interesting article about charters in chicago and the burbs.

[mopinko]

long but worth reading.

But Lake County United refused to believe that demographics were destiny. They began a search for a public school—somewhere, anywhere—that was succeeding with kids who looked like Waukegan kids.
They didn’t have to look far: In Chicago, Lake County United members found a number of open-enrollment public schools where large concentrations of poor and minority students attended classes regularly, challenged themselves academically, graduated on time, and went to college.
“We saw kids who liked being in school,” says Melissa Earley, the pastor of Living Faith United Methodist Church in Waukegan. “Kids who said before high school they hadn’t thought about going to college. Kids with previously low GPAs who were going to community colleges but also big-name colleges.”
These schools were charter schools.

http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/news_docs/3091The%20case%20for%20charter%20schools.htm

and a link to some number crunchers here-
http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/content/index.php

[Hannah Bell]

1. standard charter puff piece: read the comments section for the critique.

yes, yes, charters turn gang-bangers into yale scholars, how many times are they going to write this fairy tale?

author emily krone: supported by the phillips foundation: "advancing a vibrant free-enterprise system!"

2008 fellows:

David Donadio, 27, op-ed editor and manager of editorial services at the Cato Institute;

Travis Kavulla, 23, a contributor to National Review and National Review Online;

Emily Krone, 28, senior education and immigration reporter at the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, Ill.;

Lygia Navarro, 29, a freelance journalist in Oakland, Calif.

Cheryl Chumley, 40, a staff writer at Potomac News in Woodbridge, Va.;

Matthew Continetti, 26, an associate editor at The Weekly Standard;

J. Peter Freire, 25, managing editor at The American Spectator;

Jonathan Last, 33, a staff writer at The Weekly Standard and a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.


Cato, National Review, Weekly Standard & American Spectator = libetarian, right-wing, & far-right publications.

Navarro specializes in critiques of Castro's regime with a "liberal" spin.

Chumley: gad: http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Cheryl%20K.+Chumley


Any questions about the likelihood of spin, bias & plain misinformation in this article?


http://www.thephillipsfoundation.org/index.php?q=node/276


apparently krone hasn't heard: chicago charters not the fairy tale success story they were initially made out to be.

[mopinko]

2. she got a one year travel fellowship. that is hardly bought and paid for.

and that there is the longest "puff piece" i have ever read. the chicago reader, until recent financial problems left it a shadow of it's former self, was one of the most thorough investigative papers in the state. hell, probably the country. they wrote long cover stories like this about just about everything that went on in this city since it's founding in 1971. they always were unabashedly lefty, taking the government of chicago and cook county to task at least once a month in pages and pages long cover, exposing all manner of corruption from ballot box stuff to police brutality to bid rigging, etc. their investigation into police misconduct in death penalty cases in illinois is one reason we have a moratorium here and why john burge is on trial.
trust me, they never, ever put puff on the front page. nor had to.


who is emily krone?

Senior Manager for Outreach and Publications
Consortium on Chicago School Research
Email: [e-mail]

Emily Krone is the senior manager for outreach and publications at the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Krone previously worked as an education reporter at the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights. Most recently, she traveled across the country writing about charter schools and school reform as part of a year-long journalism fellowship sponsored by the Washington-based Phillips Foundation.

Krone received a Master in Science and Journalism from Medill at Northwestern University and a B.A. in history from Princeton University.

http://uei.uchicago.edu/about/staff/bios/ekrone.shtml




more from emily krone

Via speakerphone from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, linguistics professor Noam Chomsky told Dundee-Crown High School students that a two-tiered educational system exists: While the elite attend schools that promote critical, independent thought, the masses attend schools that train students to pass tests and follow orders.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=192670&src=5

another completely unrelated but typical reader cover story also by emily krone, for those who are interested
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/why-did-pieter-die/Content?oid=914993


>the consortium was instrumental in the process of reforming chicago schools. and yes, i really do mean reforming. however imperfect they are today, they are light years from the black board jungles that many of them were when i moved to the city 30 years ago.
the university of chicago lab school has been at the forefront of progressive education for a century.


now, would you care to back up your contention that "chicago charters not the fairy tale success story they were initially made out to be."? fyi no one in chicago believes in fairy tales. but what we do believe in is doing the best for all of our kids. moving to the suburbs so kids could go to better schools has been the number one reason for leaving chicago for several decades. these days people are not only not moving to the burbs when the kids turn 5, they are moving TO the city when the kids turn 5.
the archdiocese of chicago ran a successful private schools system, open to children of any faiths for decades that has shrunken to 1/10th of it's former self in the 20 years that richard daley has been mayor.
you can point to all the studies or blogs or opinion that you like about charter schools. but people actually handing over their children is a whole different measure of proof. there are no empty seats in charters in chicago.

[Hannah Bell]

4. she's a right-wing shill. the article is a puff piece. Chicago Ren 2010 charters here & elsewhere:

Daley school plan fails to make grade

By Stephanie Banchero
Tribune Reporter
Updated: 8:41 AM 1/16/2010


Six years after Mayor Richard Daley launched a bold initiative to close down and remake failing schools, Renaissance 2010 has done little to improve the educational performance of the city's school system, according to a Tribune analysis of 2009 state test data.

Scores from the elementary schools created under Renaissance 2010 are nearly identical to the city average, and scores at the remade high schools are below the already abysmal city average, the analysis found.

The moribund test scores follow other less than enthusiastic findings about Renaissance 2010 -- that displaced students ended up mostly in other low performing schools and that mass closings led to youth violence as rival gang members ended up in the same classrooms. Together, they suggest the initiative hasn't lived up to its promise by this, its target year...

Tribune analysis shows that in Renaissance 2010 elementary schools, an average of 66.7 percent of students passed the 2009 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, identical to the district rate. The Ren10 high school passing rate was slightly lower on state tests than the district as a whole -- 20.5 percent compared with 22.8 percent. But it's identical at 17.6 percent when selective enrollment schools, where students test to get in, are removed from the equation.


http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/inf/infomo?view=top_stories_item&feed:a=chi_trib_1min&feed:c=topstories&feed:i=51676200&nopaging=1


And this is from the Tribune, a major supporter of Ren 2010, both with puff pieces of its own & with big $$$$.

[mopinko]

6. have you ever seen the reader? read the reader?

then you wouldn't know that they do not do puff on the first page. the very length of the article seems to me defies the pejorative of "puff". the Chicago Consortium on School Research at the University of Chicago does not do puff either.
and i notice that you point to test scores to measure the "failure" of these schools. i, personally, put only so much stock in test scores. they are a poor measure of anything but the quality of the test.

anyway- from your link-

Cunningham and other supporters argue that many new schools, mainly in low-income and high-crime neighborhoods, are outperforming nearby traditional schools. They say attendance rates, parent satisfaction and student engagement are higher. And they point out that expecting significant gains from startup schools is unrealistic.
------------
"I've been in many Renaissance 2010 (schools), and that's doesn't mean you don't have to improve," Daley said after speaking at an anti-violence rally in the Roseland neighborhood. "But I've seen the different attitudes, by the parents, by the students, by the teachers. It's a whole different attitude at 2010 Renaissance schools. And that doesn't mean it's not a struggle, and everybody can evaluate the schools. But like anything else, they are getting better. I've been in these schools. I've seen the difference at a school that couldn't even control discipline that has discipline at the school. And that's the difference. And academically they are getting better."
---------------

Most of the elementary schools overhauled by the Academy for Urban School Leadership, which changes the school staff but leaves the students in place, are outperforming their previous selves. The Noble Street charter schools, which operate in some of the toughest neighborhoods, have college-going rates that even suburban schools would envy. And innovation has flourished, as the city's first all-boys public high school, Urban Prep opened in Englewood, and the Chicago Virtual Charter School went online.
---------------

(i thought this bit interesting, just as a note about human nature and change)

Even in schools with single-digit pass rates, violence-filled hallways and embarrassing absentee patterns, parents picketed the streets and filled the school board chambers, begging that their schools be left alone.

------------


i would also like to point out, as a chicagoan, and as a parent, the importance of choice in education. up until a few years ago, with the exception of a handful of schools whose real purpose was to encourage racial desegregation, there was NO choice in public school. so, so, so many of the people who had the means left the city because of this. white flight it was called, and good stable neighborhoods fell like dominoes into chaos and disrepair. the one choice that was available was usually the catholic schools, which did a decent job, but were expensive.
that white flight has stopped. reversed, even. and the catholic schools are all but defunct. the importance of schools to a city cannot be exaggerated. and the turn around in attitude, which defies testing, is a sea change.

you can post about test scores all you like. i am here. i am a mom. i have kids in the chicago schools. i have friends with kids in the chicago schools. i have friends who are teachers in chicago schools. the investment that has been made here has done nothing less than saved the city.
i do not think the full impact will be known for a generation. it will not be measured by the ISATs. it will be measured by the vibrance of a big city. i'll keep ya posted.

[Hannah Bell]

8. i know it was sold to Atalaya Capital Management in a bankruptcy action in 2009.

Atalaya Capital Management

http://www.atalayacap.com/index.html

HQ: 5th avenue NYC



you know, i don't care if you think test scores are a "poor measure":

test scores are THE MEASURE BEING USED TO CLOSE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

You could at least have the decency to disavow double standards.

[mopinko]

11. no they are not. test scores are not the whole measure used here. period.

attendance, graduation rates, % that goes on to college, measures of conduct and level of violence, measures of parent involvement, all go into a decision to close a school. saying that decisions are being made on the basis of high stakes testing is just not the facts on the ground. sorry.

and none of the other canards thrown around about charter schools comport with the facts on the ground here, either. we do it right here. we are democrats here. richie daley is the best mayor in america. chris matthews says that every time he has occasion to mention his name. again, we are democrats here. we do it right. whatever fault you can find with the way charters are done elsewhere, we do it right.

[Hannah Bell]

13. "richie daley is the best mayor in america" - tells the story right there.

From the Front Lines then proceeds to outline the ideological and structural components of Renaissance 2010 and its impact on both the physical and social landscape of the schools and neighborhoods that it targets. Through interviews with educators, students, city officials, and community members interspersed with footage from around Chicago we are taken on an engaging educational journey to the front lines of the struggle to keep Chicago’s schools public, and its communities intact...

It skillfully locates the push for Renaissance 2010 in the desire of the cities elite class, spearheaded by Mayor Richard Daily and his corporate partners at the Commercial Club of Chicago, to use school closings as a lever for privatizing public education as well to gentrify some of Chicago’s poorest and historically most neglected communities. We learn that Ren 2010 has been designed to close schools in these targeted neighborhoods and to reopen them, or “flip” them, as mainly charter and contract schools, or to what some have referred to as “real estate anchors”.

From the Front Lines highlights that contrary to the slick obfuscating language used by its proponents, such as Chicago school CEO Arne Duncan, Ren 2010 is not about serving the interests of kids at targeted schools but about serving a population of students that the city anticipates moving into these neighborhoods as they gentrify. In the film, University of Illinois Chicago Professor David Stovall suggests that Ren 2010 “is really about moving the undesirables out and moving the target population in and giving them new schools in the process.” While their schools are closed these “undesirables” are being steered into increasingly crowded container schools to the detriment of both those who are relocated and the original students at these schools. These receiving schools are effectively becoming warehouses for dislocated students and centers of heightened gang tension as well as increased police surveillance and control.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/renaissance-2010-from-the-front-lines/

[Hannah Bell]

14. "From the Front Lines" then proceeds to outline the ideological

and structural components of Renaissance 2010 and its impact on both the physical and social landscape of the schools and neighborhoods that it targets.

Through interviews with educators, students, city officials, and community members interspersed with footage from around Chicago we are taken on an engaging educational journey to the front lines of the struggle to keep Chicago’s schools public, and its communities intact...

It skillfully locates the push for Renaissance 2010 in the desire of the cities elite class, spearheaded by Mayor Richard Daily and his corporate partners at the Commercial Club of Chicago, to use school closings as a lever for privatizing public education as well to gentrify some of Chicago’s poorest and historically most neglected communities. We learn that Ren 2010 has been designed to close schools in these targeted neighborhoods and to reopen them, or “flip” them, as mainly charter and contract schools, or to what some have referred to as “real estate anchors”.

From the Front Lines highlights that contrary to the slick obfuscating language used by its proponents, such as Chicago school CEO Arne Duncan, Ren 2010 is not about serving the interests of kids at targeted schools but about serving a population of students that the city anticipates moving into these neighborhoods as they gentrify. In the film, University of Illinois Chicago Professor David Stovall suggests that Ren 2010 “is really about moving the undesirables out and moving the target population in and giving them new schools in the process.” While their schools are closed these “undesirables” are being steered into increasingly crowded container schools to the detriment of both those who are relocated and the original students at these schools. These receiving schools are effectively becoming warehouses for dislocated students and centers of heightened gang tension as well as increased police surveillance and control.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/renaissance-2010-from-the-front-lines/


chicago schools are under mayoral control.

"the policy" is whatever daley & his cronies say it is. period.

[mopinko]

17. aside from cut and paste, what do you know about ritchie daley?

[Hannah Bell]

15. 8. The hearing process is fraudulent.

• CPS changes the school closing, etc., criteria every year, so that the schools they want to close
that year will “fit” the criteria.

• Board members do not attend hearings, do not even read the hearing reports, yet they have voted to
approve every recommendation.

• Only one hearing is held in the school community, with very short notice given. School supporters
who miss that hearing must go to downtown CPS headquarters, pay $25 for parking.

• Hearing officers are highly-paid consultants to CPS, not independent.

• The Data and Democracy Report 2008 demonstrates that the CPS formula for underenrollment does
not account for educationally appropriate use of space. Many AMPS schools fit CPS underenrolled
category. This raises questions about why CPS is using this category with these schools.


9. CPS has failed to prepare or make public the 2007-08 or 2008-09 R2010 reports on the
impact of R2010 on affected students which are required under CPS's own Renaissance 2010
policy. In addition, the existing report, covering 2002-2007, only deals with whole school impact,
not individual student impact.


10. Renaissance 2010 is not an education plan – it’s a business and real estate developer plan.
• This is Mayor Daley’s plan to push poor African American and Latino residents out of the city.
• Schools to be closed/etc. have over last 5 years mapped onto areas gentrified or adjacent to
gentrified/gentrifying areas, according to the Data and Democracy Report 2008 (Lipman, UIC).


©Parents United for Responsible Education 2009

http://pureparents.org/data/files/TopTen12-09.pdf

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. Does Sec Duncan know you talk like this?

>>>>i, personally, put only so much stock in test scores. they are a poor measure of anything but the quality of the test.>>>>>

Test scores are *it*. Everything, the ENTIRE "reform" agenda, rests on them.

"they are a poor measure of anything but the quality of the test."

Then the "reform" agenda is built on quicksand?

[mopinko]

12. see reply #11

we are talking about my kids here. my kids.
you want to measure schools with something besides test scores? how about this- ask the parents.
that's what we do here.

[Dinger]

18. Jeez, Talk About A faux news wish list . . .

[mzteris]

3. they're unable to read anything that refutes

their pet theories. It's like there's a blind spot or something.

Sad, ain't it?

Critical thinking skills are crucial. Comprehending the WHOLE and not just the part you like is a key piece of being able to think critically. If you don't even know or understand what you're arguing about - or against - then you're just flappin' your gums and not thinking at all.

[Hannah Bell]

5. lol. says the person with all the walmart propaganda bookmarked.

[mopinko]

7. school is one of the most emotional subjects that i know of.

the old inner child come raging out, parents get twisted in fear and self-doubt, old wounds start to bleed.

and how do you judge a school? a whole school? a school system, even? it's tough.

[Hannah Bell]

10. i'm not judging any individual school. i'm judging the movement funded by big capital with the aim

of destroying public schools in america & turning them into franchises & profit centers.

amateur psychology = bad habit promoted by the ptb who encourage the peons to view the world exclusively in terms of individual personalities who are "functional" or "dysfunctional"

[Name removed]

16. Deleted sub-thread

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