Daley demands school reform February 16, 2001 BY FRAN SPIELMAN AND ROSALIND ROSSI STAFF REPORTERS Chicago's nationally acclaimed school reform effort could fail in the long run unless reading improves among the two-thirds of city students who are reading below grade level, Mayor Daley said Thursday. Some new initiatives, including new curriculum and textbooks for up to 200 schools, are expected next week to address key areas of concern for Daley. "You can't teach subject matters if children can't read. If you're in high school and you're teaching subject matters to students who can't read, what are you teaching them?" the mayor said after his annual State of the City address. Last year, 32 percent of Chicago's 9th- and 11th-graders and 36 percent of elementary students tested at grade level in reading. Though the scores have been on an uptick for at least four years, they haven't gone up enough, Daley said. "Improving the ability of our students to read is the fundamental challenge we face. Over the long term, it will make the difference between the success or failure of our reform efforts," he said. Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas said changes are already in the works and some will be unveiled next week. He promised curriculum changes, a dramatic expansion of mandatory summer school and afterschool programs and a renewed focus on reading and algebra in high schools. Starting next week, Vallas said the Board of Education would put out a list of "proven, effective instructional models" from which the 200 lowest-scoring elementary schools would be required to choose "unless they have a superior model at the local level." Among those programs now being considered is a back-to-basics "direct instruction" model featuring scripted lessons and chanted student responses, said Accountability Chief Phil Hansen. The model has long been touted by the Chicago White Sox Charities, which arranged for Chicago school officials to visit Wesley Elementary in Houston in 1995 to see one of the nation's best-known direct instruction schools at work. Since then, several schools have turned to the program, including Chicago's Herzl Elementary, where the number of students reading at grade level zoomed from 16 percent in 1995 to 35.8 percent last year. Hansen said Herzl teachers like not only the model, but its results. Direct instruction helped get Herzl off probation, Hansen said. "This whole concept of having 600 schools do 600 different things--the whole premise of the first school reform movement in '87--doesn't work," Vallas said Thursday. Some of the best improvement has been among schools "where we go in and dictate curriculum," he said. A recent Chicago study indicated more progressive methods post better results. However, Vallas said he expected the models to offer a variety of approaches. The switch to board-dictated instruction models would require teachers to put in additional training hours after school and during the summer. Such schools would also be required to choose textbooks from a list of recommended textbook series now being developed by a new textbook committee, Vallas said. The expanded afterschool and summer school programs are expected to focus on students in six grades: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th. Some of the high-school changes involve plans announced last fall to move toward a five-year curriculum for struggling students. Incoming freshmen who pass promotion standards but are not at grade level may have to take as many as two consecutive years of double-periods of language arts and math in high school to boost their skills. Another cornerstone of the new reforms will be what School Board President Gery Chico called an "extensive pull-out program" for students who need work on reading-only skills. "Take a child for as many as double, triple, maybe even more periods per day and work with them solely on improving their reading capability," Chico said. "We're not talking about creating special schools. It could be an ordinary school in a neighborhood where there are a significant number of students who require this intensive treatment," he said. "That's what's got to be done." City Hall and Chicago schools officials are even discussing creating "schools-within-schools" for students who flunk a large number of courses their freshman year, said one City Hall official. This July, officials hope to pilot one such school per region that will offer struggling students a six-month "immersion" in only reading and algebra, to get them up to speed in those key subjects. Thursday's luncheon speech to the League of Women Voters of Chicago was Daley's 13th State of the City address, and he used it to beat the drum about his unfinished education agenda. The mayor said he would hold "parent assemblies" on three Saturdays, beginning in April, to encourage parents to get more involved in their children's education. Daley has been challenging his school team for months to "think outside the box" and try to find a way to reach every student. "How do you do a new curriculum about reading?" Daley asked Thursday. "Do you use art programs? Do you use music? We know every one of those children have a lot of ability. They can sing rap better than us. They can do some of the games with technology faster than us. Every child has the ability. How do we get it out of them?" the mayor said. Although Chicago's six-year-old school reform effort has won national acclaim, Chico said: "I don't disagree a bit with what the mayor said. We have to rise to the challenge." -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
