Understanding Government

The U.S. Education Dept. will give the Chicago Public Schools $50 million that CPS will use to “turnaround” or “transform” eight troubled schools, reports Rebecca Vevea of the Chicago News Coop. A turnaround — one of the signature policies of Ed Sec. Arne Duncan — means replacing staff at schools that are judged to be failing. Vevea reports that these eight schools will probably undergo the less dramatic transformation, where the curriculum changes but teachers and administrators remain largely intact. (more…)

Yesterday I blogged that Education Sec. Arne Duncan is helping Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel find a new head of Chicago Public Schools. Today the Chicago News Cooperative’s Hunter Clauss lays out the specific budgetary problems facing CPS: an $820 million deficit and a proposal backed by outgoing CPS head Terry Mazany to raise the city’s property taxes in order to avert teacher layoffs and increased class sizes. Also at issue is whether CPS can provide its teachers the four percent salary increase that is part of their collective bargaining agreement.

Emanuel campaigned against the property tax increase, saying he prefers, “Reinviting city government so city government works for the taxpayers.” Sure. Emanuel and the next CPS head will have to move beyond platitudes and do at least one of two really unpopular things: raising taxes or laying off teachers.

Derrion Albert 1993-2009

NPR ran a series all last week examining deadly violence among Chicago Public Schools students, a topic I covered extensively in July 2009. Now, as in 2009, just a fraction of CPS students, mostly young black males, are vulnerable to deadly violence. The problem, though,  became even more sensationalized following the videotaped beating and subsequent death of Derrion Albert in September 2009.

The city of Chicago is clearly doing a lot to deal with the violence. But it’s questionable if they’re choosing the smartest policies — or receiving any help from Washington. (more…)

Chicago Public Schools head Ron Huberman, a man that the New York Times once described as having a  “passion for data analysis” and that this reporter has never tired covering will leave office before next May, when his boss Richard Daley leaves as Chicago’s Mayor. The Chicago Sun-Times Fran Spielman and Rosaland Rossi report that his resignation after less than two years on the job adds further uncertainty to an already shaky CPS system. Daley will have to name a caretaker CPS head. The next mayor will then likely choose her or his own leader for a school system with a humongous budget deficit that was just successfully sued by laid-off teachers.

Following Paul Vallas and current Education Dept. Sec. Arne Duncan, Huberman was the third CPS head to take orders directly from the mayor, as opposed to the Board of Education. (more…)

During the tenure of Education Secretary and former Chicago Public Schools head Arne Duncan, the Chicago public schools have not received any Education Dept. grant money under either the Race to the Top or the Promise Neighborhood programs. However, contrary to my speculation, Duncan is open to getting some federal grant money to CPS. The Chicago Tribune‘s Tara Malone reports that CPS will receive $35.9 million to expand its teacher merit pay program, as part of a $442 million Education Dept. pot of money devoted to merit pay.

What the Obama administration means by merit pay in these grants ought to to be accepted by most sides of the education policy debate. (more…)