Chicago School Reform A Failure: Report

[Hannah Bell]

Crain's Chicago Business:

Chicago Public School reform largely has failed, with the vast bulk of students either dropping out or unprepared for college and apparent gains at the grade-school level more perceived than real.

That's the bottom line of a blockbuster report released Tuesday by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, a report that directly challenges the legitimacy of one of Mayor Richard M. Daley's major claimed accomplishments.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/30/touted-chicago-school-ref_n_223555.html


& education czar arne duncan's, too.

cruising the net, it seems the folks putting out the report prescribe more of the same - charters, etc. - despite the failure they're reporting.

[Hannah Bell]

1. insider politics?

Civic Committee stabs Duncan in the back
He toiled faithfully on their plantation for 10 years before going to D.C. to serve as Obama's education chief. He did all their bidding without question, closing dozens of schools in under-served communities to make way for gentrification and privatizing much of the system.

But now the Chicago Civic Committee, the city's ruling elite, has turned on Arne Duncan and in a report released yesterday, titled "Still Left Behind," attacked the Duncan-led Chicago school reform as an "abysmal" failure. Ironically, it was the Civic Committee that designed and financed the Mayor's Renaissance 2010 plan--the very plan that Duncan was hired to implement and enforce.

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2009/06/civic-committee-stabs-duncan-in-back.html


The committee's Mr. Martin said he would not call the entire school-reform process a failure largely because it also has sparked the formation of more charter and other innovative schools, schools that according to the report perform better than CPS schools.

Mr. Martin denied that his groups advocacy for charter schools at all affected its data or analysis. The committee, which represents Chicago's largest firms, has helped raise $70 million to open new, small schools, Mr. Martin said.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. He's had 10 years?

Wow. I had no idea he had been in Chicago that long.

[mix]

2. Duncan's ideas failed in practice and will now become the basis of national policy.

Reformers of Duncan's ilk obsess that everything must be data driven. The data clearly shows that NCLB and other neoliberal policies have failed, utterly.

The crisis in public schools worsens.

[Lilith Velkor]

8. SSDD n/t

[izzybeans]

3. It seems like they want more of Duncan's plan not less...

The concluding sentence from the report

"We end where we began. Until all Chicago’s school
families have school choices that include more innovative
charter or contract schools, “equal opportunity” for them
will be only a slogan."

[Hannah Bell]

4. yes, seems so.

[Uzybone]

6. normally liberals would spit at a report by a group like this

"Mr. Martin denied that his groups advocacy for charter schools at all affected its data or analysis. The committee, which represents Chicago's largest firms, has helped raise $70 million to open new, small schools, Mr. Martin said."

[Hannah Bell]

7. Mr. Martin was one of Duncan & Daley's allies in the original "reforms".

which, btw, included promotion & state funding of charter schools.

[PVnRT]

9. Not anymore

At least on DU, charter schools, standardized testing and crackdowns on teachers are perfectly OK now.

[LWolf]

10. We knew that before Duncan was appointed.

Yet the Obama/Duncan privatization juggernaut rolls on.

:grr: