How far to go for quality education?
Posted under: Across the country, many school systems have designated “turnaround schools,” which means that the schools remain open but new staff is hired.
As of 2009, 12 Chicago Public Schools were designated turnaround schools: Charles S. Deneen Elementary School, as well as George W. Curtis Elementary School on Chicago’s South Side are two of them. Both schools are currently trying to fill multiple positions.
However, other schools aren’t so lucky and are forced to close because of low enrollment or because of consistently low levels of academic performance. Schools also closed because of underutilization of the school’s space, the conversion of schools to charter schools and a building’s poor physical condition. Since 2001, CPS has closed 44: Twenty-six closed because of low enrollment and poor academic standing.
For Andy Smarick, a visiting fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, school closures makes economic sense, as he compared ailing schools to other failing industries.
“The surprise and shame is that urban public education, unlike nearly every other industry, profession and field, has never developed a sensible solution to its continuous failures.” Smarick wrote in The Turnaround Fallacy.
“After undergoing improvement efforts, a struggling private firm that continues to lose money will close, get taken over, or go bankrupt. Unfit elected officials are voted out of office. The worst lawyers can be disbarred, and the most negligent doctors can lose their licenses. Urban school districts, at long last, need an equivalent.”
According to the study, “When Schools Close: Effects on Displaced Students in Chicago Public Schools,” authors found that after schools closed, displaced students enrolled in equally underperforming schools.”
In fact, 40 percent of displaced students enrolled in schools on probation and another 42 percent of students enrolled in schools that reported some of the lowest test scores. Only 6 percent enrolled in a higher academic-achieving school. However, those students’ commute averaged 3.5 miles.
Julia Gwynne and Marisa de la Torre, both analysts at the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, and authors of the study, found that keeping underperforming and underutilized are expensive to maintain and especially during CPS’s dire budget issues, resources could be better allocated to other areas of CPS.
And while parents, teachers and students protest the CPS building in droves and pack board of education meetings, Gwynne and de la Torre concluded that school closings have little affect on students’ academic performance, but addressed the merit of school closings.
Gwynne and de la Torres reported students did better when they attended a better school after their schools closed. “This also suggests that the success of a school closing policy crucially depends on a large supply of ‘better’ schools and on an intentional strategy to enroll displaced students in these schools.”
But for every school that closes, Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 initiative guarantees to establish 100 quality schools by the end of the year. Williams school closed after the 2001-2002 school year, but by 2003-2004, four new schools opened in the same building.
“Our knowledge base about improving failing schools is still staggeringly small,” Smarick wrote. “And exceptional urban schools are nearly always start-ups or consistently excellent schools, not drastically improved once-failing schools.”
Related Links
Chicago Public Schools | Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 | Consortium on School Chicago Research |
GEM: Grassroots Eduction Movement
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CPS School Closings Multimedia
Below is a map of the eight schools that will be closed, consolidated, phased out or turned around during the 2010-11 school year:
View CPS Closings For 2010-2011 School Year in a larger map
When McCorkle Elementary School closes in fall 2010, students will be sent to Beethoven Elementary School, which has a higher student-ratio but better test scores.
Related Links
Chicago Public Schools | Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 | Consortium on School Chicago Research |
GEM: Grassroots Eduction Movement
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CPS closings by the numbers
Related Links
Chicago Public Schools | Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 | Consortium on School Chicago Research |
GEM: Grassroots Eduction Movement
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Why close schools?
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CPS in the news
Chicago Public Schools announced closings, turnarounds, phase-outs, and consolidations, which continue to draw protests from teachers, students and families.
“They’ve been talking about this for a long time, but I was thinking because we’ve made improvements, I was thinking they would try to move students in there. I was shocked when [a district official] gave me the news.”
–Frederico Flores, Principal, Peabody Elementary School
Full story
“Our parents worked hard, our teachers worked hard, our students worked hard to improve our school. “So everyone’s going to band together and try to keep our school open.”
-Frederico Flores, Principal, Peabody Elementary School
Full story
“We need to build up, not tear down the people and places where our students need to learn.”
-Marilyn Stewart, President, Chicago Teachers Union
Full story
“Do not let this blood sit on your hands. When it comes to our children, you will be held accountable.”
-Wanda Hopkins, member, Parents United for Responsible Education
Full story
“For 30 years [CPS-backed reform initiatives] have not delivered on providing a first-class education for all children in Chicago no matter where they’re coming from. We’re saying the time is now.”
-Jackson Potter, steering committee, Caucus of Rank and File Educators
Full story
“Closures are essential but they have to be part of a bigger strategy. If we close Johnson Middle, do we have enough new schools that are starting, that are close to them and will fit them well?”
-Andy Smarick, distinguished visiting fellow at Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C., author of the Education Next article “The Turnaround Fallacy.”
Full story
“We’re trying rebuild every community school in Chicago. That’s what you have to do. If we don’t build community schools where people firmly believe that their child can get a quality education, then we’re gonna fail as a society. That is the commitment of rebuilding school after school. And that’s what we’re doing.”
–Mayor Richard M. Daley
Full story
Related Links
Chicago Public Schools | Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 | Consortium on School Chicago Research |
GEM: Grassroots Eduction Movement
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Asian Carp
Since this issue ran:
In May, an orchestrated fish kill found 100,000 pounds of dead fish and not one Asian carp. A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said the state will examine DNA evidence found in Chicago waters matched against the invasive species.
-June 3, 2010
They’ve become notorious for lurking in the Illinois River and for threatening to take over Lake Michigan, but what’s so fishy about Asian carp?
Three species of Asian carp threaten the Great Lakes: the bighead, silver and black carp. Asian carp can eat as much as 40 percent of their own body weight in food each day, according to Asiancarp.org, a Web site supported by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The fish also reproduce rapidly, and their overpopulation leads to habitat destruction and food resources’ depletion, both of which threaten native species and the Great Lakes ecosystem, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The smaller silver carp have been known to jump out of the water when disturbed by boats, injuring recreational boaters. Asian carp also prove a substantial economic threat, particularly to the fishing, shipping and transportation industries.
Who is involved in eradicating the carp from the river systems and preventing them from entering the Great Lakes? What methods have these organizations employed?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Illinois, the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been working together to devise and implement methods to catch these slippery fish. Environmental DNA testing, developed by the University of Notre Dame, helps to monitor the fishes’ whereabouts. Among the methods currently being used to try to catch the carp are: electric barriers, poison (Rotenone) and nets, according to the EPA.
How would the fish cross into Lake Michigan?
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a manmade waterway that connects the Mississippi River system and Lake Michigan, contains an electric barrier built to deter the carp from entering the lake, according to Asiancarp.org. The fish would only have to cross this barrier, or have someone toss a live carp into Lake Michigan (though Illinois state law prohibits the transportation of live Asian carp).
Explore The Asian Carp Issue
| Home | Topic Front | Asian Carp in the News |
| Asian Carp by the Numbers | Asian Carp Multimedia | What the Experts Are Saying |
What the experts are saying
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulates the trade in wild animals, but it’s also charged with promoting industries like aquaculture that are often responsible for introducing invasives. When three species of Asian carp escaped from catfish farms into the Mississippi River, Illinois petitioned the wildlife service to add Asian carp to the injurious wildlife list; aquaculturists lobbied against the listing. Three years later a decision is still pending.”
-Susan McGrath, “Attack of the Alien Invaders,” National Geographic
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/attack-alien-invaders/
‘The flooding is the biggest issue,’ said [Richard Lanyon, executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago]. ‘The problem is that it is not fully understood if these carp will damage the ecology of the Great Lakes, and I think it’s a big stretch that it will adversely affect the lake.’”
-Leslie Streicher, “Carp threaten Chicago shipping: Illinois politicians unite over lawsuit,” Medill News Service
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=153370
“There’s no question this ugly, stinky fish has an image problem in the United States. But so many varieties of carp, including the feared Asian carp, have been popular in ethnic cuisines for so long that some can’t help but see Illinois’ current crisis as the culinary opportunity of a lifetime.”
-Joel Hood, “Turning Asian carp from a menace into dinner,” Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/16/nation/la-na-asian-carp16-2010jan16
“They are living missiles, and that’s not trivial,” says David Lodge, director of Notre Dame’s Center for Aquatic Conservation.
-Bryan Walsh, “Asian Carp in the Great Lakes? This means war!,” Time
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962108,00.html#ixzz0kfV9JS1L
“The lakes can’t heal themselves. The native species can’t defend themselves,” committee chair Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said. “It’s us who are the custodians and can take these actions.”
-Joel Hood, “Illinois to step up fight against Asian carp,” Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-0210-asian-carp-hearing-20100209,0,7450351.story
“The debate over how best to stop the carp has intensified along with the invasive fish’s seemingly irresistible progress toward Lake Michigan. Illinois has battled other Great Lakes states in a war of words about the costs and risks associated with Asian carp.”
-David Greising and Daniel Libit, “Carp solution could provide financial benefits,” New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/us/07cncimpact.html
“When a lot of people say, ‘The game is over’ when it comes to Asian carp getting into the Great Lakes, I don’t think so,” said Michael Hoff, an aquatic invasive species expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It’s a different game we play. But it’s not over.”
-Joel Hood, “Scientists trying to fish out Asian carp from Great Lakes,” Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-great-lakes-pest25-2010mar25,0,1352253.story
“It will take decades for any signs of the Asian carp invasion to show,” said Duane Chapman, a research fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Five to 10 years from now we won’t be able to find them in the lakes and we’ll think we overreacted to the threat. Then 20 years after that the shoe will drop.”
-Leslie Streicher, “Illinois officials strategize unified effort to fight lake invasion of carp,” Medill News Service
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=154284
“Like an aquatic pig, it eats by snuffling among the roots of water plants, sending up clouds of river muck that make it difficult for other fish to find food. Biologists call them ecosystem engineers for this tendency to take an underwater garden and leave it a muddy hog wallow. Fishermen attract them the way you might gather your swine, by scattering a handful of canned corn. All this has earned them an unwholesome reputation.”
-Ryan Chew, “Lawyers, carp and money,” Chicago Reader
http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/asian-carp-great-lakes-lawsuit-supreme-court/Content?oid=1572160&showFullText=true
Explore The Asian Carp Issue
| Home | Topic Front | Asian Carp in the News |
| Asian Carp by the Numbers | Asian Carp Multimedia | What the Experts Are Saying |
Asian Carp By the Numbers
Black Carp, Grass Carp, Silver Carp, Bighead Carp by the Numbers
| $16 billion | worth of goods transported annually to, from and through Illinois by river barge |
|---|---|
| $7 billion | fishery could be economically affected by Asian carp infiltrating into the Great Lakes |
| $4.7 billion (over 20 years) | could be lost by the local economy if the locks are closed, according to a study commissioned by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce |
| $1.4 billion (over 20 years) | could be lost by the local economy if the locks are closed, according to an earlier study commissioned Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox |
| $100 million | invested in the past 10 years on infrastructural improvements along the Chicago River by the city and the Chicago Park District |
| 19 million tons | commodities moved through the O’Brien, Chicago and Lockport locks combined in 2008 |
| 16.9 million tons | commodities moved through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 2007 |
| $1.8 million | the state of Illinois’ contribution to the studying and testing of the electric barrier system |
| 700-800 | security checks per month performed along the lakefront, the Chicago and Calumet Rivers and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal by the Chicago Police Department’s Marine Operations, as part of its homeland securities responsibilities |
| 81 miles | total length of waterways in the city of Chicago |
| 40-50 pounds | average weight of an Asian carp |
| 37 | bridges over Chicago’s inland waterways can be raised |
| 27 miles | length of lakefront within the city of Chicago |
| 7 | species of carp native to Asia have been introduced into the U.S. |
| 6 | states, including Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania, are suing Illinois to force the closure of the locks |
| 3 | defendants, the state of Illinois, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fighting against the suit led by Michigan |
| 3 | locks on the waterway, controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, allow for navigation: the Lockport Powerhouse and Lock, the O’Brien Lock and Dam, and the lock at the Chicago River Controlling Works |
| 3 | species of Asian carp considered invasive and a threat to the Great Lakes |
| 0 | carp have been found in the Great Lakes to date |
Explore The Asian Carp Issue
| Home | Topic Front | Asian Carp in the News |
| Asian Carp by the Numbers | Asian Carp Multimedia | What the Experts Are Saying |
