CBS 2′s Dorothy Tucker reports school administrators might think they have answers on consolidating schools, but parents still have lots of concerns.

CPS Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett toured Helen Hefferan Elementary School on Tuesday.

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The school has several empty classrooms that will be put to good use in the fall, when 231 students from nearby Nathan Goldblatt Elementary School will be transferred to Hefferan, which has 251 students now.

Merging the two student bodies into one big happy family will be the challenge.

“If you get cousins who have to come over and stay for a while, you can’t just not let them sleep in the bed or not let them have a place at the table; it becomes that blended family,” Byrd-Bennett said.

Byrd-Bennett said the plan to blend the families includes numerous activities for parents and students at both sending and receiving schools.

“They have children ambassadors who are actually reaching out to their peers, grade peers, at the sending school. They’re sending post cards, individual post cards, to each child who will be coming, saying why it’s a great thing for them to come,” Byrd-Bennett said.

Most parents at Hefferan have been extending a welcome hand to Goldblatt, but some are hesitant.

“I think I’m going to transfer my babies out,” said Hefferan parent Mira Williams. She said she’s worried about “kids bullying kids here.”

Hefferan parents weren’t the only ones with concerns. Goldblatt’s parents, like Tommie Wells, also said they’re worried about safety.

“I’ve been walking through here before and they start shooting,” Wells said of the walk between the two schools. “From here to there, a lot can happen in a little while.”

Heffren administrators said they are confident they can prevent any conflicts between students, and they plan to beef up security.

“That is what Safe Passage is for. They’re going to have people along the path of the children coming from Goldblatt to Hefferan,” Hefferan Principal Jacqueline Hearns said. “And we have parent volunteers that we ask to remain around the school, to make sure that our children are safe as they come into the building.”

The safety plan at Hefferan, as well as other welcoming schools, includes using parents as volunteers to patrol the school grounds.

The IEA is very alarmed that the Tribune could be bought by the Koch Brothers.  The IEA on their blog says, “Fairness is all we can ask from the Trib. But if the Koch brothers come to town, do you think we’ll see fairness?”

I can’t express how shocking it is to see that a teachers union believes that the Tribune has been fair to educators or to labor. Now the IEA is the suburban and downstate teachers union, but sometimes I can’t help but be thrilled, I am represented by the current CTU leadership.  I am still dumbstruck by that blog.

The Industrial Classroom

“There’s a special resemblance between the struggles against scientific management, or Taylorism, and today’s teacher resistance to corporate reform schemes. Just as factory workers fought top-down dictates, deskilling, and the installation of anemic work processes, so too are teachers trying to prevent the undemocratic implementation of high-stakes testing and merit pay, assaults on professionalism, and the dumbing down and narrowing of curricula.”

Billionaire Dan Loeb Turtles, Flees Investor Conference After Political Affiliations Exposed

:”In the age of Citizens United, it’s going to become more and more important for ordinary people everywhere to find out if their tax dollars or their retirement money is being used to fund political lobbying against their own interests. There are, after all, lots of people on Wall Street with obnoxious political interests who want to get their hands on your union or state retirement money, your federal social security benefits (just think of how screwed we’d all be now if they’d privatized Social Security before 2008), and, through bailouts, your tax dollars.”

Insider Got Bigger Payout from Clout-Heavy Hispanic Group UNO

My goal is always to post Monday through Thursday and then get one other blog post in on the weekend.   I tried to do a daily blog before and it became too much of a chore.  However, I still do want to provide information to teachers and parents on a regular basis so this seems to be a compromise that works for me. 

This weekend, I came across two really powerful stories and they’re going to provide the only two links in this late Sunday night update.   I hope, you’ll click on both links.  The history lesson for Barbara Byrd-Bennett is just great blog writing, while the other link shows our students are starting to stand up for their rights.

Chicago Youth Organize to Fight Back

“Yesterday, some of our students went public with stories of being demoted from junior to sophomore status in March, a month before the PSAE state exam which is administered next week and only given to juniors, and which Mayor Emanuel has made major efforts to link to school closings and principal and teacher evaluations. Two VOYCE student leaders were on a list of 67 juniors in total who were demoted in March at a southwest side high school, or a third of that school’s junior class.”

Here’s Where We’ve Been, Barbara Byrd-Bennett

“Race and class warfare aren’t just cards we play; they are our life story.  The very people in politics, corporate boardrooms and media conglomerates are the self-same folks who have been repeating this cycle for two centuries.  Our lives have been spun for so many purposes that we have fallen down, dizzy and delirious, into the sinkholes and potholes and vacant lots full of weeds that are our share of the wealth your friends have made off of our labor.”

Listening to Karen Lewis talk, you would think she wants some things to remain the same far as this business (overdone) with this chatter about “neighborhood” schools. She wants the present Mayor out of office, but what would she tell a new candidate about how the schools should be run and what ought to be done?

If I were going to run for Mayor and President Lewis came to me talking as she did today on the News Radio WBBM interview, I would turn her out of my office and tell her to come back when she’s not clouded by letting the demographers have power over her mind and the minds of those she works with. I’d say that when she is ready to really give an educated response and burst the bubbles of this talk of race and gender and gang lines, she can come back and settle down and use some Parliamentary Procedure manners and talk with me.

Listen folks, do not play the race game and the Census bit with me – I won’t buy it. I am tired of hearing people sound as though their world ends when their streets end or when the “people who look like them” are no longer visible. Pretty unsecure and prejudiced thinking, in my view, and we do not need such talk any further.

Demographic and racial gerrymandering talk does no good for anyone at all. Such talk only gives the government Census people more power to separate and categorize us and to make it sound like such talk is good for us and will give competitiveness, federal dollars, boost this or that and make  funds available for people who want to buy in to their “diversity” babble.

English: Seal of the United States Census Bureau. The blazon is defined here as: On a shield an open book beneath which is a lamp of knowledge emitting rays above in base two crossed quills. Around the whole a wreath of single leaves, surrounded by an outer band bearing between two stars the words “U.S. Department of Commerce” in the upper portion and “Bureau of the Census” in the lower portion, the lettering concentric with an inner beaded rim and an outer dentilated rim. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Get on the horn, people! YOU ARE DIVERSE; everyone is “diverse”, because we are all different.  I don’t look like you and you don’t look like me and we don’t like the same kinds of food, but that does not make me inferior or superior to you. Come on, get grown up, folks. If you are in a fire are you going to watch for the firefighters coming up the aerial ladder and if he or she does not look like you are you going to be stupid enough to tell them, “I’ll want here until someone who looks like me comes up the ladder?” How silly is that?

So she thinks kids are not going to be welcome in a new school or in a new environment? That is a poor commentary on how good people can really be and how warm and open folks can be if given a chance. Such talk as she is spouting out is only adding fuel to the fire and keeping the wounds of racism, gangs, drugs, “turf”, neighborhoods, and “special” education going.

Perhaps the goals of our education system are wrong in the first place. For one thing, we are ALL in need of some sort of “special education”, considering that from observations I make that everyone is behaviorally challenged. We are not civil, we are not decent, we spit, we shout, we use phones at the dinner table, and we talk in church. People cut folks off when driving, people text when driving, act up in flight, push and shove, do not acknowledge when someone gives a resume in or have a job interview; people expose their underwear and exhibit other breaches of behavioral niceties.

Special education is for everyone, though some people need more attention than others due to physical or mental disorders that cannot be attended to in a regular school environment. Kids with severe deficiencies do need more attention during the day than those who can do normal activities such as feeding and dressing themselves, so they should be assessed and placed in a suitable environment.

But every school should be as good in quality as the very best schools in the Chicago area or schools around the nation, and if they are not then we need to take a close look at the real reasons why they are not. Who is playing the politics card, who is fomenting the racial and gender and gang issues and for what reason? Are they getting money and support from groups who are affiliated with demographers, demographic institutes or the Census Bureau?

I find that it is interesting that the Census Bureau has on its coat of arms an open book, the sign of someone getting an education and expanding their horizons, and the lamp of learning and the quills, with which people used to write with dipping in ink. And usually a wreath of leaves indicated the sign of a heroic accomplishment. The only thing the Census people are doing is dividing this nation along all kinds of lines and in all manner of categories, and I find nothing good, decent, heroic or honorable about that in the slightest. The way they are pushing their demographic divisiveness they ought to have a closed book and an extinguished lamp. Racial gerrymandering and prejudice have no place in this country and our government is making both legal, permissive, and acceptable.

What is really going on with those stubborn people? Do you want to have that kind of thinking plaguing you any longer?

If you need a further reason to burst your demographic social economic racist gender-biased bubbles and come out and break down the barriers, then look at the people in London who are by the tens of thousands participating today running in the London Marathon. Only a week after the events in Boston which drew us and the City of Boston together to assist the injured and traumatized, the London Marathon is drawing people supporting those in Boston and the sport of running and the spirit of good sportsmanship. THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO COME OUT, to come from other countries and get in that race and run and feel proud and happy! They are happy to be out there and showing the team spirit!

How come you folks in Chicago cannot do the same?

Here is the pin… burst the bubbles and take a breath. Surely the air will be fresh and not at all stuffy. You’re making it stuffy now so break the barriers, grow up, stop talking and start acting, but in everyone’s interest and not for your political or PR ambitions. Quit acting up and start behaving like good citizens should.

Thank you.

Divi Logan, Chicago, 2013.

Related articles

• Chicago To Shut Down 54 Schools (huffingtonpost.com)
• Report: About 50 Chicago Public Schools may close (wgntv.com)
• VIDEO: Parents Protest Chicago Public Schools Closings (jtn-network.com)

Eileen Boyle began her career in business and after twenty years decided to pursue teaching. Through an alternative certification program got her degree in mathematics and since has done work all over.

Eileen started off her teaching career “easy” as a math assistant in at Skokie School in Winnetka Illinois. Then her career took a 180 when she went across the country to the United Arab Emirates to work in a government school. It was difficult at first for her with the language barrier, and although the english alphabet is called arabic the arabs actually have their own alphabet, so most of the first grade girls had no idea how to write in english. Eileen taught English, science, and math to these girls over the course of a year which got easier as the year went on. “The most difficult part,” she said, “was that there was only one computer. In a technology heavy world, these kids needed to learn how to use it.”

She found the lack of resources a similar problem in The Chicago Public school system, only worse. There was no technology at the schools she substitute taught at and no text books, because of the tight budget for CPS. A Chicago Suntimes Report says 54 schools are closing down just this year leaving 30,000 kids displaced. The plan is to combine schools making larger amounts of kids classrooms. Eileen commented that, “they’re doing this to save money, but it’s hard enough teaching the classrooms as they are with all the unfocused kids. At one point we had four teachers in a classroom and we still could not get all the kids to pay attention.” She made a point of saying that the blame is not to lie with the kids as some schools have no art programs, no computer programs and gym once a week so of course they are apathetic, having to sit in one room for seven hours a day. It’s important to make sure kids enjoy learning and so they don’t see it as a chore.

Instead of focusing on these negatives events Eileen had two main ideas for imporovement. The first she brought back from her teaching experience at the UAE: parental involvement. In the UAE she found having a relationship with the parents very helpful so when a problem arose communication was clear and could be fixed easily. “A teacher-parent relationship is crucial in earning the respect of a kid,” which leads into her next point of being a respected teacher. Eileen found that some teachers knew how to handle the kids very well and because of this reputation were able to have respect of a classroom being even having to lay down the law. “Prospective teachers should have to spend a year with a really great teacher” in order to gain a first hand experience. Eileen brought of one organization in particular Academy For Urban School Leadership. This organization currently serves over 14,000 students and prepares teachers to better manage and teach kids in urban schools. With more programs like this, small steps can be made to solve a big problem.

As the percentage of impoverished families in America hit 16% in The 2012 U.S. Census it became clear that an educated upcoming generation is crucial in order to reach more equal economic status in America. Heads turn to the next generation for solutions as how to expand the middle class. In order to begin to create this ideal future we need to build the minds to imagine it, using the innovation from all socioeconomic classes of of country.

photo credit to the Chicago Tribune http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/school_utilization

Elise Duffy, 17

WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports CPS Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett has vowed students relocated because of closing schools will end up at better ones.

But CTU President Karen Lewis challenged that assertion.

“It’s not true, it would be lovely if it were true, but it is simply not true,” she said.

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Lewis said school closings in Chicago never have worked to improve students’ education, even when displaced students end up at unquestionably better schools.

Lewis said parents and others at receiving schools worry that incoming students will drag the school’s test scores down.

“So, if you go back and look at several of the schools where the consolidations have happened, you will find that the children are not welcomed. There have been hostilities,” she said.

CPS officials disagree.

Regardless, Lewis has said the CTU wants to register voters and train candidates in a bid to oust Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the next city election in 2015. The union also plans to seek out candidates for aldermen who would be more supportive of teachers and students.

“We have to stop waiting for other people to do our work for us, so we need to find candidates who are responsive to the entire city of Chicago, not just the downtown business interests,” she said.

Lewis is the guest on this weekend’s “At Issue” program, airing at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Sunday.

A judge from the contest had this to say about White Rhino:

“White Rhino offers an interesting point of view on Latino issues at a moment of their emergence as a political and cultural force. He also has an endearing approach of a crusader, asking hard questions of the union chief and criticizing the mayor.”

Ray has been teaching English in Chicago Public Schools since 1995 and received his MA in Writing from DePaul in 2003. The White Rhino is part of ChicagoNow, an online community of Chicagoan bloggers owned by the Chicago Tribune Media Group.

Ray and the other award winners will be honored on May 4th during EWA’s 66th National Seminar at Stanford University.

Click here to read The White Rhino.

One of the links I have posted is to a great interview with Karen Lewis, but what’s really impressive to me as a bit of a science fiction nerd is this quote from Karen, “That’s where I throw in the Star Trek thing, the Kobayashi Maru. You’ve got to change the rules if you want to win.”

How many labor leaders drop a Kobayashi Maru reference like that.   The other day, I saw her correctly name the planet that the Death Star blew up in Star Wars (Alderan).  By the way, you know who else was a big Star Trek nerd?  Martin Luther King.  I think the idea of a positive future appeals to those who work for change.

Belabored Podcast, Episode 1: We Will Shut Down Your City

“Part of the problem is we don’t have counseling programs for children early enough. We have almost gotten rid of play in preschool and kindergarten because we’re so busy trying to get them to pass tests that we don’t focus on the things that actually build their social-emotional learning along with the academic piece. So some of the conflict resolution that you learn through play has disappeared…”

Report: Recent School Gains are Overblown

“A new report claims academic gains over the last decade in the New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. public schools were largely exaggerated by proponents of the current wave of school reforms.”

Protests Against Creating Disney II High School

“Approximately 100 community members turned out for a public hearing held Monday night at Schurz High School, the majority of them expressing opposition to the Disney II-Marshall co-location. Lachlan Tidmarsh, CPS chief information officer, and Peter Rogers, CPS chief financial officer, moderated the forum.”

One thing I found particularly striking was that the schools started out with equally rough test scores, but one continued on an upward path and the other eventually plummeted. I was wondering how on earth schools only several minutes away from each other could see such stark differences in test scores and attendance rates. It completely baffled me. But then I read an article that discussed how comparing specific schools to the district as a whole was unfair in these low-income neighborhoods because of something called mobility.

I came across mobility statistics for these schools but wasn’t entirely sure what it meant; I did know however, that the closing school had a high mobility rate. The  mobility rate is the amount of students that transfer in and out of the school during a given school year. Low-income communities where these schools are located see a lot of student mobility because a lot of the students are homeless and in temporary living situations (STLS) and are not guaranteed to be at the same school as they try to find where they will be living next.

During another public school hearing, someone brought up a point that helps fuel the anti-testing argument. These students are constantly moving, trying to figure out where there next meal will come from, not getting enough access to health care, and are being exposed to a new curriculum with each school change. Yet in spite of this, they’re expected to take the same test as students who are able to have their school year uninterrupted. That isn’t fair to the homeless student or the schools that educate a large population of STLS. They’re trying to create a second home and a safe environment to learn and grow but because the test scores are low, the school has to be closed and thus creating more instability in their lives.

Many advocates of keeping the schools open say that CPS and the boards in charge of closing the schools are completely taking the human factor out of the equation. In theory, closing down underutilized schools to help save money and restore the budget sounds like a good idea. Especially when it benefits the students by moving them to a new, better performing school. However, many communities disagree with this sentiment because it takes away from the community as a whole.

One argument was that by closing schools in a community, it takes away the incentive for families looking for a new home. They’re not going to live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a school or that recently closed a “failed” school. Keeping families away also keeps businesses away since they’ll have a smaller consumer base, and that in turn keeps the city from investing in community. Of course this is bad because these are communities lacking in resources to begin with – most schools don’t have enough text books for each student, access to after school programs, or a more well-rounded curriculum with arts and foreign language. So by closing schools, they’re driving out a big source of community involvement which is believed will cause disinvestment and leave these communities even more worse off then when they had the schools open.

Cost cutting is never an easy task, especially when you add the human factor.

One CPS teacher who works at one of the schools explained it this way, “one of the teachers who is being fired for not being a “good fit” is a National Board Certified, Golden Apple, S.T.E.M. teacher. She happens to be a tenured teacher with wonderful adult children. At this school, FOUR S.T.E.M. teachers who are over the age of 40 or 50 are being fired because they are not a “good fit” for the National Board. Never-mind that one of these teachers is currently already listed as an IB instructor, and has been for the past SIX years. Age Discrimination is illegal. And, when you target highly qualified employees, you look really stupid.”

Another teacher said, “Working for CPS is like playing a game with a 5 year old….at any given point in time, they will shout “NEW RULE!!!!! NEW RULE!!!”

Read the full story at Substance.  I’ll try and have more up tomorrow.

WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports CTU President Karen Lewis has said the union will launch a voter registration drive, and train possible candidates for mayor and alderman in 2015.

[cbs-audio url=http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ctu-rahm-041613-w2.mp3 size=340px download=false name="Mayor Dismisses Union's Political Threats" artist="WBBM Newsradio's Craig Dellimore"]

Emanuel barely raised an eyebrow.

“There’s about two years between now and the next election. I’m going to focus – as I know our teachers will, and our principals will, and [Chicago Public Schools CEO] Barbara Bennett, and the entire leadership of CPS, and the board – every day will be spent focusing on educating our children, and making sure they’re prepared and ready for the future,” he said. “Now, other people have the right, obviously, to focus on politics.”

The mayor said he’s confident teachers will focus on educating children, despite CTU’s announcement it would be stepping up its political activities. He said he doesn’t expect any CTU effort to oust him from office to get in the way of the mission of educating Chicago students.

“I have all the confidence in our teachers, I have all the confidence in our principals, and I have confidence in our administrators, as well as the board, and I know where I am. So if others want to focus on politics, they have every right to,” he said. “They make that choice. I make a choice as the mayor for the city of Chicago.”

Today is report card pickup day for us, which is why I have the odd timing with my blog posting.   I really dislike report card day not because of what it is, but because of what it could be.  I usually get along well with my students’ parents.  They know I have their child’s best interests at heart.  However, our report card day is a cattle call where, if every student’s parents want to speak with me, I can give them about  2 minutes and 12 seconds of time.  I can, of course, schedule a future meeting when I have more time, but now that CPS has eliminated that half hour in the morning we used to have, it has to be on my own time.  I still do it, but I resent it.  I don’t mind giving up hours of time for my students, but I will never enjoy my employer telling me I have to give up even minutes, if that makes any sense.  I wish we could do this with a schedule the way most suburbs do and I wish we didn’t have it on Wednesday night in the middle of the week.

Everybody seems to be getting hot and bothered over CTU’s announcement that it will be stepping up its political efforts.   They will be attempting to register 100,000 new voters, which is a new thing, but certainly not a major announcement in a Democracy.  They will be vetting candidates, but they already do that.  Finally, they said that they would  be increasing donations to their PAC.  They’ve been talking about that forever.  Teachers pay like $20 a year and with our pension under attack every other week in Springfield, it’s worth it for that alone.  If there is any threat to our democracy in Chicago, it’s not from teachers registering more Chicagoans to vote, it’s from Rahm accepting more and more money from interests outside our city.

Chicago Teachers Union Vows to Make School Closings Political

“The union says Guggenheim was neglected, with overcrowded classrooms and just two working computers in the library. Advocates say once the proposal to shut down the school was announced, the principal improperly tried to push homeless children to transfer. Once Guggenheim was closed, only 37 percent of students went to the designated CPS receiving school. Catalyst-Chicago has reported that CPS has lost track of 23 Guggenheim kids, and cannot say where they ended up.”

Rahm Emanuel and the Myth of Invincibility

“Like young, ignorant newcomers to a city that has a history of rough and tumble politics they can only see millions of dollars in Rahm’s bank account and think that makes him invincible.”

Full Audio: Chicagoans React to School Closings at 124 Public Meetings

“Chicago is holding more than 190 community meetings and public hearings this spring—all required by law—to gather feedback on its proposal to close an unprecedented 54 schools. The district also has proposed six school turnarounds (complete re-staffings that also turn the school over to the private nonprofit manager Academy for Urban School Leadership), and 11 “co-locations” where 23 schools would share space in 11 buildings.”

Arne Duncan Urges Business Leaders to Defend Common Core

“He told the audience at the chamber’s “Upgrade America” event (focusing on improving the quality of the labor force through education) that he did not want to see a repeat of when the business community went silent after the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and states responded by “dummying down” their standards. “I don’t understand why the business community is so passive when these kinds of things happen,” he said.

[cbs-audio url=http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/mp3_bc_-wav_carts_ping-2jc.mp3 size=340px download=false name="Company Donating Ping Pong Tables To CPS" artist="WBBM Newsradio's John Cody"]

President of KillerSpin Robert Blackwell says ping pong is more than a fun pastime. He says it’s great for cognitive development, likening it to physical chess, demanding fast reaction and comprehension of an ever changing strategy.

The KillerSpin company is donating 100 tables and soliciting donations for more to equip public schools including the city’s six military academies overseen by Todd Connor who says table tennis has definite advantages over football.

“You need at least 11 folks, you need a football field, when you think about a sport like soccer you need to get a number of folks to field a sport like table tennis allows you to have a co-ed, self-directed activity that doesn’t require a lot of space and only requires two people to get out there and play,” said Connor.

It’s part of the Unplug ‘N Play initiative designed to get teens out from between headphones and out socializing with actual people.

Blackwell says he’s also trying to round up businesses willing to support the Unplug ‘N Play initiative by contributing $3,500 for every Chicago Public School which needs a table tennis table, nets and paddles needed to play the game.

I picked to go to a hearing regarding a level three school on the west side; a level three indicates that the school is ranked among the lowest performing in the district and is on probation. I  found this both interesting and really upsetting because in 2009 and 2010 the school received an award for their academic improvement only to have this last year be one of their worst in the past four years.

What also surprised me is that the school that will be absorbing it had just as bad, if not worse, test scores back in 2009. The schools started around the same, both dropped, but the main difference here is that the other school improved their scores come the 2012 school year while the other dropped further.

CPS is telling the students, parents, and communities to look at the bright side because these students will have a chance to move from a level three to a level one school. On top of that, there will be air conditioning in every classroom, science labs (which the other school lacked), a playground, a pre-k program, and a safety program for all the students traveling a further distance to the new school.

The schools aren’t terribly far apart from each other, only five minutes by car, but eight blocks if one chooses to walk. That’s just the distance between the schools and not taking into account the other several blocks where these children live. So I’m definitely curious to hear more about how this shuttle plan will operate in greater detail and just how much supervision will be on these streets for the students who do choose to walk.

Finally, given that these schools are so close to each other, it’s fascinating to see one be a level three school while the other is a level one. With only eight blocks between them, how could two schools see such a stark difference in test scores and classroom attendance?

I’ll be updating later this weekend after I attend the hearing and see what people have to say in defense of the closing school. It’ll be nice to get the community’s perspective, or the parents who have children at these schools perspective, rather than just the reports about them in the news.

WBBM Newsradio’s John Cody reports CTU President Karen Lewis said the public hearings being held on plans to close 53 schools and 61 school buildings are nothing more than a sham, and it appears the closings are a done deal.

[cbs-audio url=http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ctu-1jc.mp3 size=340px download=false name="CTU To Step Up Political Activity" artist="WBBM Newsradio's John Cody"]

“The mayor has said no more negotiations. Board members have been trotted out to parrot CPS talking points as if they have already voted on the matter,” she said.

Lewis asserted there’s no democracy in the school closings plan, just a sham providing therapy for those affected.

She said CTU will step up its political activity and have volunteers in the city trying to round up 100,000 new voters who are concerned about education. She said the union would hold workshops and open calls to round up new candidates for mayor and alderman.

“We will be hosting ‘Who wants to run for mayor?’ ‘Who wants to be an alderman?’ and ‘Who wants to run for statewide office?’ political education bootcamps, where we will help vet people interested in public service,” Lewis said.

Lewis said she hopes a different elected leadership would not see a need to close dozens of public schools as proposed by the Emanuel administration.

She denied having any plans at this time to run for mayor or alderman herself.

Emanuel implemented this large scale closure to cut the costs going towards under-performing and underutilized schools in an attempt to get out of the  $1 billion deficit.

Some of the primary arguments against the school closures have to do with the safety of the students who now have to travel a further distance to their new school. Another argument is that the new volume of students per classroom will hinder the students learning ability and the teacher’s ability to effectively interact and engage with each student. Emanuel’s plan includes heightening security and having a bus service available to make sure students get to their new school safely. Students from low-income households may not have access to transportation, so we’ll have to see if the security measures planned on being taken are enough to keep the students safe and ensures that they feel safe since a lot of them will be crossing through gang territories.

Another big criticism is the use of test scores as a means to evaluate both student’s and teacher’s performance  as well as a determinant of whether schools are under-performing. The Chicago Teachers Union has joined the rally to quit the amount of state testing given to students in elementary and pre-school.

Now onto my thoughts about this topic:

I understand the motive behind the school closings – the amount of money going towards underutilized schools could instead be going towards improving the schools that are seeing improvements in their students. But I have to agree with the idea that merging school populations could prove to be another issue itself. Small classroom sizes encourage participation and gives the teacher ample time to dedicate to each student that needs help. By increasing the classroom size, the teachers may not be able to address all the problems students have with their work.

Not only that, but I’m not a fan of testing. I agree wholeheartedly that it takes away the desire to learn and instead causes teachers to focus on test-taking techniques over having students learn important content. I can’t stress how many practice ACT exercises I did my junior year of high school and how burned out I was by time we actually reached the exam. I can’t even imagine how elementary school children must feel with all the testing placed on them. Also, testing as a tool for evaluation has resulted in an unfortunate negative incentive: teacher’s cheating. In his book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt tackles this issue within Chicago Public Schools and in their most recent issue, The Economist reported that over 80 teachers in Atlanta confessed to changing their students answers or to giving them the correct answers. Teachers have a bigger incentive to cheat when they know their school’s funding and that their job is dependent on the scores of the test.

A lot of debate in educational policy is over what the most important factors are in a student’s ability to succeed. In cases like this school closing, the emphasis is mostly on schools that achieve better test scores and making sure students get into these schools so they can do better. However, most teachers will point out that it’s not just them, but the community as well as the family that matters. If students aren’t motivated by their family members and there aren’t many helpful resources for students, they won’t succeed even if they have a great teacher.

I believe the quality of the teacher holds a lot of weight in how a student will do; really amazing teachers can motivate students to want to learn and do better. But it would be foolish to not place a lot of importance on a student’s home life and their community. A lot of the students in Chicago public schools live in low-income areas and may not have the same access to resources such as paying for tutors.

I’d love to see more tutoring groups becoming available to students at these schools. A lot of education students in universities have to do student teaching and observing, but they should also be required to work with small groups of students by tutoring them. This would result in free tutoring for the students and in turn could give education students credits towards their degree as their reward.

Almost all ideas come with costs attached, and the school closures were meant to alleviate costs. However, the universities could pick a location for the tutoring to occur given the safety risks of some of the locations of the schools and the main cost would go towards a transportation service after school to bring these students to and from the tutoring site.

As of now, there are wonderful organizations geared towards tutoring and helping students study throughout the city that are worth looking into.

Sources/You can read more about the arguments here:
http://www.ctunet.com/quest-center/research/text/Deserve_summary.pdf
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-cps-closing-chunks-20130412,0,5581020.story?page=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tu-ElppFRs

Day 2 Morning Keynote: Redefining the Classroom: The AUSL and Chicago Public Schools by: Autumn Laidler Anita Orozco Huffman Jennie Magiera

Please see their presentation content here and on the iPad Summit Site.

Autumn, Anita, and Jennie are all veteran and distinguished educators with the Chicago Public School System as well as a network of schools within the Academy for Urban Schools in Chicago (AUSL). These teachers are clearly excited and enthusiastic. Those of who saw them at the last iPad Summit are excited to see them again. The AUSL is a network of 25 neighborhood Chicago Public Schools. The majority of the schools are low income and high need. These are not contract or charter schools.

The women characterize the National Teachers Academy as a “regular neighborhood school.” Their journey with iPads began in 2010 when the devices were first launched and well before they were being used as a teaching tool. An initial grant paid for several iPad carts.

Jennie, Autum, and Anita begin discussing their journey with iPads following along Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model. When they first brought iPads on board, they decided that they didn’t want to just “duct tape iPads into their curriculum”; rather, they wanted to ensure that this program had meaning. To prove this, they provide several examples of using iPads at the higher levels of integration according to SAMR: Augmentation and Modification.

The ladies’ infectious enthusiasm is also sprinkled with humor. They highlight the fact that iPad implementation is a journey, and there are a lot of struggles and challenges along the way. While their polished presentation looks fabulous, they ensure us all that they struggled as well. Thank goodness! I was starting to feel like a terrible teacher.

One of the most effective elements of their presentation is that they use short video clips of their students to help explain what they are doing in the classroom. The students clearly understand the processes of their assignment as well as the intricacies of producing dynamic, multimedia products. By using iPads to replace traditional media (such as the Science Journal), it allows students to be better organized. By using the Mental Note App, Autumn’s students can choose a paper that they need (lined, graph, or blank), can type or annotate, include voice notes, insert photos, tag their notes, incorporate PDFs, and present an effective workflow end product. Not only does this make their work better organized and stored, but it makes the life of educators easier. Their students’ work is more accessible and portable. Autumn even asserts that students can create their own books of their completed projects via iBook Author – consider the power of students creating their own science textbook!

iPad has also had great success in the realm of Special Education as Anita explains. Again, we see a video of the students explaining what is going on in their classrooms with iPad. Anita highlights that her students regularly know more than she does when it comes to the technology, and noted that one of the greatest impacts of incorporating iPad is that her students experienced a significant boost in self-esteem. Students take pride in the work that they complete in the classroom, and have even taken on leadership roles to “teach grown ups how to use various applications.” Additionally, iPad allows her to further differentiate and individualize her classroom. Using iBooks author, she curated live reading materials for her students. She demonstrates, using a video, how her students used iBooks to do reading more independently (using the book to help her sound out a word for example). Her students also use iMovie to create videos and presentations on topics they are exploring in class. Anita showed us an amazing clip from a film that they constructed about the Freedom Riders. This is an activity that would have taken a lot of work and expense without iPads.

The group finished up with an example from an elementary math classroom. Jennie highlighted a great program called Schoology which she likes over competitor platforms. With Schoology, she feels that the focus really is on the learning. I’ve played with Schoology a bit, but have yet to incorporate it into my own classroom, looks like I need to do that…

The nice thing about Schoology, in conjunction with iPad, is that it allows you to incorporate not only text, but also rich media (images, video, voice, etc). Students can them show their work in a discussion. If you would like to learn more about Schoology and the iPad in Ms. Magiera’s classroom, check out her blog article: Schoology vs. Edmodo.

In terms of recreating her math classroom, Jennie demonstrates a problem put forward by Dan Meyer: the Three Acts of the Mathematical Story. After watching the video by Mr. Meyer, her students demonstrated the mathematical problem using the app educreations. By watching a student’s screen cast of their mathematical process, you aren’t just looking at the answer, but rather can see their entire thought process. Screencasting provides educators a deeper understanding of how their students are thinking, and also allows students to better self assess.

The Chicago team finishes up their keynote by telling us how they are not only revolutionizing their classrooms, but their professional learning network. They maintain a blog and have a Google group that allows them to share ideas and meet virtually.

For more about this talented group of educators, follow them online:

• Teaching Like It’s 2999
• Magiera’s Mathematicians
• Ms. Laidler: Science in the City
• iPad Innovation
• NTA iPad Team

You can view the team’s presentation materials – as well as those from other presenters – on the iPad Summit web site.

On Wednesday, April 3rd, CPS signed a $14.2 million dollar contract with Global Workplace Solutions to provide logistical support for the massive school closings.   So who exactly is Global Workplace Solutions?

GWS is a part of Johnson Controls, which is a Fortune 100 company that is headquartered in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  In 2001, it was part of a deal with the city of New Orleans that the Times-Picayune called one of the most corrupt in New Orleans history, saying “The breadth of the graft and greed alleged in the indictment is breathtaking, even by the standards of a city inured to public corruption,”

The deal eventually triggered a federal investigation that eventually triggered at least a dozen guilty pleas including one to Johnson Control’s project manager Terry Songy.  They were accused of having subcontractors deliberately jack up prices and then the guilty parties would pocket the difference.

Johnson Controls played the dupe during the investigation claiming that they were as much a victim as anyone else, but New Orleans didn’t see it that way.  They refused to pay their bill for months in 2010.  They had good reason to doubt Johnson Controls’ innocence as he case summary also alleges that businessman Robert Tucker and financier Rafael “Ray” Valdes each received $273,000 in fees from Johnson Controls, awarded strictly on the basis of their “influence and perceived influence” with New Orleans’ Mayor, Marc Morial.  Valdes worked as a consultant for Johnson Controls at the same time he arranged financing for the city, netting himself a total $2.1 million in fees.

Johnson Controls also has an education division and longstanding ties with the Charter School business including UNO.   This is just something else to make it harder to believe that this move has anything to do with helping the school children of Chicago.   I would be curious to find out exactly where the extra school supplies wind up after the closings.

I’ll be back this weekend with our normal format.   There have been some great articles and editorials written recently, but I just had to share what I learned about the company profiting off of these closings.