Saturday
January 19, 2008
In 2002, the Chicago Community Trust began a five year infusion of 50 million dollars into Chicago schools. On Thursday, they reported on the progress funded by their investment, especially in the areas of literacy, teacher and principal professional development, alternative school models, and support for parochial schools in underserved neighborhoods. The full report is available for download here.
They also announced Thursday that they plan to invest another 40-45 million dollars over the next five years.
Just for kicks: if you had 40 million dollars to spend to systematically improve Chicago schools (or your school system), what kinds of programs would you support?
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I would spend a lot of the money on professional development and materials for K-8 teachers on how to meaningfully incorporate science into their curricula in order to raise reading and math achievement. I would also update high school and 6-8 laboratory spaces. I have no idea how much could be done with $40 million, but I’d try to do as much as possible to increase achievement through increasing science literacy and access.
I completely agree with the previous comment except I would put all the money into professional development for staff and administration. I have been in lots of schools over the last forty years and I see materials purchased by the schools sitting unused because staff was never trained in its use.
I agree with the previous two comments. The U.S. is falling way behind in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and these areas need a a huge infusion of resources, both human and material, if we are to address this issue with any hope of success. I would put the money into professional development and into equipping our schools with adequate technology to insure that our kids become technologically literate, the equal of kids in China and India, for example. That can’t happen as long as there are classrooms of 36 students with a single outdated computer or teachers who aren’t tech savvy themselves. The MacArthur Foundation has invested $50,000,000 to learn how kids learn digitally . . . but so many of our kids aren’t even out of the starting gate.
