Chicago Eliminates Another Arne Duncan Initiative | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Eliminates Another Arne Duncan Initiative | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Eliminates Another Arne Duncan Initiative

While Arne Duncan was superintendent of schools in Chicago, he received over $10 million from the Gates Foundation to begin “turning around” low-performing schools. He supported the creation of The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), which subsequently took over 31 schools, some of which raised test scores but were criticized for pushing out low-scoring students. One of AUSL’s goals was to train teachers for urban schools.

The leadership of Chicago Public Schools decided to absorb the 31 schools back into the school district, according to Chalkbeat. AUSL will continue training teachers.

Tapped in 2006 to steer improvements at some of the city’s lowest-performing schools, the nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership manages 31 schools that together enrolled 14,745 students this school year, mostly on the city’s South and West sides. The contractor CONTINUE READING: Chicago Eliminates Another Arne Duncan Initiative | Diane Ravitch's blog

Mike Klonsky's Blog: 15 years later, CPS reclaims Duncan's AUSL 'turnaround schools'.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: 15 years later, CPS reclaims Duncan's AUSL 'turnaround schools'.

15 years later, CPS reclaims Duncan's AUSL 'turnaround schools'

"Yet for all the public attention, AUSL's results have been mixed; many students have made considerable progress, but as a group they still lag well behind district averages ... with many ending up on par or even below comparable neighborhood schools." -- Chicago Tribune, 2/6/2012

Yesterday, CPS announced that it was reclaiming the so-called "turnaround schools" which were handed over to the private management and teacher training company, the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) in 2006. 

All I can say about this break from Arne Duncan's privatization "reforms" carried out under the banner of Renaissance 2010 and then rebranded as Race to the Top during his term as Sec. of Education, is -- it's about time. 

Lacking any research base and built on the false premise that private companies, hedge funders, and power philanthropists could best operate public institutions, AUSL's school takeover turned out to be an expensive and dismal flop.

AUSL was founded and run by Chicago venture capitalist Martin Koldyke, who used his connections and big campaign donations to become a powerhouse in the school turnaround business. Koldyke, a golf buddy of then-Mayor Daley, decided he could save the public school system by running it like a business. Koldyke's company, Frontenac, had been a big investor in for-profit colleges like DeVry and Rasmussen College.

Despite AUSL schools ranking at or near the bottom of the system, the company benefited from CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: 15 years later, CPS reclaims Duncan's AUSL 'turnaround schools'.

Chicago Charter Chain Apologizes for “Racist, No-Excuses” Regime | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Charter Chain Apologizes for “Racist, No-Excuses” Regime | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Charter Chain Apologizes for “Racist, No-Excuses” Regime

The Noble Network is the leading charter chain in Chicago. It boasts of high test scores. It is the darling of the Chicago white elite, including such luminaries as former Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and billionaire Penny Pritzker, who served as Obama’s Secretary of Commerce. White apologists and admirers of the strict no-excuses discipline policy claimed that black and brown children needed the tough rules so that they could learn middle-class behaviors. David Whitman published a book praising “no-excuses” schools called Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism, in which he praised the high-performing schools (mostly charters) that enforced “no excuses.” His book was published in 2008; in 2009, he became the chief speech-writer for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who often lavished praise on “no excuses” charter schools.

The Noble Network wrote a letter to its alumni, apologizing for its strict “no excuses” policy, which it acknowledged was “racist.” Over the years, critics have said that the practices of “no excuses” schools are racist, but they were defended by charter advocates based on their test scores. They argued that the ends justified the CONTINUE READING: Chicago Charter Chain Apologizes for “Racist, No-Excuses” Regime | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago teachers union approves the reopening plan – Fred Klonsky

Chicago teachers union approves the reopening plan. – Fred Klonsky

CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION APPROVES THE REOPENING PLAN

The need to reopen schools safely is nearly universally agreed upon.

“Safely” being the operative word.

But these are uncharted waters and I don’t envy teacher unions in districts across the country as they try to represent the safety concerns of educators, students and their families.

And whatever the particulars are here in Chicago – which includes a very strained relationship between the CTU and Mayor Lightfoot going back to the last election – the issue has created difficult conversations between every teacher union and board or mayor.

Over the weekend the Mayor announced a tentative agreement with the CTU on reopening. The CTU rejected the term “tentative agreement”, although from my experience that is what it was. The executive team presented the terms to the CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers union approves the reopening plan. – Fred Klonsky

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The good ones are leaving us too soon.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The good ones are leaving us too soon.

The good ones are leaving us too soon.

As everyone has heard by now, former CTU Pres. Karen Lewis passed yesterday, leaving a tear in my eye but also great memories for me to hold on to. Some of my fondest include our (Susan and my) occasional breakfast meetings at Meli's on Wells Street just to touch base and have a few laughs. 

Another was from an event we held for Jonathan Kozol back in 2012. Kozol had the crowd on its feet, applauding as he talked about the inspiring effect the Chicago teachers' strike was having on teachers and supporters across the country. Kozol said he first heard news of the strike at a book tour event in Los Angeles. When a teacher in the audience announced that teachers in Chicago had walked out, “the roar of the crowd delayed the program for several minutes.”

But the loudest prolonged ovation that evening was reserved for Karen Lewis. It broke out spontaneously as she entered the sold-out Thorne Auditorium and Northwestern Univ. Law School. Karen spoke briefly, introduced Kozol, and then embraced the author in a show of unity. 

Jonathan and Karen at Maggiano's in 2012

After the event, a group of us went out with Jonathan and Karen to CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: The good ones are leaving us too soon.

Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win | Diane Ravitch's blog

Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win | Diane Ravitch's blog

Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win

Emma Tai is executive director of United Working Families of Chicago. She describes in Jacobin the powerful lesson that she learned from Karen Lewis.

She writes:

At a time of austerity and teacher demonization, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis — whose death at age sixty-seven was announced today — dared to believe that educators and the working class as a whole could fight back and win...

The 2012 strike put tens of thousands of people in the streets of Chicago. At a time of austerity and widespread demonization of teachers, both in Chicago and around the country, the CTU walked off the job insisting that we deserved, and could actually win, schools and a city that served Chicago’s working class. The strike put black, Latinx, and working-class people, and a workforce that is overwhelmingly women, in the streets by the tens of thousands against a neoliberal mayor, Rahm Emanuel, to say that the schools and city belonged to us. Astonishingly, they won.

That strike changed the political landscape of Chicago and the whole country, touching off a wave of teachers’ strikes that continue to this day and that have CONTINUE READING: Emma Tai: Karen Lewis Taught Us to Believe That We Could Win | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening | 89.3 KPCC

Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening | 89.3 KPCC

Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening

The city of Chicago and its teachers are fast approaching a showdown.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools have been planning to reopen for some in-person classes next week. But the Chicago Teachers Union is concerned about the logistics of returning to school while the pandemic is still raging.

In a letter to staff and families Friday evening, Lightfoot and school district CEO Janice Jackson said that if certain pre-K teachers and other staff don't report to classrooms on Monday, they "will be deemed absent without leave," and would have their access to online teaching tools revoked.

If the district makes good on that promise, it could lead to the second teachers' strike in the city in less than two years. The union has said it would strike if the district locks out teachers from working from home.

"We love your children," the union wrote in a letter to parents earlier this week. "We desperately want to be back in classrooms with them, but we are not willing to CONTINUE READING: Chicago Teachers At Odds With District Over School Reopening | 89.3 KPCC

Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return - The Washington Post

Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools will reopen for some students Monday for the first time since last spring amid an escalating clash between city officials, who are threatening to withhold pay from teachers who do not show up, and the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, which contends that schools are not properly outfitted to combat the coronavirus.

Teachers who don’t show up for work Monday “will be deemed absent without leave and will not be eligible for pay,” said Janice Jackson, CEO of the nation’s third-largest school district.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she is determined to reopen schools Monday, starting a phased return to in-person learning, and that city officials are “doing everything we can to place safety in this pandemic at front and center.”

But teachers, many of whom returned to classrooms last Monday to start to prepare, said they found conditions unacceptable and called the demand for them to start teaching “heartless.”

The situation sets up a potential showdown between a powerful teachers union that has a history of striking and a school district that is determined to open despite a rise in coronavirus cases.

Thad Goodchild, lawyer for the teachers union, said it would be illegal if the district withholds pay for work being done remotely, as it has threatened to do, or if the district locks teachers out of Google Classroom so they are unable to teach their students virtually if they don’t return in person.

The union and the district were continuing to meet over the weekend, Goodchild said. If they can’t come to agreement, he said, “all options are on the table.” He said a strike was possible “if CPS and the mayor retaliate against the teachers who have been directed to report in person on Monday” but choose to stay CONTINUE READING: Chicago teachers balk at reopening plan, face pay loss if they don’t return - The Washington Post

Barbara Byrd-Bennett steered another $10 million from the Chicago Public Schools to ‘friends,’ CPS inspector general says - Chicago Sun-Times

Barbara Byrd-Bennett steered another $10 million from the Chicago Public Schools to ‘friends,’ CPS inspector general says - Chicago Sun-Times

Disgraced ex-schools CEO Byrd-Bennett steered $10M more to ‘friends’ than previously known: CPS inspector general

A company executive at one company wined and dined the ex-Chicago schools chief at the Pump Room in exchange for insider knowledge about bid specifications, the report says.

Disgraced former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett landed in prison for steering $22.5 million in no-bid deals to her friends — but her wrongdoing was much worse, a new report concludes.

CPS’s inspector general says in his annual report, released Wednesday, that Byrd-Bennett orchestrated schemes that resulted in another $10.1 million in public school contracts going to her friends’ companies.

The findings come six years after the schools chief former whom Mayor Rahm Emanuel chose and affectionately called “B3” abruptly resigned.

Byrd-Bennett, 71, got out of prison in early May after serving nearly three years of her 4 1/2 -year sentence in a low-security facility thanks to a federal policy aimed at sparing nonviolent offenders from the coronavirus.

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In 2013, Byrd-Bennett helped steer an eye-catching $20 million contract for principal training to a company that had employed her before she worked at CPS and which promised to take her back after she left the Chicago school system.

That same year, CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher now says, Byrd-Bennett also made sure that two more friends landed $6.3 million in a separate training contract with professional development firm Knowledge Delivery System, a company she had ties with in Detroit.

After a year of work at KDS, the two unnamed friends left the company in a tiff to start their own firm along with a CPS aide they hired as their general counsel. Byrd-Bennett tried to move the work along with them to the new company without approval from the Chicago CONTINUE READING: Barbara Byrd-Bennett steered another $10 million from the Chicago Public Schools to ‘friends,’ CPS inspector general says - Chicago Sun-Times

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The path towards safe school reopenings

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The path towards safe school reopenings

The path towards safe school reopenings

I don't see any pathway to safe urban school reopenings without first classifying teachers and school staff as essential, frontline workers, and putting them near the top of the vaccine priority list. This should be part of a national campaign championed by the incoming Sec. of Education. Schools should also become centers for mass community inoculation. 

Chicago has plans for a phased school reopening starting in January if the spread of the virus stabilizes, but the local teachers’ union says cases remain too high. Credit...Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

Two things are clear to me. Schools can't open without support from a critical mass of teachers and teachers aren't going to be bullied back into the classroom without evidence that those classrooms are reasonably safe. 

The nation’s roughly three million full-time teachers are already considered essential workers by the C.D.C., which means that in states that follow federal recommendations, they are already eligible to receive the vaccine after hospital employees and nursing home residents.

But, says the New York Times...

The essential worker group is huge — some 87 million Americans — and states will have flexibility in how they prioritize within that population. Many more people work in schools than just teachers, including nurses, janitors, and cafeteria workers, and it is unclear how many of them would be included on the high-priority list.

Last month, more than 10 educational organizations, including the nation’s two largest CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: The path towards safe school reopenings

Chicago Public Schools to Reopen After Installing Air Purifiers | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Public Schools to Reopen After Installing Air Purifiers | Diane Ravitch's blog

Chicago Public Schools to Reopen After Installing Air Purifiers

Chicago Public Schools are ready to open, according to officials.

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools said classrooms are ready for students and teachers to safely return Wednesday after the district installed air purifiers and took other measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Last month, the Chicago Teachers Union said neither teachers nor students should return to class because school buildings are old and not designed to sufficiently ventilate and purify air during a pandemic.

CPS said it addressed those concerns by spending $8.5 million to put a HEPA air purifier in every classroom. District officials said the 20,000 purifiers are capable of removing “99.9% of ultrafine particles,” including airborne mold, bacteria and viruses like COVID-19. 

Additionally, CPS officials said the district implemented CONTINUE  READING: Chicago Public Schools to Reopen After Installing Air Purifiers | Diane Ravitch's blog