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: Cayata Dixon Return e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Article URL: http://chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-52043,FF.html ---Forwarded article---------------- School reform set to begin more difficult 2nd chapter By Ray Quintanilla<BR> and Gary Washburn Six years after taking control of Chicago's public schools, Mayor Richard Daley can say test scores are up, dozens of new school buildings are open, and student attendance and graduation rates are higher. But progress in the schools has slowed of late, and Daley also would have to acknowledge these facts: Standardized test scores are flat or even dropping, only one-third of all students can read at grade level, two out of every five students drop out by their senior year and neighborhood schools remain unattractive to middle-class families. With those mixed results, the first chapter of Daley's reform of public schools ended last week with the surprise resignation of Gery Chico, the Board of Education president, and the election of a new, more adversarial president of the Chicago Teachers Union. With the schools' problems once again squarely on his shoulders, Daley must now find a way to lead the system to the next level of reform. Yet, anything easy to fix has been fixed, and what remains are the most difficult, intractable problems of the nation's third-largest school district. And the election Friday of a new head of the Chicago Teachers Union likely signals a less harmonious relationship between teachers and the central office. New union president Deborah Lynch-Walsh implied during her campaign that the current union leadership had sold out its members to the mayor, whose schools team also failed to respect teachers as professionals. Daley denied those accusations Saturday, adding that he expected to continue a productive relationship with the union. "The teachers union has never been in the pocket of any mayor," he said. "I treat teachers with the utmost respect, in all of my speeches and in my conduct about teachers." To these matters, add other pressing issues: The future of schools chief Paul Vallas, the other half of Daley's hand-picked schools team. Finding $3 billion more for badly needed renovations and expansions to ease crowded classrooms and repair school buildings across Chicago. And searching for an answer to why standardized test scores among 3rd graders remained flat this year, even though this group of children, unlike pupils before them, have enjoyed more intensive instruction ever since kindergarten. A day after he resigned, Chico said the public has come to expect student performance on standardized tests in reading and math to increase each year. That pressure has only intensified in recent years. "People want improvement, and they expect it now," Chico said. "Those expectations are new. It's going to be there for the next person who becomes chairman." What Chicago's next signature reforms will be—actions that might capture the nation's attention like its ban on social promotions—is still unclear. Asked Saturday about his vision for reform's next phase, Daley said only that the system will continue with initiatives begun in 1995. "We built on that, and we're going to rebuild it in terms of getting more and more parents and loved ones involved in their child's education," he said during Memorial Day ceremonies in Grant Park. "We have to do more on that, and, of course, reading is the key to education." Whatever the strategy, one Daley staffer said the mayor will never accept the deep-seated socioeconomic problems that afflict a large percentage of public school students as an excuse that children can't learn or improve. City Hall sources said a short list of candidates to succeed Chico is expected within the next few days. On Friday, staffers on the fifth floor of City Hall were vetting names, and the mayor has said he plans to make a selection in roughly a week. "That's not as daunting a task as it might seem," said a member of Daley's staff. There are a number of competent people serving on boards of other public agencies who could serve, the staffer said, "and so many people have an interest in education and might want to jump in and get in the mix." One likely prospect to make the short list is Valerie Jarrett, a former Daley administration official who is chairman of the Chicago Transit Authority. Her aides said Jarrett was out of town Friday. Aides to Daley said the mayor did not seek Chico's resignation. But it was clear Daley believed it was time for Chico to move on after six years at the helm. As for Vallas, the mayor's aides say there's no rush to make a change. There's concern that it would not be wise to replace both architects of school reform at the same time. But Vallas must sign on to a new effort to move school performance from its present plateau, Daley's aides say. "Paul needs to be sure whatever he decides, it accomplishes what the mayor is looking for, which is more movement forward," one aide said. If Vallas is confident that he, along with a new chairman, can achieve that, "then everything is fine." "Paul and Gery have brought them to this point, and the mayor wants to take it to the next step," said a senior Daley aide. "If people who are there can think differently and make changes that achieve that, fine." Daley's frustration with the schools "is evident," said Ald. Ricardo Mu�oz (22nd), a member of the City Council Education Committee who publicly traded barbs Wednesday with Vallas over whether a new high school will be built in Little Village. "Once you have been [at the School Board] you start to get comfortable.... I think the mayor is on the right track in shaking up the status quo in order to increase scores," Mu�oz said. The first five years of school reform were marked by numerous blockbuster initiatives, including an end to social promotion, a reliance on standardized tests to measure academic performance, and mandatory summer school for thousands of underachieving children. But in the view of some school-reform watchers, the latest central office initiatives have lacked creativity and failed to inspire parents, two important ingredients that were the hallmark of the early years of reform. Some suggest Vallas' latest proposal to have 200 of the system's worst schools use only certain curriculum models to improve learning is an old idea. "We need to be upgrading a commitment to training our new and existing teachers," said Andrew Wade, executive director of the Chicago School Leadership Cooperative, an umbrella group for many of the city's local school councils. "You can't just give a teacher a script and some students and then expect test scores to climb." After posting steady gains in recent years, student test scores dipped this spring in high school reading and elementary school math, erasing two years of improvement. Elementary school reading, however, continued to climb. But the results for 3rd grade, where standardized testing begins, were considered a disappointment, school officials said privately. This was the latest group of 3rd graders to be tested who had all the benefits of costly early childhood programs, including mandatory summer school and other efforts, designed to bolster reading and math. "It was a shock," one senior aide to Vallas said. "It's going to take a lot of time to find some answers." Barbara Radner, director of DePaul University's Center for Urban Education, and a close observer of school reform, said that despite six years of reform, 9th graders are still arriving in high school classrooms with severe reading problems. "It sounds silly," she said. "But if you don't know how to read a textbook, then you need to be taught it." Tribune education reporter Michael Martinez contributed to this report. ---------------------------------------------------- This is the CPS Mathematics Teacher Discussion 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/>
