Saturday
January 26, 2008
Chicago Public Schools announced Thursday that it will be completely restaffing eight underperforming schools. This is a model they’ve tried before, particularly at Sherman School. This time, though, they’re attempting to cluster the schools, reforming high schools along with their elementary feeders simultaneously. This will mean that hundreds of teachers, along with seven principals, will lose their jobs and be replaced.
The big question underlying all the news coverage on this is, where is CPS going to get hundreds of amazing teachers to replace the fired teachers? Feeder programs like AUSL, which will run one of the clusters, don’t turn out enough teachers each year to fill all the slots. CPS knows it can’t just put any teachers in there. They’re hoping for lots of Golden Apple teachers (know any?) and National Board Certified teachers.
WBEZ’s Jay Fields knows people are going to be asking “are they going to have to cherry pick the good teachers” out of other schools? And even if they wanted to, how would they find them, and how would they entice them to leave stable positions for the chaos of a turnaround school? The Trib article does mention a $10,000 performance bonus. I wonder what other strategies they’re planning to try.
UPDATE:
Here’s a CNN video featuring Arne Duncan and CTU Board President Marilyn Stewart having it out. I also heard they were on Chicago Tonight a few nights ago, but can’t track down the video.
Labels: News
As a society we need to be pouring more dollars into finding outstanding prospective teachers and developing their potential and supporting their successful entry into classrooms and long term retention. There are many talented people who should be teachers, but the rewards just don’t equal the challenges, including lack of support to remain in teaching. Too many people with the right stuff choose other professions. Until and unless we fix our schools by staffing them with highly talented, well educated and committed individuals, we will continue to decline on international measures of student achievement. This is particularly critical in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math), because so much of our nation’s future well-being will depend on having enough well educated people in these critical areas.
