Raise Your Hand coalition refutes most Rahm Emanuel claims about 'Longer School Day'
Tuesday, September 27, 2011, the Raise Your Hand coalition had an open meeting regarding extending the school day. Everyone knew that day was coming, they just didn’t know when. Some thought, perhaps it would come January 1, but most of the 110-120 people in the audience knew that it would come next August or September. Anyway, we knew it would happen and we needed to have a plan, people said. We needed to decide how the day would look like because the new day, at least as proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the CPS team he appointed, would make Chicago's elementary school day 25 percent longer than it is now.
Many in the audience at the Raise Your Hand forum at Coonley Elementary School were parents who are also teachers. Above, Garth Liebhaber, who teaches fourth grade at Hammond Elementary School, brought his daughter (shown) and son to the event. His daughter is a student at Coonley. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.It turns out that most parents don't support the proposed extra length being promoted by the mayor and his appointed school board. The complexity of the longer school day proposal was well in evidence at the September 27 meeting, and a significant survey by Raise Your Hand showed very little support for the lengthening of the school day as proposed by the mayor.
The meeting went on for two hours, then continued afterwards for several more hours at a local pub.
The alderman of the 47th Ward, Ameya Pawar, spoke at length about how the issue of the longer school day related to problems facing public schools in the ward he was recently elected to represent. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.The first speaker was the alderman of the 47th ward, Ameya Pawar. He shared that his family moved to the suburbs 25 years ago to avoid what he called the “Game of testing and tears.” Unfortunately, "the game of testing and tears still continues,” he said.
Pawar talked about how to move forward with a focus on the 47th Ward. The community and principal worked together to make Coonley School become the “darling of CPS,” he said. Pawar stated that people move to a school so they can raise their kids in the same school from kindergarten 12th grade. He said that the 47th ward is lucky because it has seven Brown Line "L" stops and a receives economic benefits when the schools do well. He said, without providing any reports or printed information, that he found that "most students stay in school until 7th grade and then they move."
Pewar said he feels that we must get the community organized around the school. There are 6 TIF districts in this ward, and that the TIF money from the ward should be spent on schools in the ward. He also proposed fundraising for the schools in the ward. "We must go to property owners and businesses and ask them to write a check for the schools and write it off their taxes," he said.
The survey and other work being conducted by Raise Your Hand has been ignored by the CPS (and mayor's office) rush to push the "Pioneers" program. Above, the report on the concerns raised in the survey. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Jill Wohl of Raise Your Hand talked about a survey of parents and teachers- 160 teachers responded and half of the parents were also teachers. There were a total of more than 1,200 respondents from 230 schools.
One of the results of the Raise Your Hand survey of more than 1,200 people showed that very few people support Rahm Emanuel's proposal to increase the length of Chicago's elementary school day to 7.5 hours or more. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt from the screen showing the Power Point slide. The results showed that 68% voted "Yes" to a longer school day and 43% voted yes to a longer school year. 17 % voted no to a longer day and 15% were undecided.
The major question is "How long is long enough?" It runed out that most of those responding to the survey did not support the extreme length proposed by the mayor and currently being debated with the Chicago Teachers Union. Only 16.4% said 7 and ½ hours were long enough while 38.1% said 7 hours were just right. How should the students spend their time? 49% wanted subjects other than reading and math, possibly Science.
The Raise Your Hand survey also showed that, parents were uncomfortable and concerned about these current issues:
Over testing
Amount of homework and whether it is age appropriate
Physical Activity
Concerns about longer day for the younger students
Quality of content
Facilities (air conditioning)
Too many CPS – days of non attendance Too much testing
In an ironic note to the hysteria about the thirteen "Pioneer" schools, Raise Your Hand reported that their campaign "Fit for Learning" (which promoted schools going off Closed Campus) had gotten thirteen public schools to go off Closed Campus and therefore give their children extra time each day for lunch and recess. Only one of the thirteen schools decided to join Jean-Claude Brizard's "Pioneers." Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Patricia Okeefe discussed the Raise Your Hand campaign called "Fit for Learning." Thirteen schools have an open schedule bringing recess to 8,000 school children. She also said that they want to have the Chicago Teachers Union also join them on the task force which was established by CPS to promote the "longer school day".
She said that the Extended Day Task Force is made up of more than different groups— teachers, parents, students, faith-based leaders and community members. They wanted a well rounded curriculum with music and art. They understand that teachers must be added.
It was mentioned that the Chicago Teachers Union also had an extended day plan that looked a lot like the plan used by the school the mayor sends his children to which has a well rounded experience.
Jesse Sharkey Vice President of the CTU was also in the audience as a parent. Sharkey told the group that there had been some misunderstanding about the change in the law that goes into effect next year. He stated that CPS doesn’t have to bargain for a longer day, but has to bargain how the day is spent and giving teachers fair compensation for teaching the extra time — not the seven dollars an hour offered the so-called "Pioneer Program" teachers. It was mentioned that CPS has a plan that will make recess and a longer lunch mandatory. There will be three periods a day for enrichment and that will need to be funded.
Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey (above standing near the wall) was at the Raise Your Hand forum with his wife Julie. Pointing out that he has two children in Chicago public schools, Sharkey reminded the crowd that teachers and other workers have the right to be paid for the extra time they put in on the job. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Questions from the audience were called. Liz Brown, a CPS teacher at Kelvyn Park High School, asked Alderman Pawar about investing TIFs. Brown demanded to know about the other schools that were not in wealthy areas. Pawar stated that he was interested in the wider city development but “TIFS don’t work where the property values are not generating an increment.” He stated that the city has lost 200,000 people in the last 10 years. People are moving out, property taxes as a whole are going down. How do we keep people here? We need a larger plan. Liz Brown asked, “How do you keep this surplus- 100million surplus in TIF? How about investing it in areas that need it? Alderman Pawar thought that may be a “One time fix.”
A parent said that the TIF funds should not be used to extend the day but to make the day better for the school day we have now by bringing resources to afterschool programs or helping the teacher with 30 young students, several with behavioral problems. Sarah Simmons a parent stated that she felt teachers should be compensated for the extra time. She feels that it may be hard to keep children focused and they may need hands on activities.
Another person in the audience pointed out that the class size will still remain 30 children.
How many reporters in the above photograph from the Raise Your Hand meeting at Coonley Elementary School? Considering that the Raise Your Hand meeting did not result in any major media coverage (could it be because the survey by Raise Your Hand refuted the claims of Rahm Emanuel and Jean-Claude Brizard?), there was no lack of reporting depth at the event itself. A couple of reporters actually showed up to "cover" the event, but they were not the only ones there. In a "Where's Waldo?" search, how many Chicago major corporate media reporters are in the above photograph from the Raise Your Hand event? Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.George Schmidt, a reporter from Substance News, a retired (and blacklisted) CPS teacher, and a CPS parent, commented that there has been a “massive publicity wedge war against the teachers in Chicago" led by Rahm Emanuel and his media handlers. Schmidt said the the school system really was divided into three sub-systems. The first, composed of middle class schools like Coonley, generally in middle class communities like Lincoln Square, was a rather decent American public school system. A second, consisting of the most important gifted schools and high schools like Payton, Northside, and Whitney Young, was among the best public school systems in the USA. But the third system, consisting of 200- 300 schools have been neglected by the elites and corporate Chicago, would be the shame of a Third World country. This system, racially segregated and consisting almost exclusively of children living in serious poverty, was sustained by Chicago and a disgrace to the nation.
Schmidt also pointed out the wide range of ages of students in the CPS elementary schools, ranging from three years old to fourteen, required the kind of careful planning that CTU President Karen Lewis had been demanding. “Students three to five (pre-kindergarten and kindergarten) will need a nap, and therefore the space to do so. You can't do that with 30 or 37 in a classroom. At the same time, students thirteen, fourteen and fifteen need to use up energy they are experiencing at the onset of puberty in physical activity," he said.
He added that "The financial deficit can be solved by taking out all tests except ISAT and Prairie State (PSAE) and stopping all other tests in all CPS schools." He said that, "This will save $50 to 100 million extra dollars”.
Several of the parents who spoke were also teachers. Many of those who spoke were parents who were married to teachers. There was a level of anger that the Brizard administration was vilifying teachers in its claims that only those who voted to be "Pioneers" cared about the children. A number of the teachers who spoke told the group that they were already putting in more hours at their schools than they should, often staying at work until late afternoon.
Parents were not unanimous in support of the longer school day in any form. One parent demanded that her right to do homework and have time with her children not be taken over by the program being pushed by the mayor and CPS. Parents and teachers also noted that the purpose of the school day was not babysitting but to make sure that the children have productive activities while they were in school.
The last speaker was Chief Area Officer Craig Bene. Benes told the audience that he was now the "Chief of Schools" (the new title being used by the Brizard administration for the people who once were "Chief Area Officers") for the "Network" (another new term) that includes Coonely.
He stated that “ the group had a passion and commitment to planning a quality longer school day. We need to be sensitive to quality and class size.” He also told principals that they need to listen to parent’s ideas on the extended school day. He also called test prep lessons "Awful" and promised that the longer school day in his network would not be devoted to test prep.
