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,ART-50430,FF.html ---Forwarded article---------------- Despite reforms, city's high schools flailing, study says By Michael Martinez<BR>and Ray Quintanilla Chicago's ailing public high schools have shown "little significant change" despite almost six years of intensive reform, a new study said Friday. The study, which school officials had paid for but previously refused to release, said that more than half the city's 75 high schools still had problems with weak teachers and that reform hadn't bolstered prospects for better learning. Despite $8 million in training, most teachers in most city high schools teach "very shallowly," the report said. The teaching is so poor that few students really learn. Researchers found that 48 percent of teachers have such poor skills that they reach just five or fewer students per class, leaving perhaps 20 or more students to struggle on their own. The study also suggests that some increases in high school test scores don't reflect better high school teaching but are the result of true improvements that reformers have achieved in elementary grades. In response, schools chief Paul Vallas highlighted that the study said high schools have better test scores overall and focus more on learning. Vallas did acknowledge some shortcomings but blamed them largely on teachers who resist reform. The $1.8 million study was commissioned by the Chicago Board of Education and completed by Northwestern University researchers led by professor G. Alfred Hess Jr. It examined 800 classrooms in 39 high schools on academic probation from 1997 to 2000 and evaluated the effectiveness of Chicago's efforts to overhaul its beleaguered high schools. The study was released Friday during a Consortium on Chicago School Research conference on the city's high school reform efforts. Previously, Vallas had refused to release contents of the study, parts of which were privately circulated among educators. The study comes on the heels of Mayor Richard Daley's criticism that his schools team needs to devise more aggressive and unconventional initiatives to improve students' reading scores, which are beginning to flatten after several years of improvement. The report also indicated the public schools had made improvement. Reading and math scores have increased among the 95,000 high school students. But Hess cited important shortcomings in the city's multimillion-dollar effort to restructure high schools and train teachers in the worst schools. Currently, only about a third of the city's high school students can read at grade level. Further, about 41 percent of high school students drop out by their senior year. "The district has made a huge effort. The problem isn't because the district hasn't tried," Hess said. "The issue is that the problem is tougher than we thought it was, and we have to find more intense ways of improving what we've been doing." Vallas said he felt the study was "generally pretty positive." He noted the study found that high schools now focus more on student learning and less on warehousing students and managing their behavior. "Sure there are areas of concern," Vallas said. "But if you look at it overall, it's pretty good. Academic achievement has improved significantly in reading and math since 1996." He added, "It points out that we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. There is still a lot of resistance to high school restructuring [from teachers]. I'd say that there are about a third of teachers who need a bigger push." Researchers found three major problems among the system's weaker high school teachers. Some teachers didn't know their subject matter very well. Some didn't know how to get the material across to their students. And others didn't believe their students were capable of learning the material. "That's the bigger problem from my perspective," Hess said. "These teachers typically have 20 years of teaching kids ... and they have support for this belief." Hess said that even though each of the 39 probation high schools spent $100,000 a year on teacher training for two or more years, the support "wasn't enough to really challenge the beliefs of these teachers." The $100,000 a year bought "an external partner," or consultant, who typically sent one graduate student or retired principal to work full time at training up to 100 or more teachers in a school, Hess said. "The [school board's initiative] Design for High Schools envisioned a significant effort to change teacher behaviors, both pedagogically and in their relationships with their students. However, as large as the effort was, it did not prove to be intensive enough," the study said. The mayor and Vallas have touted several programs to restructure high schools from chaotic, monolithic institutions into smaller schools. But the study painted a different picture. Vallas promised to create "junior academies" for freshmen and sophomores so freshmen could better know their teachers and counselors. But the study said only seven of the 39 high schools created them. School officials said they would impose a special 40-minute advisory period once a week so teachers could counsel students on social development and any personal or family problems—regarded as a critical service in a big, urban district. But those advisory periods were "diluted" into a division, which is typically a period in which students socialize and attendance is taken. Hess blamed the central office for neglecting the initiative. "It hasn't gotten much attention in the central office," he said. Moreover, only 10 high schools ever implemented a true "small school," with low enrollment and small class sizes, Hess said. "The plan called for a radical restructuring of the schools, and what we have to report is that there was only a very modest restructuring in a third to half of the schools," Hess said. -- 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/>
