CPS’s Principal Self-Segregation Program

On Monday, principals across the city received an email from CPS’s Central Office. It stated:

“In order to further develop and retain our experienced and high-achieving principals, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools are launching the Independent Schools Principal (ISP) program. In this program, a cohort of 25 high-performing CPS principals will receive greater autonomy from several existing CPS structures.”

The letter goes on to list certain “autonomies” and “stipulations.” They are as follows:

Autonomies

  1. Exempt from network oversight
  2. Modified principal evaluation
  3. Continued access to School Support Centers
  4. Increased flexibility with budget

Stipulations

  1. Opt-out of access to Network support and professional development
  2. Opt-in to a professional learning community with other ISPs
  3. Maintain or increase the School Rating Level
  4. Participate in pilot research
  5. Participate in external site visits
  6. Respond to direct Central Office inquiries

The list of stipulations is longer than the list of autonomies. That signals a net loss for autonomy. Furthermore, only one of the autonomies listed is an actual autonomy (exempt from network oversight). The other so-called autonomies don’t come close to living up to the term. For example:

  • #2: A modified evaluation is not autonomy; it is a modified evaluation.
  • #3: All CPS principals currently have access to School Support Centers. Only in the spin-laden world of CPS can “continued” access to something you already have access to be thought of as more autonomy.
  • #4: The last time CPS offered us “increased flexibility,” they took hundreds of thousands (in some cases millions) away from each of our schools and gave us the “autonomy” to piece together an instructional program in the wake of their slash-and-burn budgeting. Given CPS’s track record, why would any principal with a working long-term memory trust the district’s latest promise of autonomy?

Furthermore, removing your best principals from their regular principal meetings is a backward and thoughtless strategy for improving an entire district. Our network chief (network 4) often has two to three principals lead workshops for their colleagues in our meetings. These workshops illustrate thoughtful approaches to solving problems that many of us have in common. What happens when you separate the most effective principals from their colleagues who can no longer use their ideas to benefit the tens of thousands of students they serve?

To add insult to injury, CPS has decided to tempt principals of high performing schools away from their colleagues with an unspecified offer of additional funding.

There are indeed some networks in CPS that principals of all performance levels would rather not be a part of.  However the source of the problem in these networks appears to be incompetent network leadership, not network affiliation itself.  The solution for such networks is to ensure they are led by skilled and competent educators; not to entice effective principals to leave them, while principals who need support are left with the least effective network leaders in the system.

However–as expected–the elitist and separatist approach of CPS officials is rearing its divisive head once again. After all, this is the same cash-strapped district that decided to take $60 million it doesn’t have and spend it to build yet another selective enrollment school. Their approach to principals is no different; segregate the top performers from the colleagues who need them most, and leave the latter to fend for themselves.

Intelligent school systems offer incentives for such principals to take on additional leadership responsibilities among their colleagues who are doing well, and among those who are struggling. Our district officials however have opted to do the opposite; they offer incentives for principals to segregate themselves from the colleagues who need them most. To anyone concerned with the overall health of our system, this makes no sense.

In summary, there is no credible evidence of increased autonomy offered in CPS’s description of this initiative, and the initiative completely ignores effective school system practices that encourage effective principals to collaborate with colleagues who need them.

This initiative is among the first major announcements of the latest schools CEO to be appointed by Rahm Emaneul: Forrest Claypool. It is also—unfortunately—an indication that his new leadership position will not signal a change in the leadership direction of CPS. It is business as usual. Unfortunately—for the students and educators in our district—business as usual for CPS under Emanuel is as backward as it gets.

This backwardness is further evidence that an elected, representative school board is needed in Chicago.

Troy LaRaviere, CPS Principal
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @troylaraviere
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/troylaraviere


A link to the email from CEO Forrest Claypool is below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BytSj0QyFz1eaHJZQkp5UzVmUTA/view?usp=sharing

9 thoughts on “CPS’s Principal Self-Segregation Program

  1. What resonates with me is the stipulation about professional development. When I started in the district, we had regular PD opportunities. In addition to scheduled days and activities, we were offered other days and times, some of them outside of work hours. Now in order to earn for our licenses ( and the hours and content are more closely prescribed), we are offered a few PD days a year and are mandated to participate in cohort groups, at which we discuss articles “relevant” to the job. Our supervisors are elsewhere, perhaps sharpening the CPS knives. These groups do not take place during time CPS is supposed to provide us PD, and takes away from serving the children. It seems CPS wants to save money and embarrassment and possible lawsuits over the PD issue by having the cheaper cohort groups, but at what price?

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  2. Translation: Principals started speaking up and working together to stop CPS from hurting their schools; CPS is trying to stifle that energy before it builds strength by creating new walls of separation, which is how this city maintains its political machine through policy. And people will buy into the lie because they are desperate and can be bought with the promises of resources that never really materialize. That is how patronage and segregation built the city into what it is; it cannot possibly be the way out of the hole that we are currently in.

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    1. The resources were lost because the old Inspector General James Sullivan and current law department head James Bebley weren’t doing their primary job, so the FBI had to come in and do it for them. Instead, Sullivan, Bebley, and corrupt IG investigators such as Linda Brown, were busy conducting illegal investigations including seeking out suicidal girls under professional therapy who had been molested in their childhood or raped in high school willing to stage false rape complaints against teachers to make it appear as if they were the ones who had molested or raped the girls. This stuff will be coming out in the newspapers soon. Claypool will not succeed until he gets rid of Bebley and gets an IG that will do the job legislation created the IG for.

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  3. Why not have the principals in each network form an “LSC-like” group, and then elect from their own ranks a chairperson to be the network leader?

    Liked by 1 person

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