Parent to two children in a neighborhood school. Not part of a school system, teachers' union, charter, Sacks, or anything, really.
Joined October 2019
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I shouldn't criticize others for having no CPS School Closing framework if I don't propose anything myself. So here's my first draft school closing framework...
1/x
CPS Parent retweeted
Yesterday I was in a 4th grade classroom where the kids were struggling to learn long division. A lot the kids couldn't remember how to even start to solve the problem. I quietly asked the new-to-math teacher if she was aware of DMSB-- Dad, Mother, Sister brother. It's an easy way to remember the steps: Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring down.
Today I got a text from her that they tried it and it really helped a lot. What a way to start my day!
6) The possibility of saving a school by chartering it should be considered. All else equal, CPS spends more per student than charters do. So just before closing a school, charter operators should be asked if they'd like to rescue the school instead. Spend less, stays open.
7) How'd I do with this list of criteria for school consolidation? Other ideas?
@halwoods do you all have anything on this?
@beckyvevea have you seen anyone else take a stab at this?
5) Community Involvement: nobody is going to want to have their nearest school closed. Involving community isn't going to convince them to change their opinion so don't waste your time. Instead focus on community involvement of the receiving school, to make the transition better.
4b) Principle: We cannot conflate other issues (e.g., cluster vs inclusion, state-mandated transportation) with school closing decisions. If a school with a cluster is closing, that whole cluster needs to be moved to the receiving school.
4a) Principle: If a school closing affects students with disabilities more than students without, the school shouldn't close. Families of students with disabilities have enough to worry about, and these students generally have more challenges with change.
4) Students with disabilities - how might they be affected by school closings and what should we consider? CPS pays a lot more now than in the past to serve a growing number of students w disabilities and yet services still are under-provided
3) Forecasts of growth and shrinking neighborhoods should be made. We need a good forecast of how many likely-to-enroll students will be in each neighborhood 10 years from now to inform which schools should or should not stay open today.
4/x
2) School quality needs to be considered when deciding which schools to close. The student and parent satisfaction metrics. The percent reading and math proficiency. But adjust those metrics to take into account % low income. Need one score that adjusts for this.
4/x
1c) English learners need to be considered. Can't just close a school with Spanish language classes into a school without Spanish language classes, as you don't realize cost csavings.
1b) Real staff savings needs to be included especially in elementary school closing decisions. Consider two nearby schools with typical class sizes of 10-15. That's big savings. But 15-20 class sizes, not so much as class size would get too big.
1a) Nearby school needs to be defined. 0.5 miles for elementary; 1.5 miles for high school (since hs kids can take the CTA alone whereas third graders cannot).
3/x
1) Only close a school if a nearby school has building capacity to take in all students. Don't close 1 school into 3 as that breaks up friendships, family carpools/walkpools/after-school shared care, & relationships w social workers who might be able to transfer.
2/x
Who would have thought that Hilario Dominguez would be the first candidate to list possible school closures?
I checked it out. His framework was hardly robust: he simply listed all schools with enrollment <250 and said they might close.
1/2
I'm the only candidate on that stage who has made a firm commitment not to close schools.
We know which neighborhoods school closings hit, because we've lived through them.
Closings are harmful to our Black and Brown communities, and they don't work. They don't save money and they don't improve academics. Closing schools is a failure on our city’s families, students, and neighborhoods.
That's why we built a tracker so you can see if your neighborhood school is at risk. Check it out at hilarioforcps.com
Punch #124 on November 3rd.
An educator running for school board responds.
My kids' experience w youtube shorts in class is:
1) All teachers have the tech that lets them see all kids' chromebook screens at once
2) Some don't allow youtube at all. Some allow it after homework is done. Some just allow it.
CPS Parent retweeted
I'm listening to the Sold a Story podcast season two, which is on math education in the US, and it is enough to give me an aneurysm, seriously. The season opens with a bunch of little kids' voices doing very basic algebra, and you learn later that these are poor Black four-year-olds, and all of them are getting the problems correct. Oh, and they're super engaged.
Apparently, there was a group that figured out you can have kids go very fast in math if you just did direct instruction. But somehow, culturally, this was deemed "too hard" and too much of a "pressure cooker" for little kids.
It's pretty funny because it's not like there was any high-stakes testing or anything. It literally was just teaching the kids instead of "letting them discover it themselves."
I did a master's in education, and there was a lot of content in the program about equity, and how socioeconomic class, parental habits and attitudes, and level of education really shape a kid's academic achievement. It's just infuriating to hear that when they discovered a teaching method that works in spite of these disadvantages, it was thrown out as being, I guess, somehow not "fun" enough. It's difficult to believe that they didn't actually have ulterior motives.
scary.
NEW: Last school year, a 7th grader viewed 4,700 YouTube videos during class.
An 8th grader viewed 5,700 videos in class.
A 2nd grader viewed ~500 in just 2 months.
Less than 5% were educational.
@nbcnews analyzed the YouTube watch histories of students from across the country. My new story shows how far some take it on their school laptops and iPads -->
nbcnews.com/specials/hooked-…
