[RSCT] 'buzz' that Arne Duncan will be Ed Secm- sign petition now to oppose this

[Monty Neill]

Unfortunately far more attention was paid to Joel Klein as a possible Sec of 
Ed than to Arne Duncan, whose policies overall are not very distinguishable 
and revolve around testing, privatization, icing out parents from meaningful 
roles, lots of bureaucratic obfuscation, spending lots of money on bean 
counters who know nothing about education to make policy, etc.

Duncan has led implementation of "Renaissance 2010" which was initiated by 
very pro-privatization business groups in Chicago. Community organizations, 
large and small, have led opposition to Ren10, unsuccessfully. The union has 
formally opposed it but in practice done almost nothing.

If you have not, go to http://www.teacheractivistgroups.org/ and sign the 
petition. This one names Duncan and Klein as examples of the wrong kind of 
Secretary, Linda Darling-Hammond as the correct sort.

For details about Duncan, you can see a report from Parents United for 
Responsible Education, Designs for Change, and FairTest. It is on the FT web 
at 
http://www.fairtest.org/new-report-challenges-strategies-promoted-chicago- 
[that hypen at the end is part of the url, I think - you may need to cut and 
paste, I can't get it to catch and be part of url here].



Chicago School Reform: Lessons for the Nation
January 2007
Executive Summary

 Download a print formated PDF of this executive summary.

Download a print formated PDF of the complete report.

Public education in the U.S. faces a critical choice. We can continue to 
follow the path of punishment and privatization promoted by business and 
political interests and enshrined in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and various 
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policies and practices. Or we can expand the 
fairer, more effective strategies that have been evolving in the most 
successful schools in Chicago and elsewhere. Unfortunately, many ineffective 
CPS strategies are being promoted across the nation as solutions to schools 
failing to make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) under NCLB. This report 
takes a close look at the successes and failures of Chicago school reform – 
what research shows has and has not worked. The report covers Chicago school 
reform from the decentralization period of the early 1990s (Chapter I), to 
the 1995 mayoral takeover (Chapter II), and on to the most recent CPS 
improvement scheme, called the “Renaissance 2010” plan (Chapter III).


Among the ineffective, damaging practices carried out in Chicago are 
educationally counter-productive central office interventions, most rooted 
in the misuse of high-stakes tests, such as scripted curricula and 
reconstitution; grade retention based on test scores; undermining local 
decision making; and increased privatization. While NCLB does not require 
all of these, the test-focused environment created by NCLB encourages these 
harmful practices.


An alternative approach for sustained, continuous school improvement uses 
strategies shown to be successful in Chicago (Chapter IV). The 
recommendations listed below and described in more detail in the final 
chapter sum up and are based on these successful approaches. They are 
supported by current research in key areas such as professional development, 
parent involvement, and assessment. While these recommendations focus on 
Chicago, most have implications for NCLB, such as improved funding equity, 
ways to ensure schools can assist one another to improve curriculum and 
instruction, and focusing on strengthening school capacity to serve all 
children well through professional development and parent involvement.


Recommendation 1: Illinois and Chicago must improve funding adequacy and 
equity.

• Illinois needs to provide substantially more funding, allocated especially 
to those districts with the most needs, including Chicago.

• Chicago’s Mayor and CPS need to establish a fair, adequate and equitable 
distribution of resources within Chicago Public Schools.


Recommendation 2. CPS must initiate a program of sharing best practices, 
including those developed in its stronger schools, among both successful 
schools and struggling schools.


Recommendation 3: Elected parent-majority Local School Councils (LSC) must 
be the default governance structure in all non-charter CPS schools.

• Hold charters accountable for parent involvement in decision-making by 
requiring annual reporting of parental activity in this area.

• Outsource LSC support and training to qualified groups and individuals to 
avoid conflict of interest between local school and central office/city hall 
interests and increase the quality of LSC training.


Recommendation 4. CPS must improve curriculum and instruction and foster 
high-quality professional development:

• Eliminate scripted curricula and move away from “teaching the test.”

• Ensure that professional development focuses on authentic, intellectually 
challenging and engaging curriculum and instruction.


Recommendation 5. CPS must prioritize professional development, supporting a 
decentralized and collaborative approach, following the guidelines of the 
National Staff Development Council and the

U.S. Department of Education Professional Development Team.


Recommendation 6. CPS must improve parent involvement training and 
practices.

• Ensure that schools have access to high-quality training for parents and 
teachers on parents’ rights under NCLB to observe classrooms and be involved 
in school improvement planning and evaluation.

• Construct a standard, CPS-approved, comprehensive annual parent survey; 
and require schools to use it or some comparable tool to gather parent input 
prior to developing or modifying parent involvement and school improvement 
plans for the coming year.

• Require all schools to report to the public annually on progress with 
parent involvement.


Recommendation 7. CPS must implement high-quality assessment practices and 
fair and beneficial accountability policies:

• Ensure that learning high-quality assessment is part of expanded 
professional development, including work on using formative assessment 
techniques.

• Implement the assessment and accountability recommendations of the 
CPS-developed Commission on Improving Classroom-based Assessment and the New 
ERA plan, which rely more on performance-based assessments than standardized 
tests, while pushing Illinois to support high-quality local assessment.

• Halt the grade retention program, making retention a rarity while 
providing needed assistance in mastering a rich curriculum to all students 
who need it, regardless of their test scores.

• Implement both the letter and the spirit of the remediation, probation, 
and intervention provisions of the Chicago school reform law: carry out 
high-quality needs assessment, program planning, and program evaluation in a 
process which includes all school stake-holders including the LSC; provide 
adequate time and resources for programs to succeed.


Recommendation 8. CPS must actively participate in the ESEA/NCLB 
reauthorization process by supporting the recommendations in the Joint 
Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind (2004).


This report is endorsed by the following groups:

Designs for Change

National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest)

Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE)



      Attachment Size
      ChicagoReportEXECSUM2007.pdf 26.31 KB
      ChicagoReport2007.pdf 214.5 KB



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth Bernstein" <kber at earthlink.net>
To: <arn-l at interversity.org>
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 5:29 PM
Subject: [arn-l] Obama and education related items


>
> 1) hearing a lot of buzz that SecEd will be Arne Duncan
>
> 2)  the kids will be doing as did Chelsie CLinton -  heading to Sidwell 
> friends
>
>
> Ken Bernstein
>
> Kenneth J. Bernstein