Huberman's 'Culture of Calm' excludes good students from Robeson High School media event, covers up three days of gang violence following Huberman visit
Tuesday, January 12, 2010, Ron Huberman (Chief Executive Officer of Chicago's public schools) and Jody Weis (Chicago's police chief) came to Paul Robeson High School to unveil the new initiative to keep students at 38 of the most violent schools in the city safe. The initiative had been unveiled by Huberman three months earlier, via a Power Point presentation at the September 23, 2009, meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. It was called a "Culture of Calm." Immediate events following the September 2009 presentation put some of the media manipulation around "Culture of Calm" on hold, however, and the project did not return to the news until the January 12, 2010 event at Robeson High School.
On Wednesday, September 23, 2009, Chicago Schools CEO Ron Huberman presented the Board with his plan, based on what he claimed was a statistical analysis, for creating a "Culture of Calm" in 38 Chicago high schools supposedly with the greatest problems of violence. According to Huberman, the computer modeling he did to create the plan to create a "culture of calm" (as opposed to what he claimed was a "culture of violence") predicted the 200 CPS students most likely to be victims of gun violence within the next 24 months. On Thursday, September 24, 2009, Fenger High School junior Derrion Albert was beaten to death on 111th St., a half mile from the school, following a tumultuous opening to the school year after Huberman had Fenger subjected to "turnaround" beginning in June 2009. The Board of Education admitted that Derrion Albert was not one of those students identified as being a likely victim of gun violence, but, then, Derrion Albert was not murdered with a handgun, but was beaten to death with a large board, human fists, and human feet, and the internationally broadcast video of the murder showed. Huberman has refused to answer questions about the relationship between the Fenger turnaround, the Derrion Albert murder, and "Culture of Calm." By October 7, President Barack Obama had sent Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder to Chicago to provide Huberman and CPS with a two-year federal grant of $60 million to implement the "Culture of Calm" program. As of January 2010, Huberman was still refusing to identify the 38 CPS high schools where "Culture of Calm" dollars are being spent. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. The three-part "Culture of Calm" plan — creating “safe passage” to and from school, providing mentors for “ultra high risk” students, and creating a “culture of calm” inside the building among the faculty — was reported uncritically and without historical context in mainstream corporate news outlets.
What was not reported was that on the very day Huberman and Weis were at Robeson, an inter-gang conflict kicked off that lasted the rest of the week, resulting in a broken window in the school, countless students fighting inside and outside of school, and student arrests just off school property.
The day Weis and Huberman were in the building, students were not allowed to their lockers because it was too close to the library where the press conference would be.
Some students reported seeing Huberman in the cafeteria during their lunch period, but were not informed that muckity-mucks would be in the building. This is yet another example of the student voice being blocked from the discussions of what is going on in their schools.
A week later, a handful of students were invited to a “Peace Circle” discussion of what a “culture of calm” would look like inside Robeson, but did not leave the meeting feeling inspired. Torrin Clifton, a Peace Circle participant explained, “The idea is that we’re going to talk about how to make a culture of calm, then teach the teachers, then the teachers will teach it to everyone else. I don’t think it’s going to work, but I appreciate their efforts.”
One day before the murder of Derrion Albert, Chicago schools CEO Ron Huberman narrated his plans for creating a so-called "Culture of Calm" in Chicago's public schools. Based on a computer analysis that Huberman claimed enables Chicago to identify public school students most likely to be victims of gun violence, Huberman then proclaimed that the contents of everything about the "Culture of Calm" program was secret, including how the likely victims of gun violence were identified. Critics charged that what Chicago had done was identify those gang members most likely to use guns to commit violence. Since Chicago has proclaimed that "youth violence" is a "public health" problem (and not the result of having the most extensive network of drug gangs north of the Rio Grande River), however, the claims about "Culture of Calm" are reported with seriousness in Chicago's corporate media, since the entire fiction about Chicago's corporate "school reform" rests on praising the mayor and ignoring the brutal facts of life for children in the city the mayor's policies created (including the fact that half Chicago's wards are run by political leaders who have to work in conjunction with the "People" and "Folks" gang nations. Because Ron Huberman was allowed to release his "Culture of Calm" program, then receive $60 million for it, while keeping its contents secret, the entire project quickly became a local joke. The above photograph was taken during the September 23, 2009 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, during Ron Huberman's Power Point presentation on his "Culture of Calm" plans. The "victims" identified in Huberman's chart (above) are all gang members with long histories of gang violence. They did not "catch" "violence" like children have been catching Swine Flu but were the products of a brutal sub culture whose growth has been an integral part of Richard M. Daley's Chicago power structure. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. None of the students invited to the Peace Circle were the perpetrators of the recent violence around the school.
Downtown has not made any effort to explain to students what the protective plan means, just like many of our students weren’t told why they’re no longer able to attend their neighborhood schools and why their lives suddenly hinge on a single test score. In a discussion with Robeson students, including some involved in the recent violence, all expressed distrust of the plan.
Students feel that police don’t stop violence; they let students fight, then pick up the guy who got jumped. Nor do they believe that a “culture of calm” inside the school will stand up to the culture of chaos that CPS creates outside of the school — between school closings, forced intermingling of gangs, and the re-segregation of students through selective enrollment schools.
Students learned that $60 million was being spent to change the educational climate of the schools, $1 million to Robeson, but they quickly agreed that their behavior would be better with their old teachers who form relationships with them, listen to them, and support them as they matriculate through high school — something teachers would be able to do with smaller classes, there wouldn’t be a need for outside mentors. Catalyst magazine recently reported that Robeson’s veteran teachers have worked to decrease the out-of-school suspension rate — statistics not matched in the recently turned around schools.
After proclaiming the "Culture of Calm" program at the September 23, 2009, meeting of the Chicago Board of Education (one of Huberman's Power Point slides is shown above), CPS officials faced the problem that arose the following day. On September 24, 2009, Fenger High School junior Derrion Albert was beaten to death during a gang brawl a half mile northeast of the schools at the end of the school day. Critics charged that the firing of almost all of the Fenger High School teachers under a Chicago program called "turnaround" had left Fenger in chaos during the opening three weeks of school leading up to the Derrion Albert murder. Critics have also charged that the expansion of the "turnaround" programs across the USA by Huberman's predecessor, Arne Duncan, will result in similar destabilization of public schools as is being seen this school year at Chicago's Fenger High School. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.The day after Huberman came to Robeson, Chika Okafor came to help facilitate the “culture of calm” at Robeson. He started working for CPS in October and has a background in consulting and management — not education — and his lack of experience in our environment makes faculty members distrustful, one asking, “What does he know about creating a culture of calm here?” [Okafor, who has no teaching experience, was hired by Ron Huberman on October 12, 2009, according to Board records, at an annual salary of $80,000. Okafor currently holds the title of "Project Manager." He is a former management consultant and congressional aide with no prior experience in urban education. The median teacher salary this school year at Robeson is more than $10,000 less than Oakfor's].
He gave teachers a survey asking if we felt we could create a culture of calm and if our co-workers thought we could create a culture of calm. Activist students said this would be used against us — if we said yes and conditions didn’t improve, we’d be asked why it didn’t work. If we said no, downtown would turn Robeson around, saying the teachers don’t believe they can educate our kids (the way the non-educators downtown believe students need to be taught). The next week, Okafor announced at a faculty meeting that there would be a meeting for interested adults to discuss how Robeson’s “culture of calm” would work. I asked why students weren’t invited, and he said it would be too chaotic; teachers should meet and discuss what they would present to the students. Did he mean teachers should factionalize against students? He said no, there would be a student committee that would meet downtown to discuss the culture of calm, separate from the teachers. After this exchange, he agreed that I could bring a few students to the first meeting.
[For students in areas like Englewood and most other parts of Chicago's South Side, there is no question that gun violence — and general violence in the schools and on the streets — is not a question of "public health" but public safety, and the locus of violence comes from the gangs. Substance has reported some of the most dramatic examples of that gang violence in recent months...
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=660§ion=Article
and any reporter could have asked a dozen students whether "violence" or gangs caused most of the violence. But none did.]
The student discussion occurred on January 20, the day after the school closing list came out. Students made the connection between being out of the loop on the student safety discussion also who “good” teachers are. One at-risk student, upon hearing the turn around list, said, “They’re firing all the teachers at Deneen? My favorite teacher works at Deneen!” I asked if he would come to the closing hearing for Deneen and stand up for his teacher. He instantly agreed. Solidarity with students and teachers and against detrimental Board policies is forming at Robeson High School!
Comments:
By: George N. Schmidt
Corporate media looking for the miracle...
Rereading this story and the comment, I remembered four years ago, when Mayor Daley was "Principal for a Day" at Orr High School(s). Back then, Orr was still spouting "Small Schools" as the flavor-of-the-day sure-fire "reform" that would save the inner city. Less than two years later, Daley screwed Orr by closing the Orrs down and giving the building to AUSL for "turnaround", which is now the flavor-of-the year. Daley never apologized to the Orr teachers for screwing them.
When Orr was attacked, one of the four "small schools" — Phoenix Military Academy — was moved out just in time to save it and its staff, even though it was part of the same problem Daley then claimed "turnaround" could solve (the same words had been earlier used for "small schools", but that was ignored from that day on).
They did their "Small Schools" job, but when the Gates Foundation withdrew its millions from "Small Schools," Chicago's Party Line changed. On to \"Turnaround." Down with "Small Schools."
But the most amazing thing about Orr that day was the press conference. In addition to doing "Principal for a Day," Daley was announcing the new (now "TAP") merit pay program that the U.S. Department of Education was going to fund in Chicago under No Child Left Behind. Daley's media people, aided and abetted by CPS media people, set up a little theater in the main hall at Orr. Daley's podium was set up against the wall on the left as you enter the building, with folding chairs facing the wall. The usual array was lined up behind Daley when he began speaking about his partnership with George W. Bush and Margaret Spellings, blah blah blah.
Suddenly, the Orr kids, who were going to lunch, had a bit of a riot down the hall and around the bend. Daley's security and CPS security (the green jacket "Youth Outreach\" people led by Lafayette Ford) rushed down the hall to stop the riot. I went to the doors (left in the back) and began taking photographs, with three "security" people trying to block my camera and blocking me from getting through the door where I could see kids fighting and the Ford Team dragging them away. If there were any arrests, they went out the back door.
But when I turned around, every reporter in the press conference was still sitting there taking notes as Daley, Rufus Williams, and the others (it included Alderman Ed Smith and Congressman Danny Davis) talked about how great merit pay was going to be. The reporters were lined up there primly taking notes, looking like a bunch of Middle School kids at a dance waiting to be asked to dance. I was the only one trying to cover the story that was unfolding, screams and all, less than 100 feet away.That's why the official version of "news" in Chicago is so droll. The reporters covering Daley's "education miracle" in Chicago don't need to be told to look the other way and only sing Daley's praises. They are trained before they go out on the beat to play the three monkeys: see no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil when Daley's hoaxes and myths about "school reform" are on the news.
So this Robeson thing was just the latest example of the same corruption. Sorry I missed it. With a couple of reporters, we could have covered the whole story with pictures. As it is, I'm proud we got this month of it.
By: Retired Principal
Culture Of Calm Program
Dear CPS teachers and ESP's employees, if you work at one of these schools, you already have a "Culture of Calm", according to CEO Ron Huberman. You will miss out of the "Culture Calm Program" that teaches students a combination of things, such as self-respect, anger management, problem solving and discipline. During the 2008-2009 school year there were 116,000 acts of misconduct incidents recorded at CPS. I'm glad your schools are calm and safe. Here are the calm and safe CPS high schools: All charter high schools, all contract high schools, all military high schools, all selective enrollment high schools and all special education high schools. The calm and safe neighborhood high schools are Amundsen, Hancock, Juarez, Kennedy, Kenwood, Lake View, Lincoln Park, Mather, North-Grand, Roosevelt, Schurz, Senn, Steinmetz, and Taft. The calm and safe career academy high school is Prosser. The calm and safe small high schools are Alcott, Austin Polytech, Chicago Academy, Collins, Raby, V.O.I.S.E. and William Prep. P.S.- There were 143 CPS students shot last year and this school year so far there have been 102 CPS students shot.
By: kugler
Great Story
now we need to start getting administrators on the record just as the students and what their real feelings are towards all of these initiatives to bring calm into their schools.
what is unfortunate is the underlying depravity of the reform movement in chicago that creates the problems it then proposes to fix. at neither end of the spectrum are the true stakeholders involved or listened to. as has been seen in the albert murder and other deaths in recent years of cps students as the result of cps policy: it will take more than a few murders to stop these corporate narcissistic creeps who profit from the misery of our children.
Each death will always be linked to the criminals running cps(vallas, duncan, huberman). what is astonishing is that in any other school district in the world, school leaders would be fired and put in jail for far less than what occurs in chicago: complicity in the death and harm of a minors.
John Kugler
kuglerjohn@comcast.net