Chicago has had mayoral control of schools for 15 years. Arne Duncan was there as Daley's school chief for 7, and Ron Huberman recently resigned.
If Rahm Emanuel wins as mayor, the schools will be run by him and his choice of school chief.
I think an education blogger says it pretty clearly.
More reasons to dump mayoral controlWith a week to go before Chicago schools chief Ron Huberman flees the coop, there is still no official word on his replacement. It's been 5 months since the system had a chief education officer. And even machine guy and front-running mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel has to preface his education platform with a slam on the current Daley-run system.
"Chicago's public schools are on a precipice. Testing indicates that 86% of our elementary-school graduates won't be ready for college. Nearly half of high-school entrants will not graduate. Teachers and students aren't learning the skills they need, and too many parents are on the sidelines." (Crain's)
Ouch!
The problem for Rahm is that all this comes after 15 years of mayoral control, including 7 years with Rahm's guy, Arne Duncan at the helm, implementing the very failed policies that Emanuel vows to continue.
Here is more from Rahm Emanuel's op ed at Chicago Business. I noticed the schools he referred to as successful. They are charter and "turn around" schools. Here are his words from the op ed:
I recently visited schools in different neighborhoods with different approaches. Three public schools—Collins Academy High School, Johnson Elementary and Bethune School of Excellence—that trained their teachers, set higher standards and turned their schools around. A charter school, UNO, which places students, many of whose parents are immigrants, in English immersion. And John C. Coonley School, whose new gifted program is keeping kids in public school.
Each school insists on parental involvement, keeping track of whether parents show up for teacher conferences and pick up their children's report cards. Teachers get specialized training in their areas of expertise. Students and teachers alike strive to meet clear performance standards.
The first three schools mentioned are turnaround schools. I found them at
the AUSL website.AUSL moves into a supposedly failing school, fires the staff, and takes over the school. Here is their explanation of
why they fire the teachers.3. Why do you replace the entire school staff?
For a school to be selected by CPS for turnaround, it must have a long history of poor performance. Sherman and Harvard, the first two turnaround schools, were ranked among the 10 worst out of more than 3,000 Illinois elementary schools, and both had been performing poorly for many years in spite of many other attempts at intervention. During all of those years, these schools – despite good intentions and staff efforts – were failing to adequately educate the children enrolled there.
The students at these schools needed and deserved a radical change, quickly. AUSL's school turnaround model starts fresh. An entirely new and highly qualified staff brings the talent, resources, and high expectations needed to get the school back on track. A turnaround creates a new climate and culture of success, based on high expectations for student achievement and supported by new school leaders, teachers, programs and facility improvements, and other upgrades.
Except...there seems to be more to the story. Sometimes they just take over apparently without following proper procedures.
Here is one example:
AUSL Takes Over New High SchoolOh, wait, how can a new school be a "failing" school? Inquiring minds wonder.
A concerned teacher writes in about the new Eric Solorio Academy High School on 54th/St. Louis: "The school was named orginally Ignacio Zaragoza and set to be a CPS neighborhood school. They hired a principal, Jorge Macias. Then sometime in June we find out he had been fired In addition, AUSL took over and the name changed to Eric Solorio. According to the Board of Ed reports they did additional "community outreach" and decided to change the name. As a community member and speaking to many teachers who teach at local schools in the area, no one was asked about the name change. Zaragoza was decided on by the students of Irene C. Hernandez. The community is also not informed on what AUSL is and what there mission is. We feel there is a lot that is being left out."
What happened to Macias? How did AUSL get control of a new school and building at the last minute? Others will know more, but the name change was approved by the Board in July (0-0728-MS1) and the consulting agreement with AUSL was approved at the end of last month (PDF) as a performance school. Substance explains that Solario was a police officer killed in the line of duty.
It seems other schools were protesting earlier this year about being taken over without due process.
Protesting school closings in Chicago. “They are closing schools without following procedure.”....“They are closing schools without following procedure,” said Caryn Block, who has taught at Haugan Elementary School for the past 21 years. “They are doing this without any thought. They are hurting children, teachers and communities.”
Along with the four schools they are planning to close, CPS officials are planning to consolidate four other schools, turn around five and phase out one school. The purpose of a turnaround school is to bring in new administrators to a school where there are low testing scores and low enrollment.
The principal of one of the schools which is now part of the AUSL network...pleaded tearfully with officials to give him time to fix things. He was new at the school. They did not listen.
..."Bradwell Principal Justin Moore who has only served one year at a school in which test scores have increased, attendance has increased and fighting had decreased to zero would seem to perfectly fit that criteria. However, he is an interim principal, not on contract as the Board stipulates.
Moore pleaded that the Board give him one more year.
"Please give me one more year," Moore said before he wiped a tear away. "Our students have bonded with us. We have a lot of challenges in our community. A lot of our students spend more time with their teachers than their families. Over 200 parents came to our Family Math and Literacy nights. We had a 16% increase in report card pick up. We build it and they come. We will outperform AUSL's Sherman School of Excellence. We will outperform the Harvard School of Excellence. And of course we will outperform the Dulles, Bethune and Johnson (AUSL Turnarounds voted on last year). I cannot be held accountable for what happened in 2007."
The Chicago K-12 Examiner has more about Rahm's op ed. The writer warns that turnarounds and charters have their faults and problems.
Rahm Emanuel's education platformYet what we know about turnarounds and charters is that results are mixed at best and troublesome at worst.
* Some Chicago turnarounds lose a significant percentage of their original student body in their first year of operation; are any subsequent improvements the result of different policies or different students?
* A recent study found that expulsion, attrition, and transfer out rates are greater in Chicago charters than in traditional schools.
* At the gifted school Mr. Emanuel mentions, the percentage of white student enrollment more than doubled between 2007 and 2009, from 22% to 49%, another example of a significantly changed student body.
The Examiner makes a good point about the people Rahm is including in his meetings.
Finally, Mr. Emanuel recently held a meeting with so-called top city education leaders about his education platform. Attendees were mostly corporate and foundation CEOs. If Mr. Emanuel believes that parents, teachers and principals play a critical role in education reform, why were these groups not represented?
Rahm is planning to do the same things that have been done for 15 years under mayoral control. He points out the poor state the schools there are in..."on the precipice". Then he appears to vow to do the same things that haven't worked in 15 years.
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