Op-Ed: "Chicago Hope" Despite challenges, Chicago high schools have improved graduation rates and are striving for greater levels of college attainment.
Op-Ed by Sara Ray Stoelinga, originally published in U.S. News and World Report.
CHICAGO – Since last we spotlighted lessons from Chicago's education landscape, its beleaguered schools chief resigned amid a federal corruption investigation, and its teachers rallied in advance of their contract expiration at month's end. There are many reasons to be both disappointed and hopeful, as we continue with the second installment of stories and lessons learned from Chicago public education.
A budget on the brink. Lots of big urban districts have pension challenges. Chicago's are overwhelming. This year, the budget deficit is pegged at more than $1.1 billion. The district's pension obligation is swelling, and the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the state Legislature's proposed pension reform package, declaring it unconstitutional. Politicians have started to raise the idea of bankruptcy.
While the district and Legislature deliberate and debate, principals' hands are tied, with no idea of the resources they may or may not have next school year. When teachers close their classrooms in another week, they will leave with a sense of fear about the budget reality they will face when they return in September.
Countless other districts who are also peering down the precipice will have their eyes on Chicago to get a sense of their own fate. Is bankruptcy a legitimate option, and is it one that a major urban district should seriously consider? Will Chicago become a cautionary tale of what happens when systems disconnect who's responsible for pension payments from districts issuing end-of-career, pension-boosting raises? Or will crisis prompt a productive response and bipartisanship in Springfield, creative solutions and compromise in the "City of Big Shoulders"?
The teachers union and its discontents. Pension and budget ambiguity is added fuel for the collective bargaining discussion between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union. In 2012, Chicago teachers went on strike for the first time in 25 years. The resulting contract expires June 30. While Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis were pitted against each other in the 2012 standoff, serving as brash and relentless warriors who swapped bruising blows, this round has an additional player in the mix: Gov. Bruce Rauner, who proposed anti-union measures shortly after taking office this year. Having conceded to a longer school day in the last contract and with little budget room for addressing compensation, Chicago Public Schools will be in a bind while the teachers union will feel pressure to fight for fair wages and rights for teachers.
The union's rally slogan, "CPS: Broke on purpose," reveals the tenor of negotiations, as does the accusation of bad-faith negotiating they filed in an unfair labor practice complaint against the district last month. What's unclear is how the looming regime change and empty CEO spot will affect each side's negotiating position – or whether either side is willing to seriously entertain keeping students out of classrooms again.
When the Chicago Teachers Union walked the picket line in 2012, the entire nation took notice. The scene at the picket lines was a manifestation of many debates and accumulated grievances and was representative of the reform versus establishment narrative. If teachers strike again, will parents and citizens see the teachers' side, or will it contribute to dissatisfaction and impatience with the public school system? And would a second strike under a Democratic mayor embolden anti-union fervor elsewhere? In the coming months across the country, districts and unions alike will have their eyes on Chicago, drawing on lessons learned to define their own strategies and pathways.
The (peaceful or not-so-peaceful) co-existence of teacher evaluation and the Common Core. In Chicago, as nationwide, two sweeping trends in education policy played out simultaneously. The federal Race to the Top program's incentives for revamping teacher evaluation systems resulted in new legislation in Illinois and in dozens of other states requiring that teacher evaluations incorporate measures of student growth. Chicago's implementation of its new system began in the 2012-2013 school year; this past year was the first in which every Chicago Public Schools teacher received classroom observation scores, and next school year will be the first in which every teacher also gets a student growth calculation.
Meanwhile, Common Core State Standards were rolling out, along with their associated assessments. Illinois and Chicago Public Schools, amid much consternation, resistance and debate, piloted the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam this spring.
The readiness test is in development stage, and while promising, there is still much to learn to make implementation and use successful. Given it was in pilot stage, the exam was administered in an already multilayered testing calendar – leading to countless assessments being given to students over a few short months.
The result is anxiety and frustration. Anxiety on the part of parents who do not understand the Common Core and are resistant to their children participating in an assessment that is in pilot phase; resistance on the part of teachers who see instructional time being taken up with so many assessments; frustration on the part of district leaders who aren't sure where the Common Core movement is going; and continued pressure from states and Common Core supporters, who believe the Common Core can improve schooling.
Simultaneously, the roll out of teacher evaluation systems that draw on the calculation of student growth on standardized tests proceeds across the country. Calculating student growth is a complex and delicate matter, with debate about whether it is an accurate and fair way of evaluating teachers raging around it. The introduction of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced assessments, and questions raised about these new assessments, further complicates debates about the use of student growth to evaluate teachers. Anti-testing sentiment is emerging from all sides as a result.
Ideally, teacher evaluation and Common Core have a shared goal of improving the quality of instruction and improving student outcomes. The question for Chicago and for the nation is whether we can hold onto the best of teacher evaluation and Common Core and use them as a lever to improve teaching and learning. The unfolding story in Chicago and elsewhere will reveal whether there is still an opportunity to do this, or whether political pressures and public outcry will stop these efforts in their tracks.
Creating the Attainment City. Our calling, our responsibility, is to move beyond oversimplified debates, such as whether testing or Common Core are good or bad and focusing attention on the things that matter for student and school success. In this regard, Chicago has hopeful lessons to share.
When research revealed that freshman year grades and attendance were more predictive of high school graduation than all student demographic or socioeconomic characteristics combined, Chicago leveraged its focus on that "Freshman On-Track" measure into a steady and substantial uptick in its graduation rate. The improvement in high school graduation rate is real, and the story underneath it is one of a group of stakeholders coming together to make it happen. The school district provided regular data reports to high schools to identify "off track" students; high schools created intervention and support plans for those students; parents were engaged as partners in finding the right strategies to get students back on track; non-profit and community organizations began to use Freshman On-Track as their focal point and central indicator for their work with schools. As a result, several high schools reduced their drop-out rate to zero or close to zero and the school district realized a double digit increase in high school graduation rates.
Fueled by these increases in high school graduation and a growing emphasis on the pressing need for post-secondary success, momentum is building in Chicago and nationally for keeping eyes on the real education prize: not only earning a high school diploma, but attaining a college degree. This fall each of the Chicago's high schools will receive for the first time its "degree attainment index," an estimation of the likelihood that a freshman attending the high school will go on to earn a bachelor's degree by age 25. We know from the On-Track story that providing the data is just the beginning; turning this into real improvements in college attainment will take the collective efforts of the school district, schools, higher education, parents, students, nonprofit organizations and communities. Chicago's approach, we hope, can be an example for the nation of how to increase college attainment for all students.
It is appropriate and important to end on this hopeful note. Across these two blog posts we have traversed many of the most pressing and critical issues facing the field: the changing context for higher education, debates around the Common Core, defining new pathways for early childhood, the evolving landscape for charter schools, looming budget crises, debate between teachers unions and district leaders, as well as the uneasy co-existence of teacher evaluation and the Common Core. Given the complexity of these issues and the countless challenges we face, one might conclude getting public education right is an impossible task. The On-Track story, and prospectively the college attainment story, we hope, reveal what is possible when a community comes together and focuses on helping students to be successful. Of all the lessons learned from Chicago, this one is most important.
Sara Ray Stoelinga is the Sara Liston Spurlark Director and clinical professor at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute.