The PURE office is at 100 S. Morgan Street. There’s a free parking lot at the rear of the building. Call (312-491-9101) or e-mail us with questions. 

If that time doesn't work for you, you can still call the Loop law office of Elaine Siegel and Associates at 312-236-8088 and arrange for a free notary there.   

What we’re up against

It’s a lot of work to collect 40,000 signatures. A lot of people have stepped up to the plate- this is a VERY popular cause!!! We’ve gotten hundreds of signatures, but we have a ways to go to make our goal. Let’s not stop now!

Here are the petition and instructions. We have until August 14th!

But I had to laugh at this blurb from a St. Petersburg, Florida, newspaper quoted in Small Talk, Mike Klonsky’s blog:   “The daughter of Wal-Mart's founder wrote a check for $836,000 in May to a group working to pass two questions on the November ballot to expand school vouchers in Florida.”

With that kind of money, we could pay $20 per signature - $200 per page! - and have change left over to pay for all of Wanda's workshops!!! And yet those Wal-Mart folks still don't seem to be able to destroy our schools....

By the way, Small Talk has moved recently - here’s the new address.  

If you don't subscribe, you can read the story online beginning Sunday, at http://www.chicagolife.net/  

The story emphasizes the public call for elected LSCs in every CPS school, and highlights comments by PURE president Steve Ross and assistant director Wanda Hopkins, who moderated the event.    

Chicago Tribune, July 6, 2008

This statement could easily have been made about the dangers of forced transiency of children caused by Mayor Daley’s Renaissance 2010 program, and the link such disruption may have to increased youth violence.

But the article quoted above is about the foreclosure crisis, which is yet another threat to the stability of CPS students’ homes and families.

Read PURE's July 16th memo to Chicago aldermen renewing our call for a  school closing moratorium.

• School reform folks who were there in the beginning like Joy and Bernie Noven, Ken McNeil, Diana Lauber, Anne Hallett, Marj Halperin, and Don Moore.

• Important statements supporting LSCs from honored guests Chicago City Clerk Miguel Del Valle and State Senator Kimberley Lightford

• Fun moments with WMAQ-TV's LeeAnn Trotter (our emcee) and student performers.

Tune in to channel 19 on Monday, July 21 at 6 pm or on Tuesday, July 22 at 1 pm.  

The Summit takes place on August 23 from 10 am to 2 pm at the UIC Illinois Room, 750 S. Halsted.  

Here's the flyer. Please forward, print and share.

Of course, the Summit is open to anyone who is interested in true democracy in our schools and an equal, high-quality education for EVERY child. This will be a great opportunity to network and listen to each other, and to build stronger alliances for the work ahead. 

This event is the culmination of a series of hearings we have been organizing around the city since April as we gather public input about LSC operations for a legislative task force which will work on strengthening the school reform law.

The next hearing is Saturday, July 19th from 10 am to 2 pm at the Austin Town Hall, 5610 W. Lake St..

It helps that I had a chance to see and hear about some other school issues that were different in some ways from ours here in Chicago and in many ways the same.

My brother is an assistant principal at a Bureau of Indian Education high school in New Mexico. Despite a very high student transiency rate, which is common for schools serving Native Americans, they have successfully implemented the Talent Development model for several years.

While I was visiting, the school got the bad news that their state test scores did not make the NCLB mark. Once more they are having to restructure and reorganize. The whole school now enters the new school year in a demoralized state. Another argument for total overhaul of NCLB.

You can find more such arguments on the web site for the National Indian Education Association, where my nephew works as the communications director. Here's an example from 2004 testimony by NIEA president Cindy La Marr: "School-based testing requirements fail to recognize the implication of high student mobility and drop out rates that are characteristic of Indian communities. Therefore, year-to-year measures and comparisons of the effectiveness of school-based improvements are meaningless. Also, tests measuring academic performance and achievement are generally culturally inappropriate for Indian students. As a result, cultural and Indian language programs are often subsumed as schools shift the curriculum to meet the stringent academic standards measured by these tests."

Sound familiar? 

Here's a flyer for the event - please print and share it! 

Legislators including State Senator Kimberley Lightford, chair of the Senate Education Committee, will hear testimony from LSC members and others about your experiences, concerns, and ideas for strengthening LSC operations.

This is the third hearing this summer. A coalition of LSC support groups has been organizing hearings around the city since April to gather public input for a legislative task force which will work on strengthening the school reform law.

Please e-mail us with your name, school, and telephone number if you would like to register to speak at the July 19th hearing.

These hearings are leading up to a very important event - a summit meeting of LSCs on Saturday, August 23rd from 10 am to 2 pm at the UIC Illinois Room, 750 S. Halsted.  Details and a flyer to share are here.

This is a postponement of the original August 1 date.

Seems likely that CPS is concerned enough about our new motion to a) want extra time to prepare to fight it and b) try to run the clock again to forestall any impact if we win.   

Here are the details about the new motion (with old date). 

We hear so much public relations blather from CPS about the Renaissance 2010 schools and so many complaints from parents and others which have to be viewed as “only” anecdotal – so how do we find out what's really happening with children?

Well, we are beginning to get some solid information of our own. Using the Freedom of Information Act, PURE has begun collecting the meeting minutes of the governing bodies of the 85 schools identified by CPS as Renaissance 2010 schools. We are preparing a report and will be sharing samples of our findings here over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, we have received only about 10 responses to our FOIA requests. The deadline for responding is long past, so about 75 schools have essentially denied our request. We have appealed those to the Attorney General’s office.

The handful of schools that have responded by sending their minutes have provided a fascinating look at the variety of governance and operations taking place in Renaissance 2010 schools across the city.

Much of what we read shows organizations working well to fairly well, and clearly doing their best to educate students, as would be expected.

But there are also telling comments and situations that shed a lot of light on the true story of Renaissance 2010. At this point we will mask the school names, especially since we don’t want to seem to punish those schools that actually had their act together enough to comply with our FOIA request. 

Here’s today’s eye-opener:

At one charter school, the board discussed increased incidences fighting and suspensions, perhaps, according to the minutes, due to “the stress of testing.” There was a discussion of “counseling out” difficult students. They acknowledged that this is something the school has done in the past but in trying to raise their student retention rate, they are not doing it so much.

The principal stated that their school should be able to handle any student that a regular CPS school can handle (and we would agree) but that a representative from the CPS Office of New Schools (which runs Renaissance 2010) “told (the principal) to counsel out those kinds of kids.” (Emphasis added. Because it’s just so disgusting.)

Stay tuned for more.

I'll write more on this soon but one note: The head of PRISE, the Gates-funded coalition, is the same Patricia Watkins of the Target Area group who provides the sole "community" face on the new Advance Illinois Board I wrote about last week. Cozy group, eh?

Here's the message from Blocks Together's Cecile Carroll: 

Hello friends and allies,

You may have read an article in this month's Catalyst Magazine titled "Big Picture Reform", that heavily quoted Blocks Together. As organizations and individuals that share common ideologies we wanted to share a little background information on the story and have your support on getting the story straight on the real issue at hand! We would like your help in writing comments and letter to the editors  about that article.    

Blocks Together took the position of opposing the Orr closing based on our members that include; parents of Orr students, alumni of Orr, Orr LSC members, and community members. The process of closing the school violated the rights of the LSC and community and the turnaround is not  a real and authentic solution for the problems that face Orr High School.

We were approached to comment on the contract program Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) and the support coalition PRISE (on the closing of the Orr campus) for the article. We were not effectively quoted because these two organizations are just  programs apart of the  Renaissance 2010 policy that is breaking up the West Humboldt Park community, this is our focus of our education campaign and the point we we're trying to make when the reporter contacted us.

Please help us tell the story of our community by reminding Catalyst that:

1. The Orr community was disenfranchised. The community outrage over the Orr closing was clear. After the announcement over 800 petitions against the closing were signed in four days, huge crowds rallied at  several townhall meetings, over 100 youth walked out to protest the  closing, and bus loads participated in an action at the board of  education hearing against the closing of Orr and new contract program.

2. Not enough information about the AUSL program was discussed in the article, for example their progress at other schools. Information about the programs’ impact at the other turnaround   schools is one of  the reasons the Orr community was against this turnaround.

3. The article does not clarify the position of the featured coalition as supporters of Renaissance 2010 and school closings, the central concern of our members.

Please read and share our statement on the turnaround that we submitted to the Catalyst reporter....

I urge everyone to subscribe to Jim's extremely useful, timely and thoughtful reports which keeps us informed about the crazy happenings in Springfield on a daily basis during session and regularly during the rest of the year when there is news to report.

It's been great to see the Sun-Times and Tribune getting in Mayor Daley's personal space for selling out the historic open space legacy of Grant Park to a pet project of his well-connected relatives and friends, the Chicago Children’s Museum. Despite the outcome in City Council, the issue was intensely debated and the Daley Way became the subject of extensive public outrage.    

I know PURE is not alone in wishing that such close scrutiny would be paid to other similar Daley Way projects like the Chicago Public Schools Renaissance 2010 Plan.

Like the Children’s Museum, many Renaissance 2010 schools are pet projects of clout-heavy Daley friends, promoted as being “for the children,” and muscled through against strong public opposition. Unlike the Grant Park situation, however, the school closings that are essential to Renaissance 2010 have actually harmed hundreds if not thousands of children.

We hope that the public skepticism of Daley’s leadership in the Children’s Museum scandal will be just the beginning of a more vigilant opposition to the Daley Way.

A gift? For our school children? Wow- thanks!

This is a dangerous time. In war terms, the enemy is in strategic retreat. Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. The Bush days are ending. Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind is on semi-permanent hold. Studies about charter schools continue to show that they are not living up to the hype.

The ground seems to be shifting across the state and the country. But just because it sounds like the Powers-That-Be are coming around to our side, we can’t afford to celebrate or relax. They have too much money, too many toys, and the same privatization agenda they’ve always had.

Here’s a LONG essay about what I think is going on with these benign-appearing new advocacy groups. And I’ve been right before, folks.  

Monday I wrote about Susan Neuman, a former Bush education official, admitting that NCLB was “a Trojan horse for the choice agenda — a way to expose the failure of public education and ‘blow it up’ a bit. There were a number of people pushing hard for market forces and privatization."

Neuman’s comments came in an interview about a new national movement called “A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education” which seeks to convince the nation that education reform must become more wholistic, moving beyond the schoolhouse to embrace the full social context. We agree with the concept.

At about the same time a new Illinois education advocacy initiative, called “Advance Illinois,” which apparently espouses the same philosophy, announced its new executive director.  

What’s so “Trojan Horse” creepy about these groups?

Both groups include a weird mix of scary business and political fat cats along with some folks we’d consider “good angels” of education (the “Bold” ones are here,  the "Advanced ones: here). Really strange bedfellows.

If you google “Bold Approach” you’ll get a business web site that offers “the most innovative, profit building, sales, marketing and PR strategies detailed for your immediate implementation!”  

Whoops! That’s BoldApproach.com.

I guess we want BoldApproach.org.  

Google “Advance Illinois” and you’ll get a bunch of links to get a payday loan.

I guess the group itself doesn’t have a web site yet, so it’s hard to know much about them beyond the borrowed ideas from the fatcat business education group Achieve, Inc. that permeate this announcement from the Board of Directors.  

My point is that these groups sound like fronts for business.  

Did Arne read this stuff?

An Original Signatory of the national “Broader, Bolder” movement is our own Arne Duncan. This is actually not too surprising, since Duncan loves to divert blame away from the abusive policies of the Chicago Public schools (including his defensive diatribe against my letter to the Sun-Times which suggested that Renaissance 2010, retention, and other CPS policies play a role in violence involving CPS students).

But did Arne read what he signed on to?

From the “Broader, Bolder” press statement:

“The potential effectiveness of NCLB has been seriously undermined, however, by its acceptance of the popular assumptions that bad schools are the major reason for low achievement, and that an academic program revolving around standards, testing, teacher training, and accountability can, in and of itself, offset the full impact of low socioeconomic status on achievement. The effectiveness of NCLB has also been weakened by its unintended side effects, such as a narrowing of the curriculum, and by the incentives that NCLB generates for schools to focus instruction on students who are just below the passing point, at the expense of both lower-performing and higher-performing students." (emphasis added)

Arne, they’re saying those are BAD things. You know, the basic tenets of your education plan? Are you sure you got in the right line?

At least one section of the accompanying background papers is messed up, too (to make CPS look better than it should?).   

“The experience with high stakes accountability for schools indicates that educators respond to test based accountability by changing their behavior, although not always in ways intended by policy makers, and that such accountability generates small gains in learning, particularly in math (see Figlio and Ladd (2008) for an overview of the behavioral and achievement effects of school-based accountability). Jacob (2005) documents the positive effects of Chicago’s accountability system on both reading and math scores.” (emphasis added)

First of all, that paragraph is probably supposed to be a critique of teaching to the test, but it sure doesn’t sound like one.

And then, although Jacob's study does show a spike in test scores after Paul Vallas attached high stakes to the Iowa tests using student retention, the overall results were not exactly positive:   

“I demonstrate that these gains were driven largely by increases in test-specific skills and student effort, and did not lead to comparable gains on a state-administered, low-stakes exam. I also find that teachers responded strategically to the incentives along a variety of dimensions -- by increasing special education placements, preemptively retaining students and substituting away from low-stakes subjects like science and social studies.”

A little bit about Robin Steans 

Robin is the new executive director of Advance, Illinois (the advocacy group, not the payday loan people).

I was on an LSC with Robin many years ago and I think she’s a great person. The wealthy Steans family has dedicated their lives to improvement in North Lawndale. But make no mistake about their agenda, which includes, according to the family foundation web site, “supporting charters and other new schools.” 

The “crown jewel” of the Steans Foundation’s work in North Lawndale is North L:awndale College Prep, whose staff and students make regular appearances at CPS Board meetings to talk about how wonderful their school is and to be petted by Arne and Rufus. In fact, the school is a perfect example of one that Arne Duncan would call a “dramatically better” option but whose academic indicators are among the lowest in the system.      

When CPS talks about North Lawndale College Prep, it is usually to tout other virtues besides academic performance.

Is this a clue to the new emphasis on “wholistic” reform now promoted by the same people who brought us the Trojan horse of “standards and accountablity?”

I guess that's a kind of civics lesson. But a high-quality civics lessons would have involved students and teachers in the planning and staging of the event as well as the action steps for improvement that such an event should generate.

    The Racial Justice Task Force invites individuals who are concerned about the Chicago Public Schools to attend a community forum on the subject "Is the Chicago Public Schools’ Tracking and Testing System Racist?" This forum will be held on Friday, June 20, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., in Hull Chapel at First Unitarian Church, 5650 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago.

    A panel, consisting of an attorney with children in the Chicago Public Schools, a veteran teacher and union member, and a school specialist with a local community organization, will address the question. Following the panel presentation there will time for questions and comments from the audience. For further information you may write to uusj@sbcglobal.net or leave a message for Allan at 773-643-8061.

Because there was a one-hour delay in the beginning of the hearing, I was unable to present oral testimony but I did submit a report for inclusion in the public record, an updated piece, "What's Wrong with Renaissance 2010?".

Mr. Diene's report of findings is expected to be made public in 2009.   

Susan Neuman, who was an Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education during George W. Bush's first term, acknowledged to TIME that some officials in the department “saw NCLB as a Trojan horse for the choice agenda — a way to expose the failure of public education and ‘blow it up’ a bit. There were a number of people pushing hard for market forces and privatization."

The story goes on to say, “Neuman also regrets the Administration's use of humiliation and shame as a lever for school reform. Failure to meet NCLB's inflexible goals meant schools would be publicly labeled as failures. Neuman now sees this as a mistake: ‘Vilifying teachers and saying we are going to shame them was not the right approach.’”

“The combination of inflexibility and public humiliation for those not meeting federal goals ignited so much frustration among educators that NCLB now appears to be an irreparably damaged brand.”

Next for the ash heap of public policy?

Renaissance 2010 is nothing but the local distributor for NCLB-style reform. This program is all about marketing strategy. “Choice” is the key buzz word. Blowing up schools is an essential component of Renaissance 2010.

Perhaps this embarrassing expose of the NCLB agenda will mark the beginning of the end for this phase of "reform".

What next?   

Neuman apparently spoke out in anticipation of the release tomorrow of a document from the Economic Policy Institute, "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education."  The report apparently suggests that schools can’t do it alone.

They’re going to say that we need to level the playing field for low-income families and include targeted programs for improved child health and support for parents and communities.

This is all nothing new for PURE Thoughts. 

For example, this post from last November about NAEP:

“The city’s most recent ‘reform’ effort, ‘Renaissance 2010’ is NCLB Chicago-style,” explained PURE Executive Director Julie Woestehoff. “There is no evidence it will help the thousands of low-income children in our city who desperately need high quality schooling. Instead ‘Renaissance 2010’ reduces parent involvement, promotes privatized school management, and reinforces an extreme focus on testing.” 

or this one from September 2007 about throw-away schools:

"Business promotes the throw-away consumer culture because it makes us buy new stuff from them. We just don't fix things anymore.

"Yet when parents talk about what they want from the school system, they tell us that they want their school fixed, not closed or replaced by a charter school. The general public agrees; in the most recent Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll about education, 72% said that they preferred “reforming the existing system” rather than finding an alternative system."

or, most eloquently, this quote from a Senn student in November, 2007:

"If they want this school to be better, than give us the things we need to be successful," said Ibrahim Sablaban, an 18-year-old senior enrolled in the IB program. "Don't make us do without and then turn around and blame us."

(Full story here)

From CNN:

"He's a revered Hindu monkey god. And now, he's the chairman of an Indian business school.

"Hanuman, the popular god known for his strength and valor, has been named official chairman of the recently opened Sardar Bhagat Singh College of Technology and Management in northern India, a school official said Saturday.

"The position comes with an incense-filled office, a desk and a laptop computer. Four chairs will be placed facing the empty seat reserved for the chairman and all visitors must enter the office barefoot, said Vivek Kangdi, the school's vice chairman."

On this historic day, let’s consider what it could mean if we no longer have a president whose education policy consists of asserting that "all of our childrens can learn."

Here's a look, for example, at presumptive presidential nominee Obama’s latest speech on education given on May 28th at a school near Denver.

Below are only select portions with PURE commentary. Be sure to read the whole speech for the full context.

Obama: " I'm here to ... hold up this school and these students as an example of what's possible in education if we're willing to... try new ideas and new reforms based not on ideology but on what works to give our children the best possible chance in life.”

PURE Thought: We welcome Senator Obama’s important statement about going with what works, not with ideology. This would mean, we think, that CPS should not have barreled ahead with a Renaissance 2010 Plan of school “choice” based on an unfounded Civic Committee theory that “competition” will reform schools. It might also mean that CPS should strongly reconsider its attack on LSCs and stop waiting until they close a school before handing out new resources.

It also includes taking a closer look at the schools that work best, whether they are traditional or new schools. All of us need to be challenged to have an open mind about what works for children, and to engage in an honest, public dialog about it. The nasty partisanship of education politics needs to stop.

Let’s commit today to a better conversation about education reform strategies.   

Obama: "We are the nation that has always understood that our future is inextricably linked to the education of our children — all of them... that's why I believe it's time to lead a new era of mutual responsibility in education, one where we all come together for the sake of our children's success.”

PURE Thought: “Responsible” is our middle name. And PURE’s overall mission is to assure a high-quality education for every child. CPS is a two-tiered school system which knowingly serves some children better than others. The inequities need to stop.

Let’s commit today to a truly equal education for every child.  

Obama: "This starts with fixing the broken promises of No Child Left Behind. Now, I believe that the goals of this law were the right ones. But... forcing our teachers, our principals and our schools to accomplish all of this without the resources they need is wrong. Promising high-quality teachers in every classroom and then leaving the support and the pay for those teachers behind is wrong. Labeling a school and its students as failures one day and then throwing your hands up and walking away from them the next is wrong.... We also need to realize that we can meet high standards without forcing teachers and students to spend most of the year preparing for a single, high-stakes test.”

PURE Thought: We have been fighting CPS’s overuse and misuse of standardized tests for over ten years. We are eager to have some help from Washington!

Obama: “As so many of you know, there are too many children in America right now who are slipping away from us as we speak, who will not be accepted to college and won't even graduate high school. They are overwhelmingly black, and Latino, and poor. And when they look around and see that no one has lifted a finger to fix their school since the 19th century, when they are pushed out the door at the sound of the last bell — some into a virtual war zone — is it any wonder they don't think their education is important? Is it any wonder that they are dropping out in rates we've never seen before?”

PURE Thought: After 20 years of school reform in Chicago, this is still the condition of too many of our children. We have so much more work to do.

Let’s re-commit today to continue to fight, to keep up the struggle to make sure all these children have a real chance for a high-quality education and a full, productive, happy life.

Obama: "Yes, it takes new resources, but we also know that there is no program and no policy that can substitute for a parent who is involved in their child's education from day one.”

PURE Thought: Here we are, ready, willing and able. PURE commits today to reach out to enable, equip and empower even more parents to help their children succeed.