Why This LSC, School, & Principal -- And What's To Be Donel?

Contentious decisions about principals who some think are worthy is nothing new for CPS, which has some folks wondering why the Curie situation has blown up so big -- not just on this blog since January but in the press the last two weeks -- and why the Board and Mayor have intervened here when they could have intervened in any number of other situations?

Possible explanations include black-Hispanic tensions, questions about Tom Ramos LSC chair (pictured), political or other support for Jerryelyn Jones (who was rumored to be becoming a HS AIO even before this), or political opportunism (ie, the Board taking advantage of a situation that makes LSCs look bad and could theoretically create a precedent for overturning other LSC hiring decisions).

'Superstar' principal Jones back to school? Sun Times
The chairman of Curie High School's local school council, who along with fellow council members was blasted by Mayor Daley for firing a principal the mayor called a "superstar," abruptly reversed position Thursday.

Curie council may flip on ouster of principal Tribune
The chairman of the Curie Metro High School local council announced Thursday that he plans to reconsider his vote to oust popular principal Jerryelyn Jones.

I'm not against LSCs, and would prefer to see them mended rather than ended, but this situation does seem to make them look really bad, and it seems a shame to me that there's no one -- not PURE, not DFC, not ACORN -- who seems to be able or willing to talk about what LSC changes might be needed.  The "all LSCs are good" stance is alienating in the end, and seems out of step with current reality.

Comments

Alexander,
Thanks for shooting straight on this issue. Mended not ended seems right. Calling upon the people who think about this issue not simply to advocate for doing it right, but to suggest new designs seems right too.

So now that Daley has stepped in on his white horse at Curie, will he now step up to stop the Senate from ruling that the CPS residency rule is illegal (like the House did yesterday in a 105 to 4 vote)? The whole Curie situation is sad to say the least but at least it once again shows that CPS is all Daley!

[mike]

I second 11:46's thanks, Alexander. Of all the commentary that's been spewed here on this issue, you've hit it on the head. The model itself is flawed, and too few people are willing to discuss how to fix it. Andrew Martinek's "civics lesson" stance is certainly correct in theory, but a little too pie in the sky for me. I don't think this is a story about democracy and how to make it work; I think it's a story about who has the expertise to be making important decisions about how a school is run. Call me an elitist, but clearly, even in the current LSC model, there is a line drawn between what decisions the community has a direct vote on and what decisions are left up to school admin. I'm suggesting that line be drawn a little further away from the community.

There is no evidence that the majority of parents or community supported the principal.

What's wrong with what's happened?
The legistature took a stance and the people came out and protested it. Now (it seems) the legislature
will respond and make a change.

[cermak_rd]

Someone on these boards keeps reminding us that elections have consequences. Yes, that's true but so should actions. If an LSC acts in ways that the elected government of Chicago does not appreciate, they should be held accountable in the same way the states are held accountable by the federal government--loss of discretionary and other funding.

"...loss of discretionary and other funding."
So the students should suffer because of the LSC?

The LSC didn't violate any law, federal or local.

They have faced consequences for their actions. Protests.

They merely made a decision that a group doesn't like. We do not know if there were a referendum for the parents, community, and teachers, what the outcome would be.

There are double standards here it seems. There are obvious tones of elitism, and undertones of racism.

The sorry fact is that it's not clear that any particular governance structure, including the most prevalent in this country, governance by "professional" educators, does a better job.

I am for parents being involved in the education of their children; however if they are to be part of a board that manages a significant amount of dollars then there has to be on going training not 8 hours worth. Additionally, it is now time to revisit the law and provide a system of checks and balances that will ensure that preforming principals are not fired by LSC's that vote on thier gut feelings.

[cermak_rd]

Mar 9, 2007 at 01:48pm:

The hope is that the LSC would be mindful of the risks and not do anything boneheaded.

[Son of Vallas]

1:57 I like that--putting the word "professional" in quotes. It almost seems like you're making some sort of rational argument even though you're just expressing the same animal hatred for teachers that we all feel.

Personally, I like to write things like "so-called professional educators" because it's even more insulting and it makes teachers mad when they read it. Nothing like insulting professionals. Hyuk Hyuk.

[Julie Woestehoff]

It's simply not correct that PURE, DFC and others who support LSCs refuse to talk about changes that need to be made.

Thoughtful people can disagree about the root causes of problems and about how to solve them. Just because some people believe that there are fundamental flaws in the LSC law doesn't mean that there are.

Frankly, we think it's amazing that LSCs can function at all given the fact that the bureaucracy that manages their training and oversight is so publicly against their existence. That speaks volumes about the tenacity of citizens to remain involved, and about the genius of the law.

Our primary proposal for improving LSC functioning is to take the training and supervisory role away from CPS and give it to a truly independent body that can operate outside of the shadow of City Hall. Dozens of community and reform groups proposed such a structure to Arne Duncan a few years ago and he tabled it indefinitely.

Despite all the personal feelings and anecdotes, research supports LSCs as they have been configured. You can find the specific studies and results on our web site, www.pureparents.org.

One of those studies concluded that LSCs have been especially effective in involving low income communities of color which have little other way of having their voices heard.

More than any other city, Chicago needs more citizen input and empowerment, not less. LSCs have provided at least one tool in what remains a very small toolkit.

Privatizing the training and supervision of LSCs seems like a modest idea for improvement. though it fits right in with the privatize everything strategy.

What about changing the nature of school governance itself? The evidence that Chicago is not close to where it should be is overwhelming, so why would we imagine this is a matter of getting more ardent advocates to train and support (admittedly I have no cluse what supervise means) LSCs?

What about this: If a schools works, leave it alone. If it doesn't why not test several different strategies in intentional ways. Julie Woestehoffs idea could be one test - give training over to a private company like PURE and see if they can improve what children learn through governance. But there are many many other ways to get to good results for children, and we shouldn't be scared of trying them. Why not teacher led and governed schools. Why not boards for traditional schools that look more like non profit boards. Why not a performance management system for the boards of schools. If your school does not get results you are not on the board. Tie the governance tightly to the thing schools are supposed to do.

Declaring victory based on some schools improving in the face of systemic failure, or asking private organizations to do the work lacks imagination.

Why not have greater teacher representation on LSC? That will end the conversation pretty quick.

"give it to a truly independent body that can operate outside..."
No body in Chicago will be truley independant and we have seen this over and over with negative LSCs and with pure.
As for giving pure MORE time to train--their training is horrible--I have attended it and it was discussion more on how to remove a principal than how to make progress at your school. pure and JW do not practice what they preach--do not be fooled by a resonable response in this blog from pure. If they were for real, they would have advised the Curie LSC NOT to do what they did and to carry out their meeting properly.
As a member of the LSC, a parent or teacher can vote against a principal BECAUSE the principal has done what s/he is supposed to do like, NOT change a grade, or reduce a suspension for an LSC member's child, or not give the LSC teacher a superior rating when they are satisfactory at best, OR not purchase from the LSC member who is a vendor.. LSCs will not work.
This is wrong to the profession and to the schools and the students. A fatal flaw--
How about a Local Legislative Council or a Local City Hall Council or Local Hospital Council with the same powers to hire, fire and budget--these councils would take care of their own first. Which professionals would accept this? yet, principal do and it is sad that they have to.

I want to know how you get to be a "superstar" principal? What's the criteria? Oh, and also, how do you get to be a "great, great" school like Curie? What's the criteria?

I think our school has better math scores and lower dropout rates than Curie. But they are threatening to fire our principal and close our school.

[Professional]

4:14 You are trying to reinvent the square wheel. If you really want to undertake school reform seriously in Chicago you cannot add more. You have to start by subtracting--subtracting the conflicting authorities over local schools and subtracting the demands which are placed upon teachers, principals, students, and schools by these authorities.

It doesn't matter what brilliant system of accountability or governance you set up; you first have to get rid of the ones that are already there.

I'll put this out there: if you want to see whether Chicago public schools can succeed, we could have a state law requiring everyone outside the local school who wishes to give a school a command or mandate to get a sign-off from everyone else who can give orders to that school. Make them get the form signed everytime--just like teachers have to do for everything we do. Make all the people who sign further agree not to issue any orders that may conflict time-wise or in any other way with the order they are signing off on.

We don't even know half the people who tell us what to do until they walk in the door of our school. It would take Donald Pittman years to find all the people who need to sign off on his orders. Years. Decades. Maybe Centuries. People would die trying to find out who needs to sign their form. Some of the people who do sign would have died and been replaced before one could get the list completed. New offices would have been created. Old ones disemboweled. In short, we'd finally have local control (not to mention coherence and consistency in what's coming down from the Areas, the State, and the Central Office. Then and only then could we have real local accountability.

Daley is making a surprise visit to Curie tomorrow at 8am at the LSC meeting. Look out! Word is alot of LSC's across the city are going. This is going to be the beginning and the end of LSC's.

[1.04]

Fatal Flaw

Can you imagine Doctors prevented by law ,from running hospitals. Generals
Barred from running the army. How about a chief banished from the kitchen?
If this all sounds preposterous bear in mind teachers are only able to serve as there
Schools Teacher Rep.Never mind they are community residents in a different neighborhood or have kids in a different school. They cannot be on those LSC’s.
The rational behind this law has always baffled me .The results are apparent. Small
Groups of highly organized people are using the LSC’s to promote a political agenda
Which has power, not education, as it’s objective. What happened at Curie is not unique.
It has been going on for years all over the city many really great principals have fallen
Victim to this abuse of power. Why the Mayor has spoken out now is another mystery
Where was he when other ,less publicized principals, were being purged because of their
Race or ethnic background. How bad must they feel today.

The Mayor took a hit on the residency rule by the vote in Springfield there is no question on that. In all honesty I am having trouble with the media declaring Curie principal to be a "superstar."

I do not have the 2006 data, it comes out in a few days. But the ACT scores of Curie graduates were below the average ACT score in the state in every area. The composite score of 17 is not going to get Curie's graduates into very many colleges, including in the Univeristy of Illinois system. The four year graduation rate is only slightly higher than the average for CPS high schools. The graduation rate was however outstanding for the school's disabled student subgroup relative to the CPS average.

The percentage of Curie students performing at or above standards when all areas are used on the PSAE was 20% lower than the state average. Also the number of students at Curie not tested on the PSAE was twice the state average. What is really odd is that white students at Curie perform worse on average than white student throughout the state while black and Hispanic student do about as well as their peers in the state. Students with disabilities also perform worse than do their peers in the state.

This does not look like the stuff superstars are made of does it?

Professional,
You are right. We got to take away before adding anything new. In fact take away most of the district. Not alot here that makes it seem like it makes things better. Move money to schools. So they could hire art teachers, or foreign language teachers, or staff developers, or another math teacher. So they could actually make better schools. Eliminate the middle management. The AIOs. The contracts. Forget the 3M spent centrally on whatever we do with LSCs. Don't give it to the advocates. Give it to the schools. Forget about the office of high schools. the curriculum office. The office of post secondary, early childhood, afterschool, community schools, you name it.

Sure, keep some staff to fix holes, some to report on school progress. To ensure compliance with things like state and federal laws. Some very specific training programs should probably be added. A strong HR office. But take away the sprawling bureaucracy in place for the school board. Take away the office of special programs, the office of new schools, the office of magnet schools, the office of special programs, the hundreds of people who measure thier success based on how many people respond to their directives. Convert all that into money and spend it on schools.

Create flexibility, so schools can govern themselves in certain ways, but not all the same way.

4:14

[alexander]

better training and support for LSC members would be a good thing, and having it come from an independent entity makes sense (ditto for running the lotteries, providing tutoring and transfer options, and a bunch of other things.)

but there's got to be more than that, i'd think. an independent review panel that would certify LSC decisions in re principals, or a clear and measurable set of criteria, or a clear appeals process (besides protests and mayoral involvement).

right now,it seems like we're supposed to take or leave the LSC's decision, without knowing how it made its determination. i think that more transparency and accountability would help bolster the LSC process.

but again, i wish that fixes and ideas were coming from community members and leaders.

I will be surprised if the mayor shows at Curie this Saturday.

[Kugler]

"I believe the violence is going to get more severe, and frankly, it's going to lead to the school being closed," said Hyde Park teacher John Kugler, the school's teachers union delegate. "We need help fast."

Rossi, R., Konkol, M. J., & Golab, A. (2006, March 12). Schools close, violence spikes. Chicago Sun-Times, pp. 20A-21A.

Due to not achieving AYP schools close, students from these schools go to schools out of their boundaries and the result is this! We are a receiving school for two closed down schools and we ourself are on probation!

Bush thank you very much for making our country safer (IRAQ) and our schools a place to learn. (about violence!)

Jerk! And all those who support NCLB and do not see the victims of the crime against the youth of America. I predicted this event in March of 06.
KUGLER

Shots Fired Outside Hyde Park High School
Posted: Friday, 09 March 2007 1:18PM

CHICAGO, Ill. (STNG) -- A South Side high school was “secured” after someone fired a gun outside in the Woodlawn neighborhood on Friday morning.
Police responded to a call of shots fired at 9:59 a.m. in the area of the 6200 block of South Stony Island Avenue, according to police News Affairs Officer Kristina Schuler.
Hyde Park Academy High School is located at 6220 S. Stony Island Ave. and a woman who answered the phone at the office said gunshots were “maybe” heard outside of the school.
“There was a person seen shooting a gun on school grounds, in back of the school’’ according to Chicago Public School spokesman Malon Edwards.
Police were called but the person, a male, ran away, said Edwards.
A security guard spotted him and it was unknown whether he was a student. The school was not evacuated, but “did take steps to make sure the school was secured,’’ said Edwards. No one was hurt, he said.
No one was hit by bullets, according to Grand Crossing District Police Sgt. Gary Williams. Two people are in custody for the incident, he said.
“We’re still trying to figure out what happened,’’ Edwards said. http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/294993.php?contentType=4&contentId=367750

Student Gunman Fires Shots Outside Hyde Park High
Posted: Friday, 09 March 2007 2:42PM

CHICAGO, Ill. (STNG) -- An armed male student standing in a group began firing shots at another group on the grounds of Hyde Park High School on Friday morning in the South Side's Woodlawn neighborhood. No one was hurt.

Police responded to a call of shots fired at 9:59 a.m. in the area of the 6200 block of South Stony Island Avenue, according to police News Affairs Officer Kristina Schuler. Hyde Park High School is located at 6220 S. Stony Island.
“There were shots fired at a group of students,’’ according to Chicago Pubic Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn. The shooting occurred on school grounds, he said. Two separate groups of all male students were outside on Harper Street, which runs along the rear of the campus, when one shooter -- a student armed with a gun -- began firing shots at the other group, Vaughn said.
Three kids in the group being shot at ran inside the school, and police stationed inside called for backup, Vaughn said. The shooter ran away with a “couple” of other people from the group and police are questioning three people in connection with the incident, according to Vaughn.
Grand Crossing District police Sgt. Gary Williams said earlier Friday that two people were in custody in the incident.
Vaughn did not know what sparked the incident and said disciplinary action is pending as police “sort things out.”
One gun was recovered, he said. The school was not evacuated, but “did take steps to make sure the school was secured,’’ said CPS spokesman Malon Edwards.
“There was minimal disruption to the school day,’’ Vaughn said.
It was unknown whether all the students involved attend Hyde Park High School. http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/295154.php?contentType=4&contentId=367885

Fight Breaks Out Before Student Gunman Fires Shot

CHICAGO, Ill. (STNG) -- A fight between two groups of students was going on prior to one student allegedly firing a revolver at the rival group on the grounds of Hyde Park High School Friday morning in the Woodlawn neighborhood.
Police responded to a call of shots fired at 9:59 a.m. in the area of the 6200 block of South Stony Island Avenue, according to police News Affairs Officer Kristina Schuler. Hyde Park High School is located at 6220 S. Stony Island Ave.
The shooter fired once from a .32 caliber chrome revolver and “took off running,” but was in police custody Friday afternoon, according to a Grand Crossing District police lieutenant.
Police were looking for another suspect, who was in one of the groups, who reportedly handed the chrome revolver to the shooter.
“There were shots fired at a group of students,’’ according to Chicago Pubic Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn. The shooting occurred on school grounds, he said. Two separate groups of all male students were outside on Harper Street, which runs along the rear of the campus, when one shooter -- a student armed with a gun -- began firing shots at the other group, Vaughn said.
Three kids that were in the group being shot at ran inside the school where police stationed inside called for backup, Vaughn said. The shooter ran away with a “couple” of other people from the group and police are questioning three in connection with the incident, according to Vaughn.
Disciplinary action is pending a police investigation, as they “sort things out.”
The weapon was recovered, Vaughn said. The school was not evacuated, but “did take steps to make sure the school was secured,’’ said CPS spokesman Malon Edwards.
“There was minimal disruption to the school day,’’ Vaughn said.
It was unknown whether all students involved attend Hyde Park High School. http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/295355.php?contentType=4&contentId=368049

Shot fired at S. Side high school
By Jeremy Gorner
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 9, 2007, 5:04 PM CST

Two 16-year-old boys were arrested this afternoon after one of them opened fire on another teen during a gang-related spat between two groups outside Hyde Park Academy High School on Chicago's South Side, officials said.

One gunshot was fired from a .22-caliber revolver, and no one was wounded, Chicago police said.
Police assigned to the school heard the gunshot from the back of the school, at 6220 S. Stony Island Ave., around 10 a.m., said Grand Crossing District Sgt. Gary Williams.

"Three students from the group being shot at ran into the school. Security helped them get back in the building safely," said Mike Vaughn, a CPS spokesman. "There was no immediate threat to anybody in the school."

One of the arrested teens fired the shot at a teen from the other group, police said. The teen who was shot at had been involved in some sort of confrontation with the arrested teens earlier in the morning.

The teen who opened fire handed the revolver off to the other teen and ran away, police said. Officers arrested them a short time later.

Williams said police confiscated the gun.

Police said the intended target is a Hyde Park student, but it's unclear if the arrested teens attend the school. Vaughn said six teens involved in the confrontation are Hyde Park students. CPS officials described three of the students as "offenders" and the others as "victims," he said.

Authorities could not say how many people were involved in the incident. Although police said the incident was gang-related, they could not elaborate.

The school was on lockdown for about 45 minutes, but classes operated on their normal schedules, Vaughn said. No charges had been filed as of this afternoon. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070309school-shooting,1,4742982.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Two in custody for allegedly firing gun outside school
March 9, 2007

FROM STNG WIRE REPORTS
No one was hurt, but two people are in police custody suspected of firing a gun outside of Hyde Park High School in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side on Friday morning.
Police responded to a call of shots fired at 9:59 a.m. in the area of the 6200 block of South Stony Island Avenue, according to police News Affairs Officer Kristina Schuler.
Shots were fired outside of the high school and no one was hit by bullets, according to Grand Crossing District Police Sgt. Gary Williams.
Two people are in custody for the incident, but were not in the station yet as of 10:50 a.m., Williams said. He did not know whether they were students, or male or female.
Hyde Park Academy High School is located in the 6200 block of South Stony Island Avenue and a woman who answered the phone at the main office said gunshots were “maybe” heard outside of the school.
A Chicago Public Schools spokesman was not immediately available. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/290533,shot030907.article

Do not the parents of these students have a responsibility to help their children achieve, pass tests and graduate 8th grade and high school?
Where is the parent responsiblity.
Please note that Curie also has a high white bilingual population that may be counted in the general Prairie State scores.
I almost wish Ramos would have bucked Arne and Daley--then there would be a reduction in this runaway LSC power. Instead, as stated above, what of the other principals who have gone through this--do not forget that some principals were let go or not hired because they are women--since a number of LSCs prefer male principal and have said so.