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Posts in category "Vendor-Ama"

CPS To Renew Food Vendor

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Some of today's big education news is the plan for CPS to renew with Chartwell as food vendor, as well as the planned 100 selective enrollment seats at South Shore ICP.  There's also a CTU press event later this morning and a WBEZ story about some of the amazing architecture found among CPS buildings. Tomorrow is a Board meeting day, don't forget, and also a big CTU gathering day.  Anything else?  Let us know in comments or shoot me an email.  ... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
Tuesday at 7:54 am
• 20 comments

Here Comes Citizen Schools

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Seeing that Citizen Schools was coming to Chicago, I thought I’d try to find out a little more. Is it a charter operator?  A blended learning solution?  An after-school program?  Outsiders come to steal our children and feast at the public trough? Turns out it’s a hybrid kind of program that works with schools to... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
May 10, 2012 at 8:00 am
• 10 comments

Rahm And Cawley Heading To SF

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On Tuesday and Wednesday a handful of Chicago folks — Tim Cawley and Rahm Emanuel among them — will be at a hotel near San Francisco at the annual NewSchools Venture Fund education summit.  Click here for a preview of this year’s agenda that I did last week on the other blog.  I’m alternately appalled... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
April 30, 2012 at 11:49 am
• 1 comment
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"Universal Design For Learning" Comes To CPS

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Today’s news includes an item from CBS2 about new teacher training being done by Harvard to help teachers get ready for the Common Core using something called Universal Design for Learning, which I would crudely describe as a teaching approach that integrates special ed and general education.  What do you think?  Other news includes items... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
April 27, 2012 at 7:55 am
• 2 comments

Don't Rate Individual Teachers Publicly

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It's one thing to try and score teachers based on their effectiveness helping kids learn using test scores and statistical models controlling for poverty with the intention of using the data to try and target training, support improvement, or assess policies surrounding assignment and distribution of teachers across a district.  It's quite another thing to release those scores to the public or go to court to get them and publish them.  Rating teachers individually and releasing those numbers to the public seems to me like an invasion of privacy, like sharing someone's cholesterol level or credit rating, or annual review.  ... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
February 29, 2012 at 10:19 am
• 26 comments

Tech Companies To The Rescue?

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The announcement that 5 CPS high schools are going to partner with various tech companies dominates today’s news coverage, but I’m not sure what the big fuss is all about.  We’ve seen school-tech company partnerships before, many times, and I’m not sure that many of them have turned into resounding long term successes.  This much... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
February 29, 2012 at 10:03 am
• 10 comments
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NWEA For Everyone (Updated)

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UPDATED 2/22:  See CPS press release below Interim assessments don’t appear to be going away anytime soon, much to the dismay of teachers and principals who find them cumbersome and time-consuming, but the Tribune notes CPS wants everyone to take the NWEA test three times a year (All CPS elementary school students to take NWEA... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
February 22, 2012 at 8:48 pm
• 15 comments

A Fake School ID Was All It Took

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“A school ID is what? Like what is that? It’s like, it’s some colors with literally a name and picture on it.”  That’s the kid kid who took all the tests in the current SAT test-taking scandal in New York– and his description of how pathetic the security process was. And so far at least ETS... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
January 5, 2012 at 8:56 am
• 8 comments

Charter Closures Since 1998

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A new report from a charter advocacy organization in DC lists 10 Illinois charters that have been closed since 1998 — evidence, according to the report authors, of a 15 percent closure rate for charters nationwide and demonstrated concern about quality. I’m not sure about that, as I wrote earlier this morning on This Week In Education... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
December 21, 2011 at 12:59 pm
• 11 comments
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Financial Collapse Hits Local Grantees

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Reuters has a pretty wild story about the demise of CME Group, which has given roughly $22 million to Chicago schools and charities in recent years, thanks to the collapse of MF Global Holdings, Inc, its parent company. Big recipients over the past six years have been Renaissance Schools Fund ($3.1M), University of Chicago ($2.5M), the... Read more »
By Alexander Russo,
December 19, 2011 at 12:44 pm
• 6 comments