Climate and Equity

I looked for a public notice and was unable to find one, but I have heard from two involved parties that the School District is planning a special (early) EEE (Education Equity Excellence) Committee meeting to discuss Dr. Aber’s 2009 Climate Study.

Thursday, April 7th

4:pm

Mellon Center

I am seriously considering going, especially if there is to be more of an open-discussion format, as opposed to a litany of reports and a monologue. Anyone else interested? If not, please continue to read. *grin*

Dr. Aber’s Study raises some very interesting yet subtle points. One the one hand, it would appear that the overall Climate has not changed much since the 2000 Study, despite the fact that much of the Administration is completely different (not to mention the School Board) and giant purple elephant of the Consent Decree is no longer stomping around in the middle of the room. A majority of the Whites still seem to hold on to terms like “color blind” and “reverse discrimination”, while Blacks decry a systematic racism that seems obvious to them. I would be very curious how the Latinos and other groups feel. On the other hand, there are some uniquely challenging opportunities that seem to spark with hope and progress. For example, a good portion of Dr. Aber’s Study branches out to talk about the impact of the Consent Decree and racism in general. In light of these big issues, Dr. Aber’s team held several focus groups after the Study was compiled and the respondents were given a chance to digest the bigger picture. This in particular opened up avenues of communication and made it obvious that some folks were simply not comfortable speaking their minds, either in their normal, day-to-day school lives or in the survey responses.

Another point which become obvious is that there is a huge blame game going on. Everyone is a victim and wants to project their failures unto something external; a system, a people group, sometimes even individuals. While I believe there is some merit at the root of these accusations (our environment has a bit of an impact on who we are), we must bear responsibility for ourselves. If there is an institutional problem, why not work together to address it? Are we not all human?

Dr. Aber, in both the 2000 and the 2009 Study, made strong recommendations for safe environments where opinions could be fleshed out, ideas put on the table and thoughts discussed. I think we can all agree that this in itself will not solve the problem of racism, inter-community conflict and a struggling School District. But I have to believe it is at least a step in the right direction.

There is a whole lot going on with Climate Studies. It is a lot to digest, but if you take it slowly and start with the Summary and work towards the Discussion section, I think it becomes manageable.

And this is where the Education Equity Excellence Committee comes in. Yeah, you thought I had totally digressed, eh? =)

Dr. Aber will be presenting this stuff to the EEE on April 7th. I dearly hope it is not a pure lecture format. I am pushing for more discussion, a chance to get the community involved. I hope the Committee members take the time to read at least a few pages of the Study and have questions, observations, comments and thoughts of their own. The EEE was intentionally diverse, and it seems like a good cross-section to discuss these kinds of issues. Since this is a special meeting called for this particular purpose (as a result of the Study being published), I hope they can focus on that.

So, are you going?

Carrie Busey Community Forum

I am not a big fan of going to meetings. But in my defense, this was supposed to be a forum. It was still basically a meeting, but with some time for questions afterwards.

Stuart Brodsky of OWP/P presented a slideshow of graphics and information. EDIT (March 30): Now hosted on the U4 website: http://www.champaignschools.org/Construction/photos_carrie_busey.pdf

Here are some of the highlights I took away:

• An official Request for Bids will be filed soon (tomorrow, maybe).
• Once the bidding process is complete, the General Contractor should break ground in June 2011.
• Construction should be complete some time in July, 2012.
• OWP/P took a lot of input from certain community members and really listened to the current teachers; the overall design reflects this feedback. In particular, a central Library and Dining area that may potentially be used by the community, clustered classroom environments, and a playground area nestled in the heart of the structure.
• Both Stuart and Jeff Scott emphasized their desire to see a lot of community collaboration and afterhours use.
• Still ongoing discussion for a Balanced Calendar, but definitely not for 2012.
• Plans are being discussed for a wind-powered turbine generator and photovoltaic cells (solar panels).
• Lots of flexibility and personalization of features, like  temporary partitions in clustered classrooms and a temporary partition separating gym from dining area.
• Lots of thought given towards orientation of classrooms, lots of sunlight and attention given to special kinds of windows.

One of my concerns is that the high degree of flexibility might be a bit overwhelming, like a new gadget with too many buttons. Will all that flexibility actually be used? Sure, it sounds awesome! But will we end up with spaces or ideas that are simply gathering dust? I am very curious to see how the collaborative classrooms work out, since I grew up with very traditional, non-collaborative classes. How do you minimize distractions from misbehavior? Do teachers still retain a sense of individuality and uniqueness, or do they get blended into a cooperative soup?

Also concerned about the community collaboration aspect. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is an awesome goal to have. But how are we going to actualize it, make it real and practical? From talking with neighbors, I get the impression that most folks see Carrie Busey as something that the school district is doing. Period.

Lastly, some very interesting news. BTW and Stratton both qualified for and were awarded a “one laptop per child” type of grant. I think this is good news. The state pays for laptops that are kept at the school but available for students to use. This has a lot of awesome potential, and I dearly hope it is not abused or neglected. But since I work with computers, I start to think…. is this really a good use of money? I often hate computers. What happens in a few years when the laptops start to break, get worn out and/or become obsolete? Are they replaced? Everyone gets an iPad? Anyone, there is good in there, and I do not want to take away from that.

Culver heading to DeKalb?

http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/candidates-from-small-districts-890624.html

Now isn’t that interesting……

Yes, I can see the wheels in your mind starting to spin. Faster now.

For instance, Culver’s reported salary is 29% to 50% greater than the salaries of the other two candidates. Yet the total school population of Culver’s district is a mere 2.29% larger than the district of the closest candidate. And this observation spawns two more thoughts. Hypothetically, if Culver were to accept the position with DeKalb, how would Unit 4 fill that role? And I noticed that the other two candidates have “Dr.” prefixes.

Interesting things are afoot.

Found another community group: CUSF

Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation (aka CUSF)

 

I was browsing the “links” section of the Unit 4 website and happened upon this interesting web site. Reading the FAQs and “about us” pages and newsletters, I was quite impressed. These guys started up in 1990 and have been chugging along ever since. And I never heard of them before. Wow.

 

This is kind of what I had in mind when I blogged about the Wake County efforts. CUSF seems to be an organized effort to get the community involved and helping teachers (and schools) financially. And the CUScholars program is intriguing as well.

 

And the website is actually inviting and attractive, to boot.

New respect for the Illinois Interactive Report Card

Been doing a bit of digging around on the IIRC website, specifically for our school district. I called up Valerie Larusso a few times to ask a few questions, and she was very helpful in walking me through various features and explaining what I was seeing.

 

The short of it is: it ROCKS!

 

There is a ton of information out there, and the folks at NIU have gone out of there way to present volumes of data and statistics in a very user-friendly format. Very impressive stuff.

 

My first inquiry was why Bottenfield did not make AYP; overall, it scored 87.8%, well over the required 77.5% (as described in this handy info page). Which looks odd because a school with a lower score made AYP (Kenwood, 78.5%). I came to learn that this overall score can be broken down into subgroups. The “AYP Information” tab for Bottenfield shows that there were two particular subgroups that did not meet the 77.5% mark in Reading. You can drill down even further and find out how individual grade levels did (3rd, 4th and 5th). Since the rules of calculating AYP say that each subgroup has to meet the mark, this explained to me why Bottenfield did not make AYP last year.

 

And then I got to looking at trends. Because of the Consent Decree, District 4 has been submitting fairly comprehensive reports, and IIRC compiles all that information and allows to roll the years back to 2003 (later for some stats). The downside with all this wonderful information is that it is easy to get your nose caught in the book. But it makes for a good academic exercise. It is very interesting to see schools like Kenwood steadily increase in all scores, while other schools seemed to have had an especially good year in 2006 (for whatever reason).

 

But the IIRC does not stop there. You can view sample tests, even a question bank, see the what the state standards are and what kind of skills the curriculum should be providing at each grade level. You can slice and dice the reports by a variety of factors (the “Educational Environment” I found particularly fascinating), and compare to other schools by a large number of variables.

 

Kudos to the team that put this together and maintains IIRC. Very well done!

 

Now here is the flip side of the coin. Numbers never tell the complete story. Why is Barkstall enjoying its limelight on the “Honor Roll” while other schools have never even made AYP? There is no good answer to that, and the specifics will change next year with a new batch of students. And maybe even a change to the teaching staff and/or the curriculum and/or programs. On top of that, standardized tests are simply measuring a few finite aspects of a child’s development. Think about it – you could conceivably devise a school that did nothing but take the sample tests and questions from IIRC and go over them again and again and again, achieving the absolute best scores in the country. I don’t know about you, but I do not want my child at such a school. In fact, I am beginning to think this whole business with AYP is all in your head, and it most likely has absolutely no affect on whether or not your child goes to a good school. It will be interesting to see what replaces it in late 2014 or early 2015.

 

The IIRC is an amazing tool! Teachers and district administrators can even log in and open up a completely different bag of tricks. But it is just a tool. And I am certain I have only scratched the surface.

Forum for School Board Candidates: March 31, 2011

The School District has announced a Forum for the School Board Candidates:

http://www.champaignschools.org/News/1011/2011-03-17_pta_forum.pdf

 
CONTACT:  Gaby McClellan, PTA Council president at gabrielamcclellan@yahoo.com or call  (217) 819-0673

 

Candidates running for the Champaign Unit 4 School Board have been invited to participate in a candidate forum, by the PTA Council.  The Forum will be held on Thursday, March 31 at 7 PM in  the Mellon Administrative Center Board Room.  Brian Minsker, Illinois PTA East Central Field Service Area Representative, will moderate.  The PTA Council invites the public to attend.  The School Board election takes place on April 5, 2011.  Candidates are Jamar Brown, Kristine Chalifoux, Sue Grey, Greg Novak and Lynn Stuckey

Confused about our national government

RE: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/16/fed-instructs-teachers-to-facebook-creep-students/#ixzz1Gl5tUyYc

 

I am trying to figure out why the folks in DC (not the dailycaller) think suing principals is a good idea. And why they think that school officials should police the private lives of students, and why outside the scope of school? Is that not like suing doctors for not putting bandaids on AIDS victims? Not only does it not help, but it is counter-productive, it takes away from what is really important.

 

I just don’t get it. Can someone enlighten me?

[Insert attention-grabbing title here]

Did you ever feel like a great comedian tells a crowd a joke, and 5 minutes after everyone laughs you finally get it? Or how about a speaker/teacher/professor who is passionately describing something in great detail, but then the light bulb finally goes off a few days later while shopping for fruit?

 

Perhaps I am the last one to catch the train. But it finally dawned on me why people complain, gripe and pull their hair out about Unit 4 in particular, but also about elected officials in general and even large software vendors and the price of gas. We all have an inner compass. And while mine might be slightly different than yours, everybody knows the price of gas should never get close to $4/gal, and that Microsoft should never blue-screen, and that elected officials should pursue the path that benefits the whole.

 

We have expectations, unwritten and often unspoken, that inevitably, and with great subtlety, become “standards”. Our compass. We develop a conceptual model for how something should work, and when our expectations are not met (causing our compass to point in a different direction), we start to feel something. Concern, worry, disappointment. Maybe even stronger, like anger, bitter or frustrated. This is our lymbic system kicking in, starting to get the adrenaline flowing, getting ready to fight or flight.

 

And now let me introduce the purple elephant (remember, don’t think about the purple elephant, don’t even mention it).

 

One way or another, a few people in our community (those that I have talked to or communicated with) feel that there is a huge disconnect between the public and the Administration and the Board. Keep in mind, there are roughly 89,996 others I am not quite sure about, so the small sampling that I personally have is not very representative. At all. But take a look at the 2000 and the 2009 Climate Studies. Observe the “Great Schools, Together” project. Count the number of active people in CARE3. Ever been to a school board meeting or seen one on TV? The folks that have expressed negative feelings do so because, I believe, they have unmet expectations. Some have voiced extremely valid and well-thought concerns, while others feel that something is amiss but are unable to place a finger on it. I have often fallen into the second category.

 

I think there is a simple solution: listen to those voices. I could be wrong and totally off-target, but I think the people of the community simply want to be heard. They want to know that the elected officials care about their constituents, and not only on the path to (re)election. And if I may project myself unto “the people”, I think “the people” would also want to know that they have a certain kind of power to make changes. They want a system that responds to their input.

 

In my humble opinion, I suggest we (the community and the Administration/Board, together) put on our work gloves and prepare to bust a sweat. Hard work like listening to others without being defensive. Hard work like looking past another’s faults. Even if we have to grit our teeth the first few times. Hard work like acknowledging the good in others, and offering constructive criticism in a manner that clearly communicates a desire to see mutual improvement. If we do the “us vs them” game, it becomes a civil war and nobody wins.

 

Utopian? Yes. Pipe dream? Maybe. Impossible? No.

If the hard work is not getting done, I have none to blame but myself.

Updates on the Kindergarten Lottery

Couple things going on – not much of my own content, but mostly from others.

 

Alison provided a copy of the Lottery Algorithm. Although I had taken stabs at this in the past, it is really nice to see an “official” document about the process. What I really like about this document is that it gives more explanation about the idea behind low-SES priority. However it does not divulge how many “points” that is worth.

 

Socioeconomic Integration

The Champaign Community School District’s controlled choice student assignment plan is designed to promote socioeconomic diversity.  This is accomplished by ensuring that each elementary school has an equitable distribution of low and non-low SES kindergarten students.  To achieve this purpose, an elementary school is considered to be socioeconomically integrated when its kindergarten enrollment has a percentage of low-SES students that is within a variance of plus or minus 15 percentage points of Districtwide percentage of low-SES kindergarten students.

Identifying At-Risk Students

The early identification of children who are most at-risk of not performing to their fullest potential when they enter elementary school is a key component of this student assignment plan.  The early identification and appropriate placement of at risk children has been the cornerstone of American educational reform since the publication of James S. Coleman’s Equality of Educational Opportunity in 1966.

 

1966… wow. I can see this identification of “At-Risk” being offensive to some, controversial to others. At the heart of the matter, I think this is a good thing. In my opinion this is the good side of Socialism at work. And to the extent that I understand it, I completely agree with it.

 

In other news (literally, News-Gazette), Jodi Heckel gives us an update on the student registrations, citing the good responses for the Magnet programs. It would be interesting to circle back to the D’Mello’s in a couple years to see what they think of the program, especially since the two Magnet schools are the two furthest choices from their location in Savoy. It is my expectation that they will be pleasantly surprised.

 

Last but no least, Julie Wurth laid down pertinent thoughts in her NG Blog entry, Kindergarten Prep: Schools of Choice.

 

While we often hear misgivings about Schools of Choice (aka, “Controlled Choice”), I have not heard many viable alternatives suggested. Curious. I do think there are key obstacles within the system and the various procedures in place, but it seems like I have to keep peeling back the onion to figure out exactly what they are. In some ways, it almost seems as if the public perception of schools (including things like the Lottery) would improve, then the schools would actually improve.

 

Oh, one other note. Dr. Mark Aber and I are conversing about the Climate Survey and I hope to meet with him after Spring Break so we can talk more in-depth. We both have a desire that the community enter into a discussion about this thing and hash it out.

Unit 4 School Assignment Focus Group

I have been invited to attend a focus group for the school districts lottery system. In fact, everyone who took the survey was invited.

 

The agenda is to generate information from families about the school choice process, it’s efficacy, and parental satisfaction related to the process.

 

I would love to hear what you all are think about this. There are only 6 people in the Focus Group, which seems way too small to me, but hey, what can I do about it? I would like to collect as many thoughts on this topic before I go to the Friday April 1st meeting. If you know of someone who is not online much, drop me a phone number and I’ll call them. Or have them call me.

New Project – using Google Maps to find closest school

http://lottery.cb-pta.com/other/cu-walking-to-school-static.html

This is still very rough, but the core of what I want it to do is basically there; you click on a map, and you get a line between you and each school, and an information box telling you the distance to each school, sorted in ascending order.

Some things I still want to do:

• make it look nicer
• I really do not like the way Google Maps renders the multiple paths – it can be quite confusing to the user
• Add some explanations about what I am doing this
• Allow the user to type in an address (this is quite easy, just have not done anything about it, yet)
• change the color (and size?) of the path of the closest school so it is more obvious on the map
• eventually link this (or otherwise tie together) to the overlap map

So, why am I doing this? Because right now Unit 4 has nothing like this, and I think it might be helpful. Maybe it will not be helpful. Who knows. However, the other benefit is that I get to learn more about javascript and Google’s pretty amazing suite of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). They got some slick stuff out there.

Related to:

http://champaignunit4.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/wake-an-example-of-how-to-bring-community-and-schools-together/

http://champaignunit4.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/a-technical-read-using-tigerline-shapefiles-and-google-maps/

2009 Climate Survey

[Edit: March 16th] Grrr… I have been calling this a Climate Survey, but it is really the Climate Study. Now do I go and change all the links or let is stand. My bad. 2009 Champaign School Climate Study. NOT SURVEY!

 

Today I was honored with a copy of the 2009 Climate Survey, but I have agreed not to post it until the Board President gets back to town to sign a response by Unit 4.

I have glanced over it, and the author (Dr. Mark Aber) makes quite a few comments about how similar the 2009 Climate Survey is to the one done in 2000. And I would have to agree. You can view the 2000 Survey online (also mirrored here) if you want to get a feel for what the 2009 Survey is like. It is significant to note that the recommendations from 11 years ago still stand today. That is kind of sad.

I am going to be most curious how Unit 4 responds. Not merely the words they put to paper, but the actions they choose to pursue. For my part, I am now strongly persuaded to follow-up on one particular recommendation from 2000:

Create forums both in the schools and in the community to discuss the climate study results and make recommendations to address issues raised by them.  Although this study focused on African Americans, this discussion should take into account the full range ofracial and ethnic diversity in the district, especially because the proportion of people ofcolor in the district is growing rapidly.

Regardless of whether or not Unit 4 addresses this, I really want to see some kind of community forums move forward. I especially think this is critical in light of the responses quoted in both surveys – there are some dramatic comments conveyed, and I fully believe it would benefit our community to understand where those comments are coming from.

EDIT (March 14th):

Study posted: http://champaignunit4.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/champaign-2009-school-climate-report-030711.pdf

Relevant NG Jodi Heckel article: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2011-03-14/climate-study-shows-generally-positive-feelings-champaign-schools.html

Wake: an example of how to bring community and schools together

I stumbled upon Wake’s websites this morning and was very impressed, very inspired:

http://www.wakeedpartnership.org/ : A starting point that describes the partnerships between the community and the school system. Lots of information, lots of links to follow. Basic layout, but rich in content, IMO.

http://wakeschoolchoice.com/ : A website dedicated to describing an illuminating the implementation of “Controlled Choice” in Wake County, NC. Really well done! You can find out about Dr. Alves, or find out approximately what your “Proximity” school; moreover, you can find clear definitions of “Proximity” and other jargon. Also information about why the School system is using this program, their goals and how far they have come already. Awesome stuff.

http://www.wcpss.net/ : The School System’s website. It is quite apparent that the IT staff is in a completely different league than ours.

 

So here’s the rub – how much did all this cost? I hope to find out soon. My impression of how Unit 4 does websites is that they view the online segment of their clients as a small minority. Or in other words, it seems that they have not really embraced the next generation of cell-phone using, facebooking and tweeting parents out there. I do not say this to imply that Unit 4 IT staff is doing a poor job. Rather, their focus is on other things at the moment. Of course, one does wonder, how many parents would actually benefit from this? I cannot but help to think that a lot of new parents would have quite a different first impression.

 

What would it take to evolve or migrate the Unit 4 websites to the next era?

2011 School Board Candidates

I am still trying to form my own opinions of the candidates – it is surprising how hard that can be when you read the local media and have friends telling you their opinions. And since at least one Board member reads this blog, I’ll try to be nice. Despite what I might say here, it is an obligation and responsibility of the reader to shape their own thoughts and find out as much as they can from other sources.

There are 4 seats open, 5 people running for it; three incumbents and two others.

The Incumbents

• Greg Novak – I really value Greg’s service to the community during his time with the Board. I know he has been involved in education for quite some time, and I think that background gives him ample armaments as he tackles issues in the school district. And tackle them he does. My one fear is that, as a boat-rocker, other board members and the Administration might start (or might continue) to become desensitized. I personally am really glad that he is easy to communicate with, which is what a board member should be, above all else, IMO.
• Sue Grey – I have only had a limited number of interactions with Sue. She seems sweet. I have not had the opportunity to observe or witness what she is like as a board member when she has her game on. On one particular issue, I disagreed with her and Kristine Chalifoux on a decision they made. After talking to them about why they made the decision, I was glad they were honest but disheartened about the justification they used.
• Kristine Chalifoux - I have had many interactions with Kristine appreciate her willingness to communicate. Like Sue, what I said in the above paragraph pretty much carries over – I have not been to that many Board Meetings, and those that I did go to, not much was said.

The Potentials

• Jamar Brown – It is not hard to find information about Jamar online, as he has served on a few different committees and offices. He does have a candidate page up on Facebook, but since I personally detest Facebook, I cannot say too much more about that. He was featured on chambanamoms.com, and I have contacted him personally and look forward to learning more about Mr. Brown. I appreciate that he has been involved in the EEE (Education Equity Excellence) Committee, as that will give him a significant exposure to some of the issues going on with Unit 4. Although he is officially running as an Independent, I personally am worried about the huge GOP endorsement he is getting, for a few different reasons.
• Lynn Stuckey – Lynn seems like one of those kind of people that you either hate or love; outspoken and stands up for what she believes. I have seen her many times at Unit 4 meetings/forums, and she speaks her thoughts like an active member of the tax-paying community should. She ran for the Board last time and missed a slot by a mere 3 votes.

I have not decided who I am voting for yet (yes, I realized I gave Jamar a big two thumbs up in the chambana blog) – I want to talk to Jamar and Lynn a bit more. There is always the tricky part about whether to retain incumbents or not, but no matter how you slice it, we will either have two or three incumbents after the vote.