Forrest Claypool, Still A Liar

Sun Times, August 10, 2015: 

"CPS already had announced $200 million in spending cuts, including $1 million in cuts from schools CEO Forrest Claypool’s executive office."

“Our goal is to protect pensions and to protect the classroom,” Claypool said during a conference call Monday morning. “To do that, it means everybody’s got to pitch in.”

Sun Times, August 11, 2015:

"In what’s likely to be a blueprint of his plan for the Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool will announce Wednesday that the district will no longer pick up pension contributions for its nonunion central office employees."

The pension flip-flop didn't take long. What about the $1M in cuts from the CEO's office?

Tribune, August 21, 2015:

"Chicago Public Schools chief Forrest Claypool has hired another of his former staff members from the CTA, this time an executive charged with oversight of the district's financial operations.

Ronald DeNard, formerly the CTA's chief financial officer, joins CPS on Friday as senior vice president of finance, according to an email Claypool distributed Thursday.

Each of the district's finance-related divisions will report to DeNard, Claypool said in the email. Those responsibilities were previously handled by Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley."

Oversight of the district's financial operations? Ginger Ostro, Chief Financial Officer, would be the person who oversees the district's finances. One would assume DeNard will collect a similar $205,000 salary that he earned at the CTA to take up space in CPS management.

If it sounds like Tim Cawley is out the door, don't get too excited. He'll continue his accounting and contractual fuck-ups with seven other departments he oversees:

"Cawley, a former Motorola executive hired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011, will continue to supervise seven other administrative departments, according to Claypool's email...Cawley, who is paid $215,000 a year, oversees areas including facilities, food services and technology."

The other CTA hangers-on coming over to CPS:

• Doug Kucia - Claypool's Chief of Staff
• Andrell Holloway - Supervisor of Internal Audits
• Hal Woods - Portfolio Planning and Strategy Director

Six-figure bureaucrats moving from one city organization to another isn't "pitching in." If each of these managers will make a comparable salary at CPS, that's $800,000 back of the $1M cuts Claypool was crowing about ten days ago.

Once again, Forrest, you may think teachers are idiots, but we're not.

Concede, Teacher Pigs! Part 2

In today's installment of teachers better make some fucking concessions, Bruce Rauner picks up where Forrest Claypool left off. We learn:

• Rauner is selling faulty idea that the CTU is a dictatorship and controls everyone from the mayor to the mayoral appointed School Board and is responsible for the financial malfeasance of Chicago politicians. Rauner:  “The power of the teachers union has been overwhelming. Chicago has given and given and given. It’s created a financial crisis that the Chicago schools face now...” Unlike Bruce Rauner, the CTU can't issue Executive Orders rescinding laws, as Rauner did 10 weeks into his term.  Maybe Rauner was at his wine club when Mayor Daley issued pension holidays to divert the funds.

• Rauner finds the notion of destroying teachers' unions and all public-sector unions empowering. Rauner, "We believe the right answer is to empower the people of Chicago, the voters, the mayor...should be enabled to decide what gets collectively bargained." Wisconsin residents likely don't find it empowering that dismantling unions has meant lower median incomes and average earnings growth.

• Rauner sees no value in students who attend our schools as he talks about the benefits of outsourcing (i.e., firing everyone's union ass) to save money. No doubt he's ensured TFA's contract is paid-in-full so a steady stream of replacements are at the ready.

Online comments continue to show Rauner and Rahm's highly effective manipulation of the media and public perception continues:

• "It is those CTU thugs that have failed children."
• "Amend the constitution to eliminate those outrageous pensions."
• "Entitlement! Give me more than I've rightfully earned! Screw everyone else, I want mine!"
• "Too bad we can't eviscerate the CTU...they're all corrupt, inefficient, radical leftists anyway."

Thugs! Outrageous pensions! Entitled leftists! Yes, everyone still fully on board with Plan A: concede, swine.

CPS's Acute Case of Confusion Concern

According to Transparency International, "As a principle, public officials, civil servants, the managers and directors of companies and organisations, and board trustees have a duty to act visibly, predictably and understandably to promote participation and accountability and allow third parties to easily perceive what actions are being performed." Right on! 

**

You might wonder what the principle of transparency has to do with anything, at least in Chicago. A reader emailed to let us know our links to the CPS Supplier Reports were not working. Sure enough, there's not one CPS Supplier Report to be found online. These reports list listed awards to vendors not found in the Contract Award Report. WCT enjoyed browsing the vendors in the Suppliers Doing Business with the Chicago Public Schools Report because it was a clear list of how much money was going to which profiteer, kick-back artist, and scammer cashing in on CPS and taxpayers. Thanks to such reports, it was obvious who the biggest and best shakedown artists infiltrating CPS were. 

Let's time travel, reader. In 2011 Rahm Emanuel made a transparency pledge to, "...make the city government more accessible to everybody," and, "to create the most open, accountable, and transparent government the City of Chicago has ever seen." Ironically, any evidence of Emanuel speaking these words has been removed from the internet, so WCT has to rely on references to this statement. WCT also assumes the transparency pledge was strictly a first-term pledge.

In a February 2012 Tribune interview, Rahm Emanuel used some form of the word transparent 19 times. A sample:

" I did talk about transparency and I feel — to what I said — I am achieving it. Achieving, not achieved. And I don't put any period at the end of the sentence. This is only nine months into it [Emanuel administration], but there is no doubt given the backlog of potentiality from a transparency standpoint, I am making government information available, I am making sure people have access to it, I am bringing back a level of trust."

**

Let's see where Rahm's "backlog of potentiality from a transparency standpoint" has brought us. In August 2015 the city finances are shredded, Chicago Public Schools in disarray, and pensions disappeared. Residents would like to know exactly how the city has accrued such a sizable debt, where the money went, and why it keeps going. Documents, like the Supplier Report, while maddening to read, clearly show whose pockets are getting lined. 

Harkeing back to Rahm's transparency pledge, WCT emailed the CPS Purchasing Department inquiring about the missing reports.

The legalese response: "This report used to be required by a city ordinance, but that ordinance was repealed and the report is no longer legally required.  We actually took the link down from the website quite a while ago after the ordinance was repealed, but we learned recently that the direct link still worked, even though the data was stale or incorrect.  We recently have removed the old file to eliminate the confusion, as it was not accurate." 

Accuracy! Obeying the law! Non-confusion! Suddenly, City Hall and CPS have taken it upon themselves to not confuse people who are seeking day-ta, stale as it might be. Yes, let's remove the information so nobody is confused. Let's get all revisionist and hide information, substituting one piece of nonsense for another. God forbid anybody know anything in case they ask questions or attempt to hold the people doling out the money accountable. 

This must be an acute onset of Confusion Concern, as there is a long history of Chicago's confusion-inducing decisions:

October 16, 2009 headline: Calendar confusion--Or Citywide Chaos

May 23, 2013 headline: Confusion follows CPS school closing decision

February 24, 2015 headline: Confusion continues over standardized-testing in Chicago

May 24, 2015 headline: CPS forgot 22 schools in estimate for Aramark at a cost of $7M

Fortunately, for those of us who don't mind being confused, the internet is crawled frequently and pages cached (saved). As our Thought Partners would chirp, "daaay-ta!" Here are the cached Supplier Reports (copy and paste into browser) so you may be predictably, visibly, and understandably angered:

http://web.archive.org/web/20150402185313/http://www.csc.cps.k12.il.us/purchasing/supplier_report_2015.xml

http://web.archive.org/web/20150402182046/http://www.csc.cps.k12.il.us/purchasing/supplier_report_2014.xml

http://web.archive.org/web/20150530200734/http://www.csc.cps.k12.il.us/purchasing/supplier_report_2013.xml

http://web.archive.org/web/20141111132437/http://www.csc.cps.k12.il.us/purchasing/supplier_report_2012.xml

http://web.archive.org/web/20120107043404/http://www.csc.cps.k12.il.us/purchasing/supplier_report_2011.xml

Another Stupid Idea

For a city going broke, Chicago certainly likes to celebrate. 

"The Chicago Cultural Mile Association says it's organizing what it calls the first-of-its-kind, all-day Chicago Halloween festival that'll end with the nighttime parade. The inaugural event is scheduled for Oct. 24.  

Among those who are playing a role in the organization is the Field Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is also involved. 

In remarks prepared for a Tuesday announcement, the Chicago Cultural Mile Association's president, J.R. Davis, says he wants the festival to "become an iconic annual event" in the city."

We hope the Chicago Cultural Mile Association has consulted with the organizers of the 1st Great Chicago Fire Festival to learn about the, ahem, pitfalls of trying to create "iconic cultural events" in the city. We also wonder how much the city is secretly going to give this organization since spending money on a celebration of ghosts and ghouls seems bad form when the city's budget deficit is growing daily.

And let's count the Cultural Mile Association among the groups who have money to spend on floats, costumes, give-aways, but not on any Donors Choose requests.

CPS's Opinion of Parents and Teachers: Idiots

CPS teachers and staff recently received the following email:

"Dear Colleagues,

The first day of school for students is Tuesday, September 8 and we need your help to get the word out.

There are several ways to participate in our Back-to-School campaign, including the annual Bud Billiken Day Parade on Saturday August 8. We want CPS to have a major presence at this event, so please consider volunteering your time for a portion of the day.  Visit cps.edu/b2svolunteering to see your options and to register.

You can also support our Back-to-School efforts by phone banking (i.e. calling CPS families to make sure they know when school begins). If you are interested in this option, please email face@cps.edu.

Finally, you can support our students by helping them start the school year with the classroom supplies they need.  Many children will arrive at school on September 8 without adequate supplies. To purchase school supply kits for these students, or to find out how you can donate supplies to our schools, visit cps.edu/supplythefuture."

CPS teachers and staff also received the following flyer reminding us of free meals provided by CPS:

"LunchStop serves free, healthy meals at 40 outdoor CPS locations!  Any child 1-18 years can receive a free meal every Monday through Friday from June 28th to August 28th (children do not have to be CPS students)."

Although Rahm has claimed that "CPS continues to set new standards of excellence," we disagree.

According to the city, CPS parents are unable to:

• Independently understand or determine when school begins. 
• Provide school supplies(which cost less than $10) for their children. 
• Independently feed their children 

And additionally, according to the city, CPS teachers should:

• Volunteer their time to provide phone reminders to CPS parents of school start dates
• Volunteer their money to purchase students' school supplies
• Ignore the fact that we will start working this fall without a contract, since the city will not negotiate with the CTU

So to sum up, the city clearly believes that CPS parents and teachers are fucking idiots.

CPS Engineers, Beware

From the comments:

"Rumor has it that CPS is planning on laying off all of the engineers in November, at which point, they will have to reapply for their jobs. Rumor also has it that Mr. Cawley is looking to eliminate 200 engineers, as per his "brown bag lunch" webinar (is this the correct term). The feeling that Mr. Cawley has, is, that 300 engineers can take care of some 600 buildings, based upon his suburban model. That model means that, according to him, the engineers who are rehired will be pulled out of their schools and report to the high schools, then fan out to the elementary schools for work orders.

It's funny that a company that hasn't been relevant since the mid-90s, Motorola, is suddenly the blueprint for an aging guy from Winnetka who does not live in the city, never really got out of middle-management, to implement changes for the school buildings."

CPS management, and Tim Cawley specifically, appears hard at work, yet again, dismantling any and all facets of a functional school system. In the process, they seem dead-set on destroying any vestige of union involvement in any part of our schools. Local 143 has been part of CPS since 1863, and if Tim Cawley has his way that tradition may be greatly altered. Time will tell...

A Perk For One, A Perk For All

For those of you hired after 2011 (known in teacher pension world as Tier II), don't fret. Tony Smith, the new ISBE superintendent is getting a perk. Since we're all in this together--shared sacrifice, all about the kids, insert insipid phrase here--it should apply to all Tier II hires:

"Smith is getting a special perk: The Illinois State Board of Education is giving him a stipend each year, expected to be worth thousands of dollars annually, to make up for his reduced pension...it is intended to match retirement benefits of his predecessor, who was a member of the more generous Tier I plan." This is on top of his $225,000.00 salary, the Tribune reports.

It's almost as if by doing this, Bruce Rauner acknowledges there is such a disparity between the two tiers of the pension system, no one in their right mind would work under the Tier II system knowing they do the same work as a Tier I employee, and yet will receive a lesser benefit upon retirement.

At least this bonus could have been contingent upon Smith becoming a licensed teacher or administrator in the State of Illinois and passing all requisite tests just like every other educator must.

Should do wonders for attacting the top teaching candidates to the state, retaining teachers, and morale.

$100 G to Burn Down House

Less than a week after making a $634 M payment to the teachers' pension fund and then asking for $500 M back, Rahm has pledged $100 G of city money to burn down a house.  The house-burning is planned for September 26th to celebrate the 2nd Annual Great Chicago Fire Festival.

The 1st Great Chicago Fire Festival in 2014, to which Rahm gave $350 G, is now known as the "fiasco on the river," as rainy weather prevented the fire from spreading and many tourists were disappointed.

CPS teachers, keep up the begging on Donors Choose.  It looks like you're going to have wait for those dry erase markers, pencils and chairs that you need in the classroom.

CPS Debt: Cha-ching!

Floated quietly on July 4th, the Sun-Times outlines the minefield that is CPS borrowing and its associated fees. In the Spring, CPS sold $478,000,000 in bonds, and the $4,400,000 fee for such borrowing has been spread around to those with ties to mayors past and present.

Chris Fusco has connected all the dots for anyone who cares to see how the connected continue to make money while CPS and the city go broke:

• Law firm Katten Muchin & Rosenman's profit: $300,000. The connected: former Mayor Daley who made pension holidays de rigueur is Of Counsel at the firm, and the firm's attorneys have contributed $61,000 to Emanuel's campaigns since 2010. 

• Law firm Thompson Coburn's profit: $350,000. The connected:  John Cullerton, Mayor Emanuel's bro in the Illinois General Assembly.

• Finance firm Loop Capital Markets profit: $180,000 in underwriting fees. The connected: James Reynolds, Jr., firm founder who's also an Emanuel appointee to World Business Chicago and the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority. World Business Chicago has a sleek website but WCT is unsure of what they do to benefit citizens. IFSA is an ineffectual organization who does things like pay the debt on U.S. Cellular while not collecting the rent.

Going broke has never paid so well, at least for some. WCT thought Mayor Daley's continued profiteering from the mess he created was the big middle finger to the taxpayers, but it turns out the giant middle finger is:

• Finance firm Cabrera Capital Markets: A portion of the $2,300,000 in fees for this year's bond deal, plus half of the $18.1M in fees since 2011.  If the name Cabrera rings a bell it should: Martin Cabrera, Jr. was UNO Charter Schools chairman after the SEC probe of UNO's awarding of construction contracts based on best price nepotism. Cabrera Capital, not coincidentally, was one of the underwriters of the $37.5M in loans UNO received in 2011.

The list of the connected goes on and on. Don't be a-feared, citizens, Emanuel spokesperson Adam Collins reassures readers, "...there is no connection between the awarding of CPS bond work and contributions to the mayor's political fund." Thanks for clearing that up. If City Hall says it, it must be true.

Our political ruling class engages in financial malfeasance as its sole practice, and the constellation of cronies assembled in Chicago is continually enriched thanks to such deals. Meanwhile, Chicagoans are bracing for a slew of taxes ranging from increased property taxes to a tax on the cloud so our ruling elite can remain so.

CPS Waste, Exhibit A: The Talent Office

While the media's solution to everything CPS revolves around: 1) declaring bankruptcy or 2) massive layoffs of the teaching and support staff in schools, we humbly suggest all reporters examine the CPS Talent Office (Newspeak for HR) for some possible places to save money.

According to their own website they have no accomplishments to date.

For a department that doesn't hide their uselessness, they are certainly well staffed. 

We took a "deep dive into the data," as our Thought Partners are wont to say and discovered the following:

• 4 Broad Center residents on staff at $95,000 each. The Broad Center bills itself as tran$formative by pushing for charter expansion and merit pay. Broadies actively perpetuate the notion that urban school systems can only succeed by removing the teaching staff and replacing them with disruptive leaders from outside the education field.

• An Orwellian Education Pioneer Analyst fellow apparently on staff to explore the uncharted territory of data as a profiteering mechanism. The Education Pioneers have investors from the plutocrat hall-of-fame including: the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Broad Foundation and a donor from Chicago named Anonymous (Bruce Rauner or Ken Griffin is that you?)

• Numerous Talent Generalists, Talent Specialists, and Executive Directors who collect 6-figure salaries.

• Managers of managers of managers who oversee the up-and-coming profiteers earning close to 6 figures.

Potential candidates report months long waits for returned calls, convoluted steps in the hiring process, and no answers to questions.  Clearly, the Talent Office is hard at work ignoring qualified candidates and soliciting those who only see teaching as a stepping stone on the way to something better. This tidily continues the urban district-as-failure myth (No qualified candidates, better privatize!) whilst lining the pockets of numerous profiteers.

Tribune Crusades for Rahm. Again.

The Tribune's monthly quota of articles that begin to frankly address the problems of the urban poor must be exactly three (lead poisoning, poverty, and corruption). Or, maybe now that Rahm Emanuel's Blackhawks bromance is waning, his lackeys are back on high alert for anything less than glowing written about Emanuel's management of Chicago. Whatever the reason, the Tribune's hot streak of truth-telling comes to a screeching halt with Monday's editorial posting (paywalled) that is a direct response to the CTU's charge that CPS is broke on purpose.

The Editorial Board helpfully reminds readers, "The value in the stark report prepared for CPS by Ernst & Young is that the firm has great credibility. The report, released over the last few days, underscores that this is not a manufactured crisis. It is real; it is happening now."

The CTU never said it was not real, they've simply outlined--ad nauseam--the many repeated missteps that Mayor Daley and David Vitale, among others, have taken along the way to ensure a crisis. Toxic debt swaps? Check. Rampant cronyism? Check. An open checkbook to any and all but traditional schools? Check. Fat checks to charter operators and opportunists? Check and check.

The Tribune dutifully points to Ernst & Young's claim (a week before the CTU contract expires) that, " 'CPS teachers are well remunerated compared to their peers in other large US/Midwest school districts.' " This, despite the 2012 report by arbitrator Edwin Benn that suggested pay be commensurate with increased work.

The Editorial Board further carries the mayor's water by suggesting that CPS seek bankruptcy authorization, "No one would relish a bankruptcy declaration; the repercussions would be difficult to predict. But the Illinois General Assembly needs to pass legislation to allow that, just in case." Needless to say the charter operators who are already making a windfall of profits would relish such bankruptcy proceedings so they can gleefully continue to make private a public good.

The writers plant a nice wet one right on Rahm's ass when they can't even be bothered to suggest getting rid of David Vitale or suing the rubber stamp Board of Education for orchestrating the tidal wave of financial malfeasance the families, students, and teachers are now bracing for.

Read Between the Lines

In the halcyon days of 2010, Rahm Emanuel outlined his education platform: "Our goal should be nothing less than ensuring that every child in this city has access to a world-class education...but without a good qualified teacher, those things [infrastructure, small class sizes] cannot guarantee learning." Yes!

Mayor Emanuel in an uncharacteristically optimistic 2014 press release: "We will continue to make all the investments necessary for a high-quality education that prepares our students for success in college, career and life." Right on!

Mayor Emanuel in 2015 announcing that 6 CPS high schools (all non-charter...awkward!) are among the state's Top 10: "I applaud the hard work of our students, and also the teachers...who have supported them in attaining success in the classroom." Sing it, brother!

With all the big talk of a world-class, high-quality education and qualified teachers, one would expect CPS spending to put dollars directly into the classroom, not profiteers' pockets. The CPS Department of Procurement shows where rhetoric meets reality:

CPS contract with 10 vendors for the Chicago Leadership Collaborative: $4,300,000 (over 3 years) Ineffective principal training, Cha-ching!

CPS contract with University of Chicago: $1,800,000 Championing made-up metrics, Cha-ching!

CPS contract with Teach for America: $1,300,000 Contracting inexperienced teachers who have no interest in teaching, Cha-ching!

CPS contract with Wilson Reading: $72,000 Training teachers to help students learn to read, Cha-ching?

One might argue the most money should go to the most effective resources. Here is a testimonial from the contract awardee who provides training to teachers to become high-quality instructors, "I taught English in the village school [in the Sudan]...I am so glad I finished my certification before I going. I felt prepared to provide meaningful and relevant instruction to help the students and teachers...." No TFAer would ever be caught dead in the Sudan, unless it helped their impending law/med/biz school application, so TFA is out.

Still not sure which program puts effective teachers in front of students? Here's another testimonial, "Patrick Lombard has come full-circle; from a struggling reader in third grade to a master's candidate is elementary education pursuing certification." University of Chicago doesn't take struggling readers, even if it was way back in the third grade. U of C is off the list.

Yes, the jargon-free Wilson Reading provides relevant training and produces results, but only received a $72,000 contract award in 2014 (point of reference: Ken Griffin makes this much money in 48 minutes). Yet, the new-agey Leadership Collaborative which often pushes teachers with little time in the classroom into administration is raking in a cool million this year; the University of Chicago who've proven to be total education hacks by defending CPS's juking of graduation rates gets almost two million this year, and Teach for America, an organization that willfully puts under-trained teachers warm bodies in the classroom gets tossed another million.

Rahm Emanuel and CPS tell the kids of Chicago to sit and spin when it comes to directing dollars into the classroom and developing high-quality teachers whose instruction can make a difference.

Chicago: The Fascist Detroit

Chicago vs. Detroit

Republican Senator Mark Kirk issued a dire warning in March: re-elect Rahm or become Detroit! The 40% of registered Chicago voters who voted chose Rahm. 

Chicagoans will be spared the urban blight, bankruptcy, and emergency management that has befallen Detroit, right? Let's see:

	Chicago	Detroit
Year of first charter school	1997	1994
Year of first mass school closings	2002	2002
Current charter enrollment	60,982	58,612
Current public school management	Interim CEO	Emergency Manager #4
New solution to "fix" schools	Turnaround specialist	Divide district
Future of public school system	???	???

Rahm Emanuel's second term is off to such a grand start that an editorial (pay-walled) in Friday's Tribune beats the bankruptcy drums ever-harder and suggests a Mussolini-like turnaround expert to manage the schools. In Chicago education, turnaround is code for privatize.

In order to efficiently dispatch any ounce of public ownership of the schools, one would need a tyrannical, opportunistic, and ideologically dishonest--all various ways Mussolini's rule has been described--to come in as CPS's leader to usher in the new age of anti-democracy.

Auction-Rate Education

Nothing will ruin a perfectly fine day away from school faster than another phone call from your delusional principal reading the Chicago Tribune's exacting, hair-raising reporting of David Vitale's investment follies on behalf of CPS. To use Common Core parlance, Vitale and the Board's investment in auction-rate bonds and interest-rate swaps could be described as robustly complex. You see, reader, auction-rate bonds are bonds that go to the lowest bidder and whose interest rates are regularly reset. This practice has been so successful the SEC issued a Cease and Desist order to stop such *innovation* and a basic Wikipedia search notes these markets have largely been frozen since 2008. No matter, nothing like using an untested, risky means of finance to needlessly expand the district.

Unfortunately for tax-payers and public school students, such robust complexity may end up costing the district $100,000,000 more than necessary upon repayment. One can safely assume the Board's, "unanimously approved contracts...that didn't even specify exact costs," will benefit Wall Street grifters and not any students. 

If terms like auction-rate bonds and interest-rate swaps don't readily roll off your tongue, the Tribune describes such deals variously as: exotic, unconventional, flavor of the day, and risky. If these articles were not so finance-laden one would think you were reading about CPS education policy. 

Using another refrain that could be a blanket statement for most CPS decisions, Jackson Potter of the CTU puts it best when he says, "It did not have to be this way." 

A Thin Line Between Love & Hate

It's been a fascinating 48 hours in the life CPS: three cash-starved schools privatized, other neighborhood schools praised for improving a never-before tracked statistic called Freshman On Track, and the Northside discovering they are, yet again, the lucky recipients of a new Selective Enrollment school to be named after Barack Obama. Do CPS & Rahm love students, families, and teachers or do they hate students, families, and teachers?

Though our heads our spinning, let's take a deeper dive into the data, shall we?

• The three turnaround schools--Dvorak, Gresham, and McNair--will all be run by AUSL despite strong community protest. Up until 2009, David Vitale, current Board of Ed. president was also the chairman of AUSL's board. Conflict of interest, anyone, anyone?

• While the turnaround schools were starved of cash, AUSL gets a one time profiteer fee of $300,000 for each school they improve implode. It makes one wonder how CPS can suddenly find close to $1 million dollars to give to AUSL, but couldn't find that money to fund these schools at a functional level. Yep, that goes in the hate column.

• WCT hates to nay-say, but it's pretty suspicious that University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research "discovered" the Freshman On Track metric, and also published the study declaring such a metric, "the key to solving the dropout crisis." Sort of like a doctor diagnosing you with an unheard of ailment and then restoring you to health. Rahm Emanuel, too, was all emboldened talking about a new Chicago of neighborhood schools that can get the job done. So, we'll take the love where we can get it.

• Barack Obama College Prep will be built near the former Cabrini-Green public housing complex. The area is now described as burgeoning and will not be a school open to the neighborhood, but instead a $60 million TIF-financed selective enrollment. Rahm has been intractable about touching TIF funds for schools, but suddenly he can loosen the purse strings for a school in Lincoln Park. The irony is lost on no one that these funds could be used to keep teaching positions at schools that serve the other 99% of Chicago. It also seems undeserving to name a school after the president who's let Arne Duncan try to dismantle what's left of the public school system. This action has to go in the psychological warfare column since they're spending money on schools, but not in any areas that are in dire need.

Emanuel, touting the big turnaround  in Chicago education, offered former Secretary of Education William Bennett, "a one way ticket" back to Chicago to see the progress.  Instead, we'd like to offer Rahm, B3, and the entire Board of Education a one way ticket away from our schools.

Beware the Zombie Ideas

In Sunday's New York Times Paul Krugman talks about zombie ideas: "an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die." While Krugman's op-ed is about an overstated skills gap in the American workforce, his point fits perfectly with CPS's current obsession with ideas that refuse to die. 

Some of these ideas are:

• B3's insistence in her latest From the Desk of the CEO that the school closures over the past year have been successful, "Data is encouraging and trends are promising." As our Thought Partners are wont to demand, "Show us the day-ta!" B3's newsletter is a little spotty on the, ahem, numbers.

• AUSL knows how to staff schools better than currently employed teachers, administrators, support staff, and maintenance crews. In fact, AUSL was just recommended to be the manager of three new turnarounds closings. This, despite a study from the organization Designs for Change which states that schools with democratically-led governing systems outperformed turnarounds. While we know Rahm and his ilk are likely to say, "Democracy, shmasocracy," this study shows how school-based democracies can be effective.

• Teachers created the pension crisis. Wrong again. The CTU lays out some facts and figures which illustrate the consequences of "successive pension holidays" between 1995 and 2005.

Zombie ideas are everywhere, arm yourself properly!

Conscious Uncoupling

The Internet has been abuzz for the last 24 hours trying to figure out what Gwyneth Paltrow meant by the phrase conscious uncoupling. WCT only hears such mystifying terms during professional development sessions with our Thought Partners. It turns out, psychotherapist Katherine Thomas is a Thought Partner to the stars because conscious uncoupling means saying goodbye, but feeling okay about it.

Perhaps our elected school board retains the services of Katherine Thomas. The school board seems to have no problem uncoupling themselves from money to buy new office furniture. $5 million dollars worth of new furniture. That's in addition to the $4.5 million dollars they already had earmarked for new furniture. Herman Miller chairs for one and all! That's close to $10 million dollars to move into new offices while over 50 schools were closed this year, and 3 school turnarounds closings were just announced. 

The stellar decision-making from CPS just keeps on rolling.

Corporate Police Reform: Cha-ching?

We at WCT like to wonder "what if?"  The "what if?" question for today is:

What if education reformers applied the same ideas to police departments?

Corporate Reform Efforts	Public Schools	Police Departments
Examine data	Student performance: low test scores reveal failure in inner-city schools.	Crime: high crime reveals failure in inner-city neighborhoods
Determine parties responsible for failure	teachers, schools	police officers, police departments
Initial action regarding failure	Offer corporate-sponsored charter school replacements for failing inner-city public schools	Offer corporate-sponsored alternate police squads for failing inner-city neighborhoods
Policies regarding older, tenured staff	Replace with young grads of selective universities with no teaching experience	Replace with young grads of selective universities with no policing experience
Policies regarding leadership	Train corporate-style administrators who have no educational experience in fast-track programs	Train corporate-style leaders who have no police experience in fast-track programs
Policies regarding standards	Assume that all American children -- regardless of location, background, socio-economic status, and English language proficiency -- will learn the same skills at the same time, given proper instruction	Assume that all American people -- regardless of location, background, and socio-economic status -- will behave in a cooperative, compliant and law-abiding manner, given proper police supervision
Policies regarding accountability	1. Schools that serve students with low test scores are threatened with punitive measures 2. Teachers’ salary increases tied to improvement in students’ test scores.	1. Police departments that serve communities with high crime rates are threatened with punitive measures. 2. Police officers’ salary increases tied to reduction in crime rates.

Maybe some Chicago ed reformers or thought partners could contact CPS to make a pitch!  Maybe they could go for a ride-along and offer advice on how to lean into discomfort, how to socialize all shareholders into the informational experience, and how to promote excellence and rigor?

TOOT Your Way To Excellence

What have some administrators been up to over break? If you guessed crafting Dickensian policies about bathroom usage, you'd be right. While CPS uses many metrics to rank schools, restroom frequency is not yet one. However, one school's administrators, and perhaps their Thought Partners, have struck upon a new way to measure high standards and academic excellence: T.O.O.T. (Time out of Toilet).*

A friend shared the following:

Dear Faculty,

Welcome back and Happy New Year! In order to maximize student learning and reduce the loss of instructional time, we are implementing two new restroom policies.

1. Designated Restroom Times - Take your class to use the restroom only during your allotted time so that multiple groups of students are not competing to use the facilities. Also, the expectation is that the restroom break should last only five minutes. Before leaving for the restroom, clearly communicate the behavioral expectations and the time limit. Use your watch or stopwatch to time the students and praise them when they meet the behavior and time expectations.

Sign up for your restroom time slot in the main office by Tuesday, January 7. 

2. Restroom Passes - In addition to scheduled restroom breaks, students will be given restroom passes to use if they need to use the restroom outside of the scheduled time. Students will be given two restroom passes to use between now and the end of the quarter. They can choose to hold on to them and trade them in for a reward at the end of the quarter. Following these guidelines:

Have students fill in their names as soon as they receive them. Passes are invalid if names are crossed out for another name.

For the upper grades, students can use one teacher's pass in another classroom, but they still only get the same number of passes per quarter.

Use a class roster to have student initial next to their name to indicate that they received the passes.

Have students fill in the "time out" and "time in" and then turn the pass in to the teacher when finished. This will help them practice the CCS of telling time with both digital and analog clocks.

Promote the benefit of not using the passes by reminding students that rewards will be given for left over passes at the end of the quarter.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

WCT notes a few problems (besides the continued employment of the administrative dolt who drafted this):

• Designated restroom times. Teachers must now possess telepathic qualities on an unparalleled level to predict when the optimal 5 minute go time window for each class might be.

• Stopwatch usage. We wonder if administrators--who we're told get private bathrooms in many schools--tried and succeeded with the five minute rule they're imposing on students.

• Rewards for not using the restroom. 

• Linking bathroom usage (via telling time) to CCSS. We doubt Arne Duncan and Bill Gates had the john on their minds when they rolled out the CCSS. Then again, Bill Gates is investing in the development of a urine powered cell phone so one never knows.

While the school goes unnamed, WCT has learned the following about the crack administration who's developed this:

• The principal has only two years of classroom experience and is friends with Rahm.

• The newly hired Assistant Principal is an "intern"...perhaps SUPES?

•  Extra security has been hired to manage frustrated parents.

The entire memo generates many practical questions, among them: 

• Why must students be monitored so closely by their teachers let alone the main office?

• If a teacher does not follow this complicated set of instructions, will their REACH evaluation be negatively impacted?

• If extra security has in fact been hired to manage already frustrated parents, how will a policy like this make any parent happy?

• Since the principal is Rahm's clout hire, are these the types of "reforms" he expects to see at other CPS schools? What about the school his kids attend?

• What unfortunate soul will need to track this? In the time it takes them to track an entire school's bathroom use, what could they have done instead?

*WCT is happy to sell this acronym to the administrative team searching for a way to cleverly capture their new policy. Cha-ching!
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Teachers: does your school have any policies approaching this ridiculousness? Is this what passes for reform? Leave a comment or email wct.tips@gmail.com