Why Can't Chicago Shape Up its Public Schools? (Oak Park, Humboldt: daycare, buy)

[uptown_urbanist]

We've been investigating CPS elementary schools for our upcoming move, and after hearing all the bad stories have actually been quite impressed with how many good schools do exist in the city. Unfortunately it's also very obvious that families don't have equal access to them, and that the schools depend heavily on parents with both the time and the money to kick in resources that the district is unable to provide. The differences between individual schools has been rather shocking.

Our problem with finding a school (again, elementary level only at this point) is that while there are plenty of decent neighborhood schools out there (for those who can afford to move to an area that has a decent neighborhood school) is not that we're able to find one that provides a good education, but rather that we're having trouble finding one that matches our educational philosophy. Unfortunately that seems to be the broader trend in American education these days: test, test, test, and pile on the homework, cancel the recess (in some cases), and assume that more homework means a better education. I'm guessing that some of the "pile it on" approach in the "good" CPS schools comes in part as a reaction to all the other school problems out there; parents are understandably wary, so maybe the copious amounts of homework sent home with elementary school kids reassures them that yes, their children are learning. Still, that's been a real negative for us, and has led us to narrow our search to a very small area. I don't know why the option has to be either a terrible school with failing academics, or else a good school where the kids get a decent education but have to sacrifice a great deal of life outside of school to do so. (or try the magnet or charter route, although I wouldn't want to make a housing decision based on the hope that I'd win the magnet lottery)

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Bideshi

The same thing that's wrong with all public schools: the teachers union that protects bad teachers.

Actually the union was around when the schools were good (I went to Austin in the mid 60s and it was a good school and my father went to public grade school and Farragut HS in the 30s and 40s and they were good) and I'm assuming with the same rules. There's been a change from good to bad and I don't see anything the union has done to make that change.

I think it's bad parents and bad students. And social responsibilities we've saddled the schools with that have nothing to do with teaching.

[jasper12]

The issue with testing, is that everything is all about the scores now. So, it is drill, test, drill, test, teach to the test, drill, recess, test, drill, teach to the test, lunch, drill, test, teach to the test, drill, recess, review how to test, test, drill, teach to the test, homework based on test subjects. End of day.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by jasper12

You can take the kids out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the kids. Go figure the reasons that Chicago schools are failing. All the money in the world cannot change the attitude of the society those kids live and experience on a daily basis. They don't see a way out. If Obama had grown up in innner city Chicago, instead of the upscale Hawaiian school he went to, we would see a much different person.

You can, and Washington D.C. is trying it...

The SEED Foundation » Washington, D.C.

These are the creative measures CPS and other urban school districts need to start implementing. They're expensive but the cost in the long run from not doing it is way greater.

[jasper12]

Hmm, great, I see that they are taking the kids out of the ghetto, away from their families, they only go home for 1 day a week, Saturday. I suppose that is the answer for all of the inner city schools, to have boarding schools? What does that say, when those kids are successful, and the kids that are in regular school are still doing badly? That points to the issue that I say is the main problem...it is not the school, or the teachers....when it is kids who are AWAY from their families who are successful. Boarding school is the answer....okay.

[BRU67]

You deserve a light bulb icon. I know some find it hard to swallow the fact that we're going to, in effect, have to fill in for certain groups of parent, and pay a lot of money to do so, but it is what it is. It will be in our best interest to try to end the cycle now. We've indulged too long.

[Humboldt1]

Get rid of the ghetto parents. Teachers are only partly to blame. Boarding school accomplishes this so long as ghetto attitudes can be reversed in these kids.

[middle-aged mom]

Originally Posted by jasper12

If Obama had grown up in innner city Chicago, instead of the upscale Hawaiian school he went to, we would see a much different person.

Guess you have never been to inner Honolulu.

Obama lived with his grandparents in their modest rental unit. He went to Punahou ( largest private school in the U.S.) on scholarship not because of familial affluance.

[jasper12]

I have been to Honolulu, and know the caliber of students at Punahou. Have you ever been to an inner city school in Chicago? Again, I stand by what I say, Obama would not be where he is now if he had attended an inner city school in Chicago.

[Humboldt1]

Again, it is mostly the parents to blame.

Obama would be a different person today had he had ghetto parents who sent him to school like many do for free feeding and babysitting.

My solution, albeit unpopular, is still to limit population growth among poor people. This is the most efficient use of our society's resources instead of paying for yet another generation of entitled poor.

This would invariably lead to a drop off of kids in CPS as presumably there would be less poor kids born and less to spend taxpayers on school lunch programs and future people in jail to pay for.