CPS school closings driven by politics, not data.
When Rahm’s hand picked members of the Chicago school board meet today to vote on a half dozen school closings and turning 10 more schools over to private management, it will be a decision that has nothing to do with data or student needs.
The data was provided yesterday in a report by Designs for Change, a Chicago-based school research group headed by Don Moore.
Moore’s exhaustive study compares the performance of turnaround schools to what he calls “school-based democracy, with high-poverty high-achieving collaborative Chicago elementary schools — in which parents, teachers, the principal, the community and students work together to strengthen to quality of education and achievement.”
Among the study’s conclusions:
- The Chicago turnaround strategy does not meet the needs of high poverty students.
