Why Can't Chicago Shape Up its Public Schools? (Humboldt: neighborhood, magnet school)

[cubssoxfan]

True, but do you want your child to be the pioneer not knowing if they are getting the best education they can? Are the changes going to be instant and benefit and provide what your child needs or will it help the grade after or 2 grades after? You only get one chance with no do overs!

[Drover]

Originally Posted by citylove101

If parents are to blame for the state of the Chicago schools it is the middle-class parents not the poor ones. Judging from my friends and family here, anytime they have two nickels to rub together they send their children to private or Catholic schools. The big diffence I see in Chicago and , say, Boston, Chicago or New York, is that in those cities the middle-class is FAR more invested in the success of the public schools than is the middle class (Black, white and Hispanic) in Chicago. And the pressure of the middle-class is ultimately what forces politicians to improve schools. Note: I'm saying that this middle-class investment is a matter of degree, not of kind, cause there are clearly still lousy schools in Boston, NYC, and DC, and good ones in Chitown.

The middle-class, not the poor, have the power to bring about change and until they get on the case--and it seem they do so relatively less often in Chicago--the schools with continue to suffer. The public's power won't save every school and turn a street corner thug into a Rhodes Scholar, but they can move the mountain a lot farther than they've done already.

It takes work, and diligence and yes, a certain amount of arrogance to think that one can change a school, but if not us, who, and if not now, when?

Right, it's the parents' fault for not wanting to send their kids to crap-ass schools. I get what you're saying, but my kids aren't going to be part of a social experiment at the expense of their education.

[illstate89]

It's not ALL the parent's fault and it's not ALL the teacher's fault either... NOTHING will happen ever, spending more money on this ****, in any city, is ridiculous simply because it's not going to work. They build these ultra nice new buildings in the ghetto with all this new technology for half of it to be stolen and the other half to be destroyed in 2 years. 90% OF THESE KIDS DO NOT WANT TO LEARN OR GO TO SCHOOL!!!!!!! And it really sucks for the 10% that do, because they're in classes with all the kids who cause disruptions and fights and they don't get a good education. And I know that there are kids of every race that cause disruptions and rebel and don't want to learn... Face the facts tho compare test scores in south side neighborhoods with test scores in north side neighborhoods... compare truancy, drop out and grad rates and see for yourself. I mean obviously the test scores aren't GREAT in any high school really but still look at the difference. It's all about the surroundings and what type of environment these kids grow up in. That's just my opinion and btw this applies to every city not just chicago.

[Humboldt1]

Race is a factor, like it or not. Ultimately, it comes down to values taught at home. Good parents are more likely to have good kids than bad parents, though there are exceptions.

[outofmyelement]

Originally Posted by illstate89

90% OF THESE KIDS DO NOT WANT TO LEARN OR GO TO SCHOOL!!!!!!!

If you talk to a teacher they always say the saddest part is watching the frustration of the few kids who want to learn. If we had any sense of fairness we would get these kids into their own classroom. We live in a country with a federal education budget allocating 32% of the money to special ed and 0.02% (as in, 2 cents per hundred dollars) to gifted students. Does this seem particularly healthy for our economic/creative/scientific future? The goal should be to teach each child to the best of their capability, not to ensure everyone is equal.

[citylove101]

"Are the changes going to be instant and benefit and provide what your child needs or will it help the grade after or 2 grades after? You only get one chance with no do overs!"

Which is why people need to start coming together about their local schools

a) whether they have kids or not
b) or when their kids are pre-school age

yes, it does take time. I've been involved in the start-up of two (non-charter) schools in NYC, one successful and one that never came to fruition. i am nobody special. not well-connected or rich or anything. but i did find other parents--and parents-to-be-- who felt the same need and we did the reserach, contacted experts, enlisted local pols to help, took time off from work to meet with Dept of Ed officials, and a lot of other things that poor folks simply don't have the time, energy resoruces, or know-how to do.

It takes time. It's not always successful. But IMHO, there is no other real alternative. If you leave school improvement up to the bureaucrats it will always take longer, be harder, and, I think, have less of a chance of lasting success. Just my experience.

[tomcho]

Originally Posted by outofmyelement

If you talk to a teacher they always say the saddest part is watching the frustration of the few kids who want to learn. If we had any sense of fairness we would get these kids into their own classroom. We live in a country with a federal education budget allocating 32% of the money to special ed and 0.02% (as in, 2 cents per hundred dollars) to gifted students. Does this seem particularly healthy for our economic/creative/scientific future? The goal should be to teach each child to the best of their capability, not to ensure everyone is equal.

The great dichotomy in this country. We should guarantee equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. This fact seems to be lost on certain people.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by Drover

Right, it's the parents' fault for not wanting to send their kids to crap-ass schools. I get what you're saying, but my kids aren't going to be part of a social experiment at the expense of their education.

And if they participated in the experiment and school scores improved, they'd get blasted for causing gentrification because property values would go up. It's amazing, the responsibilities we put on certain groups. Be successful, but not too successful, lol!

There definitely needs to be more middle and upper middle class kids in our urban schools (not just magnets), that much I agree with. But I think there has to be an incentive for them to be there. Expanded gifted and talented programs are one way to do it -- programs that can offer them a similar educational quality and experience to that offered by private and charter schools.

One major problem I've noted is that administrations of struggling schools tend to focus all efforts on the lowest performing kids. I understand this, and they need the most help, but more often than not, it fails because they're applying the wrong model. Then in the process, they ignoring the kids of the parents who value education. So they move, or send their kids to private schools, and overall school scores go down even further. Then the school gets black listed by education minded parents and the hope for a quality education there vanishes.

[MannheimMadman]

Maybe I'm just too thick, but if the top magnet high schools (and elementary schools) in Chicago have super low acceptance rates, and are turning down perfectly excellent candidates...

..why aren't we working on opening or changing into more magnet schools? There is obviously demand for it..so why not supply it?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

Maybe I'm just too thick, but if the top magnet high schools (and elementary schools) in Chicago have super low acceptance rates, and are turning down perfectly excellent candidates...

..why aren't we working on opening or changing into more magnet schools? There is obviously demand for it..so why not supply it?

Let's be frank about what would happen if there were enough magnet schools to meet the demand: they would be disproportionately white. And that would create a thorny political issue that nobody wants to deal with. Plus there's the school of thought that segregating the smart kids from the not-so-smart kids has negative impact on the quality of education provided to the not-so-smart kids. So instead we just let them self-segregate via urban flight.