New plan for Chicago schools sets high expectations

C HICAGO -- The school board has adopted a strict new accountability plan that would place nearly half the city's 600 public schools on academic probation, a move decried by critics as extreme but embraced by officials as necessary to shock the system into higher performance. Chicago public schools have come a long way since former US education secretary William Bennett declared in 1987 that the nation's third-largest school system was also its worst. All major indicators -- test scores, truancy, and dropout and graduation rates -- have since improved. But officials acknowledge that much remains to be done. "We really want to jar the system," schools chief executive officer Arne Duncan said. "Mediocrity is not acceptable."

The new rules, passed late Wednesday, require elementary schools to have at least 40 percent of students meeting state and national testing norms, up from 25 percent; the standard for high schools increases to 25 percent from 15 percent. Under those rules, 293 of the system's 602 schools face probation, up from 82 now. A school can get off probation by reaching the 40 percent or 25 percent cutoff on tests given in the spring, or showing substantial progress -- 10 percentage points -- on the tests.

Duncan said that as much as 40 percent of the schools now facing probation are within 5 percentage points of the cutoff. "It's a jump," Duncan said, "but we think it's very attainable."

Under probation, local school councils -- made up of teachers, principals, parents, and community leaders -- would lose control of discretionary money. The funds, as much as $1 million per school, typically used for supplies or hiring extra teachers, aides, administrators, or security, instead would be used to offer after-school programs, hire reading specialists, reduce class size, add counselors, and train teachers.

Also, if the schools do not improve, the school councils could be disbanded, the principal could be replaced, and in extreme cases, the school could be shut down.

Duncan said that over the past 10 years, the number of students scoring in the bottom quartile on standardized tests has been halved, from 48 percent in 1993 to 24 percent now. The problem is that too many students are now stuck in the mid-range. Critics have reacted sharply, saying that the plan offers no extra money and that it stigmatizes struggling schools and unfairly targets poor schools and those with predominantly minority students.

"It's going to triple the number of schools that are labeled as failures," said Deborah Lynch, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. "These are schools that are already struggling. They're raising the bar on the test scores, but not providing the resources and support."

Julie Woestehoff, head of the reform group PURE, said the plan stinks of a power grab.

She said there is also concern that putting so many schools on probation gives the wrong impression of public education in Chicago: "It sounds like we haven't made any progress and we're falling off the cliff."

In the past year, there have been reports that the school system misspent money intended for poor students and technology; that the system faces a gaping budget hole and narrowly averted a teachers' strike; that some test scores have flattened and fallen well short of other big cities; and that the system faces a troubling dropout rate among black students.

But Duncan said there is plenty of evidence that the system continues to move away from where it was when Bennett embarrassed the city with an insult that is still raw for many Chicago educators.

That comment ushered in dramatic reforms. And in 1995, the state Legislature gave control of the schools to Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has kept a jealous eye on the schools, preaching fiscal restraint, tough new standards, and accountability.

The impact was immediate and Daley, and his new management team, structured like a corporation, quickly became darlings of the education world.

They achieved labor peace, balanced the budget, eliminated millions in waste, and instituted more after-school and preschool programs, while dramatically expanding summer school and ending the practice of advancing students simply because of their age.

"To me, this is sort of an evolutionary process," Duncan said. "Now we've really got to challenge ourselves."