This is the logic that Emanuel embraces: Where there are no consequences, there is no accountability.

As a teacher and principal in CPS under Rahm Emanuel, the “accountability and consequences” ideology meant that my colleagues and I worked under the threat of school closures, poor school ratings, and loss of funding tied to student enrollment. The basic idea being that if there are no consequences, then schools and educators have no real incentive to improve. Although I have some serious issues with the assumptions that underlie this logic, my issues are irrelevant to the topic at hand. What is relevant is the fact that this is the logic that Emanuel embraces: Where there are no consequences, there is no accountability.

If he embraces consequence-based accountability for educators, then he should embrace it for himself in terms of holding his own administration accountable for effective police reforms. It was this kind of accountability that the mayor committed our city to in January when he signed an agreement in principle with the Justice Department to negotiate a consent decree that would be overseen by a federal judge who would have the power to hold City Hall accountable by levying consequences should it fail to live up to its promises.

If Emanuel embraces consequence-based accountability for educators, then he should embrace it for himself.

The U.S. Department of Justice stated Chicago’s problems were too “deep,” and “longstanding” to be reformed without the guidance and force of a judge.   The judge would work with monitors to oversee the reforms and order compliance when the city falls short of the agreement’s goals.  The judge would also set time frames for compliance, and ultimately fine the city if it fails to meet those requirements.  Emanuel signed this agreement at a time when Chicago’s policing issues were a lead topic on national and local news outlets.  

Now however–with far less attention on him–Emanuel has done a complete about-face and instead is seeking an independent monitor with no power to hold the city accountable with consequences. In doing so, he has betrayed his stated commitment to holding his administration accountable for reforming the Chicago Police Department. Even worse — according to the Chicago Tribune — Emanuel planned on keeping quiet about this reversal, and only announced it because his staff had the false impression that Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham was going to expose Emanuel’s flip-flop during a radio appearance.

One of the tell-tale signs of a great leader is that he holds himself up to the same standards he demands of everyone else.

To be clear–just as with schools–police need more than just consequence-based accountability. They need support, training, guidance and resources. However, after listening to Emanuel talk about accountability and consequences for our schools for the past six years, I find it incredibly hypocritical that he would maintain the status quo by seeking to establish a powerless oversight body that cannot hand out the kinds of consequences that produce real accountability.  One of the tell-tale signs of a great leader is that he holds himself up to the same standards he demands of everyone else. Such leaders secure respect, admiration, and commitment from those they lead.  On this critical measure of leadership, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has fallen far short.

Troy LaRaviere
President, Chicago Principals and Administrators Association
Principal of Chicago’s #1 Rated Neighborhood School (Blaine Elementary, 2011 – 2016)
@TroyLaRaviere

“Regardless of how you feel about ‘school choice’ the more important point is that government has no business subsidizing a model for schooling that produces poor options for parents to choose from.”

The WBEZ overview consists primarily of the four graphics dispersed throughout the text below.  The pension graphic immediately below is particularly informative.

Photo illustration: Paula Friedrich/WBEZ
The image of the handshake illustrates the 1981 agreement that CPS would directly pay 7% of the 9% employee pension contribution, instead of paying that 7% directly to employees as part of a raise.  In essence, CPS agreed it would divert 7% of teacher compensation to pensions rather than pay it directly to teachers.  This was a mutually agreed upon way to compensate educators for their work.  There has certainly been no decrease in the amount of work required to teach, so should there be a decrease in compensation for that work?
The second graphic illustrates the issue of educators paying more in healthcare costs as CPS pays less.  The manner in which both sides present the issue is fairly straightforward. Basically, if you believe CPS has been paying health care costs for decades–not as compensation for teachers’ work–but as a perk completely disconnected from the value of a teacher’s work, then you agree with the CPS assertion that if they stop paying a major portion of teacher healthcare costs, it is not a pay cut. If however, you believe that CPS has been paying health care cost as part of the larger package to compensate educators for their work, then a drastic reduction in CPS healthcare payments is indeed a pay cut. A far simpler way of looking at this issue is that any contract change that leads to teachers getting less take-home pay is, in essence, a cut in pay.

Photo illustration: Paula Friedrich/WBEZ

The last issue–steps and lanes–is in my humble opinion, the least well articulated and explained.  So I offer what I hope is an improved analysis following the illustration below.

Photo illustration: Paula Friedrich/WBEZ

There is a much stronger case than the one presented here for why step and lane increases are not full pay raises.  In order to understand this we need to realize there are two types of pay raises, and CPS is trying to get rid of one of them.

Type 1: CPS pays teachers for more education and experience.  These are called “Lane” and “Step” increases. CPS pays teachers more because they’ve taken some steps to become better teachers: they’ve studied for advanced degrees (lane increase) and gained experience (step increase).  You can see this reflected in the salary schedule below: teacher compensation increases as the years of experience (steps) increase. This table also shows the difference between pay for a teacher in “Lane I” (bachelor’s degree) and a teacher in “Lane II” (master’s degree).

Degrees, certifications and experience are supposed to lead to advancement, promotion, and corresponding compensation increases. However, the only way to get promoted in the teaching profession in Chicago is to leave the classroom to become a dean, assistant principal or principal.  Lane and step increases attempt to address this by keeping highly trained and experienced teachers in the classroom as a career.

Type 2: Teachers receive a yearly Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA).  For example, in FY 2013 a first year teacher with a bachelor’s degree earned $52,094 (including pension contribution).  In 2014 a first year teacher with the same bachelor’s degree would have taken home $53,136. This is illustrated below in the difference between 2012-13 and 2013-14 salaries.

Discussion: As part of the contract negotiations CPS is attempting to completely eliminate the COLA, implying that the lane and step increases for an individual teacher from one year to the next constitutes enough of a “raise.” However, there is an important reason that CPS has always paid educators a separate COLA aside from step and lane increases: what CPS’ new argument completely ignores is that without yearly cost of living adjustments, the value of teachers at each level of experience would decrease each year as a result of increases in the cost of living.

The 15-year truncated salary schedule below illustrates this point by following the amount CPS pays to fifth-year teachers with bachelor’s degrees (yellow highlight).  While the actual salaries and duration of the contract are still being negotiated, this illustration takes current contract amounts and tracks them over a 15-year period to show the logical conclusion of eliminating the COLA.  It also illustrates the impact of CPS reneging on the 1981 agreement to pay part of a teacher’s salary through a 7% pension contribution. This analysis clarifies the impact of CPS’ proposal on the teaching profession.

If taken to its logical conclusion, CPS’ effort to end the COLA means the salary for a fifth-year teacher in the year 2030 will be the same as it is today.  However, A dollar in 2030 will be worth less than today’s dollar, and so will that salary. This means that overall teacher pay in 2030 will be effectively cut, since that amount will buy less in 2030 than it does in 2016. The negative impact of CPS’ argument to end yearly pay increases becomes even more apparent when you see that although individuals within the system will see some increases in pay over the course of their careers as they move from step to step, the wages of the entire profession will effectively go down as pay in each step and lane stagnates, while the cost of living rises over the years. Teacher pay gets even lower when the lack of a true salary increase is combined with CPS reneging on its agreed upon pension contribution.

The key question we must ask ourselves is, “Is that the kind of compensation model we think will attract and retain the best teachers for Chicago’s children?”

Clearly, step and lane increases are inadequate.  There must also be yearly increases within each step and lane to account for inflation driven increases in basic cost of living. Without this, CPS cannot realistically claim to be offering teachers a pay raise.

Photo illustration: Paula Friedrich/WBEZ

CTU and CPS aren’t just doing different math; they’re basing their arguments on different versions of history.  CPS officials’ argument can only stand if we ignore the facts of history. It can only stand if we ignore the fact that CPS itself proposed the pension pick-up as a direct response to teachers’ need for a pay raise.   One theory about why CPS proposed the pension contribution option is that it allowed them to hold on to that 7% so it could earn interest on investments until the end of the year when CPS was supposed to transfer the funds to the Chicago Teacher’s Pension Fund.  Of course, we know that for over a decade, CPS never made those payments.  We know that it squandered the money on things like SUPES, interest on bad loans, penalties on toxic financial deals, custodial and engineering privatization, and building nearly 40% more schools in a district that is losing students.

Instead of owning up to its fiscal mismanagement and recklessness CPS has been engaging in a decade long public relations campaign to convince Chicagoans that teacher pensions themselves–not CPS mismanagement of pension funds–are the problem.

The term “pension crisis” obscures the real problem: we have a crisis of fiscal recklessness and lack of financial competence in our district officials and the city officials they report to.  Even today, as they claim poverty, CPS and City officials continue to squander hundreds of millions of dollars on wasteful building projects that enrich their benefactors in the banking industry.

Perhaps teachers should have demanded their raise in 1981 instead of trusting CPS to stay true to its end of the pension bargain.  In the end, it appears that it’s not the pension contribution, health care costs, or annual raises that need to change.  Even if teachers accepted every loss CPS is asking them to take, the waste and mismanagement of our district and city leadership would keep us operating in financial crisis mode for decades to come.

You might read that last sentence and think that the change I will recommend is a change in city and district leadership.  You would be wrong, or perhaps only half-right.

We elected these people.  For decades we’ve been electing and re-electing officials who have done everything from selling off our parking rights, to undermining our school system. We elected the people who mismanaged teacher pensions and now City and CPS officials are trying to convince us that teachers should “sacrifice” for our poor choices at the ballot box, including the choice of not participating. How can we look teachers in the eye and ask them to let CPS renege on their pension agreement because of a crisis that we initiated when we elected the city and state officials who created it?

We did that Chicago, and we are the ones who need to change.

@TroyLaRaviere
[email protected]

In 2010 Chicago Magazine ranked Blaine Elementary School as the 16th best elementary school in Chicago, and the 6th best neighborhood school.  After being hired to lead Blaine in the fall of 2011, I told my Local School Council (LSC) I had a “six-year plan” to turn Blaine into the #1 neighborhood school in Chicago.

I have the pleasure of informing you that I lived up to my promise to the Blaine LSC, and I did so a year earlier than promised. Last Monday, Chicago Magazine released its elementary school rankings for 2016.  Blaine is now ranked as the #1 neighborhood school in Chicago, and #3 public school in the City overall.  In the process, working with motivated teachers and engaged parents, we increased the percentage of students meeting reading standards from an already high 79% to 89% in just our first two years.  That kind of growth from an already high performing school–without the addition of a selective enrollment program–is unprecedented.

Behind this significant accomplishment are a series of basic concepts based on empirical evidence regarding effective school practices and thoughtful consideration of how we might apply those practices at Blaine.  One fundamental element of improving the school was ending selective access to advanced curriculum.  When I arrived, less than 30% of students had access to it; today more than 90% have access. As is the case with most CPS schools, Blaine has a talented hard working staff.  Another critical element of our success was to involve that staff in an effort to create systems, relationships, and patterns of collaborative activity that are proven to improve teacher performance, and therefore improve student achievement.  In many ways, that was the easy part.  

The difficult part was mustering the will and stamina to remain steadfast in our commitment to use evidence-based practice in the face of tremendous pressure–from politicians like you–to adopt baseless “school reform” ideas like “tracking” (school based selective enrollment), “choice,” and the over-evaluation of teachers; ideas that are grounded in ideology and politics as opposed to proven effective educational methods. In a word, the biggest obstacle to Blaine becoming the #1 neighborhood school in Chicago was politics. And while many people contributed to this problem, nobody in our great city is more responsible for that political obstruction than you.  

I spent a lot of time fighting those politics during my first two years at Blaine. Some of the people I fought had good intentions, but it was abundantly clear that they did not understand effective education policy. Rather, they came with ideology and politics. We came, instead, with empirical research and evidence.  

I take my profession seriously and I practice it with integrity. I did not succumb to corporate educational fads. I did not pander and I did not bend to the selfish aims of a privileged few. If an idea was not in the interests of the school as a whole, it did not happen under my watch. However, during those first two years I kept my fight behind-the-scenes and between the walls of Blaine.  Like all CPS principals at the time, I took no public stances against your incompetent and uncaring mismanagement of our school system. It was my sincere hope that internal advocacy and leading by example could and would prevail.

Instead, the achievement gap steadily increased under your mismanagement as you and your appointees at CPS made one disastrous decision after another, in defiance of the evidence and research on educational practices.  You have made it increasingly difficult for principals and teachers to provide strong academic programs for our students.  

Accordingly, in the summer of 2013 I began efforts to ensure that the residents of our city understood the negative consequences of your administration’s backward and reckless management of our school district. I did so for the following reasons:

• Decisions by you and the board you appointed and completely controlled had damaging consequences for our school system.
• Although your board was unelected, and therefore unaccountable to the residents of Chicago, you were indeed elected and could be held accountable.
• As a public servant it was my responsibility to ensure the public understood the negative consequences of your school-related decision-making so they could hold you and your board accountable.

So for the next three years, I consistently and publicly advocated for credible evidence-based education policies. This, in turn, made me also be a consistent public critic of the ideological and politically driven policies coming out of your office and implemented by your hand-picked board.

One might think that after witnessing the unprecedented academic gains of Blaine students, you and your appointees might call on my school leadership team to help you understand how we improved at such an incredible rate.  Instead, at your direction, your appointees are pushing forward with efforts to terminate my employment. It is clear that I am being punished for my advocacy, and that this retribution is more important to you than effective public education for Chicago’s children.

Instead of learning from our work at Blaine, your appointees attempted to suppress that work and silence my voice.  When CPS officials removed me as the principal at Blaine, I was already planning to relinquish my post to assume the office of president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association (CPAA).  However, after being chosen by my colleagues to serve as CPAA president I decided to fight the removal on principle, and to use the administrative hearing process to demonstrate the charges against me are baseless.  Now, in light of the factors listed below, I will conclude that process by tendering my resignation:

• Since I have taken on the role of CPAA President, I cannot return as Blaine’s principal, no matter what the outcome of the hearings.  Meanwhile, the Blaine school community cannot move forward and hire another permanent principal until my case is resolved. I cannot allow those for whom I have worked so hard in the last five years to suffer the consequences of your destructive political agenda.
• The hearing process is, of course, a kangaroo court that ends with a determination by your appointed school board; the very school board that voted to censure me in the first place. I don’t expect your appointed board to deliver justice any more than I expect it to practice fiscal responsibility or competent educational management.
• Thus far, during the hearing process, your appointees have failed to produce any of the requested communications to and from your office regarding me and my work at Blaine. Yet the records you produced to justify your refusal contain clear evidence that your office was involved in my removal. You confess that at a minimum the CPS legal office communicated with the City legal office multiple times regarding my termination. I will therefore have to fight for these documents outside of the hearing process through FOIA requests and possible litigation should your office continue its pattern of refusing to release information that, by law, should be publicly available.
• The flimsy charges you’ve leveled against me–combined with the recent elevation of my school as the #1 neighborhood school in Chicago–makes it obvious that your actions against me have everything to do with politics and nothing to do with what’s good for students and families.  Therefore the point that I wished to make in the hearing process, has already been made–loudly and clearly.

With the above factors in mind, I hereby resign my position as principal of Blaine Elementary School.  However, my efforts to reverse your poor fiscal and educational management of our school system are just getting started.

In just six weeks since since I became its president, the CPAA has saved the Illinois Administrator Academies for principals after your appointees at CPS attempted to sabotage the program; made significant amendments to the Education Platform of the Democratic Party; worked with principals to form action teams that will influence city and state education policy; built relationships with elected officials in order to create access to the legislative process; created the foundation and framework necessary to build a democratic representative structure for both CPAA governance and input in CPS decision-making; joined with the engineers and teachers to oppose your wasteful expansion of absentee facilities management under Aramark and SodexoMAGIC, and started a news service that keeps school leaders informed by providing them with a thematic summary of the week’s education and political news.  We intend to build on this work for Chicago and its school children.

In closing, should you ever decide to prioritize student learning over the profits of your campaign donors, feel free to reach out to me and the principals I was elected to represent. We have an abundance of ideas for improving the system for the students we serve.  In the meantime, we will continue in our efforts to vigorously advocate for the kind of effective evidence-based education policies and practices that your office does its best to ignore and suppress.

Sincerely,

Troy LaRaviere, Former Principal
James G. Blaine Elementary School
Chicago’s #1 Rated Neighborhood Elementary School

@TroyLaraviere

Weekend Reading: An Education News Service from the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association

The President’s Picks: The Top Five Reads of the Week

“Time to End the War on Neighborhood High Schools”

On Friday, Beatriz Ponce de Leon, Executive Director of Generation All, penned a remarkable opinion article in Crain’s Chicago Business calling for CPS to do “everything possible to make neighborhood public high schools great for all students.”  CPAA is partnering with Generation All on a principal-led effort to change the School Quality Ratings Policy (SQRP) to make it fair for all schools. In short, the ratings policy should fairly reflect the quality of the academic programs in our schools rather than punishing schools based on the socioeconomic background of the students and families we serve. 

• Beatriz Ponce De Leon (August 26, 2016). Time to end the war on Chicago’s neighborhood high schools. Crain’s Chicago Business.

• Related: Generation All (April 2016). Strong Neighborhood High Schools for a Stronger Chicago. 

2. Chicago Magazine’s 2016 Best Public Schools

Chicago Magazine has released its rankings of the Chicago area’s best schools, and a series of articles explaining the criteria used to determine the rankings and other related topics.

• David McAninch and Claire Zulkey, with Dana Driskill, John Hardberger, and Taylor Scheibe (August 22, 2016). Best Chicago Schools. Chicago Magazine.
• David McAninch and Claire Zulkey, with Dana Driskill, John Hardberger, and Taylor Scheibe (August 22, 2016). Chicago’s Best Public Schools. Chicago Magazine.
• David McAninch and Claire Zulkey, with Dana Driskill, John Hardberger, and Taylor Scheibe (August 22, 2016). How We Ranked the Schools. Chicago Magazine.
• David McAninch and Claire Zulkey, with Dana Driskill, John Hardberger, and Taylor Scheibe (August 22, 2016). The Innovators. Chicago Magazine.
• David McAninch and Claire Zulkey, with Dana Driskill, John Hardberger, and Taylor Scheibe (August 22, 2016). How to Fix CPS: Four competing ideologies on solving the district’s fiscal mess. Chicago Magazine.

3. John Oliver Puts National Spotlight on Charter School Corruption

This week John Oliver used his weekly news satire program, Last Week Tonight, to highlight the rampant abuse, fraud and corruption in the charter school industry.  

The Episode

• John Oliver (August 21, 2016). Charter Schools: Last Week Tonight.  Home Box Office.

• Valerie Strauss (August 22, 2016). John Oliver hysterically savages charter schools — and charter supporters aren’t happy. The Washington Post.
• Diane Ravitch (August 25, 2016). Please Write and Tweet John Oliver to Thank Him for His Program Revealing Charter Fraud. Diane Ravitch’s Blog.

Related Reading

• Steve Neavling (August 22, 2016). Detroit charter school closes just two weeks before first day of class. Motor City Muckraker.
• Joe Mandak (August 24, 2016). Online Public School Founder Admits to $8M in Tax Fraud. Associated Press.
• Julian Vasquez Heilig (July/August 2016). 10 Things to Know about the Charter School Debate. The ProgressIve.
• Angela Ruggiero (August 22, 2016). Livermore: Hundreds flee charter schools, district braces for influx. East Bay Times.

4. CPS Continues to Squander Hundreds of Millions While Claiming Poverty

Despite debt and dozens half-empty high schools, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and district leaders are contemplating building three new high schools and other unnecessary projects in the coming years, and adding billions to the district’s debt in the process.  CPS’s budget is being criticized by a wide array of advocacy groups, from the conservative leaning Civic Federation to the Chicago Teachers Union and disability rights groups.

CPS Waste

• Sarah Karp (August 22, 2016). Chicago Keeps Some School Construction Plans Under Wraps.  WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.
• CTU Communications (August 22, 2016). New CTU report reveals rampant, unaccountable outsourcing is impoverishing and undermining schools. Chicago Teachers Union Blog.
• Jon Seidel (August 23, 2016). Father, son, who scammed schools out of millions, plead guilty. Chicago Sun-Times.
• Sarah Karp (August 23, 2016). Broke Chicago Schools Find Millions For New Computer Software. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.

Reckless Borrowing

• Juan Perez Jr. (August 22, 2016). Emanuel defends CPS borrowing for air conditioning, other projects. Chicago Tribune.
• Matt Masterson (August 22, 2016). CPS Looking to Increase Line of Credit up to $1.5 Billion. WTTW Chicago Tonight.
• Lauren FitzPatrick and Fran Spielman (August 22, 2016). CPS wants approval for $1.5 billion in short-term loans. Chicago Sun-Times.
• Morning Shift (August 24, 2016). Chicago Public Schools Faces More Borrowing. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.

CPS Budget Criticized

• Greg Hinz (August 24, 2016). Civic Federation slams CPS budget, but board approves anyhow. Crain’s Chicago Business.
• Lauren FitzPatrick (August 23, 2016). CPS budget denounced by good government, disability rights groups. Chicago Sun-Times.
• Brandis Friedman (August 23, 2016). Budget Watchdog Group Rejects ‘Optimistic’ $5.4B CPS Proposal. WTW Chicago Tonight.
• Ellyn Fortino (August 24, 2016). Chicago Board Of Ed Approves $5.4 Billion Budget As Calls Grow For TIF Surplus Ordinance. Progress Illinois.
• Stacey Baca and Laura Podesta (August 24, 2016). Chicago Teachers Protest $5.4 Billion CPS Budget. ABC 7 Chicago.
• Sarah Karp, Becky Vevea (August 24, 2016). Chicago School Board Passes $6.3 Billion Budget. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.
• Becky Vevea (August 24, 2016). Education Board To Vote On Budget That Cuts Number Of Teachers In District. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.
• Becky Vevea (August 22, 2016). Emanuel Touts Classroom Air Conditioning, Pushes New School Construction Plan. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.

5. African Americans Disproportionately Targeted by Chicago Police for Marijuana Enforcement

Despite the fact that academic studies have found marijuana usage is similar across racial and ethnic boundaries, African-American neighborhoods continue to bear the brunt of enforcement. • Largely black East Garfield Park on the West Side has the highest rate of arrests and ticketing — 72 times greater than in predominantly white Edison Park, which ranks lowest.

• Mick Dumke (August 20, 2016). WATCHDOGS: Blacks bear brunt of marijuana enforcement in Chicago. Chicago Sun-Times.

President’s Honorable Mentions

You Can’t Solve a Murder if You Can’t Investigate it.

The murder clearance rate is a measurement of solved and closed murder cases. Over the past 10 years Chicago has consistently had one of the lowest clearance rates of any of the country’s 10 biggest cities. A strong factor is our low clearance rate is our shrinking detective force.  By understaffing its detective force, Chicago officials have made the decision to leave let more and more murders go unsolved. Leaving murderers on the street increases the likelihood of subsequent murders.

• Fiona Ortiz and Justin Madden  (August 24, 2016) Chicago’s detective force dwindles as murder rate soars. Reuters.

Chicago Area Teacher Makes Viral Back-to-School Video

• Dwayne Reed. Welcome to the 4th Grade – Dwayne Reed. YouTube.
• (August 24, 2016). Skokie Student Teacher Talks about His Viral Back-To-School Rap Video. ABC 7 Chicago.
• Chicago Teacher Creates Back to School Rap Song.  ABC News.

Holistic Educational Accountability

From lead paint exposure and access to nutritional food options, to household income and persistent segregation, the causes of low academic attainment reach far beyond schools.  Educators have always been willing to do their part, but the rest of society has been slow to do theirs.  This section covers the non-school factors that impact educational attainment.

Segregation’s Impact on Chicago’s Schools

• Melinda D. Anderson (August 22, 2016). Chicago’s Inescapable Segregation. The Atlantic.
• Laura Bliss (August 24, 2016). The Most Segregating School-District Borders in America. The Atlantic.
• Alana Semuels (August 25, 2016). Good School, Rich School; Bad School, Poor School. The Atlantic.
• Anya Kamenetz (August 23, 2016). Americans Like Their Schools Just Fine — But Not Yours. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.

Teaching and Learning

• Morning Shift (August 25, 2016). Should Schools Ban Homework? WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.
• Valerie Strauss (August 23, 2016). Our misguided effort to close the achievement gap is creating a new inequality: The ‘play’ gap. The Washington Post.
• Valerie Strauss (August 24, 2016). How hard is it to keep kindergartners focused on a class lesson? This hard. The Washington Post.

International Comparative Education

• Timothy D. Walker (August 25, 2016). How Finland Starts the School Year. The Atlantic.
• Lillian Mongeau (August 23, 2016). Why Britain Said ‘Yes’ to Universal Preschool. The Atlantic.

Charter School/Privatization Watchdog Report

• Dora Taylor (July/August 2016). Snuffing out Democracy—the Struggle over Mayoral Control of Seattle’s School Board. The Progressive.
• Steven Msinger (August 21, 2016). Do Unions Belong in the Fight Against Corporate School Reform? GAD Fly on the Wall Blog.
• Ken Lovett (July 11, 2016). Democratic state lawmakers being targeted by an education reform PAC. New York Daily News.

SECTION I: The President’s Picks: The Top Five Reads of the Week

#1. Stop the CPS Distractions and Raise Some Revenue for Chicago’s Students
Chicago Public Schools has a higher rate of students in poverty than the Illinois average. It enrolls a higher percentage of students in poverty than exists in the city overall, and it enrolls more English language learners. While students with these disadvantages need more resources, CPS has consistently spent less per child, has a larger student-to-teacher ratio, hires a higher percentage of inexperienced teachers, and pays less in instructional salaries than its neighboring school districts which often have far lower percentages of at-risk students. In this post, Mark Weber–a teacher, musician, and educational researcher who goes by the pseudonym “Jersey Jazzman”–combs through the data on Chicago Public Schools and calls on the district and city officials to generate the revenue needed to fund our schools adequately instead of continuing their distracting conversation about teachers needing to take pay and benefit cuts.

• Mark Weber. (August 17, 2016). Teacher Pay, Student Poverty, and Inequitably Funded Schools: A Data-Driven Story From Chicago. Jersey Jazzman Blog.
• Mark Weber (August 18, 2016). Inequity in Illinois School Funding: A Follow Up. Jersey Jazzman Blog.

#2. CPS Continues to Contradict itself on Spending for Instruction vs. Spending for Private Profit
While CPS continues to claim poverty when it comes to teacher (and principal) salaries and benefits, it continues to keep billions of dollars flowing to debt investors and lending institutions that profit from their unnecessary school construction and high-interest borrowing.

For Recent Historical Context:

• Juan Gonzalez (May 6, 2010). Albany charter cash cow: Big banks making a bundle on new construction as schools bear the cost. Daily News.

• Related Video: Big Banks Making a Bundle on New Construction as Schools Bear the Cost. Democracy Now.

Current Articles

• Lauren FitzPatrick (Aug. 17, 2016). As community questions spending, CPS lays out capital plans. Chicago Sun-Times.
• Sarah Karp (August 17, 2016). Chicago Public Schools Holds Hearing On Proposed Construction. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.
• Lauren FitzPatrick (August 16, 2016). CPS wants permission to borrow up to $945 million in new bonds. Chicago Sun-Times.
• Juan Perez Jr. (August 17, 2016) Chicago Teachers Union leaders decry capital plans for schools. Chicago Tribune.
• Matt Masterson (August 16, 2016). CPS Seeking to Issue up to $945M in Bonds for Capital Improvements. WTTW Chicago Tonight.
• Lauren FitzPatrick (August 16, 2016). CPS wants permission to borrow up to $945 million in new bonds. Chicago Sun-Times.

• Juan Perez Jr. (August 17, 2016). Despite CEO’s optimism, experts say CPS operating in ‘crisis mode’. Chicago Tribune.
• Juan Perez Jr. (August 16, 2016). Chicago Public Schools sets hearing on another massive bond issue. Chicago Tribune.

#3. The Context of an Impending Strike

It is within the context of the series of stories above–stories that highlight CPS and City Hall’s lack of advocacy for raising appropriate revenue for schools, as well as their willingness to spend lavishly on everything but instruction–that Chicago Teachers are preparing for the possibility of a strike.  The articles above provide the context, while the following articles cover the strike possibility itself.

• Matt Masterson & Paris Schutz (August 17, 2016). CTU Prepping Teachers for ‘Strong Possibility’ of Strike. Chicago Tonight, WTTW.
• Ted Cox (August 16, 2016). CPS Head Downplays Strike Threat, But Teachers Remain Riled. DNA Info.
• Jim Cavallero (August 16, 2016). Tribune Editorial Board consistently missing the mark. Chicago Teachers Union.
• Valerie Strauss (August 16, 2016). Think teachers aren’t paid enough? It’s worse than you think. The Washington Post.
• Parents 4 Teachers (August 19, 2016). Don’t blame teachers. Chicago Teachers Union.

#4. CPS Policy Threatens Special Education Students
CPS claims it is spending too much on special education students and that schools are over-classifying students but the CPS special education classification rate has been consistently below the rest of Cook County.  Despite this, CPS continues to take aim at students with special needs as is described in Sarah Karp’s WBEZ report (Karp is the reporter who first exposed the Bryd-Bennett SUPES no-bid contract).

• Sarah Karp (August 16, 2016). Chicago Takes Aim At Expensive Special Education Program. WBEZ 91.5 Chicago.
• Matt Masterson (August 19, 2016) Speakers Question TIF Dollars, Special Ed Funding at CPS Budget Hearings. WTTW Chicago Tonight.

#5. Taking Two Lives at Once

• Alison Flowers (August 19, 2016). Charged with murder, but they didn’t kill anyone—police did: A Reader investigation found ten cases since 2011 where police killed a civilian in Chicago and charged an accomplice with the murder. Chicago Reader.

Honorable Mention: A Tribune reporter reflects on the three years of his life he spent covering violence in Chicago.

• Peter Nickeas (August 16, 2016). Three Years of Nights. Chicago magazine, September 2016.

SECTION II: Holding Everyone Accountable for Their Part in Educational Outcomes
From lead paint exposure and access to nutritional food options, to household income and persistent segregation, the causes of low academic attainment reach far beyond schools.  Educators have always been willing to do their part, but the rest of society has been slow to do theirs.  This section covers the non-school factors that impact educational attainment.

• Jay Shefsky (August 16, 2016). Urban League President Shari Runner Breaks Down 10-Year Plan. WTTW Chicago Tonight.
• Rodney Brown, Dennis Deer And Valerie F. Leonard (August 19, 2016). Dear developer: An open letter from 3 North Lawndale residents. Crains.
• (August 19, 2016) Illinois Has Nation’s Highest African-American Jobless Rate For 3rd Straight Quarter. Progress Illinois.
• Shaina Cavazos (August 17, 2016). Racial Bias and the Crumbling of a City. The Atlantic.
• Mina Bloom (August 17, 2016). Residents Forced To Leave Atrium Village: ‘My Kids Could End Up Dead’. DNA Info.
• (Feb 17, 2015). Nadine Burke Harris: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime. Ted Talks, YouTube.
• Mike Klonsky (August 15, 2016). Peter Cunningham’s reform apologia: ‘Fighting segregation and poverty too expensive’. Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog.

SECTION III: Teaching and Learning

• Emily Richmond (August 19, 2016). The U.S. Olympians Who Won Gold—But Not in Rio. An American team triumphed at the International Math Olympiad for the second-straight year, despite concerns of student diversity in STEM. The Atlantic.
• Timothy D. Walker (August 18, 2016). How 4-Year-Olds Learn Particle Physics. The Atlantic.
• Jonathan Pelto (August 12, 2016). Washington – First mandate annual testing, then allocate $9 Million to reduce the “Assessment Burden.”. Wait What?
• Erica Reischer (August 16, 2016). Helping Children Succeed—Without the Stress. The Atlantic.

SECTION V: Charter School/Privatization Watchdog Report

• Kristina Rizga (AUG. 15, 2016). Why Did Black Lives Matter and the NAACP Call for an End to More Charter Schools? Mother Jones.
• Linze Rice (August 19, 2016). Anti-Charter Vote Will Be On 49th Ward Ballots, But Ald. Says Issue Is Moot. DNA Info.

• Diane Ravitch (August 19, 2016). Socializing Risk, Privatizing Profit. Diane Ravitch’s Blog.
• Related: Mikhail Zinshteyn (August 18, 2016). A New Effort to Teach Low-Income Students Marketable Skills. The Atlantic.

• Andy Sher (August 17th, 2016). Audit finds chaotic financial management at Tennessee’s Achievement School District. Times Free Press.
• Jennifer Pignolet (August 17, 2016). Tennessee audit critical of Achievement School District finances. USA Today Network.
• Karen Langley (August 3, 2016). Auditor urges stricter monitoring of charter schools’ building leases. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

What did principals say after Wednesday’s budget meeting?

“This budget will definitely have a negative impact at the classroom level.”

“The papers they gave us did not match the actual deficits when we opened our real budgets.”

“The repeated statement that the cuts are being kept ‘away from the classroom’ is maddening.”

“It’s like being in an abusive relationship.”

“They got a cookie, took a huge bite, left us the crumbs….”

“This budget is just the latest manifestation of a pattern of CPS officials creating ways to take their horrible decisions and make us responsible for them.”

An ABC7 story declared that principals were “relieved” about their budgets. This narrative is far different than the feedback the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association received from our members. “Dejected” & “Insulted” were just two of the words we heard from principals immediately after receiving their budgets.  We weren’t certain whether the “relieved” or “insulted” characterization was representative of the general feeling of principals, so we sent the ABC7 story to about a dozen of them and asked the simple question:

“Does this speak for you?”

The following are their responses. Some of the responses contain strong language.  I considered removing the language before publishing this post but decided instead to publish each comment as it was originally articulated.  These responses represent candid unfiltered reactions to the experience of working and leading a school under the management in place at CPS.

Northside Principal #1

“No it does not. The papers they gave us did not match the actual deficits when we opened our real budgets.  Special Education funds cannot mixed with General Education funds for student based budgets. Some Individual Education Plans will not be met.”

South Side Principal #1

“It’s all a spin. Sure everyone is relieved that ‘doomsday’ cuts did not occur.  There still are significant cuts especially when you think of the compounded loss to the schools over the last few years with additional requirements like lunch/recess supervision and a longer school day that adds little to no benefit to the instructional day.  The repeated statement that the cuts are being kept away from the classroom is maddening.  Every dollar taken from a school budget directly affects the classroom.”

Northside Principal #2

Note: This comment is from a female principal, who toward the end of the first paragraph takes on the metaporical role of CPS/Male.

“It does reflect my response to the budget but it’s a bamboozled and hoodwinked response. Of course I’m happy it’s “not that bad.” I was told that it was going to be up to 40% and now it’s less.  It’s like being in an abusive relationship. Instead of beating my woman down, now I’m just neglecting her and not meeting her needs. “She should be thankful. At least I didn’t beat her a**.

“They do this doomsday/broke on purpose BS all the time and it diminishes one of the best parts of the job! Being a visionary and being creative on behalf of my school, staff and students. Suburban schools started planning for next year in January! They have hired their staff. And have been preparing all summer, but because of this budget delay, I start tomorrow.

“My teachers don’t even know what they are teaching for next year. We couldn’t communicate teaching assignments for fear of cuts and consequential confusion and unnecessary bitterness amongst teachers and administration.  So I had to make three plans/scenarios for next year… Bad, worse and horrible. What kind of leadership is that?????? Now I get to go make the best with what I have…. Which is still bad.  So yeah. It reflects my response but it’s still inexcusable. But I can’t fight or argue about it because now I have to get to work and do 6 months of planning, hiring and preparing–in six weeks.”

Westside Principal #1

They kept saying they did not impact classrooms.  It’s simply not true. We were low-balled for enrollment. The funding is about $100 less per pupil.  They lumped all special education funding together with SBB.  The special education funding level is based on what the school “spent” on personnel last school year minus 4% they held back for the district to support possible litigation!!??? Our difference is nearly -$200,000.00. It’s a huge cut for our school.

They kept calling it “our” money or “the principal’s” money.  For example, you don’t have enough staff to meet the needs of students with IEPs, then, you have to allocate from “your” money (SBB).  If you use all “your money” (SBB), then there will be some appeal process they have yet to define!!??

This budget will definitely have a negative impact at the classroom level.

Southside Principal #2

“Yes, to some extent I do feel relieved, only because I thought it would be worse than what it was. But that’s all relative when you’re in doomsday mindset. CPS is no longer paying for special education teachers. So with the little money you have, now we must budget for their salaries. So in my mind it’s a Catch-22.  We have to get over another wave of s*** that CPS is throwing at us. It has been one wave after another. Year after year, principals dig through the s*** and find a way to make it work. They got a cookie, took a huge bite, left us the crumbs, and now we’re grateful!?!”

Westside Principal #2

Note: This comment references the term “hype-man” borrowed from hip-hop culture. Many hip-hop groups have a lead rapper and a “hype-man” who gets the crowd excited, and extols the virtues of the lead rapper.  The most well-known hype-man was Flavor Flav of the group Public Enemy.

“They’re playing a game with us.  This budget is just the latest manifestation of a pattern of CPS officials creating ways to take their horrible decisions and make us responsible for them.  If you pay attention, it’s easy to see.  At the law conference for example they said that any lawsuits against CPS will “have your names on it, not ours.” Then they said the costs they’re paying for the transportation of homeless students is too high because principals are giving CTA passes out to too many homeless students.  They said they’re going to start “monitoring the decisions you’re making at the school level.”  Then they practically told us not to even think about suspending kids; that we needed to deal with our own problems in-house, while they allow charter schools to expel kids for thinking about fighting.  They’ve framed their conversation to principals as, “Are you a liability to us?”  They’re getting in all these new principals and coercing them–telling them what they can and cannot do because they don’t know any better.

“They’re about to f*** over special education kids.  They’re creating a way to coerce principals into not giving those kids the aid they need. They put us in a position to have to give them the least amount of services by making the budget for special education students compete with your general education funds.  Special education students are typically ten percent of your students who take up 30 percent of your budget. CPS used to understand that so they kept the funds separate.  Now they’re pretending not to get it. By putting the funds together, they’ve created a situation where either special education kids won’t get what they need, or general education kids will get resources taken from them to meet schools’ obligations to special education students. They’re calling the general education funds “our” money.  They’re not our funds; they’re funds for our general education students; but they’re framing it that way to put us in a position to be the ones to blame when kids aren’t getting their services.

“I don’t care how you spin it.  At the end of the day, I have to close a $300,000 budget gap.

“As Forrest and the Chief Financial Officer were spinning this at the budget meeting, Janice Jackson’s job was to be the hype-man.  She was Forrest’s Flavor Flav. They tried to scare us and tell us “we’re going to cut both of your legs off,” and then they cut your foot off, and we’re supposed to be grateful that we didn’t lose both legs.  That’s what they were doing.  But, Jackson was like Flavor Flav yelling, “Yeah boy!!!!  We still have one foot left!  You should be happy!  Go Forrest!  Go Forrest!  Go Forrest!  Go Forrest!!!”

“The whole thing was insulting. Both legs, or one foot; either way it goes, they’ve destroyed our foundation.”

Northside Principal #3

“The budget is horrible and insulting.  They are expanding IES (Instructional Effectiveness Specialists) to “help” principals evaluate teachers every now and then, but they’re making us cut our assistant principals. That’s like saying they’re cutting the police force but adding more dog catchers. Plus, CPS has plans to open 13 more charter schools, resulting in more and more chaos as classrooms close and thousands of student schedules are changed to adjust to the losses, closures, and chaos.  This chaos leads to citizens losing trust in their community and government.”

Northside Principal #4

“Right now this is what I am sure of: They lowered SBB per pupil to February reduction. Lost nearly $150k again. They only gave enough funds for last year’s special education costs and then they took 4% off that amount. So if you got a position last year and hired in January you only got enough funds for that position from Jan to June even though you now need enough to fund the position for the entire year.

“I have more to say on how CPS is getting principals to do a special education self-assassination but I need more time to look at it. In a nutshell I think they will get us to reduce it a bit each year–get you to figure out ways to bleed special education to save other funding because they undercut it a little each year.  They’ll get you to cut a little, then fund you next year on what you spent the year before…with another 4% holdback or so.  If you fight the 4% they will tear your schedule apart to state minimum rules, which they have already shown us is possible; legal, but unethical. So everyone eats it versus taking the terrible option. That’s my initial analysis but I still need to spend more time with my budget.”

In the past month I’ve received a lot of calls from reporters asking me for my insights into why so many principals are resigning this year. The above statements provide that insight.

We need to remember that (1) CPS is spending over a half billion dollars in unnecessary new school construction (the student population in CPS is decreasing) in order to support and maintain school segregation , (2) the city has access to hundreds of millions of TIF dollars that could be used to plug its budget gaps but is instead giving it away to wealthy developers, and (3) CPS is expanding spending on privatization of custodians and engineers with companies principals have complained about for years. In the face of these facts, the decision by CPS officials to cut school funding is particularly unethical.

CPS and City Hall are wasting money on charter school expansion and unnecessary school construction, they are hiding money in TIF accounts, and have a demonstrated history of tucking federal dollars away from public view in district level accounts.

CPS does not need to find money.  It needs to stop wasting money.

CPS does not need to search for funding.  It needs to stop hiding the funds it has.

Our association will conduct a more thorough survey of principals in the coming week, but these preliminary responses do not bode well for our students and the educators who dedicate their professional lives to serving them. Our school district deserves representative governance and competent, responsible, and ethical management. The decisions of CPS management represented in the above comments demonstrate just how far we are from achieving that reality.

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Those who want to contribute to the work of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association can send their contributions to the address below.  Thank you.

Chicago Principals & Administrators Association
20 North Wacker Drive, Suite 1545, Chicago, IL 60606

PDF: No Voice Master

Under Emanuel, principals have no voice (May 10, 2014). Chicago Sun-Times

I am the son of a black father from the South Side and a white mother from the North Side. I grew up in Bronzeville and now live in Beverly. I attended five Chicago Public Schools and I’ve taught in every corner of Chicago, in schools that were predominately African-American, Latino-American and European-American. I have served students who were homeless, and students whose families owned multiple homes. I was an assistant principal in a turnaround school, and I am currently the principal of Blaine Elementary, one of the city’s highest-performing neighborhood schools. Finally, I am a CPS parent with a son at our neighborhood public school.

I am fortunate to have experienced public schooling from such diverse viewpoints. However, nothing I’ve seen can compare to what I’ve witnessed as a CPS principal under the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Since 2011, CPS principals and teachers have experienced unprecedented political burdens. Early on, teachers felt publicly maligned and disrespected by the mayor, leading to the historic strike of 2012.

While publicly praising principals in speeches and with awards, behind the scenes this administration has disregarded principals’ knowledge and experience. They have ignored and even suppressed principals’ voices in order to push City Hall’s political agenda for Chicago’s schools.

The administration’s interaction with principals is often insulting. During the debate over the longer school day, some principals questioned its merits. CPS officials were then dispatched to tell the principals their opinions didn’t matter. ”You are Board employees,” a central office official told a room full of principals at a meeting, “and when you speak, your comments must be in line with the Board’s agenda.” He instructed us to have an “elevator speech” supporting the longer day ready at a moment’s notice. We were told that if Emanuel and the press walked into our schools, we’d better be prepared to list the benefits of his longer day. In a move that further humiliated principals, they were called on at random to give their elevator speeches at subsequent principal meetings.

Shortly afterward, CPS slashed school budgets, voted to close 50 schools and made disingenuous statements about the slashed budget giving more “autonomy” to principals. They insinuated these cuts would have little effect on classrooms. I spoke up to give Chicagoans a factual assessment of the effects of these cuts. A reporter from WBEZ Radio recorded a statement I delivered at City Hall in July 2013 and posted it on the station’s website. It became one of the station’s most downloaded audio files.

Several months later, I spoke about overcrowded schools on WYCC television. A few hours before filming, I emailed CPS officials to inform them. Later that afternoon–unaware the show had already been taped–those officials told me not to appear because I did not have permission. On the subject of whether I had the right to speak as a private citizen, CPS said I should wait to receive clarity. After more than two months I’m still waiting for “clarity” from CPS on my right to speak.

Recently, during a break at a training session, a few principals gathered to discuss what they could not say publicly. They expressed concerns about the impact of Emanuel’s effort to cut teacher pensions on our ability to recruit talented people into the teaching profession. They questioned unfunded mandates that pull resources from classrooms, and condemned CPS’ expenditure of over $20 million on SUPES Academy–an organization the CEO of CPS once worked for–to provide principal training, a training that principals agreed was among the worst they’d experienced.

Principal after principal expressed legitimate concerns that none felt safe expressing publicly. Finally, I spoke. “This administration gets away with this because we let them. We are the professionals. Yet, we allow political interests to dominate the public conversation about what’s good for the children in our schools. Every time these officials misinform the public about the impact of their policies, we need to follow them with a press conference of our own to set the record straight.”

Those who responded expressed concerns about being harassed, fired or receiving a poor evaluation. Principals sat paralyzed by fear of what might happen if they simply voiced the truth. One of them asked me plainly, aren’t you afraid of losing your job?” The question awakened a memory:

“General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!”

In 1989, when I was in the Navy, I was stationed onboard an aircraft carrier and accustomed to hearing the “General Quarters” battle readiness exercise. However, on January 4 of that year, it came with a sobering declaration: “This is not a drill.”

Our ship had entered the Gulf of Sidra near Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, and crossed Gaddafi’s “Line of Death.” Two Libyan warplanes were headed our way. Fortunately, our F-14 fighter jet pilots were able to shoot the warplanes down. Our captain later praised the pilots and ship’s crew for our willingness to risk our lives to preserve American freedoms.

So when people ask me, “Aren’t you afraid of losing your job if you speak out?” this is my answer: I did not travel across an ocean and risk my life to defend American freedoms only to return and relinquish those freedoms to an elected official and his appointed board of education.

The world’s highest-performing school systems are built on the ideas of American education professionals ranging from John Dewey to Linda Darling-Hammond, ideas that recognize school improvement is not an individual race, but a team sport. Yet, our own elected officials have been ignoring those ideas in favor of teacher-bashing, privatized choice, fly-by-night fast-track teacher licensing and over-reliance on testing–ideas that have not improved schooling in any nation that has tried them.

Those of us who know better must lift our voices to persuade the residents of Illinois to reject these backward ideas and to oust the politicians who peddle them. We must work together to build our own system-wide improvement effort. The future of public education is at stake, and the future of Chicago’s children is at risk. We must lift our voices and be heard.

This is not a drill.

Troy A. LaRaviere, Principal
Blaine Elementary School