CPS's $175,000 per year 'Chief Instruction Officer' Jennifer Cheatham flunks basic math on 'exceeds'... Forum in Beverly on Longer School Day corrects CPS 'Instruction' chief on the facts
On Wednesday, November 30, 2011, the Raise Your Hand Coalition held a forum on the longer school day at the Beverly Public Library. A standing room only crowd came to the library looking for answers to their questions about next school year and the extended schedule and seemed to leave with as many new questions as answers.
All of the four powerful new CPS officials in the above photograph (taken at the November 16, 2011 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education) are new to the CPS executive ranks, and none has any Chicago teaching experience. "Chief Instruction Officer" Jennifer Cheatham (smiling with hands folded) is being paid $175,000 this year (with some kind of possible $10,000 bonus), although in her FNG status (she came to Chicago from California, where she worked mostly as an education reform consultant) she would not be allowed to be a substitute teacher in any other Illinois school district. The Chicago Board of Education approved the Cheatham appointment at its July 27, 2011 meeting without discussion or debate. (No one has yet explained why CPS needs a so-called "Chief Education Officer" in Noemi Donoso, also an FNG, and a "Chief Instruction Officer"). On November 30, 2011, Cheatham tried to mislead Beverly parents (about "exceeds") and lie to them (about the length of the school days elsewhere) event at the Beverly library and was corrected on several points. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.The panel consisted of Chicago Public Schools Chief of Instruction Jennifer Cheatham, Raise Your Hand Director Wendy Katten, Chicago Teachers Union Director of Professional Development Walter Taylore, and Mario Silva Treasurer of the Illinois Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. However, Jennifer Cheatham got the lion's share of attention from the audience.
I've been to several forums with CPS officials who tell a lie to parents who have no way of knowing they are being lied to. This was not the case in Beverly. Very early on, Ms. Cheatham called the new seven-and-a-half-hour school day "average" for school districts in the country — and Ms. Katten corrected her. Like many of the parents there, Ms. Katten had done her research and explained that in both the suburbs and in other big cities, the average seemed to be between six and six-and-a-half hours.
When asked how the city could possibly pay for the extended day when they are currently declaring a budget crisis, Ms. Cheatham declared, "CPS has a huge budget and how you spend your budget is a statement of priority."
Ms. Cheatham had certainly been well briefed on the essential talking points, but at times even she seemed to have doubts as she made repeated statements like a longer day will lead to smaller class sizes, but "it's hard to explain." Several times, she assured parents that the longer school day would benefit their children great, but that it was "hard to put into words."
One of the main concerns parents seemed to be voicing was that their children had a great park district and many opportunities for after school activities that would be jeopardized by the longer day. One parent explained that his daughter would lose "crafts, swimming, African drumming, unstructured free time" for test preparation. Ms. Cheatham called the longer day necessary for new "Common Core" standards. As frustration grew, several parents exclaimed "We don't need babysitters."
Ms. Katten proved her neutrality by reminding an audience member that most parents do want a longer day. They just think the CPS proposal is too long, according to the Raise Your Hand survey conducted earlier this year.
Perhaps the most amusing moment came during the last five minutes, before the assemblage was forced to leave the closing library. After several parents commented that the neighborhood schools were excellent, Ms. Cheatham told them that the Consortium on School Research says that in order to be college ready, students must score in the "exceeds" category on standardized tests — and that the longer school day would help us get many more students scoring in "exceeds." Unfortunately, as the "exceeds" category is limited to the top 25%, it seems rather impossible that more than 1/4 of all students will be able to score in the top quartile.
I give Raise Your Hand credit for hosting a very open forum where parents got to speak their mind. I also give the parents of Beverly a lot of credit for having done the research to fully participate and question CPS talking points. If many of those parents have their way, this issue is far from settled.
Comments:
By: Rod Estvan
Re: Russ Tracy's comment
I think the Raise Your Hand Coalition which sponsored the meeting the story was about has never opposed a longer school day, but they have raised some questions relating to what education research says about how long children can stay on task.
I do agree with Mr. Tracy that providing FAPE to poor children and children with disabilities in Chicago is not a cheap process. I also totally agree that politicans want school reform on the cheap because the middle class and the one percent wealthy of our state are not willing to carry the fiscal burden in the form of taxes that it would take to lay the foundation to offset the deep poverty that William Julius Wilson has so well described in his body of writing.
But it has not been my impression that the Raise Your Hand Coalition has in any way opposed a cooperative/ collaborative approach to working with CPS. Since I am a lobbyist for Access Living I can tell you that I personally saw the Raise Your Hand Coalition attempting to get increased funding to provide supports and services to Chicago's children in the Illinois General Assembly. In fact they worked the halls harder than did the CPS lobbyists on funding issues, because the CPS lobbyists last year were focused attempting to reduce pension benefits for teachers.
One big problem in working with CPS on issues like school funding is that CPS has in the past wanted parents and outside advocacy organizations like my own to support some of its policies as part of the deal for working together on funding. To criticize the Raise Your Hand Coalition on that level is not in my opinion fair.
Rod Estvan
By: russ Tracy
Mr. Estvan's response to my post
Mr. Estvan,
I believe that if you re-read my post above, you will see that I in no way criticized the Raise Your Hand Coalition. (Until I read Linehan's article, I was not even aware of such.)
My remarks were directed to the principal subject of Mr. Linehan's article, which was highly critical of recently appointed CPS administrators and Ms. Cheatham in particular.
My point was that ridicule is not the best way to begin a working relationship, and that all committed to improving the public schools of Chicago will need to work together effectively to maximize improvement.
Beverly students (and others like them elsewhere in the city) are among the most advantaged and highest achieving in District 299 and perhaps most don't need a longer school day, but they are collectively a small minority of the public school students of Chicago.
By: Joe Linehan
Thanks for the Feedback Russ
Thanks for the feedback. I found it interesting that you found the parents' comments smacked of elitism. I guess I have a different definition of elitism. I don't find a middle class parent want to continue park district programs for their child instead of seat work to be elitism. When parents express concern that small children will be burned out be longer hours or that class sizes will be increased or more aids will lose their jobs, I don't find that to be elitism either. In fact, I rarely find parents expressing concerns about the well being of their children to be elitism, even if they have an address in the lofty neighborhoods of Mount Greenwood, Beverly, or Washington Heights.
What I do find to be elitism is a CPS bureaucrat deliberately lying to parents because she thinks they don't know any better. What I do find to be elitism is when one person judges a packed meeting room full of people based on one article by an amateur reporter.
By: Russ tracy
Thanks for the Feedback, Russ
Look, Joe, I'm not trying to start WW III on this blog. Of course there's no problem with Beverly's parents advocating for what they believe to be their children's best interests (I used to be a Beverly parent, myself).
Your article focuses almost exclusively on Cheatham's apparent gaffs and essentially ignores whatever the remaining panel members had to say. You not only question Ms. Cheatham's qualifications for her position, but imply that it is common knowledge among those who are "CPS savvy" that she (and other) CPS administrators have consistently lied to parents about CPS policies. (If so, it is certainly puzzling that Cheatham was invited to participate by the Raise Your Hand Coalition).
My remark about "elitism" was intended as a reminder that many CPS students (including some in Beverly) need additional academic support — which almost certainly will require a longer school day. It seems very unlikely that the Response to Intervention initiative can be implemented in most CPS schools without such. How much longer a day is not clear at this point. But for Beverly parents to (apparently) ignore this matter does seem elitist, to me.
There may be solutions to the extracurricular matter. Perhaps high-performing students could be allowed to leave school early. I'm sure that there are other possibilities, but to make them a reality, we cannot publicly label as liars the very people whose cooperation we will need.
You didn't like it very much that I used the term elitism to describe your article. (I don't blame you!) But now consider, how much do you think Ms. Cheatham appreciated your portrayal of her as a liar and an idiot? Let's use a bit more "emotional intelligence" in our reporting!
To Rod Estvan: Thanks for the info about yourself, your organization, and the RYHC. Thanks also for your work on behalf of our children.
By: George N. Schmidt
Cheatham, Brizard, and other expensive phonies
Correction, Russ. Substance isn't a blog, but a news and analysis service with a point of view.
And Joe Linehan's article reflected that point of view when he noted that a $170,000 per year "Chief Instruction Officer" whose complete career was corporate (consulting on education) and who never taught in Chicago had no business trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of Beverly at that event.
Like most of the top dogs at CPS, Cheatham has no business working in Chicago's public schools. in fact, since she has no credential to teach in Chicago or Illinois (unless by some magical waiver), she would be arrested is she tried to substitute teach in any suburb. Like "J.C.", Noemi Donoso (the "Chicago Education Officer"), Oliver Sicat ("Chief Portfolio Officer"), Jamiko Rose ("Chief Family and Community Engagement Officer") and dozens of others now lording over Chicago parents, teachers, and principals with hair-brained theories and untested corporate nonsense, Cheatham should be sent packing.
Any treatment she or the others receive when parents (such as myself), teachers (like myself), principals or students (like two of my three sons) have a free and open forum is more than deserved. She alone is wasting a total of approximately a quarter of a million dollars (total pay and benefits package) in Chicago taxpayer money per year — and she is one of dozens like herself. These range from Brizard to the "Chiefs of Schools" working in the various (nonsensically named) "Networks" down to all the little chieftans, chieflets, and semi- and demi-chiefs.
All of whom, it seems, are more qualified if they have an MBA (or some time at McKinsey) than if they know the smell of a first grade classroom after some kid who needed to be home upchucks all over your carefully scripted "reading" scripts (because the child's Mom has to work two jobs and can't keep the kids at home when they are sick, and of course there is no nurse in the schools because we need to hire more "chiefs" (etc.)... )
If Chicago's press corps weren't so cuddly with the mayor and his minions, and dominated by corporate propaganda and carefully staged mayoral media events, the cost of the lowerarchy at CPS (we just can't refer to it as a "hierarchy" because none of these people has any business bossing around Chicago's veteran teachers and principals, or trying to manipulate busy parents and children with nonsense), which this year is well above $25 million annually and escalating by the month, would be a page one scandal. But in Chicago, "news" was long ago eclipsed, by corporate design, by the corporate propaganda events such as the one I covered this morning (December 13, 2011) at Chicago Police Headquarters (the mayor's carefully scripted "CPS CompStat" nonsense).
Also, Russ...
Substance is a service providing news and analysis, which is what Joe was doing.
We're not a blog.
By: Russ Tracy
My response to George's remarks
Hi George,
I'm going to respond to the above post of yours off-line this weekend. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with me.
Russ
By: Russ Tracy
Cheatham in Beverly
Here's my take on Joe's piece here. Aside from giving the Beverly folks the chance to show off how much more that they know than CPS folks like Cheatham, there's considerable downside to articles like this.
Quoting a parent's concern about losing time for her extracurricular activities to a longer school day simply reeks of elitism.
Many children in this heavily minority District need longer school days and/or much smaller classes in order to receive a FAPE (Free and Appropriate Public Education).
Why? Because many are from impoverished families, high crime neighborhoods, are in foster care, and/or have been abused/ neglected. Many also are highly transient.
The above unpleasantries have recently again been documented in the Bryk et al. 2010 book, Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. (Parents of CPS kids, please read this book.)
If we are truly dedicated to FAPE, it is going to cost a great deal of money that most people would prefer to spend on themselves and their families. No Chicago politicians want this truth to become public knowledge, because they know that could dramatically shorten their political careers. They instead are quite happy to spread the "Waiting for Superman" half-truths and blame teachers, teachers' unions, and a few principals for all the problems.
The fact is that African-American sociologist William Julius Wilson's analysis of Chicago neighborhoods and their decline was correct: take away decently paying unskilled or semi-skilled jobs and you will destroy working-class neighborhoods where people used to own their own homes and send their kids to college. (See Wilson's "When Work Disappears," 1996.)
Rather than heaping scorn and ridicule upon our public school administrators (which they sometimes richly deserve), why not adopt a less hostile, and more cooperative/ collaborative approach to them in efforts to begin meaninfully to resolve the dreadful situation we as a district are in.