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“I’m not satisfied,” Jackson said of the district’s performance. “I like the incremental growth, but we need to see exponential growth, particularly among our African-American male and Latino male students, if we’re going to meet the goals we’ve outlined in our vision.”RELATED: Does public education ruin Black boys?
Her comments followed a stirring 20-minute speech Thursday afternoon to a gathering of business and civic leaders organized by the City Club of Chicago. In the speech, Jackson highlighted district investments in new programs and curriculum at neighborhood schools, a renewed focus on early career and college credentials, commitments to hiring more school support staff, and universal Pre-K expansion as ways to “level the playing field.”
Asked after the speech about the specific approaches the district is taking to close racial and gender disparities in graduation rates, Jackson said new attention to what students are being taught would be key.
“I think in order to get to the 90 percent graduation rate that we’ve outlined in our vision, we have to have strong curriculum and academic programs in our schools, which is why we’re making a commitment around more IB and STEM programs, and a quality curriculum in every school,” she said. “I think by coupling the social emotional support with academic support, we’re going to get there.”
CTU rejects latest CPS offer https://t.co/2E1aLFrxit— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) August 26, 2019
A smaller percentage of Chicago high school students dropped out last year than ever before, the city announced Thursday.
The all-time low 6% dropout rate touted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson happened during the 2018-19 school year, under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. Students last year dropped out of school at almost half the rate they did in 2011.
“Through expanding access to rigorous academic programs, increasing staffing to support student needs and magnifying our focus on equity, social and emotional learning and restorative justice, CPS is keeping more students in the classroom year after year and creating strong, student-centered schools in every neighborhood across the city,” Jackson said in a press release.
Lightfoot attributed the lower rates — down .4% from last year’s 6.4% — to teachers and staff members “transforming the lives of our young people.”
But a WBEZ analysis found some troubling trends behind those improved numbers. Significantly fewer black boys — 2,600 fewer — are starting as freshmen now than five years ago. And an increasing number of graduates are getting their degrees from alternative second-chance schools, which are less demanding than traditional schools, but count toward the graduation rate.So as far as the lower dropout rate, how many of them are Black males?
Finally, there is an increase in the number of black boys who transfer out or die after starting as freshman in CPS. Black male high school students die at a higher rate than any other student racial and gender demographic group, according to CPS data.
After accounting for all these factors, just 48 percent boys at CPS ultimately earned a diploma from a traditional or charter Chicago high school in 2018. That’s only a six percentage point improvement from five years ago.
Experts say school district officials should be paying attention to trends behind the numbers.
Keisha Davis-Johnson is executive director of the Greater West Town Community Development Project, which runs an alternative school and a jobs training program that mostly serves men. She sees no reason to celebrate.
“We have a lot of work to do with our young people,” Davis-Johnson said.
She said she still sees many young men who have gone to under-resourced elementary schools, who struggle with the basics and feel disconnected from school.
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| The Chicago Neighborhoods |
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson heralded the new mayor’s first proposed budget for the school district earlier this month with great fanfare. But a WBEZ analysis shows the good news comes with some caveats, and it includes some bad news.
The public can weigh in on the $7.7 billion budget at two hearings — one at 4 p.m. and the other at 6:30 p.m. — on Tuesday at CPS headquarters, 42 W. Madison St.
Then, on Thursday, there will be three simultaneous hearings at 6 p.m. on the money CPS wants to use to repair schools and invest in early childhood programs. The hearings are at Morgan Park High School, 1744 W. Pryor Ave; Whitney Young High School, 211 S. Laflin St; and Amundsen High School, 5110 N. Damen Ave.
This is the stark reality in Chicago Public Schools. Last school year, almost a third of 520 district-run schools — 152 — had at least one regular education or special education teacher position open all year long, a WBEZ analysis shows.Really?
The problem is most acute at schools serving low-income and black students. They are twice as likely as all other schools to have a yearlong teacher vacancy. Chicago’s 28 schools with majority white student populations had no yearlong vacancies.
And making matters worse CPS also has a severe substitute teacher shortage, a WBEZ analysis shows. At 62 schools, half the time a teacher was absent no substitute showed up.
Chicago Public School officials acknowledge the problems filling substitute requests and teacher vacancies. They also note that just because there’s a vacancy doesn’t mean students miss instruction. Principals will usually make sure students get some work and they will do their best to work with the teachers they have, officials say.What's going on with this?
But students, parents, teachers and community organizers tell stories of students not having math, English, gym, Spanish or special education support for months at a time, if not an entire year.
One parent, who wanted to remain anonymous, said when her child’s school couldn’t fill one of two sixth-grade teacher positions, the one teacher took on all 57 students in that grade.
Often, when there is a long-term vacancy, students get a parade of substitutes who might give them worksheets or worse — spend time sitting in an auditorium without any school work to do.
School district leaders constantly say they want to make the school district more equitable. And nothing gets to the heart of the district’s inequities more than the reality that some schools struggle securing teachers while others are fully staffed, said Matt Lyons, CPS' chief talent officer.This is an article that is worth your time. What can be done about this teacher shortage?
But he said this is an outgrowth of systemic and societal issues that can’t be fixed quickly. Over the past few years, the school district has started one program that helps 60 struggling schools hire teachers and another that pays extra money to subs willing to work in 75 hard-to-staff schools. It also plans to expand a program that offers alternative teaching degrees in areas like special education.
Lyons said these programs are starting to work, but acknowledges there is a long way to go.
