"Education Secretary Arne Duncan's legacy as Chicago schools chief questioned"
Mike
Education Secretary Arne Duncan's legacy as Chicago schools chief
questioned
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A01
CHICAGO -- Soon after Arne Duncan left his job as schools chief here
to become one of the most powerful U.S. education secretaries ever,
his former students sat for federal achievement tests. This month, the
mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities
in performance and progress made over six years.
Miami, Houston and New York had higher scores than Chicago on the
National Assessment of Educational Progress. Boston, San Diego and
Atlanta had bigger gains. Even fourth-graders in the much-maligned
D.C. schools improved nearly twice as much since 2003.
The federal readout is just one measure of Duncan's record as chief
executive of the nation's third-largest system. Others show advances
on various fronts. But the new math scores signal that Chicago is
nowhere near the head of the pack in urban school improvement, even
though Duncan often cites the successes of his tenure as he crusades
to fix public education.
"Chicago is not the story of an education miracle," said Chester E.
Finn Jr. of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank
in Washington. "It is, however, the story of a large urban system that
has made some gains and has made some promising structural changes."
For more than seven years, starting in 2001, Duncan tried to
rejuvenate his city's struggling schools: jettisoning staff, hiring
turnaround specialists, shutting down those deemed beyond hope. He
pushed a back-to-basics curriculum, spawned dozens of charter schools
and experimented with performance pay. State and federal test scores
and graduation rates rose on his watch, and Chicago became a
laboratory for innovation. As a result, the reputation of its schools
has improved markedly since 1987, when an earlier education secretary,
William Bennett, called them the worst in the country.
'Focused on outcomes'
Yet questions have arisen this year about the magnitude of Duncan's
accomplishments. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, which represents business, professional, education and
cultural leaders, concluded in June that gains on state test scores
were inflated when Illinois relaxed passing standards and that too
many students still drop out of high school or graduate unprepared for
college. The Consortium on Chicago School Research, a nonpartisan
group at the University of Chicago, reported in October that Duncan's
closure of low-performing schools often shuffled students into
comparable schools, yielding little or no academic benefit.
"Obviously, you always want to get better faster," Duncan said in an
interview when asked about the federal math scores. "I was focused on
outcomes -- improving graduation rates, making sure that students who
graduated had a chance to pursue higher ed. You can have the best test
scores in the world, but if kids aren't going that next step, you're
not changing their lives."
Duncan also said he had adjusted his school closure policy a few years
ago to ensure better opportunities for students. He said that he was
unhappy that the state had relaxed passing standards and that
graduation rates remain unacceptable. About half of Chicago students
fail to graduate on time with their peers.
In January, Duncan said at his Senate confirmation hearing: "We're
proud to have made significant progress . . . and to really be a model
of national reform. But again, hard work is going to continue there
and is far from done."
In the interview, Duncan said he is careful not to exaggerate his
record. Critics, however, say his legacy is routinely overblown.
"There's been this rhetoric about dramatic gains, dramatic success,
that we have to replicate this model because of its dramatic success,"
said Julie Woestehoff of the advocacy group Parents United for
Responsible Education. "And here in Chicago, we're looking at these
schools and going, 'Uh . . . ' "
In 2003, President George W. Bush's education secretary, Rod Paige,
faced similar, perhaps stronger, criticism when his much-highlighted
record as leader of Houston's schools in the 1990s came under
scrutiny. Questions were raised that year about the reliability of
Houston's reported dropout rates.
Duncan's record is of more than historical interest. He wields
considerable power through the combination of his Chicago connections,
shared with President Obama, and his oversight of billions of dollars
in reform funding. The Education Department is dangling an
unprecedented $3.5 billion in grants for school systems to turn around
weak schools and $4 billion for states to pursue innovation.
Huge challenges
With 418,000 students in 675 schools, Chicago faces challenges on a
scale exceeded only in Los Angeles and New York. Eighty-five percent
of students come from poor families, and 12 percent have limited
English skills.
Tours in a handful of Chicago schools this month found educators
pushing against formidable obstacles to establish a climate of
learning. For some, simply asserting control over a campus represents
a big victory.
In the North Lawndale neighborhood west of downtown, dotted by
decaying rowhouses and apartments, Johnson Elementary School was given
a new staff this year and renamed the Johnson School of Excellence.
Duncan, in one of his last actions before leaving Chicago, proposed
the restart in January because of the school's perennially low test
scores. The nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership, which pairs
master's degree candidates with teaching mentors in a residency
program, runs the school and 13 others under contract. Johnson serves
300 students from pre-K through grade 8.
In the last school year, officials said, police were called to the
campus nearly every day to deal with angry parents or disruptive
students.
"It was a war scene," said Jennifer Earthley, mother of a fourth-
grader and a fan of the new regime. "The administrators were afraid of
the children. The children did what they wanted to do. We have been on
the low end for a long time. All we have been looking for is a
passionate group of people who care."
Now, attendance is up and fights are down. Students are drilled on
respect, manners and lining up in the halls. In one fourth-grade
classroom, teacher Katelyn Funderburk counted "5-4-3-2-1" after asking
students to pull out their textbooks. "Steven Earthley got it opened
fast and folded his hands," she said. "Thank you."
Hitting the reset button
At William R. Harper High School in West Englewood, loudspeakers
blared the theme to "Beverly Hills Cop" one afternoon and students
swirled in the hallways as the principal shooed stragglers to class.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Kenyatta Stansberry called out. "Y'all are going
to be late. Let's go, baby! You need to run!"
The 700-student school, in an area blighted with crime and boarded-up
houses, had fallen on hard times when Stansberry took over in 2007.
She said she spent much of her first year dashing to altercations --
the intercom alert "10-10 on 2," for example, would mean a fight on
the second floor -- and extracting the campus from the Crash Town
gang's grip.
Then Duncan hit the reset button (another purge a decade earlier had
failed to yield much improvement). Stansberry stayed, although most of
the staff was let go. She was given extra resources, including three
deans to help manage students, money for gifts and incentives, and a
reading catch-up program. Misconduct fell, attendance rose and test
scores edged up a bit. More ninth-graders were rated on track to
receive a diploma.
Neighborhood troubles remain a deep concern. Stansberry said four of
her students died violently off campus in the last school year. Such
killings became a national issue this fall after a student, Derrion
Albert, was beaten to death near Christian Fenger Academy High School
on the city's South Side. Duncan returned to Chicago in October with
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to pledge a campaign against youth
violence.
As if in solidarity with that goal, posters of Gandhi and the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. flank the whiteboard in English teacher Fadia
Afaneh's room at Harper. She high-fived her ninth-graders as they
placed commas correctly in sentences, transforming street lingo into
standard English. Much of what she teaches is remedial, Afaneh said,
but she is determined to help students advance. First, she teaches
them to write a complete sentence. Then, a paragraph.
"Basically, all kids deserve an excellent education," she said, "and
that doesn't always happen in this country. I know."
Rowley
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122802368.html
>
> Education Secretary Arne Duncan's legacy as Chicago schools chief
> questioned
> By Nick Anderson
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A01
>
> CHICAGO -- Soon after Arne Duncan left his job as schools chief here
> to become one of the most powerful U.S. education secretaries ever,
> his former students sat for federal achievement tests. This month, the
> mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities
> in performance and progress made over six years.
Eh.. same old stuff...
Bush named Houston Superintendent of schools [Texas] Rod Paige Named
Education Secretary back when he [Bush] first came into office.. based
on the �Texas Miracle" that was accomplished while he was
Superintendent... where his district had some of the lowest drop-out
rates in Texas.. which later was discovered to be just some questionable
accounting practices...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Paige
Martin