in preschool. Preschools with at least 20 English learners who speak the same language would now have to do the bulk of teaching in those children’s native language.

Since then, preschools have struggled to create native-language programs. 

Now, preschools that receive state funding are bracing for another challenge: new state rules that will require staff who teach English learners to have bilingual certification. The rule doesn’t kick in until next year, in July 2014, but schools and districts are already looking for ways to recruit staff given the perennial shortage of bilingual educators.

The state currently has 1,525 teachers who have both a bilingual or English as a Second Language endorsement as well as a preschool teaching certificate. On paper, that is enough teachers to meet the need, says Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Mary Fergus.

But some of these teachers are not in the active teaching force at all, while others may be teaching in the early grades (an early childhood endorsement covers up to 3rd grade). Others are not teaching in areas where they may be most needed.

“The distribution of [English learners] is not always in line with where the teachers are,” Fergus notes.  

A 2012 study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley’s Institute of Human Development documents the geographic mismatch: In Illinois ZIP codes where at least 20 percent of the population is Latino, the study found just one preschool teacher certified to teach bilingual or ESL classes for every 50 preschool-aged English learners.

Relying on recruiting, creativity

Martin Torres, senior policy analyst at the Latino Policy Forum, points out that some districts are ready to meet the challenge, but others are not. “There is a dearth of those [bilingual] professionals entering the pipeline,” he says.

Torres praised the state’s move to provide scholarships for teachers to earn the needed endorsements with federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge funds, as well as a CPS program to provide training for a cohort of 100 teachers. Plus, some districts are using state bilingual education money for teacher scholarships, Torres adds.

Chicago Public Schools says it won’t know how many teachers might be needed until the fall. A spokeswoman says the district “aggressively campaigned” last fall to get more teachers to start certification programs and over 100 teachers enrolled at City Colleges, National-Louis University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Based on the trend of schools in need, we feel the cohort program will meet the required needs,” according to the spokeswoman.  Teachers who finish the coursework should be certified by spring 2014, just before the deadline.

CPS says it will also begin training principals in July on the bilingual pre-K requirements and monitor school to ensure compliance.

At Bateman Elementary, Principal Pat Baccellieri is searching for teachers and hopes to recruit future hires from Loyola University, which will soon require all of its graduates to be endorsed in bilingual or English as a Second Language education. In the coming year, Bateman will have Loyola student teachers “working side by side” with Bateman teachers, Baccellieri says.

In the meantime, the school relies on creativity to ensure students get native-language instruction.

Classes include a mix of English-speakers and Spanish-speakers, but students change classes for part of the day so that Spanish-speakers can get bilingual instruction even if their teacher doesn’t speak Spanish.

For the future, the school is considering a dual-language model in which all students would learn in both Spanish and English.

“I just think it’s a better way to go,” Baccellieri says. “It’s actually supporting the development of both languages.”  Typical bilingual programs aim to boost content knowledge in a student’s home language but ultimately transition them to learning solely in English.

But Baccellieri notes challenges that loom down the line, given cuts in state aid.

“With increasing need, increasing demand and increasing policies, support is reduced, and it doesn’t make sense,” he says.

At Casa Central, Deputy Director of Children and Youth Services Amanda McMillen says the school works hard at “making sure we have Spanish-speaking staff within the classroom.”

Books, too, are in both English and Spanish. But much of the instruction is still in English, with support to Spanish-speaking students as needed.

McMillen says one new staff member has the required certification and two more are working toward it. She hopes that all four of Casa Central’s preschool classes will eventually have certified staff. She’s also interested in a dual language program but notes that “there hasn’t been too much direct guidance [from CPS] at this point.”

Creating a pipeline

One goal of bilingual education in the early grades is to make sure young children are exposed to rich, high-level language so they become literate in their native language.

The state requires bilingual teachers to pass a test on the foreign language they will be teaching in. But some observers worry that the standard isn’t high enough and that newly certified preschool teachers – many of whom aren’t native Spanish-speakers – won’t be able to teach children with enough fluency and high-level vocabulary to promote children’s growing literacy.

Sandra Warner, principal of the Early Learning Center in West Chicago District 33, explains the dilemma. “We’ve either found native speakers who don’t have the early childhood certification, or we’ve found teachers who have a Type 04 [early childhood certificate] who speak some Spanish but aren’t native speakers,” Warner says.

To work around this problem, the district has created its own pipeline of former teacher assistants--native Spanish-speakers who have earned their early childhood certificate. “We set up a road map for them,” Warner says.

Elgin District U-46, which runs a dual-language program that is 80 percent Spanish in preschool and kindergarten, has found bilingual teachers partly by recruiting them from Spain. But that’s a short-term solution, since the teachers’ visas are temporary. Three teachers will leave at the end of the current school year.

In the long run, Elgin U-46 is working with area universities – top staff members have quarterly meetings with representatives from Northern Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University, Illinois State University and Judson University – to drive home its needs.

“The biggest key has been for us to communicate with our university partners that we need bilingual preschool teachers that have their ELL [endorsement],” says Julie Kallenbach, Director of Early Learner Initiatives for the district.

Sharon Giless, director of English Language Learners at Waukegan Public School District 60, says her district has provided tutoring to help several existing teachers pass the state Spanish skills test. Once they pass the test, they can teach bilingual classes temporarily while they take courses for an endorsement.

Before the district began bilingual preschool classes, Giless notes, students learned a little English but received much of their instruction from Spanish-speaking aides. But even with bilingual classes and more English instruction, children’s language test scores at the end of preschool showed that they needed a kindergarten class almost entirely in Spanish. 

“The idea of bilingual support from the teacher assistant is good, but the delivery of instruction really comes from the teachers,” Giless says. “There is something lost in translation. Having preschool in English  doesn’t make them English speakers.”

City agencies tasked with helping children safely to new schools next year said they’ve already dealt with 11,000 requests for service along the school routes.

Touting their progress so far, Jadine Chou, CPS officer of safety and security, said parents at 42 of the schools receiving children from closed schools have seen their proposed “safe passage” routes and given their feedback. (Sun-Times)

SPENDING AND CUTTING: As Mayor Emanuel took another bold step toward spending $55 million for a DePaul basketball arena and a hotel, public school principals throughout the system were telling their staff what to expect in next year's budgets. As in—cuts, cuts, and more cuts, writes Ben Joravsky in the Chicago Reader.

IT'S HISTORY NOW: Peabody Elementary School, one of nearly 50 Chicago Public Schools slated for closure, commemorated 118 years of education before its doors close for good this summer. (ABC7 News)

IN THE NATION
ANOTHER EARLY CHILDHOOD INITIATIVE: Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation are partnering with Next Generation, a non-partisan strategic policy and communications organization, to launch “Too Small To Fail,” a new initiative to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five. Too Small to Fail will promote scientific research about early childhood development with the goal of reaching as many American parents and business leaders as possible and motivating them to act.  Click here to watch the Too Small To Fail video.  (Press release)

A CONTRACT, FINALLY: After five years of bitter bargaining, Oakland teachers and district officials have ratified a one-year agreement that gives teachers an immediate 1.5 percent raise and a one-time bonus. That raise will grow to 2 percent if, as expected, the governor signs the new state budget that has an extra $7 million for Oakland schools. (San Francisco Chronicle)

CPS today gave pink slips to 855 teachers, paraprofessional, teaching assistants, lunch ladies and bus aides who worked at either closing schools or those being turned around, a process in which all staff are replaced in hopes of spurring improvement.

Still more such teacher layoffs as a result of school actions are likely going to happen in about a month.

In May, the Board of Education approved the closing of 49 elementary schools and one tiny high school, and the turnaround of five schools.

According to CPS, 1,005 teachers worked in the closing schools. Of those, 420 were laid off on Friday.  The 420 were either probationary teachers or teachers with satisfactory or unsatisfactory performance reviews.

Teachers with excellent or superior reviews are eligible to follow their students if the “welcoming” schools have  positions for them. These teachers will learn in mid-July whether there are available positions.

Many welcoming school principals say they will be able to work small groups of new students into existing classes without exceeding  CPS class-size limits.  and, therefore, won’t need additional teachers. For example, Principal Minnie Watson at DePriest Elementary expects to get 135 students from Emmet School’s closing but will need only three of their four teachers.

One way she will limit the number of new teachers is by letting her small primary-grade classes grow a bit. For example, DePriest  now has 18 students in 2nd grade. Next year, it will have 24.

“It is still below average,” she notes. “I believe in smaller class sizes. I use my discretionary money for it.”

Teachers who do not follow their students, as well as others  who got pink slips today, will have two choices. They can work as substitute teachers for up to a year, receiving their previous pay and benefits for the first five months. Or, they can resign and receive three months’ salary.

The 124 teachers and 67 clerks, bus aides and paraprofessionals being laid off at turnaround schools can reapply for their jobs. According to the teacher’s contract, the teachers will be allowed to go into the reassigned teacher pool.  

 

CPS officials said that 60 percent of laid off teachers typically find jobs within the system. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said she thought the announcement was premature, considering school principals are still figuring out what positions they need.  "This announcement comes, as far as I'm concerned, to try and spread fear and panic and chaos on a Friday afternoon," she said. Lewis criticized the timing of the announcement, which came when Mayor Rahm Emanuel was out of town. Lewis added that the cuts to bus aides did not make sense. "The students still need busing," she said.

 

Also on Friday, CPS reported on what city agencies are doing to prepare for the transition of more than 13,000 students to new schools next year. Among other things, city departments are doing massive cleanups along routes that students are expected to walk. This is what they said they have done: towed more than 200 abandoned vehicles, removed 1,100 graffiti posts; trimmed 1,300 trees; mowed 1,400 lots; repaired 101 broken alley lights; fixed 722 street lights; completed more than 2,100 rodent abatements;  identified 478 vacant buildings and "addressed" more than half of those vacant buildings.

Education is a prominent theme at CGIAmerica, the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, which opened Thursday in Chicago. During the opening session, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that early childhood education would be a main focus of her work at the Clinton Foundation.

Chicago’s J.B. Pritzker announced a $20 million commitment to launch the Early Childhood Innovation Accelerator, an initiative that will rely on social impact bonds—bond investors receive a return based on goals met by social programs—to pay for early childhood programs for disadvantaged children. (The first project, with United Way of Salt Lake City, will provide preschool for 450 youngsters.) And at a panel moderated by former President Bill Clinton, a Target Corp. official announced that Target would donate $1 billion to K-12 education in the coming year, with a focus on early literacy, while Sara Martinez Tucker of the National Math and Science Initiative cited statistics on math and science education and plugged the Common Core State Standards as a needed step toward better STEM learning. The conference continues Friday. (Catalyst)

LITERACY COURSES FOR TEACHERS: As the state changes its system of tracking teacher licensing, new teacher candidates will have to take more reading coursework – including classes in reading methods, reading in content areas, and serving special education students. Also, substitute teachers will have to pass a basic skills test for the first time, in order to renew their licenses. The summer issue of Catalyst In Depth tackled the topic of literacy in the middle grades and high school, when content-area reading becomes particularly critical.

BUDGET BATTLE: As principals got a better sense this week of their school's budget for the coming year, officials with the Chicago Teachers Union and privately run charter schools — which rarely agree on anything — both sounded an alarm over the effects of potential funding cuts. (Tribune)

CTU WARNING: As Chicago Public Schools principals sort out their new student-based budgets for the 2013-14 school year, the Chicago Teachers Union on Thursday reported deep cuts in the budgets of many schools.  (Sun-Times)

UNION PREDICTS CUTS: The Chicago Teachers Union charged Thursday that school budgets for the coming school year are down between 10 percent and 25 percent compared to this year, and that new positions provided as part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s signature longer school day initiative will likely be the first to be cut. (Catalyst)

IN THE NATION
VIRTUAL SCHOOLING: The Philadelphia school system will open a new, full-time online school this coming fall, a program that the district promises will offer the academic flexibility and customized learning that many students and families demand. In creating its online program, Philadelphia joins a number of other big-city school districts that have founded virtual schools as a way to either add to the list of school choices available to parents or persuade families that have already chosen alternative online programs outside their systems to come back. (Education Week)

THE RETURN OF TRACKING: It was once common for elementary-school teachers to arrange their classrooms by ability, placing the highest-achieving students in one cluster, the lowest in another. But ability grouping and its close cousin, tracking, in which children take different classes based on their proficiency levels, fell out of favor in the late 1980s and the 1990s as critics charged that they perpetuated inequality by trapping poor and minority students in low-level groups. Now ability grouping has re-emerged in classrooms all over the country — a trend that has surprised education experts who believed the outcry had all but ended its use. (The New York Times)

The Chicago Teachers Union charged Thursday that school budgets for the coming school year are down between 10 percent and 25 percent compared to this year, and that new positions provided as part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s signature longer school day initiative will likely be the first to be cut.

Teachers and other workers paid for with the “college-ready fund”—the name CPS gave to the pot of money designated for the extended school day—are especially vulnerable as principals make budget decisions. About $100 million was doled out to schools through the college-ready fund, and schools could use it for a host of improvements, from buying computers to hiring an art teacher. Some schools used the money to hire parents or community residents to monitor recess, which became mandatory when Emanuel lengthened the school day.

But rather than protecting the money--as CPS is doing with the extra money it provides for magnet and selective schools, for instance--the college-ready fund was incorporated into the CPS budget for basic instruction. The basic instruction money is being distributed on a per-pupil basis for the first time.  

One principal said he will no longer have the money for recess workers. “We will have minimal coverage for recess, so I anticipate injuries and lawsuits,” he said.

According to principals, schools with special programs fared better than neighborhood schools under the new budget plan. A power point obtained by Catalyst Chicago explains how the budgeting system works.

Union leader Jackson Potter said it is hard to get a handle on how many layoffs could result from budget cuts, especially because principals have been told not to talk about their budgets. But the number could be significant.

Potter said he’s heard that librarians and counselors are slated to be laid off, as well as numerous teachers.

“It is going to be pretty devastating,” he said. “We are hearing these doomsday scenarios everywhere.”

Board president David Vitale has acknowledged that school budgets are less than last year, but said the decrease was only a few percentage points on average. But CPS officials have so far declined to provide any specific information about how the budgets for the coming school year compare to this year.

In a statement, CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said the union's allegations are disappointing and not accurate.

"CPS has cut more than $600 million from the central office, so we can preserve every precious dollar in the classroom for our children," she said in the statement. "It is my hope that as we finish this school year and prepare to begin another that the CTU will work with us and can contribute to real solutions to the financial crisis facing our schools. Our students deserve no less."

Most of the $600 million in cuts in central office predated the Rahm Emanuel administration and, in fact, the amount spent on central office staff increased this year.

CPS spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said the school-level budgets are preliminary and the district doesn’t want to share any specifics until budgets are final. Yet, technically the budgets won't be final until the board approves the entire district budget in late August. Well before then, CPS must publish budget information and hold hearings.

Quinn downplayed the decreases. “Every year there are increases and decreases in school budgets due to things like enrollment, number of students that are under the poverty line, etc.,” she said in an e-mail.

But principals say they were told at meetings led by top officials that their budgets are shrinking due to the district’s $600 million pension bill, which is driving a projected $1 billion budget deficit.

Plus, changes in enrollment or the number of poor students would not cause drastic shifts in school budgets. In fact, one North Side principal said that he is projected to get 40 more students, yet his budget did not increase at all.

Because veteran teachers eat up more of a school’s budget, one fear is that principals will have an incentive to lay them off to save money. With the new budgets, CPS is providing some additional money for 300 schools with a lot of veteran teachers; the money is not promised for future years.

One principal, whose teachers average 10 years of experience, said he isn't getting any of the money--and though he values veterans, he can understand why schools might decide to hire less experienced, and thus less expensive, ones.

The principal is also thinking about taking in more students to his school, which has a waiting list of students outside the neighborhood who would like to attend.

“Other schools in my position might be tempted to cannibalize other schools,” he said.

On the 10th day of school in the fall, CPS will look at school enrollments and adjust budgets accordingly. Schools whose enrollments are lower than projected will have money taken from them and will likely have to lay off staff. (This adjustment historically has been done on the 20th day of school.)

Another principal said his budget is $1 million less than this year, yet he is projected to get about the same number of students.

“I’m cutting three assistants, a half-time teacher, and a full-time teacher,” he said. “I'm also increasing class sizes from 20 in primary to the max of 29.”

This year, CPS is now taking two-thirds of the payment schools receive for having cell phone towers on their property, leaving schools just a third of the money. About 99 schools have cell phone towers and, at this principal’s school, the payment previously gave him $48,000 that he could use at his discretion.

Several high schools staff have told the union that they are seeing significant decreases. For example, Taft is losing $3 million, Foreman High School $1.7 million and Kenwood $1.76 million.

Potter says these schools might be projected to get slightly fewer students, but nowhere near the level that would justify the budget cuts.

Chicago is boarding up 50 public schools over the summer because, officials say, the schools have too few kids to keep operating. But for every one that Chicago Public Schools is closing, there’s a severely overcrowded school, many where parents and administrators are begging for additions, WBEZ reports.

READING WOES: A raft of past programs in CPS have failed to substantially improve the reading skills of middle grade and high school students. The evidence: Only 10 high schools, all of them selective, have average reading scores for freshmen that are at a level that predicts college readiness, and 4 in 10 CPS high school graduates who go on to Illinois 4-year colleges end up in remedial courses. The summer 2013 issue of Catalyst In Depth reports on the problem of adolescent literacy and how CPS is trying once again to tackle it as part of a new federal project.

PARTNERING FOR SAFETY: Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett announced that CPS and its faith-based community partners will the expand Safe Haven program from some 60 to 100 locations across the city this summer. The program, started in 2009, is meant to keep Chicago students off the streets and engaged in educational activities during the winter, spring and summer breaks.  The program runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday starting July 1 and ending on Aug. 13. Each location will provide students free breakfast and lunch through CPS’s partnership with Catholic Charities. Throughout the day, the program will also engage students in workshops that focus on positive conflict resolutions, anger management, anti-bullying and anti-violence. (Press release)

IN THE NATION
THE NEW MAJORITY: Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in Texas public schools, surpassing non-Hispanic whites in Lone Star State enrollment for the first time in history. (Huffington Post)

SUCCESS AND FAILURE: Denver’s charter high schools are doing a better job than traditional public schools at retaining students, but are doing only slightly better than the traditional schools at graduating their students in four years. (EdNews Colorado)

COLLEGE GRADS SURGE: The number of Americans graduating from college has surged in recent years, sending the share with a college degree to a new high, federal data shows. Despite the recent improvement, higher education experts emphasized that college completion rates were still distressingly low, with only about half of first-time college freshmen who enrolled in 2006 having graduated by 2012, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. (The New York Times)

Chicago's record high graduation rate is still roughly 20 percentage points below the national four-year graduation rate, but some of the progress the city has made in driving down the dropout rate over the past five to 10 years is because of a network of charter schools around the city that for more than 15 years has provided small, alternative programs that specialize in serving recovered dropouts or students at high risk of becoming dropouts. (Education Week)

TAX OPTION: Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn't ruling out seeking a way to raise Chicago Public Schools' property tax cap to help close the $1 billion deficit the district faces. CPS is allowed to raise its property taxes annually by either the rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is less. Should the district want to raise its taxes by more than that, it could ask voters through a referendum, something suburban school districts have been doing for years. The district also could try an end-around through legislation in Springfield. (Tribune)

LEGAL OPENING: For now, Chicago Public Schools has legally left the door open to the possibility of halting 10 of its 50 historic school closings. Until a new judge can be assigned to a lawsuit filed by the Chicago Teachers Union and parents from 10 elementary schools, CPS attorneys agreed the district wouldn’t take any permanent actions at the schools in question. (Sun-Times)

PUSHBACK ON CHARTER PUSHOUTS: On Tuesday, student activists in the organization Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), many of whom had been pushed out of charter schools, held a press conference to protest the expulsions, fines and other push-out tactics used by charter schools to pick and choose which students are retained in these schools. The students called on legislators to demand accountability for all publicly funded schools. (http://charterpushout.tumblr.com/)

Students from George Washington High School won an honorable mention for best presentation in the “Cooking up Change” Healthy Cooking National Finals held recently at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington D.C. The students competed against seven other teams from across the county in the preparation of healthy, tasty and creative school lunches that meet the nutritional standards and cost structure of CPS school food service staff. (Press release)

IN THE NATION

ANOTHER RECONSTITUTION: D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson called it a “fresh start” and a “momentum-shifter” for Cardozo Senior High last month when administrators removed nearly half the staff at the school. Henderson had used her power to “reconstitute” the struggling school, requiring the entire staff to reapply for their positions. But the district’s efforts to remake schools this way have largely failed to produce improved test scores, suggesting that replacing staff is not by itself a reliable route to addressing the challenges of high-poverty inner-city schools. (The Washington Post)

TRUANCY COMPLAINT: Advocacy groups have filed a civil rights complaint with the Justice Department on behalf of seven students in Texas. The move was to protest policies under which students are referred to truancy court. (The New York Times)

With more Noble Street charter schools opening next year, the student advocacy group Voices of Youth in Chicago Education and the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law charged Tuesday that some of their practices are so unfair that they shouldn’t be allowed to expand.

The two reasons? They expel more students than traditional CPS schools and they don’t enroll as many special education students.

The groups picked an unlikely audience to make this plea: the Illinois Charter School Commission. The Illinois Charter School Commission was created by the state legislature last year in order to hear appeals from charters denied by local school districts.

The organizations said charter commission members told them there was not much they could do. Their next step is to appeal to the Illinois State Board of Education and the state legislature. The students also introduced a hotline that students, parents and teachers can call if they are being pushed out of charter schools. (The number is 872-216-0368)

"Charter schools can not choose who they want to teach with public money," said Jamie Adams, a student at Roosevelt High School and a member of the Albany Park Neighborhood Council. "The problem of push outs is a problem at all schools and charter schools are no exceptions."

The student activists say they have data to prove their case. For every 1,000 students at Noble Street, 8.4 have been expelled and at Perspectives 17.5, according to VOYCE, which submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the charter schools. Chicago Public Schools have a rate of 1.1 expulsions per 1000 students, according to CPS information analyzed by VOYCE. (Catalyst wrote about the charter school push-out issue in 2010.)

Charter schools are allowed to adopt their own Code of Conduct. Noble School’s Code of Conduct is based on the philosophy of “sweating the small stuff” and students get demerits for small infractions, like not tucking in a shirt or wearing a belt. In addition to being given detentions, they are also fined.

Noble Street leaders responded to the criticism by saying that they expel students to ensure a safe environment. They say that comparing their expulsion rate to that of all of CPS is “comparing apples to oranges.” Noble Street runs high schools (except for one elementary school) and high school expulsion rates are much higher than those for elementary schools.  

Further, a statement from Noble Street notes that dropout and mobility rates are lower than the district’s.

“I am responsible for my students’ safety,” says Lauryn Fullerton, principal of a Noble campus in the south side Auburn Gresham neighborhood.  “While it does not happen often, there are times when we must remove a student.  These are not minor offenses, but actions that put our students in grave danger.  While I wish that every student could remain at Noble, we cannot allow the safety of our schools to be compromised.”

Parent stressed over expulsion, pushout

But one mother said her son was expelled without getting any help and that it came after her son had a lot of problems dealing with the strict rules at Noble Street.

Lidia Cortez says freshman year her son got a demerit every week as a student at Noble Street’s Chicago Bulls campus A demerit meant he got charged $5 and had to do a three-hour detention. Because of suspensions and demerits, he had to go to summer school for two classes. The summer courses cost $165.

When he returned to Noble for sophomore year, he became distant and moody. He started smoking weed and even ran away from home at one point. Yet she eventually got him to listen to her and he started to do better.

Then, Cortez says she got a call from the discipline dean that she dreaded. “When he calls you, it is never good news,” she says.

School officials had gone into her son’s friend’s Facebook page to find out about an impending fight and happened on an exchange about marijuana. Cortez says her son told her the conversation was two months old, but the school accused him of possession with intent to distribute.

When the expulsion hearing happened nearly a month later, she says it seemed like the expulsion was a foregone conclusion. “The hearing was at 11 and at 3 p.m., I got an e-mail that they are recommending him for expulsion,” she says.

Students expelled from charter schools can enroll in traditional schools, unless CPS law officials determine the infraction would have been cause for expulsion from one of their schools.

Cortez says she enrolled her son in Schurz, where he is getting As and doing well.

“It was a long and disappointing process, she says. “There should be consequences, but they took it too far.”

Like Cortez, Marsha Goddard said she feels betrayed by Noble Street. She had high hopes for the school, but her son has gotten so many demerits and detentions that she wants to take him out of Noble Street's Bulls campus at the end of this year. 

She says he has missed a lot of school due to some 20 to 25 suspensions he got over the past two years. Yet she says he hasn't done anything all that bad and has decent grades.

Not only that, but she estimates that she owes the school some $3,000. "I can't afford it," she said. "It is unrealistic."

Yet she isn't completely sure she will transfer him. She doesn't want him to go to the neighborhood high school and she has no where else to take him.

Special education students missing

Furthermore, the advocates point out that charter schools don’t serve as many special education students and serve those with less severe disabilities. About 2.2 percent of CPS students have profound disabilities, compared to 0.4 percent of those at charters in general. (Catalyst wrote about this disparity in the spring issue of In Depth. )

The group took particular aim at Noble Street, which is scheduled to open two more campuses this year, one co-located with Corliss High School and the other with Bowen. But Corliss has about 24 percent of students in special education and Bowen has about 28 percent. Current Noble Street charters have about 12 percent. 

As the school year winds down, some parents at Goodlow Magnet Elementary School are calling for a boycott for the rest of the week. Mothers with students at the school say they’ve tried everything else to get the district’s attention about why Goodlow, 2040 W. 62nd Street in Englewood, should not be absorbed into Earle Elementary, and are urging parents to keep their children home through Friday. (Sun-Times)

A PLAN WITH PROMISES: Chicago Public Schools unveiled a five-year education plan on Monday that promises an annual report card to provide parents with information on the academic performance of schools and show how many principals and teachers are rated as high performers. (Tribune)

LAYING IT OUT: CPS chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett on Monday laid out an education plan, calling for high academic standards, more focus on parental engagement and greater accountability for the district, including an annual scorecard. Among specifics called for in the plan are more arts education—the district and the city announced a $1 million investment in arts education in May—and mental health services. (Catalyst)

PAVING THE CPS WAY: “We fundamentally believe that all of our children are capable of success, and to ensure that success, every child must have equitable access to a high-quality education,” said CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, announcing the district's newest education plan, accompanied at Westinghouse College Prep on Monday by a video called “The CPS Way” and a glossy, 25-page brochure titled “The Next Generation: Chicago’s Children.” (Sun-Times)

FIVE PILLARS: According to CPS, the five-year plan includes five “pillars.” They include: high academic standards; meeting every student’s specific needs; engaged parents and communities; committed school leaders, teachers and staff; and sound fiscal/operation/and accountability systems. Byrd-Bennett said her biggest emphasis will be on strengthening the relationships with parents and communities. She said additional parent centers will keep parents informed about their child’s performance and new learning opportunities. The district also plans a new mentoring program for students. (CBS Chicago)

PLAN PANNED: The Chicago Teachers Union calls the plan nothing but public relations and rhetoric and that it was developed without any input from teachers. Also, the five-year plan did not spell out how some of its new initiatives would be paid for. (ABC 7 News)

IN THE NATION
SHORT TIMETABLE: Administrators and teachers in New York City have just three months to adapt before the expectations of a new teacher-evaluation system kick in. State Commissioner of Education John B. King outlined the system's criteria in an arbitration ruling issued last week, putting an end to years of bitter disagreement between city school officials and the local teachers' union. (Education Week)

For the first time since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took over CPS, his CEO laid out an education plan, calling for high academic standards, more focus on parental engagement and greater accountability for the district, including an annual scorecard.

Among specifics called for in the plan announced by Barbara Byrd-Bennett are more arts education—the district and the city announced a $1 million investment in arts education in May—and mental health services. 

The plan also reiterates some previously-announced initiatives, such as full-day kindergarten for all children and the creation of more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) schools. The plan also makes mention of the move to the Common Core State Standards.

But Byrd-Bennett’s announcement at Westinghouse High School raised immediate questions about how the board would pay for the initiatives. And following the announcement, Board President David Vitale confirmed that principals, who received their school budgets just last week,  will have to make do with less: On average, school budgets are a few percentage points down from last year, although the cuts varied from school to school.

This year CPS made a radical shift in its budgeting practice, giving schools a set amount of money per pupil for core instruction, instead of paying for a specific number of teachers based on enrollment. 

“It is tough,” Vitale said. “There are things we probably should be doing, but can’t. We need to prioritize.”

The question of how the district can expect schools to accomplish a new plan came up during a short question-and-answer period after Byrd-Bennett’s speech.

The plan, for instance, states that CPS will “establish a universal standard for a positive learning climate in every school.” One way this will be done, according to the plan, is by expanding social-emotional learning.

A woman in the audience noted that principals often are forced to make a trade-off between arts, social-emotional learning and academics.

Byrd-Bennett’s reply was the only time during the announcement that she acknowledged the district’s budget situation. “There needs to be a redirection of resources,” she said. “We are in a billion-dollar deficit.”

Yet she noted that “the non-academic [learning] is critical and the earlier we start the better.”

Budget questions

Schools will receive $4,429 for every kindergarten through 3rd-grader, $4,140 for every 4th through 8th-grader and $5,029 for each high school student. But CPS officials have not yet provided more specifics about school budgets.

Some principals, especially in neighborhood schools, report that they are grappling with cuts.

Inequities among different types of schools are almost certain to emerge, given how the new budgeting practice is set up: CPS will still award extra positions to magnet schools, selective schools and for specialty programs outside of its per-pupil funding plan.

Only the money that the district spends on regular classroom teachers, administrators and aides is being given on a per-pupil basis. Also, schools will still receive federal and state money, as well as money for special education, based on the existing formula.

CPS officials have said they are trying to keep cuts as far away from the classroom as possible and that they aren’t not increasing class sizes as a matter of policy.

But principals, faced with hard choices and given broader spending discretion, can make the decision to increase class sizes in order to pay for something else—perhaps an extra aide or to help cover the cost of an after-school program.

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was quick to point out the irony in laying out a plan filled with what schools need to do, while at the same time cutting school budgets.

“Our school communities do not lack inspiration, they lack revenue.  It doesn’t matter what new initiatives CPS concocts from year to year if it has no way to appropriately fund them (i.e., the longer school day). Chicago has to break its addiction to tax-breaks and find ways to generate revenue for our schools,” Lewis said in a statement.

Meanwhile, principals were trying to figure out how to do all that is expected with less money. One principal, whose enrollment is staying the same, but he is losing $1 million, says he will cut one and half teacher positions and some aides. Another principal got the same amount of money, despite a projected increase in enrollment. He says he has yet to decide how he will organize the school. He says he thinking of allowing his primary class sizes, now at 24, grow to 28 students.

Crain's Chicago Business is reporting that despite the lack of pension relief in Springfield, Chicago Public Schools has developed the outline of a plan to completely eliminate a projected $1 billion deficit for the school year that begins July 1.

The very fact that the CPS has been able to eliminate such a large deficit will raise some questions about how real the projected $1 billion figure really was, writes Greg Hinz.

For more on student-based budgeting, check out this past issue of Catalyst.

PINK SLIP FEARS: Chicago Teachers Union officials fear the city could soon follow Philadelphia’s steps and send out thousands of layoff notices, according to the Sun-Times. On Friday, the Philadelphia School District notified more than 3,000 employees of layoffs.  Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Becky Carroll said in an email that a budget submitted by the district to schools does not include layoffs, but she added: “Under school based budgeting, principals create their own staffing plans and determine what their needs will be classroom by classroom.” Jackson Potter, of the Chicago Teachers Union, said on Friday that based on the city’s deficit, in addition to jobs lost because of school closings, the city could see 6,000 layoffs. In the last school year, CPS recorded 41,498 employees.

CHARTERS TO THE RESCUE: Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, says Chicago Public Schools'  Board of Education decision to close 50 schools has the potential to usher in a new era of opportunity for Chicago students, and "We at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools will be part of this solution." (Huffington Post)

RACE TO THE TOP REPORT: U.S. Department of Education has released a report detailing Illinois’ work to advance comprehensive education reform during its first year under Race to the Top. “Illinois is off to a solid start after the first year of Race to the Top,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. “The state has worked through challenges and has continued to move forward with its vision for education reform that will better support teachers and improve student growth.” Click here to view the Illinois report.

IN THE NATION
THE STATE OF REFORM: The National Council on Educating Black Children, in collaboration with the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, is producing a live, month-long talk radio series designed to frame the current state of urban education reform from a national, state, and local perspective. The first show of the series, "Values and Principles for Education Reform," is scheduled for 10-11:30am (EDT) on Monday, June 10. Call 714-242-5228 to pose questions and offer comments. (Press release)

As leaders push Chicago schools to focus more on STEM programs--science, technology, engineering and math--a new study finds that more than 88,000 students are exposed to these disciplines outside of school and more than half of them are girls.

But Latino children, in particular, are left out of these programs. And few programs are offered during the summer.

“Summer is underutilized, [but] because of the flexibility it is probably the best space,” says Gabrielle Lyon, co-founder of Project Exploration and chair of the Chicago STEM Pathways Cooperative.

Fewer STEM programs are offered during the summer because they are typically connected to schools rather than community organizations.

Another concern pinpointed by the report is that many STEM programs are “one-shot” activities without mentoring or internships that can really make the experience deep and lasting.

The study is ground-breaking, given that not much is known about the universe of out-of-school programs, especially those that focus on STEM learning. Lyon says that the report is “just the tip of the iceberg” in trying to get a handle on the availability of quality learning programs outside of school.

Ultimately, Lyon would love to see a website where parents or students could search for programs based on their interests and needs. This summer the city created a web portal called OneSummerChicago.org to provide information on summer learning opportunities. But the portal mostly links to government agencies and parents have said it is not easy to navigate and find summer programs, especially for younger students. 

Toward a better system

Jessica Donner of the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems says collecting data is a first step in building a better system. The collaborative is working with Chicago and several other cities to do so, with initiatives that include training for staff as well as implementing quality control measures.

A national movement to create more STEM programs during out-of-school time—after school and during summer—is under way, Donner notes. Traditionally, after-school and summer programs have been dominated by sports, arts, and tutoring programs. Like Chicago, most cities do not have a coordinated effort.

“They are diverse, energetic, but fragmented,” she says.

Lyon says Chicago leaders pursued the survey because there was a sense that a lot was happening, but the available information was anecdotal. In addition to creating better systems, she says teachers and families need to change the way they think about STEM programs.

For instance, many STEM programs require applications and look for students who already have an interest in the sciences—both of which may be a major barrier for Latino students who don’t have much background in science.

Lyon says programs need to be intentional about recruiting Latino students.

“We need to have programs designed for Latinos and do outreach to families,” she says. “We need to tell them that you don’t need to be a scientist to do these things, but you can do them because you are curious and inquisitive and they are relevant to your families and communities.”

Also, some teachers and students think STEM programs are only for so-called “smart” kids. Yet Lyon notes that science, much like art and music, can ignite a spark in students who are otherwise not engaged in school or doing well academically.

“The students that are the least likely to sit in a chair and turn to page 46 are often the most creative and the most likely to make discoveries,” Lyons points out. “Science often opens up doors. Students might find their passion is in observation.”

Further, she says learning the skills needed for scientific inquiry, such as the difference between opinion and fact, is important for all students.

Donner says that staff for out-of-school STEM programs need not be experts in a scientific discipline in order to provide quality learning. With some training, good youth workers can facilitate such programs.

The study did not examine program quality or whether out- of-school STEM programs had any correlation with a child’s classroom learning.

The study was conducted by members of the Chicago STEM Pathways Cooperative, a group that includes city officials, university researchers and STEM program leaders. The Noyce Foundation and the Chicago Foundation for Women paid for the survey and the development of the report.

This report is the first in an ongoing series of stories on expanded learning time. The stories are the result of a multi-city reporting project by Catalyst Chicago and its partners: EdNews Colorado, EdSource Today, GothamSchools and the Philadelphia Public School Notebook.The collaborative effort was made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation, which has made More and Better Learning Time a priority in its philanthropy.

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett promised that each child whose school disappeared would be guaranteed new science or arts programs in 19 of the schools taking in those displaced children and investments in all the receiving schools: air conditioning, libraries and iPads. But after the dust settles, and many school boundaries are redrawn, not all children living in the shadow of a closing school will reap these benefits, according to the Sun-Times.

PRINCIPALS' PURSES: Chicago Public Schools is in the process of briefing principals on how much money they’ll have to work with as the district continues the switch to a more rigorous curriculum and implements full-day kindergarten across the city. (WBEZ)

MURAL REMOVAL: Parents and teachers at Trumbull Elementary in Andersonville, one of 49 schools being closed by Chicago Public Schools, were dismayed when word spread this week that crews would be removing two century-old murals depicting Christopher Columbus. But district officials said Thursday afternoon that the murals won't come down before school lets out for the year. (Tribune)

IN THE NATION

STRIPPED TO THE BONE: Philadelphia's School Reform Commission adopted a stripped-down "Doomsday" budget last week that its own members called unconstitutional and inadequate. The $2.39 billion operating budget eliminates nearly everything from schools except a principal and a minimal number of classroom teachers, including counselors, librarians, sports, secretaries, support staff, music and art. (The Notebook)

SUPPORT FOR BANNED TEACHER: More than 100 supporters of a Seattle high school teacher insisted Seattle Public Schools board members reinstate him along with his now-banned frank discussion method of teaching about racial issues. Jon Greenberg’s racial- and social-justice-issues lessons stirred up controversy earlier this year when the family of a senior in his class filed a complaint that the class created an intimidating educational environment. Exactly what offended the student has not been released by the district, and other students in Greenberg’s class said they didn’t know what it was. (Seattle Times)

Chicago Public Schools is floating a new performance policy that would abandon the ISAT, grade schools on their progress in closing the achievement gap and create a five-tier rating system rather than the three-level system currently in place.

It also would make schools accountable for having 95 percent of students tested as a way to make sure the data is accurate.

Catalyst Chicago obtained a draft dated May 24. Chief Accountability Officer John Barker emphasized that the current draft is “very preliminary.” He says the draft is currently being discussed by stakeholders and will be shared with board members later this month. He doesn’t expect it to be on the board agenda for approval until August.

The district's performance policy is important, as ratings are used to decide which schools will be closed, turned around or be subject to some other dramatic intervention. This year, Level 1 schools—the top level—were immune from being closed, even if they were severely underutilized.

During this year's closings process, critics said the existing performance policy is too broad. Michael Colwell, a teacher from Ericson Elementary, told the board in May that some Level 3 schools were doing better than Level 2 schools on raw ISAT scores and that there was a lot of variation within the levels.

Barker says engaging stakeholders through the process is new, as is the fact that schools will go into the school year knowing what standards they will be held to.

“A lot of time in the past, the performance policy was changed in the middle of the year,” he says.

Barker says that the thinking about a new performance policy started in October when Barbara Byrd-Bennett was named CEO.

The current draft refers to the notion of academic probation, with those schools rated 4 or 5 being identified as such. 

However, at the last board meeting, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis urged the board to stop using probation as a term, as it is commonly used in the criminal justice system. 

Barker says he and Byrd-Bennett have discussed taking that recommendation. Schools on probation lose some of their budget authority as well as the power to determine a school improvement plan.

The performance policy is important as ratings are used to decide which schools will be closed, turned around or be subject to some other dramatic intervention. This year, Level 1 schools—the top level—were immune from being closed, even if they were severely underutilized.

Also, during the school closing process, the old performance policy was criticized as being too broad. Michael Colwell, a teacher from Ericson Elementary, told the board in May that he noticed that some level 3 schools were doing better than level 2 schools on raw ISAT scores and that there was a lot of variation within the levels.

Should it be adopted, the move away from the ISAT is not surprising. Illinois is in the process of shifting to the Common Core Standards, which are more rigorous than current standards. By the 2014-2015 school year, students in Illinois will be taking a Common Core assessment called the PARCC.

The NWEA, which is a benchmark exam taken three times during a year, is more similar to the PARCC than the ISAT.

One hiccup with the new performance policy, should it be approved, is that it might take a while before it can be used to measure charter schools. Charter schools are not required to administer or report scores on the NWEA, though many of them do give it to students. When contracts are renewed, CPS could make NWEA accountability measures a requirement.

A controversial part might be the proposal to look at growth on the NWEA from spring to spring, rather than from fall to spring. In a question and answer section of the draft, it says this would reduce the chance that schools would try to “game” the policy by getting their students to do poorly on the fall test in order to show growth.

How CPS would account for mobility from one school year to the next is questionable.

In addition to additional levels, the draft performance policy takes into account more metrics than the old one. None of the current metrics single out specific groups of students, but this draft calls for one-fifth of the performance ratings be based on how well black, Latino, special education and English Language Learners perform on the NWEA and how they progressed.

There’s also a new emphasis on younger students. Because students first start taking the ISAT in third grade, the current performance measures start there. The draft calls for second grade NWEA scores to be factored in. This could spur concerns about earlier test prep.

Also, attendance of pre-kindergarten through 2nd-grade students would be its own category. Truancy, not attendance, for older students would be factored in.   

The performance policy for high schools also would have more metrics under the draft proposal. In addition to looking at success in Advanced Placement classes and International Baccalaureate programs, it would take into account the number of students that got credentials in career education programs.

Further, growth on the EPAS, standardized tests which freshmen, sophomores and juniors take, would be more important than the PSAE, which is taken in junior year.