Reflection on CPS Ren10 Initiative and the Small School Movement…

"The principle goal of education is to create men and women who are capable of creating new things, not simply repeating what others have done." Jean Piaget     

Each school is a reflection of the pedagogy, parental and community involvement, leadership, teacher commitment, student demographics, and other contributing  factors that comprise the learning community. Piaget's idea of education as stated above encapsulates what some education reformers are doing. They are literally creating new things, specifically new schools. Some posit that creating new schools and shutting down or turning around low performing schools is the most successful approach to school reform. Current adherents to this model include the current Obama administration, which is exemplified by choosing Arne Duncan to serve in the role of the Secretary of Education. Duncan used this approach when he was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools in Chicago's Renaissance 2010 Initiative before serving as Education Secretary. Duncan (2006) outlines his reasons for using this model in his article "Chicago's Renaissance 2010: Building on School Reform in the Age of Accountability" in Phi Delta Kappan. This approach to urban school reform includes the claim that new schools provide a more conducive learning environment that results in higher achievement than other schools because new schools have the ability to engage students and families more effectively than traditional existing schools. In other words, Duncan espouses that new schools result in a more positive school climate/culture than traditional existing public high schools and therefore school performance indicators are higher in new schools.


It is important to understand the background of Chicago's Ren10 initiative in order to place CPS Small Performance High Schools in context of how and why they exist. Ren10 initiative is a process of school proposals that replace low performing schools with new schools. It is a controversial initiative that began in 2004 under Arne Duncan when he served in the role of CEO of Chicago Public Schools. The CPS website http://www.ren2010.cps.k12.il.us/ provides further details concerning the process and goals. It states, "In June 2004, Mayor Richard Daley launched Renaissance 2010, a bold initiative whose goal is to increase the number of high quality educational options in communities across Chicago by 2010. New schools are created through a competitive, community-based selection process which establishes a set of high standards to which every new school will be held accountable" (CPS, 2010). Many researchers have discussed Ren 10 and its implications including Ayers & Klonsky (2006), Cohen (2006), Robelen (2006), and Kahne, Sporte, Torre, & Easton (2008), and Honig (2009). Researchers from the critical school have also discussed Ren10 including Lipman & Hursch (2007), Lipman & Haines (2007), Arrastia (2007), Means (2008), Lipman (2008), Saltzman (2007), and Smith & Stovall (2008). 
     
The Ren10 approach has now become a national model since Arne Duncan is now the Secretary of Education. Duncan defended this approach, "Closing and reopening schools is both educationally sound and morally warranted. We are hired to fight for kids — not for bureaucrats, reform groups, teachers, principals, or local school councils. We close schools when kids are getting hurt. Under Renaissance 2010, the adults involved are held accountable because the school ceases to exist" (2006, p. 458). Within this model the poor performing schools get shut down or phased out and new schools move in the facility. Although Ren10 has a strong emphasis on charter schools, two other forms of new schools are also a major part of this approach to urban education reform as demonstrated on their website (www.ren2010.cps.k12.il.us). These two types are called Contract Schools, which follow many CPS guidelines and curricula but have more flexibility in hiring, and Performance Schools, which follow all CPS guidelines, curricula, and hiring. The latter, Performance Schools, are the selected experimental group for this study, specifically high schools. These are completely CPS high schools, they hire all certified staff as all public schools must do, all CPS and Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) guidelines must be followed, all staff are a part of the collective bargaining agreement of the Chicago Teacher's Union and the Chicago Board of Education, and they are funded in the same way all CPS schools are funded. There are a few differences in how they function. All CPS Performance High Schools have more autonomy than traditional existing CPS public high schools in the areas of budget allocation, curriculum, autonomy, school governance, and school size. Every new CPS Performance High School has been proposed under the Ren 10, and all are under a school performance contract that includes a five year agreement that can be terminated if the school does not live up to its performance goals as well as an annual review by the Chicago Board of Education, and if necessary, the school can be closed at any time (Duncan, 2006). Another aspect of Ren 10 Performance Schools are the different types such as Military, Selective Enrollment, Magnet, Small Schools and others.


The difference in traditional existing CPS public high schools is how they function. The traditional existing CPS public high schools are limited in ways that include a lack of autonomy in budget allocation, school governance, and curriculum they depend on CPS's Central Office to approve these aspects yearly. The limitations on traditional existing CPS public high schools are perceived by many to result in less successful scores on the school performance indicators. Research concerning the success of small schools (including Honig, 2009; Garth-McCullough, 2007; Farmer-Hinton & Holland, 2008; Werblow & Duesbery, 2009; Kahne, Sporte, Torre, Easton, 2008) includes arguments and case studies that state that this approach is more effective than other types of schools in the areas of overall student performance, however no study found has compared how new small CPS Small Performance High Schools compare with traditional existing CPS public high schools that serve similar populations in Chicago.     


There are gaps in prior research about Ren10 that need to be filled. One gap is that there is no comparison between CPS Small Performance High Schools with traditional existing CPS high schools. It is important to measure the effectiveness of Small Performance High Schools when compared to traditional existing public high schools because it can shed further light upon Small Schools research. If Small Performance High Schools are effective than CPS can provide a school model that is an alternative to charter schools for educational leaders, administrators, teachers, teachers' unions, families, and community members. Since CPS Small Performance High Schools are non-charter schools an analysis of their effectiveness when compared to existing schools is needed in order to recommend this type of school as a district operated public school alternative model to charter schools. Comparing CPS Small Performance High Schools started through Ren10 as an alternative to traditional high schools can provide educational leaders, urban Boards of Education throughout the country, policy-makers, students, families, and communities with a model that accommodates the need for a higher degree of accountability based upon performance, but is not a charter school. It can provide school choice to communities that need it without the ramifications or legal maneuvering that is necessary for charter schools. 

A helpful theory that is appropriate organizational learning theory. This theory has been used in education in studies ranging from educational administration Rusch (2005) to managing change and improvements at the school district level in Herrenkohl (2008), Honig (2008), Knapp (2008), and Louis (2008). Gajda & Koliba (2007) and Scechter (2008) discuss this framework from a school improvement perspective while Giles & Hargreaves (2006) discuss it in light of school innovations and Professional Learning Communities. It has even been applied in the context of information systems and learning in Baxter, Connolly, and Stansfield (2009). Organizational learning theory is applied to small schools by Honig (2009). The unique structure and school culture that is created in a new CPS Small Performance High School creates its own organization of learning through collaboration, the use of technology, partnerships, and events that include students, staff, families, and community members in a learning community. This dynamic interaction can be analyzed with the organizational learning framework in order to gain insight into what is happening during this process as well as understand the unique learning climate that takes shape in each school.


Ren10 Small Performance High Schools can provide a district-run alternative to charter schools throughout the country and drive social change by positively impacting urban public education without the loss of public school education jobs. The drive to privatize public education on the premise that this improves the outcome is unwarranted. Small Performance High Schools are a way to provide accountability and quality to districts as well as provide urban parents and communities with a public school option that offer urban students an education with positive results in the areas of student outcomes, academic progress, and student connections. Exemplary public school educators will be supplied with a rewarding teaching experience that provides union protections, long-term job security, and retirement opportunities that school districts can provide. It also is a way to invest taxpayer's money and connect it with positive results in the three areas of school performance and provides the transparency and accountability that should be demanded by the public when allocating limited resources.

  References

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An Introduction to an Urban Teacher…Part 1

"I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education." Mark Twain

        

    Academic experiences divorced from practical application is not useful because it does not positively impact progressive social change. The goal of becoming a scholar practitioner elicits the kind of reaction that the priorities of anyone pursuing academic training is to improve the part of the world you occupy in order to positively impact social change. My academic experiences include two graduate degrees in the field of education and graduate classes in the fields of religion and church history. In every part of my graduate experiences I have been volunteering and/or working with children and/or young adults. The academic experiences provided me with the training to effectively do research and demonstrate what was learned through writing, teaching, presenting information. However I have almost always been refreshed by my professional experiences as an educator as I have been pursuing academic degree programs. I have found many times that academics are disjointed from practical experience, hence why I agree with the idea that educating myself in many ways is done outside of academics and schooling.

    My first graduate school internship was to create a mentoring program for incoming college freshman who were admitted on academic probation. After I transferred to a certificate Master's program in Secondary Education I substituted at all levels, especially middle and high school. After numerous permanent substitute teacher positions that ranged from 7^th grade language arts to high school gym teacher I received my certification and taught religion at a private Lutheran School for 6^th-8^th graders and taught religion and theology to preteen students up to young adults. I happily moved with my family to Chicago after receiving a job at Chicago Public Schools teaching high school social studies to students who were academically-at-risk for a special program in a South Side predominantly African American high school. Throughout all of these experiences I was a part-time student and I continue to be committed to being a scholar practitioner. I enjoy and feel rejuvenated by fulfilling the dual roles of teaching and learning simultaneously. It provides my teaching practice with fresh ideas and provides me with opportunities to teach others whom I work with about the latest scholarship about education. It also anchors the theory of academics with the practicalities of being effective in the school and classroom. 

    My professional role in this small school within a school did include being assistant disciplinarian, lead teacher, and high school social studies teacher at a small school for academically-at-risk students on Chicago's near South Side until my host high school became a "Turnaround" and was handed to the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), and everyone was let go. Currently my status is a displaced tenured teacher, one of the more than 1000 teachers who have this status due to CPS's budget woes, and approximately 1700 other teachers will be in a similar place due to CEO Ron Huberman's new 2010-2011 CPS budget. I am currently interviewing at various CPS schools and have already sent over 100 resumes over the past few months to various teaching and administrative positions. However I just received a position as an adjunct professor at Trinity International University (TIU), a small Christian University, Graduate, and Divinity School in the northern suburb of Deerfield. I will be teaching the ED 110 Technology for Teachers course, which is very exciting. I spent and three semesters pursuing an Master's of Divinity at the Seminary right after I graduated from college before I switched to the education profession. will be Within my role as a CPS teacher I deal with the realities of poverty and its ravages on youth on a daily basis and in many cases it is an entirely different reality than educational theories. Examples include when teachable moments come concerning gang violence, or when interpersonal issues result in fights in school, or instances occur that are manifested as a result of the social and emotional struggle of being a poor minority student in an urban setting which in some instances circumvents the ability to being academically successful no matter how hard a student tries. It is at these moments that I as a scholar practitioner can bridge the chasm and provide students with the encouragement and hope to break through the ethnic and academic barriers they face. Educational theory and academics fail to provide the adequate training to react accordingly in these situations because the interpersonal communication and relationships that are built as teachers and students which are necessary to live and thrive in these challenging urban educational settings are difficult to measure. 

"A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive -- though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point. The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many Google hits does my name generate? Visibility secures our self-esteem, becoming a substitute, twice removed, for genuine connection. Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone." William Deresiewicz 

     I currently hold two graduate degrees and am pursuing an Educational Specialist (Ed. S.) in Educational Technology at Walden University. One is Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) with an emphasis in Secondary Social Studies from National-Louis University. The second is Master of Education in Educational Leadership (M.Ed.) from American College of Education. I have excelled in these programs and they provided me with the quantitative and qualitative training to understand and complete research in the microcosm of the classroom and the school. I consider myself capable of the skills that are necessary to be successful to participate in quality research, writing, in-depth analysis, teaching, learning, communicating, leading others, concentrating, conceptualizing what I am reading, and capturing ideas. Many of these traits were fostered during my two graduate degrees and my grades and graded work reflect this reality. 

     I also completed an intensive 120 hour administrative internship as part of my M.Ed. in Educational Leadership which I embodied the five principle competencies as laid out by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Office of Principal Preparation and Development's website oppdcps.com (2009). They include: 1) Develop and articulate a belief system through voice and action; 2) Engage and develop faculty; 3) Assess the quality of classroom instruction; 4) Facilitate and motivate change; and 5) Balance management (http://www.oppdcps.com/downloads/Eligibility_Communication.pdf ). The principal eligibility program of CPS exceeds state standards and works directly with the American College of Education (ACE) to provide a principalship training degree program that is a collaboration of CPS and ACE. ACE works with urban school districts throughout the country to improve teaching and educational leadership. All principal preparations for CPS and other districts and institutions throughout Illinois are about to change due to the new laws concerning the principal endorsement, reviewed here, which will have to be addressed in detail at a different time.

     Before I started pursuing my graduate degrees in education I pursued a Master's Degree in Church History for three semesters. This rigorous academic program provided me with the technical training, writing, and academic skills to successfully research, cite, and produce research papers. I will always feel indebted to the thoroughness and attention to detail that I learned as a student in this program. In both my undergraduate and graduate experience in religion I pursued courses in ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek. The discipline it takes to become literate in these languages and the familiarity with English language and grammar that I learned because of it is invaluable to my current competencies.

"The principle goal of education is create men and women who are capable of creating new things, not simply repeating what others have done." Jean Piaget

    My leadership development in the field of education includes participating on VOISE II school design team for CPS Renaissance 2010 initiative from April 2009 to July 2009 when it was abruptly stopped due to politics between an alderman and CPS. Included in this process is extensive 3 hour professional development sessions led by national and local educational innovators and leaders on nine topics that range from developing and implementing, school operations and financial management to assessment and data-driven instruction. I also was the leader of the Chicago World School design team for CPS Renaissance 2010 where I worked with leaders from a Local School Council (LSC), other educators, parents, and community partners to plant a school that combined the International Baccalaureate Organization's curriculum and standards with innovative educational technology and environmental awareness to create internationally-minded students with 21^st century technology skills and are able to model living and learning in an environmentally sustainable way. This school concept has now been placed on hold due to the CPS budget woes and the lack of funding for the small school movement, a past trend in national urban education reform which has since been replaced with the school "Turnaround" that Duncan has made national policy. I was a Virtual High School mentor and lead credit recovery initiatives and Saturday School in order to maximize opportunities for our students to graduate successfully prepared for a number of post-secondary options. I also mentor did mentor new teachers and regularly facilitate professional development that range from training teachers on the online Gradebook to leading teachers through articles and activities that are targeted around instructional strategies. 

Educational Technology and its Uses…

"We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us." Marshall McLuhan

      The role technology plays in our lives and its ramifications for life and learning should be discussed and debated in order to provide thought, balance, and insight into how and why it is used. Educational technologies should be thoroughly analyzed and understood by the intent, which should be a research-based tool that can increase student achievement. Formative articles that have contributed to my pursuit of this degree include Nicholas Carr's article in The Atlantic Monthly, written in July/Aug 2008, called "Is Google Making Us Stupid," which discusses how the digital revolution is impacting they way people think. William Deresiewicz wrote an article titled "The End of Solitude" in January 2009's Chronicle of Higher Education, which discusses how social networking and other technologies are creating an environment where solitude and contemplation is disappearing from our increasingly digital and connected world. Also in March of 2009 Educational Leadership published an article by Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai called "The Importance of Deep Reading" that discusses the implications of literacy in an increasingly digital world and its impact on deep thinking and contemplation. I don't think that the educational world should completely accept all technologies without proper caution because the implications for the way it reshapes how we live and how we learn are still unknown.

     I enjoy communicating by introducing quotes that communicate effectively what I am feeling. Relying on the insights of the giants who have gone before us is important as we move forward. Lewis Mumford wrote: 

"Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences." 

In many ways this is true and we must be thoughtful about how and where integrate technology. The current debate between Partnership for 21^st Century Skills and the Common Core movement is a healthy trend that we should be grappling with as educators. I am not saying that technology is not important; however every new technology that is used in educational circles is marketed in various degrees of intensity. Katie Ash raises a point in her blog about eLearning Update that not all programs are created equal. This statement can be said about all educational technologies, and we as instructors must always realize that before we use it in the classroom.



Books:


Birkerts, S. (1994). The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Ballantine Books.

Editor, Jacobs, H.H. (2010). Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development Publications.

Articles:

Carr, Nicholas. (2008, July/August). Is Google making us stupid. Atlantic Monthly, 56-63. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Deresiewicz, William. (2009, January). The end of solitude. Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(21), 6. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-Solitude/3708

Halverson, R. & Smith, A. (2009). How new technologies have (and have not) changed teaching and learning in schools. Journal of Computing in Teacher Educaton, (26)2, 49-54. Retrieved from http://crste.org/images/Halverson_Smith_How_New_Technologies.pdf

Webliography:
http://p21.org/ : Promotes various technology skills and advocates for technology skills that is equal to content

http://commoncore.org/: Philosophically against Partnership for 21^st Century Skills movement stating content is more important than technology

http://www.edweek.org/dd/ : Digital Directions is a website committed to educational technology sponsored by Education Week and it is a useful resource for research and information about educational technology

http://www.edutopia.org/ : A website committed to what works in education.