15 years of Ed Deform in Chicago. Results?

[Hannah Bell]

MYTH: School turnarounds have benefited Chicago Public Schools by giving “failing” schools a new start.

REALITY:

First conceived by the Commercial Club of Chicago, Chicago’s school reform policy—“Renaissance 2010”—is based not on sound research and analysis, but on market principles of privatization, competition, and commercialization. CPS has even adopted a market structure in which “CEO’s” are preferred over educators for the top leadership position, and Boards are appointed by the mayor, not elected by the people.

Since the implementation of Renaissance 2010, districtwide high-school student achievement has not risen, and most of the lowest performing high schools saw scores drop.

Moreover, the process for identifying “failing schools” was neither consistent nor research-based, and disproportionately affected low-income African American and Latino students by closing schools in disadvantaged minority neighborhoods while leaving untouched those schools in more affluent areas with comparable performance and enrollments.

The CPS schools that were “turned around” have not all shown significant improvement in student achievement, and instead, have shown increases in tensions and violence inside and outside of school.<8>


MYTH: Because competition leads to improvement, school “choice” options are necessary, and because the private sector can do better what the public has failed to do, the “choice” options must involve privatization.

REALITY:

Philanthropies altogether spend almost $4 billion annually on education, dominated by a handful of foundations that advance initiatives of choice, competition, deregulation, and accountability, despite that school-choice, voucher, and restrictive-enrollment programs have not proven to be more effective in increasing district overall student achievement.<9>

In some cases, poorer neighborhoods in Chicago saw reductions in funding even while enrollments rose, and there is evidence that choice programs exacerbate racial segregation.<10>

Similarly, the private sector has not proven to be more effective at improving schools, despite a rapid increase in expenditure of outsourcing services and products, including school management, curriculum, and assessments.

The majority of privately run schools, including charter schools, operated with deficit budgets in recent years and/or violated such public-accountability measures as the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act.

Charter schools are exempted from Illinois state laws that require a voting majority of Local School Councils to be parents, and in Chicago, less than 5% of charter-school board members are parents.

Furthermore, specialty schools, including charter schools, are not all required to enroll students with special needs, including English language learners and students with disabilities, thus providing “choice” for only some children and families.

While some parents and families may perceive that select specialty or charter schools provide viable pathways for young people, the success of some of these schools has not improved the overall school system. <11>

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1929§ion=Article

[yurbud]

1. k & r: hopefully, enough people are figuring this out to get DC to back off