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Mayor's team prepares to push chaos into schools on opening days... Cheatham latest six-figure administrator to dissolve into meltdown trying to explain things to irate principals... When Rahm's FNGs — including the COSs — try to run CPS, a SNAFU quickly becomes a FUBAR

George N. Schmit - August 03, 2012

One of the reasons Britain and the USA were not conquered by the Axis between 1939, when World War II became serious in Europe, and August 1945, when the Empire of Japan surrendered, was that wise minds know that large and complex public institutions cannot be run by outsiders, but must be run by professionals with long experience in the business, whatever it may be. Military officers, like police officers, firefighter commanders, and public school administrators, have to have a vast amount of institutional knowledge and experience before they are even remotely qualified to operate at the highest levels of responsibility.

The "Chief Instruction Officer" (not to be confused with the "Chief Education Officer") of Chicago's public schools is currently Jennifer Cheatham (above, at the April 2012 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education), a former California educonsultant who was hired by CPS to oversee schools she had never taught in and order around principals she had never served with as part of the program to replace experienced teachers and principals with FNG outsiders. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.But if corporate "school reform" and its principals had been imposed on the U.S. military in, say, 1939, the world would currently be suffering under a much different kind of reality. Helpfully, the military has also given us a vocabulary to describe what is currently unfolding in Chicago's public schools as the Amateur Hour cast of overpaid and undercompetent education officers try to prepare the 600 real public schools of the nation's third largest public school system to open.

Chicago's real public schools are scheduled to open in two phases for the 2012 - 2013 school year: the so-called "Track E" schools (230) will open their doors to more than 150,000 children on August 13; the "Track R" schools (at least 470 other schools) will be opening their doors on September 4 (if the teachers don't strike). But it requires a vocabulary developed in the military to describe what is happening inside the hierarchy of CPS 15 months after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel took over the schools and began the Reign of Rahm and the Era of the MBAs (as some are calling it). The Reign of Rahm at CPS is based on the philosophy that anyone from outside Chicago is better able to run Chicago's reformed public schools than veteran insiders. Another tenet is that anyone whose training was outside education is the most qualified to hold the top executive positions in public education in Chicago in 2012. An MBA from the University of Chicago or Harvard is the highest qualification today to get any of the six-figure administrative jobs running the schools that serve the more than 400,000 public school children of Chicago. The fastest way to get vetted out of the vetting is knowing about Chicago and its schools.

FAMILY VALUES SPOILER ALERT. PLEASE DO NOT LET UNDERAGE CHILDREN, UNLESS THEY HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO THE MORE EXOTIC LOCUTIONS OF CHICAGO'S MAYOR FOR YEARS, TO READ THE NEXT SIX PARAGRAPHS.

One of the first acts of Chicago's newly appointed "Chief Executive Officer", Jean-Claude Brizard, was to recommend the promotion of Jennifer Cheatham from the position of "Chief Area Officer" (at an annual salary of $151,000 per year) to the newly created position of "Chief Instruction Officer" (at an annual salary of $175,000 per year). By the time Brizard created the "Instruction Officer" position for Cheatham, CPS already had a "Chief Education Officer." Because Cheatham was already living in Chicago, she did not qualify for a "relocation allowance" (like Brizard, who received $30,000 above his quarter million dollar annual salary to move to Chicago from Rochester New York). So Brizard recommended that the Board pay her a $10,000 "retention payment" (another unprecedented idea pioneered by the Rahm Emanuel public school administration). Above, the Board Report which was approved unanimously without discussion or debate by the seven members of the Chicago Board of Education at the third meeting following their appointment by Rahm Emanuel.Helpfully, the military developed a vocabulary, replete with words loved by Chicago's mayor, to describe what is happening as this is written:

FNG is a FUCKING NEW GUY. This someone who doesn't know anything, and, if given a great deal of power, is often arrogantly strutting like Shakepeare's "poor player," ordering around those who do know something.

SNAFU stands for SITUATION NORMAL ALL FUCKED UP and is what happens when FNGs begin ordering veterans to do things — OR ELSE — and the veterans smile and keep their mouths shut (often after being told to SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP OR ELSE! —) until the veterans rebel.

A FUBAR is FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION.

A term not yet in use, but possible, is FRAGGING, which is what happens to arrogant FNGs who push veterans too far.

Chicago's quarter million dollar per year public schools "Chief Executive Officer" Jean-Claude Brizard (above right leaning eagerly towards the members of the Board) presented one of the many iterations of the CPS "Budget" for the 2012 - 2013 school year in Power Point form at the Board's March 28, 2012 meeting, only he didn't. The actual presentation and explanation was to be done by "Chief Administrative Officer" Tim Cawley (who can be seen napping on the right in the above photo). The March Board meeting was the final meeting of "Chief Education Officer" Noemi Donoso, who can be partly seen on the extreme right in the above photo. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.The FUBAR is where Chicago's schools are now headed as more than 400,000 children (including two in the family of this reporter) begin to prepare to return to classroom (or strike support work). At least Rahm knows the main words that will be used to describe the work of genius he has created by his prejudice against veteran educators, against real public schools, and against public sector workers and public sector unions. Under the quarter million dollar "Chief Executive Officer" of CPS, Rahm is replicating fuckups faster than ...

...well, within a few weeks we may have a brand new metaphor and acronym. Meanwhile, here's the latest news, datelined Chicago, August 3, 2012, as Rahm's Revolutionaries (trust us, these people know they have to "revolutionize" public education, blah, blah, blah) order around the people who have to do the work.

(CHICAGO, AUGUST 3, 2012) Jennifer Cheatham, the California bureaucrat and consultant who became a top-level CPS administrator and who is presently the "Chief Instruction Officer" for CPS at an annual salary of $175,000 per year (despite the fact that she has never taught or been a principal in Chicago's public schools) was the latest top administrator of the nation's third largest school system to suffer what principals are calling a "meltdown" in the face of real-world questions.

The questions began flowing at Cheatham about how schools will be opened with all the new policies, procedures and programs that have been developed by the administration of Jean-Claude Brizard. Brizard, another outsider (he was imported from Rochester New York in May 2011 after failing as Superintendent there) currently holds the title of "Chief Executive Officer" of Chicago's public schools and is being paid $250,000 per year. "I'll get back to you on that..." became a mantra for Cheatham as principals tried to get factual and precise answers to real time real world questions from the "Chief Instruction Officer." Cheatham is currently on the system's organizational chart along with another outsider, the "Interim Chief Education Officer," Cleveland's Barbara Byrd-Bennett.

Once the Rahm Emanuel Board of Education discovered that the only talented people capable of taking executive positions to run the nation's third largest school system were either from out of town or had no experience in classrooms or principals' offices in Chicago itself (and generally, no Illinois teaching or administrative credentials), they also began paying unprecedented "relocation and transition expenses" to those they spoke of as "poaching talent" from elsewhere. Above, the Board voted in June 2011 to hire as its "Chief Executive Officer" a guy who was being run of of town in Rochester New York for controversial incompetence and mendacity, among other things. The Board agreed to pay Jean-Claude Brizard a quarter million dollars a year (plus a performance bonus for unspecified performances), making him the highest paid CPS official in history. (His predecessor Arne Duncan, now U.S. Secretary of Education, had never been paid more than $200,000 per year). The seven members of the Board, all of whom were praised by Mayor Rahm Emanuel for their savvy business experience and knowledge, also agree to pay Brizard $30,000 "for relocation and transition expenses..." (which were also undefined). This last item opened the floodgates to nearly a million dollars in similar "relocation and transition expenses..." for other new hirelings in subsequent months — plus, with the "retention" award of $10,000 to Jennifer Cheatham (who was already living in Chicago when she was promoted to "Chief Instruction Officer" by Brizard), another new way to pay people who had no teaching or experience in Chicago's schools additional money. At the March 2012 meeting subsequently, CPS officials constantly repeated that they had an huge "deficit." While paying these bonuses and unprecedented salaries, CPS officials told the world the system was facing unprecedented "deficits," which the city's corporate media duly published as fact while ignoring any skepticism about the way the members of the Board were expanding executive ranks with MBAs and others without teaching experience. Even the newest principals (and there are many new ones thanks to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's publicity stunt that has taken away the right of non-union workers in CPS to accumulate sick days and cash them out at retirement) are trying to figure out what to do when the kids pour into the schools, as early as August 13 for the so-called "Track E" schools and September 4 (unless there is a strike) for the "Track R" schools.

After cringing and ducking and "I'll get back to you on that" ing, Cheatham abruptly ended the question and answer Webinar for the increasingly mutinous principals.

According to principals who were present for the event, the questions Cheatham dodged, couldn't answer, or will return to included the following:

Cheatham was overwhelmed by the principals' questions and ended the Webinar, one principal told Substance. "We will get back to you." Cheatham said. But in each of the "Networks" the principals have been told by the "Network Chiefs" they have to utilize all of the "assessments." "Network" is the Brizard administration's neologism for what were once called "Areas." "Area" was the Duncan and Huberman neologism for what were once called "Regions." Regions were Paul Vallas's name for what had been simply "sub-districts" before mayoral control and corporate "school reform." The Network chieftains, who are currently working under a guy from Kansas City who was brought to Chicago last fall as "Chief of Leadership Training" and was recently turned into the Chief of Networks or something like that, Steve Gering, are called "Chiefs of Schools" (COSs) this school year, at least for now.

Below are some of the questions Cheatham was unable to answer:

— When will high schools receive school data from last year’s EOY Explore and Plan assessments administered in late May, early June?

— Has MAP been tested with Kinder BOY?

— Where is the assessment calendar and this PowerPoint located?

— Will hand-held devices be provided to schools if they are using MCLASS / TRC?

Almost immediately after he became the highest-paid person in the history of Chicago's public schools, Jean-Claude Brizard (above right) appointed Colorado charter school specialist Noemi Donoso (above left) as his "Chief Education Officer." Donoso's annual pay was higher than that of any of Brizard's pedecessors, and she, like Brizard, also received "relocation and transition expenses" from the Board to move to Chicago and help lead the public schools of the city about which she knew little or nothing, and in which she had never taught or been a principal. But by March 28, 2012, when Donoso sat sullenly behind Brizard during his introduction to that month's iteration of the Power Point explaining the Board's dire financial situation, Donoso was already on her way out. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.— Can we get clearer assessment calendars? These are of poor quality

—Did I understand that there will be optional interim/quarterly assessments at no cost to schools and if so what assessments?

— Is there still a common core test or is it being called something else?

— What are the NWEA Training Dates?

— What kind of backup plan is in place for the on-line assessments in case there are problems with too much usage and the systems crash (as they did last year)?

— When will the algebra exit exam results be given to receiving high schools? — When will 8th grade Explore scores be made available to the receiving high schools?

— The REACH performance assessments are given to one section in one subject per teacher? For example, if a teacher teaches 4 sections of 7th grade math, does she administer to one 7th grade class?

When the Board appointed Noemi Donoso as its "Chief Education Officer" on June 22, 2011 (above), it also agreed to pay here $21,000 in "relocation and transition expenses", making her pay for the following year a total of $216,000 (assuming that she cashed in her relocation money, which is not noted in the public record). Donoso lasted a total of nine months, officially ending her time as "Chief Education Officer" at the Board's meeting of March 28, 2012. She has been replaced by a person from Cleveland who has been given various titles and is being paid more.— Is there separate assessment training for Track R schools? I never received any info regarding training.

— If, as is now claimed, the mClass assessments are optional — will they be used to evaluate me/my school on the school report card? What if I only use mClass for SELECT RTI students (rather than with EVERY student) — which means my mClass scores will be skewed LOW... will I be penalized?

— Which assessments will be electronic?

— Will any of you be available upon request to come out and speak to our staff in the opening of the school year if the local school staff can't answer teachers' questions precisely?

— Can you please provide additional info on training for NWEA and mclass. Unable to find on CPSU

— I have made two efforts to find REACH and NWEA training on CPS-U. Could not find it. Please send us this information please so we can sign -up for this training.

— How will the REACH performance tasks take into account the needs in linguistically diverse classrooms, especially for dual language classrooms?

— What types of reports will be available for the BOY EPAS?

— When will high school performance tasks for non-core courses be available?

— Has the EPAS data from last year been made available to schools?

— We haven't into the sixth week because we wanted to...we have limited equipment. How about providing a laptop cart for MAP testing?

By the time he gave the report to the Board of Education's April 25, 2012 meeting on the budget "deficit" CPS was claiming, CPS "Chief Administrative Officer" Tim Cawley had earned the right to be called the highest paid substitute in CPS history. His salary was $215,000 per year (but unlike all other Chicago substitutes, Cawley was allowed to continue living in the northern suburbs, rather than having to comply with Chicago's residency rule). For nearly a year by April 2012, Cawley had been doing the public explanations of the Board's financial situations as they changed, a talent which Chicago's rulers decided their quarter million dollar "Chief Executive Officer" did not have. Brizard, despite his $250,000 per year salary (and "performance bonus") was relegated to carefully controlled media events, and to issuing press releases where he could be quoted without being questioned by reporters. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. — What do we do to obtain assistance for outdated computer labs that cannot support testing in our school?

— Which course curriculum are the REACH performance tasks aligned to?

— Who is the person we should contact with regards to attending the NWEA assessment make-up class?

— Are ALL students being assessed on MAP and MPG? Including newly enrolled bilingual students?

— If mClass Math is not used does the school need to select a different assessment to replace mClass Math?

When the Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously and without discussion or debate to hire Tim Cawley, a former Motorola executive, as the "Chief Administrative Officer," it was at an unprecedented salary of $215,000 per year. The previous "Chief Executive Officer," Ron Huberman, had not been paid that much, and the original "Chief Administrative Officer," banker David Vitale, had worked two years during the administration of Arne Duncan at a salary of $1 per year (and was praised in the press for the generosity of his time). Cawley also became the only CPS employee who wasn't being subjected to the Inspector General's dragnets regarding the city's residency rule, which requires everyone working for CPS to live in Chicago (and which results annually in sanctions, including termination, against dozens of teachers and even principals). When the Board voted to waive the residency rule for Cawley, it basically approved a situation in which the Inspector General would continue harassing the peons while leaving the rulers exempt. — Is there a one-page or quick guide for administering the REACH assessment?

— I have some very serious concerns about the lack of reliable technology that would be required to administer many of these assessments. Today, I received news that our school would get TWO IPADs to administer DIBELs, I think. We have 150 students in our KG alone. We have about 450 students who will be taking this test. How will the district support our schools so that we have adequate technology that is reliable? How will results of each of these assessments be shared with students and parents?

Will students in the Bilingual program K-2 be expected to take the MPG-MAP in English or is there going to be a Spanish version?

The math materials and books that we have been using at the schools may be old and not aligned to the CCSS. What is the plan to assist schools with Common Core books and other materials?

Wasn't this week's NWEA training just for Track E and not Track R schools? We have many special ed students scoring in the single digits on MAP. Is there an alternative assessment we can use for them?

I'm referring to the CCSS assessments we were required to administer last year. I don't see them on your assessment calendar. Have they been phased out or are they now called something else?

— If EPAS (that ACT Inc. stuff) is the way we measure on track to college and career, what is the plan for processing EPAS tests quickly? In the past, it has taken several months to get feedback — by then; we can't use it for anything useful... including accountability.

The workshops for NEWA and other tools are scheduled during the summer and not all teachers are attending. Will the workshops be available during the year?

— This is a lot of assessment. Are we sure that testing K-2 students in NWEA will help to inform instruction? There are other tools that are better indicator of the early stages of literacy and numeracy. — The results for MAP for the little ones is more a measure of computer skills than literacy or numeracy. You do realize that, don't you?

— I thought the interim quarterly assessments where aligned to the CRS not the CCSS! Which is it? Is there training for the core subjects performance tasks? Do they take BOY and EOY assessments too?

— Thank you for the iPads. Who will provide training for K-2 teachers?

— Please address the school technology issue- we do not have ENOUGH computers to get the MAP done school wide in the first three weeks like you think we should.

— Was there any study done to correlate Scantron data to MAP data? Or, are we just throwing away the last two years of Scantron data?

— Weren't we all doing "Performance Management" two years ago, with all those color charts? What happened to all that "data driven management" stuff?

— I anticipate a lot of time to have 1st and K take Map on computers with ratio of 5 students to 1 teacher in the lab. Will we have help funding subs to organize this?

— I understand that the NWEA/MPG is an auditory based assessment. This requires headphones for an entire classroom? Will these be provided to school?

— We will need sub money for K-2 assessments as we did not plan for this during CIWP! Who do we call?

— We do not have a Computer Lab. We DO have laptop carts which we have purchased through our own funds. We are anticipating that the younger students will use the laptops, correct? (They have minimal experience to this point). — Do we need headphones for all of the NWEA assessments?

— Regarding the ELL students, is the 3.5 an overall ACCESS score only? If so, can we revisit these criteria and consider a guideline that also included the ACCESS literacy composite as well?

— Should we anticipate that quarterly math interims will be available for 6-12?

— You're sure we do not need to purchase our own headphones? Even if we need approximately 90 sets of headphones.

— To clarify, do high schools have to use the provided interim assessments if they do not have another interim plan?

—On the REACH performance tasks do only 1, 2, 4 and 7 take the art, music, etc performance tasks?

Which assessments will be on our score card when the school rankings go up on the Web?

— The math workshop was for only one teacher per school. Will there be more workshops for all teachers?

— Please let us know when and where training takes place. — When will high schools get PSAE scores back for 2012?

— Why are not all questions answered?

— Who can we contact regarding hardware concerns?

— When will high schools receive access to the CPS-provided Type III Performance Tasks?

— 8th graders are burned out by the end of February with all testing. Can we really expect them to stay motivated and perform well at EOY when they have their letter for high school by then?

— Were any principals involved in determining how assessment calendar would be laid out (and if so, who were they?)? What types, amounts of assessments would be utilized?

— You do know that teachers, including tech coordinators, counselors and others, are on summer break. Training needs to be available when teachers report to work. — Why are we assessing K-2 students with NWEA then if it's not informative for instruction?

— With all this new assessment, training time for the entire teaching staff is really limited this year, many principals are concerned about the quality of implementation, and use of these assessments due to the limited time to become comfortable with them.

The list of overpaid outsiders who now hold the most powerful positions in Chicago's public schools becomes more extensive by the month. After it replaced the "Chief of Staff" to the "Chief Executive Officer", Andrea Saenz, with another outsider, Robert Boik, many believed that of course Saenz would no longer be with CPS. Not true. By June 2012, two months after she ceased being "Chief of Staff" to the "Chief Executive Officer," Saenz was still on the CPS payroll at $165,000 per year, with a new title ("Chief Officer" in the "Office of the Chief of Staff to the Chief Executive Officer"), while Boik, who relocated (complete with relocation expenses) from Detroit was holding the title of "Chief of Staff" to the "Chief Executive Officer."

Neither Boik nor Saenz had any Chicago teaching or principal experience prior to their becoming a couple of the highest paid and most powerful people in the nation's third largest school system.

But Saenz and Boik aren't the only "Chief of Staff" persons at CPS. The Board of Education itself also had one, a lady named Abigayil Joseph, who is also paid $165,000 per year for Chief of Staffing. And as bureaucratic archeologists dig deeper into the second year of the era of Rahm Emanuel's Board of Education, many expect to find other chiefs and officers, all equally unqualified, equally overpaid, and often hidden. While Chicago's mayor and school board proclaim that they love "transparency," the actual dollars and cents of CPS finances — and the many many outside people collecting six-figure salaries out of those dollars and cents — becomes more and more difficult to plumb. 

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