The following article was selected from the Internet Edition of the Chicago Tribune. To visit the site, point your browser to http://chicagotribune.com/. ----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding---------------- Article forwarded by: Michael Lach Return e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Article URL: http://chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,SAV-0104250243,FF.html ---Forwarded article---------------- Chico vows schools shakeup to boost reading scores By Michael Martinez Administrative changes are in the works at the Chicago Public Schools to address concerns raised by Mayor Richard Daley about the city's flattening elementary reading scores, school board president Gery Chico said Tuesday. Chico didn't specify the breadth of the administrative changes, to be announced next month, but he did say they are aimed at improving Chicago's reading scores. Two-thirds of students cannot read at grade level. Although Chico said he shared the mayor's concerns about reading, he insisted the mayor didn't order the administrative changes. "Are we looking at ways to restructure ourselves to improve?" Chico asked. "Of course we are. The mayor talks and we listen. It's been clear to me that the mayor would like to see greater improvement in reading, and so do we." But, he added, "We weren't directed to do anything. We weren't told to do anything." Chico dismissed a report that the system's No. 2 administrator, chief education officer Cozette Buckney, was going to be fired. "That's not true," he said. Buckney, who functions as the right-hand administrator to schools CEO Paul Vallas, will continue with the system, Chico said. At one point during the media briefing, which preceded the board's monthly meeting Wednesday, Chico turned to Buckney and directly asked: "Dr. Buckney, do you feel in any way picked on?" "Absolutely not," Buckney responded. Holding up charts, Chico also disputed the findings of a recent report by research professor G. Alfred Hess Jr. of Northwestern University that noted a "flattening out of the achievement trend in reading during the last two years." It was against the backdrop of this research that Daley publicly cracked the whip on Chico and Vallas to improve children's reading skills. Daley even assigned an administrator in his office to push for better reading scores, and he recently held a conference on the subject. Chico countered that 35.3 percent of high school students were reading at grade level in 2000--the highest level since 1990. In elementary schools, 36.4 percent of pupils could read at grade level in 2000--also the highest since 1990 and up from 26.5 percent in 1995. But in the last two years, elementary reading improvements have been smaller: from 34.3 percent in 1998 to 35.9 percent in 1999 to 36.4 percent in 2000. "You could make the claim this is flattening out or shrinking, but I don't think it is," Chico insisted. -- 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/>
