Terrorism of Noble Network of charter schools - Substance News
'...We’ve seen an alarming number of students being admitted to the hospital with depression, severe anxiety, and increasingly with actual suicide attempts all directly tied to these schools’ discipline, academic, and retention policies...' Teacher exposes Noble's bullying policy
[Editor's Note: For more than ten years, Substance he been following the stories about how Michael Milkie, founder of the "Noble Network of Charter Schools," has been forcing his "failing" students to return to the city's real public schools based on rules which no decent public school -- or teacher -- would impose on children. On January 22, 2014, Katie Osgood exposed part of this bullying campaign in remarks before the Board meeting. The Board voted to add two more "Noble" campuses to Chicago's schools at the end of its meeting.
Teachers Katie Osgood was one of several witnesses who have been exposing the psychological abuse of students at the "Noble Network of Charter Schools." Above, Osgood is shown speaking during the January 22, 2014 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Earlier in the meeting, a student from Steinmetz High School had told the Board that a fellow student had left Noble charter schools because of the pressures and that the 'race to the top' version of reality promoted by the Noble Street schools divided children from one another, while in the real public school it was possible to act like "family." George N. Schmidt, editor].Board Meeting 01-22-14: Noble St Charter Schools and Student Mental Health
Hello. My name is Katie Osgood and I am a teacher at a psychiatric hospital here in Chicago. I am here today as a concerned citizen and an educator.
In my hospital, we are seeing a disturbing pattern among patients coming from the Noble St Charter School Network of schools. We’ve seen an alarming number of students being admitted to the hospital with depression, severe anxiety, and increasingly with actual suicide attempts all directly tied to these schools’ discipline, academic, and retention policies.
Over and over, we are hearing the same stories from students-stories of constant stress from overly strict discipline, exhaustion from unreasonable workloads, and the very real fear of repeating a school year regardless of academic progress or IEP status. These students report cultures of shaming and humiliation. They speak of feeling beaten down from constant punishment over the most minor infractions such as not coming to school with a belt or not looking a