Happy Fourth

Things to do today include:  read or listen to someone else read the Declaration of Independence, play some soccer (sorry, baseball), eat a lot of grilled meat (or vegetables), look around and see what a fascinating, troubled place and time this is.  Think about what, if anything, to do about making things better.

No posts from me today, but comments are still open if you have a response or something to say. 

Comments

In terms of making things better--and thanks for asking. I would like to see on this blog, opinions on the AIOs==are they really making a difference? Why shouldn't principals evaluate them? (Still the top-down stuff.And, if they are really worth their weight in pay, they should as leaders be willing to be evaluated by the principals.) Do they really help principals be instructional leaders?
Please consider theis Alexander. CPS does not do this-allow principals to evaluate their AIOs. (And I bet if this came up, they would reject it!) It is odd how one can come out of a school and be promoted to AIO and yet, loose all empathy when they rule over principals. Happy 4th--here;s to independance.

Harper had an AIO--did the AIO get removed along with the principal there?

How about that since Arne canceled the buses during that 1 bad winter day, the Board has decided to still count the student and teacher attendance against the school and against the principals. (It is part of their evaluation and causes more document problems when creating the SIP--which is due this year.) I have heard that the board's system, cannot 'extract' that day in the overall student attendance calculation. Oops, CPS purchased 19th C. software.

8:50. Buses were cancelled but the children could still go to their neighborhood school just like they do when they miss the bus throughout the year. They cannot extract that day from the overall student attendance because that is against the ILLINOIS SCHOOL CODE. Do you realize that a day with that many absences causes the board to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. So don't you think if they could do it, they would. Please 8:50 don't turn into a conspiracy theorists like the others. Be true to yourself and search for the right answers rather than listening to your colleagues in the teacher's lounge. Oh by the way Happy 4th!

[George Schmidt]

Fireworks.

You left those out.

We spent part of the day in DuPage County, reminding ourselves of a few things we forget. Like how many people there still are in this country who believe the words of George W. Bush.

"Troubled times..."

I don't know, Alexander.

I was taught to go back in my own family's history to put certain things in perspective (the history books at best only told part of the story).

And if things really seemed nasty, imagine what it must have been like being an abolitionist in 1845. Or organizing against segregation in 1922. Or black in any of the 13 states of the Confederacy in any year before 1965.

We've got it relatively easy, ladies and gentlemen.

Some Independence Day thoughts:

1937. Jobless. Great Depression.

(in 1837, a time for which neither side of the family had much in the way of records, the Lanigans -- mother -- were preparing to move out of Ireland rather than starve, while the Schmidts -- father -- were making iron and steel stuff working seven days a week, usually, in Solingan (later to leave during the Franco Prussian War).

1942. Parents in the U.S. Army guarding Oregon from a Japanese attack (which many thought would become reality after Pearl Harbor, and even after Midway).

1944. Father on one side of the world ("ETO" it was called then); mother on other side (got Pacific combat ribbon for service on Okinawa). Christmas 1944, father on southern shoulder of the German attack in the Battle of the Bulge (Vosges Mountains, 44th Infantry Division). Mother on her way across the Pacific Ocean with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps.

Do we really have any "troubles" worth complaining about in 2007?....

1945. July 4. Father in New Jersey after ending European War in Austrian Alps (see "Band of Brothers" for nice shots of the area). But father and his brothers -- all of whom survived combat in Italy, North Africa, and Euope, were by July 4, 1945, en route to the invasion of Japan.

Mother in "worst Hell on earth" (battle of Okinawa) as nurse. PTSD to follow for 40 years. Not allowed, though, for ladies (since they couldn't have had combat stresses during WW II)...

1968. Self. Preparing for Democratic National Convention protests after police attack on May anti war protests in Chicago.

1969. Working with soldiers against the war. (See "Soldiers in Revolt" and "Sir No Sir!" for details). Discovering "Post Vietnam Syndrome" (later renamed "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"). Suicides of friends and colleagues with PTSD begin.

1971. Nixon and war still going on. George W. Bush and Richard M. Daley saving the USA for future generations in their respective National Guard units. High school friends dying in Vietnam or in POW camps.

July 4, 1976. Happy Anniversary USA. Organizing civil rights marches (Martin Luther King Jr. Movement Coalition) into Marquette Park (stoned by 2,000 drunken racists a few weeks later).

1984. Post Vietnam suicides start to abate. Deaths from post Vietnam diseases (brain tumors, for example) begin among friends who are combat veterans.

1999. Fending off "copyright infringement" lawsuit for $1.4 million filed by Paul Vallas and CPS with Mayor Daley's blessings.

Why go on?

Every generation seems to want to depress itself with its troubles. OK, if that's what not knowing history (personal or other) does to you.

Happy Independence Day.

[Lee Daniels]

George you have a horrble outlook on life. It must suck to be alone in this world with no wife or kids. Keep complaining George. You play the martyr card real well. If I knew who you really were I would send you a bottle so you can soothe all of that whining you do.

10:40 so now the weather has to countagainst the schools. Arne cancelled the buses and many student don't know and could not get to their neighborhood school. They still do not have to count it AGAINST the school's score nor the principal's eval. Give the state its due, but they can still give the school 2 numbers--or is that too much work for central office?!

[Charlie]

You kind of opened yourself up to this George, but:

"Do we really have any "troubles" worth complaining about in 2007?"

You seem to find something to complain about on this blog every single day.

And I'm glad that you include the completely justifiable lawsuit against you in the same list as the Great Depression.

The truth is things aren't all that great, at least not if you're able to extricate yourself from an egocentric view of the world. Look at Africa, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Iran, and members of the Al Qaeda on television telling us that the end of our way of life is imminent. Look no further than our president, his vice-president and every member of their administration.

Or look no further district 299...students deaths, inequality at every turn, 8 in every 100 freshmen graduating from college before the age of 25.

Things might not be that bad at this very moment in time for the average American, but when you look at the global reality...you see that we're one false step away from witnessing another era that might rank up there with world wars or the Great Depression.

How can we fix it? We can start by talking honestly and openly about it, instead of using some sort of historical relativism to justify inaction and ambivalence.

You want to do some good...start a challenging conversation with someone today.

NCLB counts attendance rate of schools as part of their benchmarks for yearly progress. I suppose they do that to keep adults from being tempted to cook the books (giving kids great test and report card scores would look odd if the kids are out 20 percent of time).

Unfortunately, it fosters other behavior from adults which I don't believe is much better; blaming and stereotyping (we saw some of it in these threads last year), and bribery initiatives in response to that kind of thinking.

Children who want to be somewhere do not need sneakers and iPods to get them there. School was once a haven for many low income children, and spending the day there was preferable to being cold and hungry at home.

The outrage of teachers over the city's neglect of schools serving the poorest children (neglected and abandoned when there are 'too few' to bother, or crammed and overused when there are 'too many' to serve) has always been portrayed as self-centered Union posturing, but teachers who care about kids are more pained to see the message it sends the community about how little Duncan & Daley value our children than how much they value us.

As demoralizing as it is to degreed professionals, what must this do to a young psyche just learning to value himself enough to persevere, finish his education and prepare himself for an adult life that is meaningful to him and valuable to society?

Too funny!

Note to Charlie - good job at ducking the challenge.

Your resounding 'not me' to the little red hen is laughable when one realizes how merrily unaware you are.

Most people don't need George's history lesson to put these issues into perspective.

Watching it not just supremely, but blithely lost on you should be a lesson to George not to waste his keystrokes.

George is the Jay Mariotti of the blog world

[Charlie]

Fair enough...

Here's a conversation I've wanted to have for a while. Why is education a right and not a privilege? If a student is bent on disrupting a classroom and all the ordinary interventions have been attempted and you get little to no help from parents, why shouldn't it be easier to kick these kids out of school? Or better yet, can we start to fine parent of these children for wasting the tax dollars of other parents whose students are losing out on their education.

My other question for the day...at what point will the families of students in the city's worst schools stand up and truly demand something better. At what point will they flood their local representatives mailboxes with letters that tell the truth about the education their children are receiving. When will they unite and make their presence known on a daily basis at 125 S. Clark Street. At what point will they show up at the polls in stronger numbers to let their voice be known through their vote.

When will these people stop complaining about Daily and Duncan and stop waiting for them to do something about it? If schools on the near northside looked like the schools on the south side you'd have lawyers lined up around the block at 125 S. Clark, representing every other Lincoln Park and Gold Coast family. And of course there is an economic issue here. But just because you don't have the money and the downtown job, just because you don't play poker with the Daleys, doesn't mean you don't have a voice. It just means you have to shout louder and with a chorus of people.

When will people stop complaining because the people in charge aren't fixing the problem, without ever giving them a real reason to fix it? At least not the type of political reason that these people understand.

Have at it.

The biggest lie about charter schools has handily been revealed by you; that while the Community Trusties play off one poor family against another, one race against another, the middle class against the working class and the working class against the poor, they enlist them to help destroy an already fragile educational system, in the name of saving their own children.

What a deluded fantasy.

You really think if you turn your back on your fellow man, that that's end of it? As long as 'my kids get mine'?

The best part of this is revealed when the Duncans and the Daleys shove their way through to the mikes after another child murder, and blame everyone but themselves and the cronies that have decimated the system, yet are still pretending there is blood in the turnip.

Teachers with no resources, parents without jobs than provide decent wages or health insurance, or the 'punk', who wasn't born a punk, but made the mistake of being born in a city that starves infrastucture, education and family life. Yes, they're all to blame. I can't imagine why they won't aknowledge their pigheaded refusal to make more bricks without straw.

So much for sunny little Charlie. You showed your true colors with your opening.

::Why is education a right and not a privilege?::

What D&D and Company have done to the city has already made that a reality.

Do me a favor and go stand in the middle of the intersection of Wendell and Wells.

Hopefully, one way or the other, something will strike you.

[President of Charlie's fan club]

Charlie, I find your comments refreshing and I applaud you. People tend to point to Arne and Daley for all of the problems. Why do LSC's continue to elect the same Principal when test scores continue to bomb? I guess it is just easier to blame "the man" Like the saying goes "same whore different dress". No matter who is in power, the blame will always fall on them because no one has the balls to look at themselves in the mirror. Let's blame race, let's blame poverty, let's blame "the man". Wah, I am in a big school system! Wah, Arne and Daley only care about Charter's and Ren10. Wah, Wah, Wah. Grow up, get a sac and make a difference.... Keep posting Charlie I like what you have to say.

[Charlie]

I'm only going to consider passive death threats as a compliment.

Just stirring the pot. I think that education should absolutely be a right, but I do wish that families and students would treat it more like a privilege, instead of taking it for granted or blowing it off. And at the same time, there's no amendment in the constitution guaranteeing anyone the right to a free public education. So again, back to my question (if you'd care to answer it instead of wishing for my imminent death by vehicular manslaughter) Is public education a right or a privilege? and why?

Let's say its a right and everyone has it. But some students give up their right to education freely when they refuse to be students by disregarding learning and disrupting learning. You can't make them learn and they also take away the rights of other students to learn. I say put them out of school and let the students that want to learn learn.

Unfortunately, that bites us in the butt later when their lack of education lands them on goverment assistance or in our jail system (which is where I'm pretty sure many dropouts end up).

[Is Arne going to be the next U.S. Education Secretary?]

If Barack "Hussein" Obama wins for President. Word is that Arne will be considered as the next U.S. Secretary of Education.

Thank you, 6:21, exactly. Pay for decent education now or pay the price later. That's not a threat, it is rather a sorrowful promise.

And if you knew your neighborhoods, Charlie, you'd know I'd placed you on the street where you could see exactly how the haves (Payton) look compared to the have-nots (Salazar) across the street.

But as I said, if the one thing didn't strike you, well...

[George Schmidt]

"...Things might not be that bad at this very moment in time for the average American, but when you look at the global reality...you see that we're one false step away from witnessing another era that might rank up there with world wars or the Great Depression.

"...How can we fix it? We can start by talking honestly and openly about it, instead of using some sort of historical relativism to justify inaction and ambivalence.

"...You want to do some good...start a challenging conversation with someone today..."

I've been trying to start that "chellenging conversaton" here, but everyone is anonymous -- or halfnonymous -- "Charlie."

As to inaction and ambivalence... Hmmm. Sounds like a generational descriptive to me.

I tried to find you all in the phone book, but it didn't help.

As to those who think more than conversation is needed, at some point it can't any longer be hidden behind the veil of anonymous blogging.

Just as that Declaration of Independence we marked two days ago couldn't be signed "Name Withheld by Request."

Around 40 years ago, every male high school graduate (or drop out) in the USA had to face the Draft. A lot died for that simple reason. Now it's gone. How you understan how it got gone might influence what you do (other than relativistic ambivalencing).

What the Draft meant was that you had to go into the Army, or "enlist" in the Marines, Navy, or Air Force, unless you were a hero like George W. Bush or Richard M. Daley with the clout to get you into the National Guard (which didn't get sent into combat zones in those days).

Oh, you could also explain why you didn't want to go and kill people for the Nixon administration (the conscientious objector route).

The Draft and that odious War in Vietnam were not ended by people who blogged anonymously. Nor were they ended by people swift boating around subsidized by millionaires and billionaires. (John Kerry actually helped lead VVAW -- along with others -- after actually fighting in Vietnam).

The Iraq War is now being challenged more and more by soldiers who are standing up in their own name and fighting against the military at great risk.

Sorry, wordsmiths. Conversation (especially anonymous and pseudononymous conversation) will only get you so far.

I'm not impressed.

Dick Cheney's legacies are from the same time and place.

And the Bushes and Daleys.

Which side are you on and all that.

If Marilyn Stewart gets the strike she was beating the drum for prior to the May 18 Chicago Teachers Union election, it's going to be push comes to shove time for thousands of people.

[anonymous]

I'm OK with posting without my name. My friends here know who I am. As do my enemies. Everything in due time, including my name. Just because someone else is not "impressed" doesn't mean I haven't made a thoughtful and correct choice for myself. Conversation can still occur. And, such conversation can help improve CPS.

6:21

Unfortunately the way it is bites us in the butt now. We got plenty on government assistance and in jail now. Possibly many of those are products because of the way things have been going at schools now. Toughen up the schools and see if the government assisted and jailbirds don't decrease. I say give it a shot. The first couple of years might be tough but once the message is real more students will become serious and stay serious. Some might even get on board. Right now its such a joke in the schools and the students know it.

[Charlie]

No George, you rarely start conversations, more often than not you pontificate, and mostly you're stuck dreadfully in the past. However, I rarely see you willing to actually listen to the other side of the argument, which is relatively important in a real conversation.

I still have a job to lose, and I'm not willing to give it up for this blog. So, yes, for the time being you'll have to deal with the pseudonym, which I use so that at least someone can string the comments I leave hear together under one voice.

As to having seen the have's and have not's,(7:27) I spent some time teaching at one of the worst elementary schools on the South Side, and left after a few years, quite frankly because I felt almost entirely ineffective against the competing factors outside my classroom, including teachers that picked up kids by the neck and held them against lockers, a principal that thought threatening his teachers was the same thing as motivating them and squad cars outside school every day after a few shootings happened almost on school grounds.

I continue to work in urban education, though, and besides trying to start conversations, I'm also doing things that I hope make a difference on a daily basis. I don't need to be lectured like 5-year-old, but anytime you want to come off your high horse and have a real discussion, I'd be happy to participate.

[1.04]

Faber

“Knowledge is good “ The founder never uttered these forgettable words. Indeed the whole script was fiction. I just read this on the blog ”Why is education a right and not a privilege?” Let me try to answer that .We live in a democracy over 200 years ago we fought a little skirmish to make sure privilege was never again used as the primary factor
In deciding a persons worth. Nobody has a right to an education but everyone better have
the opportunity to become educated. It is this path to opportunity, which separates the U.S. from almost everyone else. For every gang - banger I ever jacked –up I also sent
Kids off on full scholarships .As funny as this sounds the decision to reject education is also a right .One of my personal best was my ability to impress upon hardcore fools The fact that as an adult I knew more than them. And as a man I would break their neck if they dropped out. When that meant holding a kid by the scruff if his neck it had to be done, Usually the weak, phony, ticket punching, yuppie, tourist teachers allowed the kids
to Get to that state because they thought they were cute. It never stopped us lifers from staying focused; you win a few and loose a few.

[George Schmidt]

"...I felt almost entirely ineffective against the competing factors outside my classroom, including teachers that picked up kids by the neck and held them against lockers, a principal that thought threatening his teachers was the same thing as motivating them and squad cars outside school every day after a few shootings happened almost on school grounds..."

I was glad to notice that "factors outside the classroom" included the drug gangs (I assume those shootings weren't just New Year's Eve celebrations) and the noxious poverty all around.

OK, Charlie, so here's a horse you can ride.

Or maybe we'll ride it together.

How about (a) sharing at least what that unnamed school was and (b) who that odious principal is?

There have been dozens of examples here the past year of how those sharings actual facts in real time about real schools by real people can actually change things at particular schools in Chicago.

As opposed to abstractions, which are the food of tyrannies like the one(s) you faced out there then.

Curie? For better or worse.

Gage Park? Still of interest. Marty McGreal risked an awful lot to try and straighten that out. And Deb Lynch and others are still there and still working to stop the destruction of Gage Park High School by CPS.

Lawrence Elementary? That's not going away, those problems, despite the fact that Jacqueline Anderson is now retired.

See, Charlie, I can't "dialogue" with shadows.

If someone calls and says the Alltown buses are freezing (as happened here back in February) and that the kids in wheelchairs are being abused by being transported in those freezing buses because the company won't let the drivers and aides heat the buses before they begin the routes, that we can do something about ("we" here being me and others on this blog, plus finally CPS officials, who truly didn't know the extent of the Alltown problem -- which still, by the way, involves often filthy buses and other examples of crony management).

Marquette Elementary School. Upper grade students attack first and second graders with food in the lunchroom. Another example of administrative cover up of major discipline and security problems.

A mother goes to the Board of Education meeting and -- in her own name -- tells the Board it's given her third grade son 28 substitute teachers and three "real" teachers there in one year.

These problems have to be dealt with in real time, as well as more generally.

At the same time, it's also a fact that for most schools in large sections of Chicago, the daily grind is OK with most people (parents, students, teachers, principals). Hard work, but not deadly or deeply troubling.

Stop by and we can "dialogue." As you know, though, I also try to publish news and analysis, and one thing I've learned in more than 30 years here is that eventually real time and real problems have to be confronted by real people.

But not anonymously about anonymous "South Side" schools at some time in the past. That's Star Wars plus Harry Potter. Just doesn't help.