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-52665,FF.html ---Forwarded article---------------- Other cities' programs hold answers By Stephanie Banchero <br>and Michael Martinez As Arne Duncan and Michael W. Scott take the helm of the Chicago Public Schools, they must find a way to energize a stalled reform movement and satisfy an impatient mayor who is calling for fresh and innovative ideas. For six years, Chicago Public Schools produced many of the boldest urban education reforms. But elsewhere, too, teachers and administrators have been honing cutting-edge programs that might find their way into Chapter 2 of Chicago's school reform: In Houston, kindergarten pupils are steered into summer school if they don't pass a test to show they are learning to read. In New York, a school district spends 9 percent of its budget on teacher training. In Sacramento, teacher "coaches" roam schools to improve the quality of instruction. Education experts across the country say that improving schools here will take a commitment to dig into the nitty-gritty, if not highly technical, aspects of how students learn and whether teachers are adequately trained -- a prospect that could cost millions. "What a lot of people say about Chicago reform is that they spent the last five years tightening up the system, making sure teachers were teaching something, and basically, getting the fuzz out," said Kati Haycock, executive director of Education Trust, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "To go to the next level will require a much deeper effort to reshape instruction and a serious investment in teachers." Education experts inevitably point to Houston when they talk finding ways to sustain improvement in urban public schools. There, former schools Supt. Rod Paige, now the U.S. secretary of education, ushered in radical reforms that boosted test scores and significantly closed the achievement gap between African-American and white students. Chicago and Houston public schools are alike in many ways, with similar poverty rates, minority enrollment and pupil-teacher ratios. But while Chicago's reform movement has stalled, Houston's is still producing dramatic results. In a recent report issued by Council of the Great City Schools, Houston was one of only a handful of the 55 urban school districts that outpaced overall state gains on standardized tests. Chicago Public Schools, on the other hand, did not beat out the overall Illinois gains between 1999 and 2000 in any of the state tests given, according to the report. At the center of Houston's reform effort is a literacy program that focuses on reaching children at an early age and training teachers on reading instruction. The program requires every elementary school teacher in the district to spend a full week in intensive literacy instruction training, which costs the district more than $5 million. The program, which aims to get pupils reading on track by the end of 1st grade, added a $3.2 million summer school component last year. Kindergartners who fail a word identification exam at the end of the school year are encouraged to attend the six-hour-a day summer school reading program for five weeks. Last week, on a scorching hot summer day in northern Houston, three 6-year-olds huddled over colorful storybooks, boisterously making their way through, "I'm a Little Teapot" and "Hickory Dickory Dock." Focusing on words, sounds The youngsters spent the next six hours reading, writing and listening to words and sounds. Though they left the room only for a lunch of sloppy Joes, the children never lost focus and rarely became agitated or tired. In the center of the room, teacher Ronnie Tate sat shin to knee with 6-year-old Valyncia Cooper -- who did not pass the oral word test at the end of kindergarten -- and coaxed the tiny child into correctly sounding out "this" and "them." "I want to read. That's why I'm here," Valyncia said. Houston school officials and Valyncia's mom, Wanda Cooper, hope the reading program, with its small class size, will help get the struggling but precocious child on track. "She loves to read and I don't want her to fall behind," Cooper said. "With summer school, I think she'll be ready for 1st grade." Hilda Gentry, head of the Houston Independent School District reading department, said the literacy initiative works because it started with a solid premise. "Research has shown that you've got to set a reading foundation early if you want students, especially disadvantaged kids, to be proficient readers in 3rd grade," Gentry said. "And research has shown that you need a strong curricula and solid teacher training if you want the reading program to work. We think we have both." Houston and other cities also are increasing their focus on teacher training. Across the country, administrators and union leaders say that the best teacher professional development programs emphasize a long-term commitment, intensive monitoring of teachers' practices in the classroom and, of course, money. A recent report said Chicago's professional development programs remain "a mixed bag" in which teacher training is "largely a fragmented and individualistic activity." Deborah Lynch-Walsh, Chicago Teachers Union president-elect, said the city's teacher professional development needs to be overhauled. "There's been too much money spent on one-shot workshops that really don't translate to practice in the classroom," she said. "We need to invest in our teaching force, and we need to have a culture of support and best practices, and to do it right, it does take considerable resources." Among other teacher training models cited by experts is one in New York City Public Schools' District 2, which spends about 9 percent of its budget on teacher professional development. The district covers the Manhattan's east side, including Chelsea and Chinatown. Overall, 48 percent of the district's students in 43 schools live in poverty. Principals, teachers and roving staff developers were all given intensive training in literacy instruction, said Aminda Gentile, director of the United Federation of Teachers' Teacher Center in New York City. Teacher prep time critical For example, teachers attend two- to three-week summer training sessions, four hours a day. During school, they get one prep period a day -- which some regard as critical to organized teaching. Additionally, once a week, teachers at each grade level gather to discuss what works and what does not, Gentile said. Also, staff developers work full time in one school for three months, and principals allow some of their faculty to spend a day in an exemplary school to improve their skills. Eight years later, reading scores have improved. "When we started to look at the new standards, it wasn't that teachers weren't doing good things. It just wasn't done in a comprehensive way. It takes time to internalize what it is and what it means for instruction," Gentile said. The Sacramento City Unified School District trained 40 of its best teachers over 25 days to become "coaches" who now work full time in 50 schools at a cost of $2.5 million a year. Considering that the Chicago system is more than 8 times larger than Sacramento's, that cost would equate to $21.7 million for Chicago. In Sacramento, 1st-grade reading scores almost doubled the past two years on state exams and 2nd-grade reading scores saw a 43 percent jump, said Sacramento Supt. Jim Sweeney said. Sweeney said that his plan was comprehensive, implemented thoroughly and monitored constantly. "Some people think, 'Oh, yeah, let's go out there and do the training.' No. It's not enough. The training is important. But you need to go out and monitor what's going on and provide the support and help and more training and correction and feedback. It's a whole process." Tribune staff reporter Ray Quintanilla 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/>
