Contract negotiations, school closing protests, and recess top today's education news. The week ahead includes more school closing hearings, a Board meeting on Wednesday, and a staff only day on Friday (no kids).
Chicago teachers deliver their union demands Tribune: The Chicago Teachers Union submitted a list of demands to the Chicago Public Schools on Friday as they and district administrators embark on what is likely to become months of grueling contract negotiations.
Contract talks gear up, schools hold 'practice' strike votes Catalyst: Curie, Lane Tech and Kelly high schools are among those that have taken such votes, according to several union delegates. One delegate reported that about 15 schools took votes, all of which resulted in at least 90 percent of teachers supporting a strike. But whether the information is correct is unclear.
Protesters clash over school closings WBEZ: The district held nine simultaneous hearings across the city on its plan to shut schools down or have them share space. A brawl nearly broke out and police were called when Crane students clashed with outside protesters who arrived in buses and carried...
Tensions rife at school closing hearings Catalyst: At the hearing on Dyett High School in Washington Park, speakers wound up talking to each other rather than to the officials on hand to listen to their input. Two busloads of people from K.L.E.O Family Life Center, an organization that is connected to a local church, attended the hearing on the proposal to close Dyett, which is in Washington Park.
Mandatory elementary recess in plan for Chicago Public Schools Sun Times: The Chicago Public School system for the first time has spelled out exactly what it wants the next school year’s longer day to look like. It ensures recess for all elementary students, according to guidelines being presented to principals Monday.
City Libraries to Reopen Mondays CNC: Discussions with union leaders had not led to a resolution, but aides to the mayor said they had scrounged up about $2 million to staff the libraries on Mondays after all.
A new high school model CNN: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced that the city will create three more early college high schools in the six-year P-Tech mold. And IBM is taking the model to Chicago, where plans are in the works to open five similar schools.
Filed under: Daily News Roundup
Sad to see preachers pimping themselves to serve Rahm instead of justice.
On the CNN audio story there is mention of "5 similar 6-year tech high schools" coming to Chicago. The 6-year high school referenced is in Brooklyn (a partnership with IBN and CUNY) and after a tech-heavy curriculum will award free associates degrees for students who complete it. That's a fairly radical idea around here, isn't it? I'm not familiar with the interaction between the City Colleges of Chicago and CPS students (I'm sure there's plenty to tell there)- but has anyone heard of these 5 new high schools IBM is supposedly cooking up in Chicago? I guess I'm behind the times? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/chicago-public-schools-to_n_1009095.html ...
Anyway- these are opening during next school year? Where? Really 5? Are they just going to be extension programs in existing high schools or will they have dedicated buildings? How many students? Who's running them?
Former Chicago Public Education Fund CEO Janet Knupp named president of SPED services provider Progressus Therapy http://ow.ly/8Dtz7
from the press release -
About Progressus Therapy
Headquartered in Tampa, FL, Progressus Therapy is the leading provider of speech-language pathology, occupational therapy and physical therapy services to school districts and communities around the country. Founded in 1989, Progressus has a long-standing track record of partnering with school districts to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their special education programs and deliver exceptional results to the students who need it the most.
Progressus Therapy is a Sterling Partners portfolio company. Sterling Partners is a private equity firm with a distinct point of view on how to build great companies.
- Does Chicago use this outfit?
"What to do about high-performing overcrowded schools?" is currently the top questions for tonight's Ask Chicago meetup ow.ly/8Dpwb
Tribune story describes 24 computers shared by nearly 1000 students in one Chicago school (DuSable) http://ow.ly/8Du1T #5bb
24 computers - 1000 students - typical CPS, atypical coverage
is the computer to student ratio? or the teacher-pupil ratio?
I read Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah's Tribune article on the presentation of the CTU's list of demands and I also read the CTU statement relating to those demands on its website, which as the Tribune correctly reported said very little. The CTU stated "we cannot negotiate contract proposals and details in the news media." But the fact that the Tribune from its discussion with the CTU got at least information that it is likely the union's demands included things like class size, professional development days, and preparation time for teachers is of significance in itself.
Under Public Act 097-0008 (SB7) those topics in the words of the law "are permissive subjects of bargaining between an educational employer and an exclusive representative of its employees and, . . . are within the sole discretion of the educational employer to decide to bargain, provided that the educational employer is required to bargain over the impact of a decision concerning such subject or matter on the bargaining unit upon request by the exclusive representative." I would suspect that relatively early on in the process CPS will decide which of these topics it will exercise its "sole discretion" option on and which topics it will not.
Then the CTU is faced with a complex question relating to not negotiating in the news media, if CPS exercises its sole discretion option over class sizes for example shouldn't teachers be informed of that while the negotiations are in process, at least in a non-polemical manner?
Rod Estvan
And the board releases their full of it school day plan. Nothing innovative or surprising there. Oddly enough they don't really add enough literacy minutes, just more math and science. High performing schools far exceed their suggestions for reading and writing instruction in a day. Or don't they care what successful schools are doing with students? Oh wait, they don't. Oh well.
Anon- if you read the report you'll see that these are the minimum minutes schools should provide. They can provide more if they want to.
Yes that's true. However schools that are struggling are not necessarily providing the best curriculum for their students. So we cannot trust that they will do more than the minimum that is good teaching. Not that the report says anything about curriculum-only that the report is not very informed or based on current research in the field. So my guess is they will do their basal program and then the extra time will be spent on test prep. Also intervention=test prep. So again the quality of the time comes into play. Students with good teachers and curriculum likely will benefit-but the others will not. If the minutes aren't informed by research I doubt Rahm's new common curriculum will be either. Now that's something to worry about.
Oh save us. This IBM career high school thing has got to be the work of Sarah Kremsner, who was hired on by IBM (after a string of non-starter jobs after she was fired from CPS) and is in charge of their Smarter Cities program - which I believe is responsible for these kinds of schools. She's been sniffing around Chicago again and undermining the Career and Tech Ed department which as been trying to restart CTE in a meaningful way. Woe unto them who encounter Kremsner, who is as thoughtless and sadistic a person as I ever had the misfortune to meet.
Oh, the horror!
Imagine those evil, corporate monsters supporting schools that teach mathematics to calculus and physics and--brace yourselves--provide a 2-year college associate's degree to students who want to work for it.
Anonymous is right. We must not let this happen.