SUBSCRIPT: Prologue charter school closes, leaving between 150 and 200 former students without diplomas... And nobody knows how to get the records!...
Before he was appointed by Barack Obama in January 2009 to become U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan was "Chief Executive Officer" of Chicago's public schools. During that time, Duncan pushed the ruthless expansion of the city's charter schools (and so-called "campuses") at the expense of the city's real public schools. Above, during a media event a year before going national with his Chicago Plan, Duncan promoted charter schools expansion with political leaders and charter school touts. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. Between 150 and 200 students are still awaiting their diplomas from last June because the charter school they had been attending closed -- and didn't even leave its records behind for the public or its former students. These are students from the four "Prologue" charter schools, which closed without notifying the graduates. So far, calls to Prologue by this reporter have gone unanswered. A spokesman for CPS said they were never sent a list of graduates. I am now in contact with the State Board of Education. ISBE directed me to the head of the Charter School Divisions. No one I have spoken with so far seems to know what the requirement is for record keeping or who has ultimate responsibility for ensuring these graduates are protected. I have learned that real public schools in Illinois are required to keep students records for a minimum of 70 years, but there was apparently no similar requirement put into place for charter schools -- although during their public statements, charter schools claim they are "public" schools...
Comments:
By: Jean Schwab
More charter schools?
I thought the new contract put an end to new charter schools.
By: Edward F Hershey
Charters
Forrest Claypool noted to the media that 9 charters closed subsequent to 2015.
Claypool maintains that the contract language applied to the number of charter schools at the expiration of the last contract. And so the 9 that have closed allows him to open nine more.
Sharkey told the media that the negotiated understanding was the cap applied to the number at the time of the agreement (ie, now). He said we'll fight it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-school-contract-charter-policy-met-20161104-story.html
By: Rod Estvan
No market for charters in Andersonville
There is no market for charter schools in Andersonville. The families buying single family homes here are far too wealthy to even consider a charter school as an option. I know of no young families moving here that are even bothering with magnet or gifted programs anymore. There is a lot of support for Chicago Waldorf School to open a school in this community. As of today there is not one single family home for sale in what realtors call Andersonville for under $1.035 million.
Any charter school opened in this community will be for lower income students from outside the community. My home bought for $72,000 34 years ago has a market value of over $650,000, another home with a double lot was sold for $1.1 million on our street and then leveled to make home for even more expensive town homes.
Rod Estvan
By: John Kugler
Inflation is Bad as is Market Manipulation
Funny that when homes go up in price people are all giddy, but the reality is that increased home prices are simply inflation and a devaluation of your spending power since now you have to make more money to buy the home “you want,” in the neighborhood that “you want to live in.” There will be people that argue against my premise and say how rising home values are good and the rebounding economy, blah blah blah. Bullshit elitist intellectual trash. All the old economic theories debunk all this modern day market manipulation and theory coming out of the UC and ruling class circles.
Remember all the spinning that Trump was going too loose? If you read books from the right and others about disruptive economics they predicted the election of Trump. The same will be true of the real estate market, it is unsustainable. The real estate market is another tool of the ruling class to separate the classes. As long as there are individuals that repeat the narrative that rising housing prices are good we will continue to see a widening divide between the classes.
If unchecked, we will look like other societies with enclaves of committees surrounded by blight and ghettos rather than an inclusive society that integrates all classes into an equitable sustainable community.
DrK
By: Rod
Agree with John in part
We can look at economic bubbles and say the single family home prices at least in my community can't be sustained. But the families buying into Andersonville now are largely corporate transfers from other cities who want easy access to downtown and totally want to be insulated from the urban poor to the maximum extent possible.
Condo buyers and renters are a totally different story. There are a few younger teachers leaving in this area, none can afford a single family home. We have one active CPS teacher in a single family home that she inherited. Teachers making $55 or $70 k a year either are renting condos or have bought one. The condo market at least around here has barely reached the 2008 levels, but rents are amazingly high.
What is amazing about this is that these corporate movers see Andersonville and Edgewater as a very good deal compared to Lincoln Park for a single family home. Effectively that means a $1 million three bed room home is considered affordable by two professionals in their 30s pulling down $200 k or so, where as the $2 million plus homes are unaffordable.
We are talking about gentrification on steroids, these families assume they will have to be paying on average $10 to $15 thousand a year for private schools at least through grade 8. Payton and Northside Prep are options for high school from their perspective, but even schools like W Young and Jones are seen as "iffy."
Demographically most of these new buyers were born and raised in suburban America and have written off CPS as not an option up here. They are not interested in turning around schools via the Nettlehorst gentrification model, it's simply too time consuming. We have entered a very different reality here where many people claim to want diversity, including more wealthy members of the LGBT community, but that is a diversity under a social class cover. Rahm Emanual is ideologically the perfect Mayor for them and Clinton the perfect presidential candidate.
Rod Estvan
By: Bill Anderson
How about some discussion on issues that are affecting us.
Substance has failed to cover recent issues that are clobbering teachers such as MTSS, endless SAT PD tutorials and now CPS wants teachers to take care of their own payroll. When do we teach? When does Substance return its focus to local issues?
By: John Kugler
Write It
I became a Substance reporter and lost my job for my activism. I was the sole breadwinner while a father of four small children and a wife. No one in internet supported me except a few people one was George and Substance News.
Substance News works when activists write their own stories about what is happening not waiting for a third party to rescue them from the darkness. Time for a new generation of activists to get on the line and put their names to articles and make public the daily struggles in the Chicago Public Schools.
Előre
DrK
By: Edward F Hershey
Hearing on New Charter School Proposals
5 new charter proposals up for a vote in December with a hearing on 11/21 at 6pm at CPS. Because nothing says add more schools like a massive drop in enrollment, a hole in the budget for this year that's yet to be filled, and a majorly sub-par existing SBB amount.
Proposed locations: Andersonville, Auburn-Gresham, Altgeld Gardens,Bronzeville, Englewood, Chatham, Roseland, Washington Heights.
Sign up at the hearing at 5pm. 42 W. Madison.