And there have been innumberable forums for public input since January.  The problem is, it’s been almost entirely ignored.

Hearing officers have noted that public testimony has focused on concerns that CPS school action guidelines deem “discretionary” — things like safety and security, culture and climate, school leadership, facility conditions, special programming and community feedback.  The district chief “may” take these into account.

Some officers ruled that the school board should take these concerns into account, and recommended against closing; others ruled that CPS had met the legal requirements for closing a school, but strongly recommended that the board look into community concerns in its own evaluation and decision-making.

Which only makes sense.  The people in the schools know much better than the people downtown what’s going on in the schools, particularly around the key issue of utilization.

But CPS general counsel James Bebley reacted with defensive legalisms.  When hearing officer Cheryl Starks ruled against closing top-performing Calhoun North based in part on Alderman Fioretti’s observation that new housing was going up across the street, Bebley wrote: “The CEO has the discretion to consider neighborhood development plans, but failure to do so does not impede the CEO’s power to propose closure.”

Well, okay.  It’s your ballgame, and you write the rules.  But doesn’t common sense tell you that that kind of information is relevant and worth considering?  I mean, come on.

Right now someone at City Hall is deciding what small number of schools to take off the list as a sop to public outrage.  But if our school governance system worked properly, it would be the Board of Education itself applying independent, critical oversight — and common sense — to the decision-making process.

There was a lot of common sense offered in the hundreds of hours of public testimony over recent months, and a number of common themes emerged.

1.  The CPS utilization standard and performance metric are poor measures of the realities in schools. 

Public testimony has consistently noted that the district’s utilization standards fail to account for educational programming in schools. The Chicago Educational Faciities Task Force, created and appointed by the legislature, has consistently backed them up: the state facilities law requires school utilization standards to account for school programs as well as use by community organizations offering programming.  CPS’s standards do neither.

It’s particularly egregious when it comes to special education.  As a recent post spelled out, there are schools on the closing list where the number of self-contained special ed classrooms is larger than the school’s total allotment for “ancillary” rooms — art, music, science or tech labs, special ed, etc.

So school closings are having a disproportionate impact on special ed students, a number of well-regarded programs are being dispersed, and students with IEPs are likely to end up getting less attention in their new schools.

2.  Public comment has consistently rejected the CPS standard which says the “ideal” size for elementary classes is 30, and that classrooms with up to 36 kids are “effectively utilized.”

The Tribune has shown that actual class sizes vary widely but on average are much lower than the CPS standard — 57 percent of elementary schools had average class sizes of 26 or less, according to a district analysis:

“Setting the benchmark higher than what records indicate is reality across Chicago — and far higher than in many suburbs…allows the mayor and school officials to drive the debate with attention-grabbing statistics” — like the claim that half of all schools are underutilized, or that there are 100,000 “empty seats.”

In other words, the basic assumptions driving school closings are based on manipulated statistics.  (Too bad the Tribune’s editorial board doesn’t read its own paper’s news coverage.)

A recent WBEZ report contains an important admission by CPS officials: yes, school closings will result in increased class sizes in receiving schools.

For months, as Raise Your Hand and others raised the alarm about overcrowding resulting from school closings, CPS has argued that larger class sizes are linked to underutilization.  Underutilized schools get less money and can’t afford a full cohort of teachers, leading to larger homerooms and split classrooms.

The implication was that closing schools would help reduce class sizes.

But BEZ reports that the schools targeted for closing tend to have lower class sizes.  And CPS admits that in merging schools, class sizes will go up.

Right now, there are 50,000 children in CPS homerooms larger than the district limit, including 8,000 in homerooms with more than 35 kids, and some in classes with as many as 45, according to the report.

With school closings, those numbers will go up.  Raise Your Hand has identified eight receiving schools that are on probation, and where mergers will cause overcrowding.

Common sense tells you there’s no way that’s a good thing.

3.  CPS’s performance policy doesn’t make sense.

Not when statistical legerdemain results in schools with lower test scores being rated “better performing” than schools with higher test scores, as both the Tribune and the Sun Times have documented.

Lots of community people have spoken to this during hearings, and several hearing officers made note of it as well.

WBEZ now reports that in only 3 of 53 school closings are student being sent to top-performing schools, which research is shown is necessary for achievement to improve as a result of school closings.

Then you have extra-funny stuff, as at Henson and Paderewski — where higher-rated schools are designated as receiving schools, but attendance boundaries are split up to send future students to lower-performing schools.  (In Paderewski’s case, hearing officer Patrick McGann questioned the boundary realignment.)

A responsible, independent school board would tell CPS to go back to the drawing board, come up with utilization standards and performance metrics that make sense (and fulfill statutory requirements), and only then consider whether some school closings are advisable.

4.  School leadership, culture, community partnerships, and educational programs really matter and should be taken into account. 

5.  School closings cause violence.

Hopefully school board members are studying the current Sun Times series on the routes children will have to walk if their schools are closed.  It’s scary.

Even better, they should themselves walk the routes they are considering forcing neighborhood children to walk.

Much fear was expressed in community hearings — and over and over, much skepticism about CPS’s blanket reassurances that they knew how to provide for children’s security.

“We’ve seen increased violence every time they’ve closed schools,” anti-violence activist Rev. Robin Hood told Newstips last month.

And Jitu Brown of KOCO pointed out that school closings have led to the growth of street crews, a point DePaul professor Horace Hall underscored at a forum last week: often kids join gangs for protection, to avoid walking alone when they have to navigate gang boundaries on the way to and from school.

Several hearing officers rejected CPS’s draft security plans as inadequate.  In his ruling on the closing of Stewart, Charles Winkler urged delaying action a year:  “Since a definitive safety plan will not be ready until late August, CPS should consider delaying implementation of the proposal until the 2014-15 school year.”

6. There are smarter ways to fix CPS finances.

It turns out school closings aren’t going to save any money anytime soon, if ever — so the rationale that “we can’t wait” because there’s a “billion-dollar deficit” should be put to rest.  If school closings are actually going to cost money, at least for the first few years, maybe we should be focusing on bigger things.

In any case, causing massive disruption in the lives of students and communities in order to save $43 million a year in operating costs (minus $233 million in “investments,” minus $25 million a year for 30 years to finance the investments) doesn’t get you very far compared to what community members raised in hearing after hearing — the $250 million a year taken from schools by TIFs.

7.  Why not try real engagement?

Common sense would tell you that many of the qualities known to be crucial in improving schools — effective leadership, a culture of trust and collaboration — are necessary in any well-functioning organization.  But they are missing at CPS.

We have a leadership that manipulates data and makes promises it can’t keep; we have a cuture of fear, distrust and disrespect.  The main problem comes from the top.

From the start, Mayor Emanuel has chosen confrontation as his only tactic in addressing schools.  From what I’m told, the mayor has little real interest or understanding of education policy; he basically just listens to Bruce Rauner, the far-right ideologue who thinks the problem with schools is unions and the answer is charters, and a few others.

I’m no psychologist, but Emanuel seems to feel like he’s not accomplishing anything unless he’s fighting with someone.

Byrd-Bennett and the Tribune get upset when people call school closings racist — and they might be advised not to dismiss out of hand this very widespread sentiment — but no one could deny that time and again, Emanuel has chosen the most divisive approach possible.

He approached the longer school day as a “win-lose” proposition when that was unnecessary; he precipitated the first teachers strike in decades through incompetence; and he’s chosen to address the supposed billion-dollar deficit with a non-solution that nonetheless has riled up many communities, turned off huge numbers of parents who feel shut out, and turned large segments of the city’s population against him.

If there’s any lesson from all the community hearings, it’s that there’s a huge reservoir of concern and commitment to schools in neighborhoods across the city, a huge supply of dedicated and passionate parents and teachers, and an awful lot of students who love their schools.  That’s something that effective leadership would cheer and build on.

Unfortunately, the approach of Emanuel and Byrd-Bennett has been to push these people aside.

To fix schools in Chicago, we’re going to need leadership that brings people together to solve problems — the way radical community groups and conservative business groups cooperated to win local control in the late 1980s.  We’re going to have to honor the work that educators do, involve parents and community groups, and heed the wisdom of the community.

In the meantime, we could use a school board with the capacity to think for itself.

And if plans for transitioning homeless students are any indication, CPS preparations for school closings are far behind where they’ve been at this point in previous years — and far behind where they need to be.

The 3,900 homeless students who would be impacted if the school board approves all proposed mergers, turnarounds and co-locations represent 8.5 percent of impacted students — more than twice the share of homeless students citywide, which CPS reports as 4 percent, according to CCH.

The 1,400 homeless  students displaced from closing schools represents an even higher proportion — 8.7 percent of students subject to displacement.

CCH’s Law Project has assisted homeless students impacted by school closures since 2004, and “CPS has never demonstrated its ability to successfully serve students transitioning to new schools,” said Patricia Nix-Hodes, the coalition’s associate legal director. “We have seen students lost in the process as well as students at risk of increased violence.

“Even on a much smaller scale, receiving schools have not been adequately prepared,” Nix-Hodes said.  “Students have arrived to new schools without enough desks, books or staff. School records have failed to arrive in a timely manner. Adequate transportation has not been provided to get students to the new school.

“It is inconceivable that CPS will be able to provide all impacted with better school choices and meaningful transition and transportation services, especially with the final announcements taking place so late in the school year.”

Learning from the past?

But although current CPS leaders claim they’ve learned from the failures of past school closings, preparations this year are far behind previous years, said Laurene Heybach, director of the coalition’s law project.

The CCH Law Project represents homeless students under a 2000 court order establishing CPS’s responsiblity to provide them with access to schools.  In 2004 CCH went to court to force CPS to apply the protections in school closings.

Since then CPS has provided CCH with a list of homeless students that would be affected by closings at the time school actions were proposed, generally by January (and by December under the new state facilities law, a deadline Emanuel leaned on the General Assembly to extend this year).

The coalition would do outreach with families, apprise them of their rights to transitional services and transportation, and provide counseling to help them choose the right school for their children, which could be different than the designated receiving school for homeless families.

“It’s a massive amount of information if parents are going to be given a choice,” Heybach said.  “It’s important to have someone help them sort through their options.”

No information

This year CCH has yet to get such a list, Heybach said.  “This year we’re being told we won’t get a list until after the school board votes,” she said.  “We feel like they’re cutting off a community resource.”

They’re also telescoping a process in which families had several months to discuss options and visit schools into a single week.  Families with students in schools approved for closure by the board next Wednesday will have from May 23 to May 31 to select a receiving school.  (Schools will be closed on May 27 for Memorial Day.)

And last week CPS chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett sent a letter to principals saying any school “that has space” will have to accept any student from a closing school who requests admission next week, Raise Your Hand reports.

 Chaos

“There’s still no list of which schools have room,” said Heybach.  “It’s utter chaos.  Everything’s in flux.  They’re making it up as they go.”

Also long before this point in previous years, CPS had provided parents of homeless children with a detailed letter of summer programs to help them transition to new schools.  “All the parent wanted something for the summer,” said Heybach.

This year that information is not available.

“If the [new] school is better, shouldn’t they have some academic support to prepare for it, shouldn’t they have some social support to prepare for the transition?” asked Heybach.  “Why isn’t anyone addressing academic and social supports?

“For any person who cares about improving educational outcomes, this makes no sense,” she said.  “It’s just not what any educational professional, any teacher or social worker, would ever support as a way to organize the most massive school closing in U.S. history.”

Not recommended

That may be why the Broad Foundation recommends an 18-month process for closing schools, with six months of community engagement preceding the announcement of a list of school closures.

Under their recommended schedule, an initial list of closings would have been released in October and finalized in December.  Then transition planning would begin.

Student reassignment, including multiple meetings were families can learn about the reassignment process, would take place over four months, from December to March.  Four months would be allowed for schools to revise their enrollment projections and budgets.

It may also be why Byrd-Bennett’s commission on school closings recommended taking two years for the closings.

As an anonymous commission member told the Sun Times in March, “They don’t have the expertise to accomplish that [closing 50 schools] in such a short timeframe.  When they closed down as many as 12 schools, it was a disaster.”

Could the political connections of the Academy for Urban School Leadership — whose big-dollar donors include major contributors to Mayor Emanuel, like David Vitale, Penny Pritzker and Bruce Rauner — have something to do with it?

***

Of twelve turnaround schools listed on AUSL’s website which the group took over between 2006 and 2010, ten of them are on academic probation today.    Only one of them is rated as Level 1 — “high performing” — by CPS.

Of those twelve schools, eleven were below the CPS district-wide average for ISAT composite scores.  AUSL’s top-scoring school had a composite score that was equal to the CPS average, which is lower than half its schools.

Three AUSL turnarounds at CPS high schools are abject failures, with scores far below district averages and negligible growth.

AUSL did not respond to a request for an interview.

A study last year by Don Moore of Designs For Change of Chicago elementary schools with poverty rates above 95 percent — there were 210 of them — found 33 scoring above the CPS average on ISAT reading scores (the most rigorous test and the most fundamental skill, experts say).  None were AUSL schools.

All the successful schools followed what Designs called the “school-based democracy” model, with Local School Councils selecting principals, approving the budget, and monitoring school improvement — a stark contrast to the “top-down” strategy represented by AUSL.

Only three  out of ten AUSL schools were among the top half of high-poverty schools in reading achievement, Designs found.  That’s despite over $1 million a year in additional resources given to AUSL turnaround schools.

The additional money includes management fees and annual per-pupil payments, in addition to large capital investments in turnaround schools.  The CPS supplementary capital budget for this year includes $11 million dollars for improvements to six schools slated for AUSL takeovers.  Among other resources, AUSL schools get a second assistant principal and a full-time social worker.

A couple years ago, annual spending on turnarounds was $20 million.  It’s growing steadily.

“The resources now used for turnaround schools need to be shifted to helping effective schools become resources for other schools,” Designs concluded.

***

Moore’s study was released shortly after a report by the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which found that turnarounds and other aggressive school interventions in low-performing schools had “closed the gap in [reading] test scores with the system average by almost half.”

This was touted by editorial writers and politicians as proof of AUSL’s success.  But was it?

Citing statisticians, Catalyst said the report “showed only a small amount of progress,” particularly given “the upheavel and financial investment in turnarounds.”

Pressed by the Sun Times to clarify the report’s results — which were given only in terms of standard deviations — one author explained that after four years of intervention, sixth graders in a turnaround school are 3.5 months ahead of their peers in the lowest-performing schools.

That’s what the Tribune calls “dramatic academic progress,” and what Mayor Emanuel calls “academic excellence.”

The school board went on to approve six AUSL turnarounds.

***

There’s another model for turnarounds in Chicago — one which has often outperformed AUSL, without replacing teachers and principals, and at one-fifth the cost.

Strategic Learning Initiatives developed its “focused instruction process” approach in a demonstration project with CPS that started in 2006, the same year as AUSL’s first turnaround.

In the four-year program, involving eight low-income elementary schools in Little Village and Garfield Park — each of which had been on probation for ten years or more — each of the schools dramatically increased their annual achievement growth rates, most within one or two years.

The program is based on decades of management studies of high-performance organizations and on the “five essential supports” identified by Moore and validated by the Consortium — effective leadership, family-community partnerships, supportive learning environment, ambitious instruction, and a culture of trust and collaboration.

(The Consortium has found that schools measured strong in all five supports were ten times more likely to achieve substantial gains in reading and math; remarkably, in CPS reports on the five supports, only three AUSL turnaround schools are rated “organized for improvement” or “highly organized.”  Its oldest turnarounds are rated “not yet organized.”)

Working with SLI, principals and teachers get in-school coaches, and teachers run their own problem-solving sessions in school and across school networks.  A family engagement component focuses on teaching parents how to support their children’s learning.  The whole process aims at developing a sense of ownership among school community members, says SLI president John Simmons.

According to Simmons, the biggest lesson from the group’s collaboration with CPS was that, far from being the root of the problem, existing staff and parents “form a large and untapped reservoir of energy, ideas and commitment” for school improvement.

“The idea of replacing the entire staff is completely foreign to the corporate turnaround model,” he points out.

SLI won’t come into a school unless 80 percent of its teachers vote for the program in a secret ballot.  (Because it doesn’t replace the staff, the program is eligible for federal funding as a “school transformation” rather than a “turnaround.”) Teachers at four of the six schools slated for AUSL turnarounds have voted to request that CPS let them apply for an SLI-led transformation.

***

CTU activist Debby Pope, who attended hearings for five of the school proposed turnarounds, says she noticed a pattern:  most of the schools being targeted had new principals who seemed to be inspiring the staff, and who were achieving significant increases on test scores.

An analysis shows that annual reading score gains at the six proposed turnarounds are eight times higher in the past two years than they were over the previous four.

The change is particularly striking at four of the schools:  under new principals, Barton went from an average yearly decrease of -0.1 percent for four years, to an average yearly gain of 4.7 percent in the past two years; Chalmers went from 0.4 to 4.5; Dewey from -1.9 to 3.2, and Carter from 0.4 to 2.3.

Could it be that, in an effort to goose its own success rate, AUSL is looking for schools where a turnaround in student achievement is already under way?

At the hearing for Chalmers, Pope said, “As a union representative I have to say, it’s not every day you have a staff extolling the leadership of a principal the way you do here.”

Parents and teachers praised principal Kent Nolan, a focused, intent young black man who cuts an impressive figure.

One mother expressed her amazement on coming home and finding her 13-year-old son reading a book.  “My six-year-old daughter reads books,” she said.  “This school has been excellent.”

Another described the turnaround in her two sons’ attitudes toward school.   A third told of being impressed when she saw Nolan disperse a group of drug dealers from a corner near the school.  “What other principal would do that?” she said.

Another parent pointed out that, with an LSC, “we have a say in naming a principal.”  Under AUSL they wouldn’t.

In thirteen years in five CPS schools, “I have never seen an administration as supportive and dedicated,” said a math teacher.  “The school was in trouble” before the new principal, said a case manager.  “We have a fresh start.”

Under Nolan, in two years, Chalmers’ ISATs have risen 10 points.  They’re still far below the district’s average, and the school is still on probation, but it’s only a few points from moving to the next level, according to testimony.

And in the CPS report card on the “five supports,” Chalmers is rate “highly organized for improvement.” It really does seem to have turned around already.

“I have experience with AUSL,” said one mother.  She said her daughter, a student at Collins Academy, was being told she had to find a new school “because of her behavior.”  (I asked her later what the behavior issues were.  “Girl stuff,” she said.)  “Are you going to kick out all the kids with behavior problems?”

She added later that she had a nephew at one of AUSL’s elementary schools who was being told to go to another school.

“We have homeless children, children with parents who are unemployed or incarcerated, parents with addictions; we have children who have been rejected from turnaround schools,” said third grade teacher Louis Lane during the hearing.  “As educators we rise to the occasion daily, we respect our students and care for them.  We are teachers who teach, not kick students out because they have problems.”

***

It seems immensely, tragically disrespectful to educators like Nolan and Lane and their colleagues to wantonly replace them in order to deliver a payoff to political cronies.

The only real purpose for firing and replacing staff in turnarounds appears to be “to discriminate against experienced educators, especially educators of color,” said CTU president Karen Lewis in a statement last month.  Younger teachers cost less.

CTU found that in six turnarounds of elementary schools with majority-black teaching staffs last year, including three by AUSL and three by CPS, the proportion of blacks on the staff dropped dramatically.  In AUSL’s turnaround of Stagg, the percentage of teachers who were African American dropped from 80 to 35 percent when AUSL took over.

More dramatic was the increase in inexperienced teachers.  While none of the schools had first-year teachers before the turnarounds, after the turnarounds a whopping 57 percent of their teaching staff were first-years.

On top of that, the Designs study revealed that AUSL has huge levels of teacher turnover.  Only 42 percent of teachers at turnaround schools in 2008-09 were still there three years later.

With Chicago taxpayers footing the bill for AUSL’s vaunted teacher training program, that’s s a concern.  In addition, “it creates a constant need to identify new teachers, and makes the goal of fundamentally changing a school’s culture more difficult,” according to Designs.

“High teacher turnover is damaging to a school’s ability to build collaboration among teachers, relationships with students and parents, and continuity in the school’s curriculum.”

Maybe that’s one reason AUSL schools are having trouble getting organized for improvement.

***

It looks like AUSL will emerge as the big winner in North Lawndale if proposed school actions are approved, said Valerie Leonard of the Lawndale Alliance.

She says four of five school actions will benefit AUSL, which will end up controlling all the schools in Douglas Park, where its under-performing high school, Collins Academy, is located.

Pope Elementary is proposed for closing, with its students sent to Johnson, an AUSL school. Bethune, which was turned around in 2009, is slated for closing, allowing AUSL to jettison one of its more challenging schools, where results have not been impressive.  Leonard expects Bethune students will be encouraged to go not to the designated receiving school but to Johnson or to Chalmers, if it’s also taken over by AUSL.

And in a curious maneuver, current Henson students would be sent to Hughes, a Level 2 school, but Henson’s attendance boundaries would be redrawn with half its area assigned to Herzl, a recent AUSL turnaround that’s still Level 3 and on probation.

Leonard point out that even after being in place for several years, AUSL schools in North Lawndale still underperform Lawndale schools generally.  On ISAT reading scores, North Lawndale schools average 65.6 percent meeting and exceeding standards, while AUSL schools in the neighborhood average 51.7.

“The school action policy is being driven for the benefit of well-connected people,” she said.

One of AUSL’s strategies seems to be taking over elementary schools feeding the high schools where it’s under-performing, said Cecile Carroll of Blocks Together, which works with parents and students at Orr Academy and local elementary schools.

“They seem to be thinking, if we can push out and counsel out students from the elementary schools, we can end up with fewer special ed and bilingual students and children with discipline issues at the high school,” she said. “They can get the cream of the crop.”

BT has dealt repeatedly with large numbers of Orr students who were told not to return to school after the turnaround there.  Carroll thinks that with BT’s persistent pushback, the school has backed off its strategy of dumping.

(Rod Estvan of Access Living has reported that the proportion of students with disabilities has dropped at AUSL schools; at Morton Academy, AUSL’s top-scoring school, it’s dropped by one-third since the turnaround.  He’s also noted that enrollment declined by 15 percent from 2006 to 2012 at ten AUSL schools, during a period when CPS enrollment declined by 4 percent.)

According to Carroll, school actions in BT’s area also seem to favor AUSL in curious ways.  School closings are passing by Piccolo, which AUSL took over last year, though it’s a Level 3 school with a 40 percent utilization rate (Carroll says it’s lower now) — and with $26 million in capital needs, according to CPS.

Instead two Level 2 schools with much higher utilization rates and lower capital needs assessments — Ryerson and Laura Ward — are being combined.

And while 53 schools are closed, two AUSL schools, Morton and Dodge, are co-locating.  That means that each school gets to keep its administrative staff — including a second assistant principal for each school, though with enrollments of 362 and 423 respectively, Morton and Dodge are no bigger than many schools that are being combined.

“This isn’t about money,” said Carroll.  “Clearly these decision are not dictated by what’s fiscally prudent.”

It doesn’t seem to be about education either.  It seems to be about money and power.

The Cabrini-Green Local Advisory and supporters will hold a press conference Thursday morning (May 16 at 9:30 a.m., 530 W. Locust) to announce “a new initiative to protect the Carini Row Houses,” according to a release from the Legal Assistance Foundation.

Row House residents have called on CHA to fulfill the promise in the original PFT to rehabilitate the development as 100 percent public housing; that plan was put on hold in 2011.

Meanwhile, resident leaders and community organizations called on the CHA board to reject the mayor’s plan and return to the drawing board — and to heed input from the public, including an emphasis on preservation and rehab of existing units rather than subsidizing private development as the most cost-effective way to meet CHA’s obligations.

The Central Advisory Council, comprised of elected leaders of CHA developments, criticized the mayor’s plan for lacking specifics on how CHA will complete construction of replacement housing and ensure families of their right to return to homes they were displaced from.

Few proposals from CAC’s detailed Strategies and Recommendations Report issued last year were incorporated in the mayor’s plan, the group said.

They called for reforming security programs which “harass law-abiding residents” but fail to make developments safe, and for elected representation for public housing residents living in mixed-income developments.

The Chicago Housing Initiative, consisting of community organizations representing tenants of subsidized housing, challenged Emanuel’s claim that 85 percent of the PFT’s promised 25,000 replacement units have been provided.  With thousands of rehabbed units remaining vacant, “the number [of occupied replacement units] is closer to 18,000,” said Leah Levinger of CHI.

Last year the group revealed that CHA receives millions of dollars in operating funds from HUD for units it has failed to lease out.

Under pressure from HUD, CHA has begun leasing vacant units in scattered-site housing, but in some cases the agency is limiting it to residents making 50 to 80 percent of area median income, Levinger said.  One speaker yesterday was a Wal-Mart worker turned away from public housing for not having a high enough income to live in public housing.

Levinger drew parallels between the Emanuel’s plan to step up investment in private developments and the parking meter privatization deal.  The PFT’s mixed-income developments have been a “massive transfer of assets to private control,” at great benefit to private developers but with little advantage to taxpayers and the public.

Typical “public-private partnerships” involve 95 percent public financing, no developer equity, and millions of dollars in up-front development fees, she said. In return, private developers control the land with a 99-year lease, while affordability agreements only extend for 15 to 30 years.

And according to CHI, public-private mixed-income records have a poor record of meeting housing production goals.  At seven development where over 5,000 units were promised by developers, less than half were ever provided.

The CAC and CHI are calling for preserving and renovating existing public housing stock, including Lathrop Homes, Cabrini Row Houses, Altgeld Gardens and West Haven Homes, and rebuilding housing for displaced families at Ickes Homes, LeClaire Courts, Cabrini-Green, and the State Street corridor.

UPDATE – CHA has issued the following statement:

“As part of Chicago Housing Authority’s new strategic initiative, ‘Plan Forward: Communities that Work,’ CHA is committed to building strong, vibrant communities throughout Chicago. Currently, the agency is working with a planner and the Near North Working Group to develop a plan for the future of Cabrini, including the row homes. However, CHA has not announced any decision on the future of the row homes. In the coming months, CHA will invite CHA residents and area neighbors to provide their input on our proposed plan for the revitalization of Cabrini. Our goal is to increase the quality of life and economic opportunities for CHA residents and the entire community.”

A previous version gave an incorrect time for Thursday’s press conference.

About a hundred parents marched from Overton, at 49th and Indiana, to Mollison, at 44th and King  — past four gangs and four drug locations, according to Francis Newman, a parent from Williams Prep, which is also on the school closing list.

The walk also took them past the spot where Columbia College student Kevin Ambrose was shot and killed last week, she noted.

“We’re demanding these schools be kept open and that they get the resources they need,” Newman said.  She said she recently visited Disney Magnet school, which has numerous computers, smart boards, and iPads for children.  “In our school, we can’t get a computer that works,” she said.

The real status-quo

The idea that “schools are under-resourced because they’re underutilized is a lie that is used to validate the status quo,” said Jeanette Taylor, an LSC member at Mollison and a leader with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization.  “The status quo in Chicago is closing schools.”

Several parents discussed schools that had struggled after repeatedly receiving students from closing schools and are still being subject to school actions.

A hearing officer has recommended keeping Overton open, challenging CPS’s assertion that Mollison is a higher-performing school, which is based on its highly technical system of performance points.

“Closing this school to bring children from Overton to Mollison doesn’t sound like education reform it me, is sounds like sabotage,” Taylor said.

Overton parent Darlene Johnson said she served as a Safe Passage worker at Dyett High School last year.  “A boy walked past us, turned the corner, and was shot,” she said.

She also raised the issue of budget priorities:  “We say no money to McCormick Place for a DePaul arena, no TIF money for Wal-Mart — and why does that rich lady that used to be on the school board need all that TIF money?”  She was referring to Penny Pritzker.

Wal-Mart connections

That was also the theme of an afternoon rally that started at the school and ended at the site of a new Wal-Mart at 47th and King Drive, featuring Wal-Mart workers from OUR Wal-Mart and Warehouse Workers for Justice, along with the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Jobs With Justice.

The Walmart development on 47th is being subsidized with $13 million in TIF money, on top of an $11 million TIF subsidy for a new Walmart in Pullman, organizers said.  On top of that, the Walton family foundation gave close to a half-million dollars to finance CPS’s school closing “community engagement”  (including advertising).

Walmart’s owners have also given $22 million to charters in Chicago — their largest investment in charters in the nation — organizers said.

The world’s largest employer — and the nation’s wealthiest family — “can afford to build their own store without our tax dollars,” said Susan Hurley of JWJ.  “That money should be going to our schools.  We could save a lot of schools with $24 million.

“And they need to do a lot better by their workers before they start telling us how to run our schools.”

“Why does Walmart and the Walton Family, who don’t live in Chicago, have more say about our schools than the people who send their children there?” asked Kristine Mayle of CTU.  “It’s because they have the same agenda as the mayor, which is … to privatize them.”

That communication strategy is dictated by the fact that school closings turn out not to be about deficits or utilization — since they won’t save money for several years, if ever, and since the “utilization crisis,” caused by adding 50,000 charter seats during a decade when CPS lost 30,000 students, is being addressed by adding more charters.

CPS chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett now says closing schools will allow CPS to provide libraries, air conditioning, iPads and “learning gardens” at a small group of receiving schools.

It’s odd, then, that Byrd-Bennet recommends closing a school like Manierre, where Target provided a $200,000 grant to upgrade their library just two years ago. The funding covered 2,000 new books, a computer lab with iPads, and a family reading corner.

Independent hearing officer Paddy McNamara has recommended against closing Manierre, but CPS general counsel James Bebley filed a response arguing that in doing so, she “exceeded the scope of her authority” by considering information beond what CPS submitted.

‘Baffling’

In her report, McNamara called “baffling” the failure of CPS to note Manierre’s participation in “five distinct multimillion-dollar initiatives that are in mid-implementation” — all started within the past two years.

Manierre Elementary’s new library – slated for closing

These include the Target library makeover and Children’s Literacy Initiative. Manierre’s Ferguson Center is also part of a federally-funded revitalization of parent-child centers — a renewed priority in Chicago — with funding going to expand to full-day preschool and develop curriculum alignment from preschool through 3rd grade — an emerging priority in the field of early education.

That’s one of two intensive professional development programs under way at the school. Manierre is also one of eight schools where teachers are working with the Erikson Institute’s ground-breaking early childhood math instruction project.

Closing Manierre would end all these programs, which would mean big investments of money, time and effort down the drain.

With all the talk about “resources,” it’s worth looking at the resources that will be eliminated if the school board votes to close 53 schools.

In a school district that where a third of neighborhood elementary schools have to choose between a part-time art or music teacher — and where nearly a tenth of neighborhood schools have neither — many of the schools CPS is proposing to close have arts programming by outside groups that will be lost.

Arts programs threatened

Lafayette ‘s impressive string music orchestra, run by Merit Music and integrating students from the school’s special education programs, has received widespread attention. Its future at this point is unknown, but it doesn’t look good.

As the Sun Times points out, the program takes six rooms at Lafayette for practice and storage (with 85 kids, practicing 4 days a week, it’s one of the largest such programs in the city). CPS wants to jam 720 students into Chopin, the designated receiving school, leaving it full to the brim — in a school with only 33 rooms.

Songhai Elementary’s band program

Other programs are at risk of being shut down. Muziknet‘s Music Scholars Program, which offers free guitar and keyboard instruction at Louis Armstrong Elementary and recently added band instruments, could be shut down if Armstrong is closed. At Sonhai Elementary, also on the closing list, a Salvation Army program provides band instruments and instruction, and sends kids to summer music camp in Wisconsin.

Closing Delano Elementary would erase a range of arts programming, including dance and drama clubs. Family Focus provides arts activities along with family support services. Delano’s spoken word team was one of the youngest groups to compete in this year’s Louder Than A Bomb festival. They won a top award for performing their poem addressing the CPS plan to close the school. (Check it out.)

(Delano is one of the schools where the hearing officer recommended against closing, pointing out that unlike Delano, receiving school Melody is on probation, and that Delano has higher ISAT scores. CPS argues that under its arcane performance policy point system, Melody came out ahead; the hearing officer favored a common-sense definition of “higher performing.”)

Save the Music

At King Elementary, CPS would shut down a piano and music lab built with a $30,000 grant from VH-1′s Save The Music Foundation, as well as the school’s drama program.

Closing May Elementary will eliminate an amazing array of arts partnerships: Old Town School provides instruction in African drumming and guitar, Chicago Jazz Philharmonic assists with jazz band and drumline, Joffre Ballet works with the dance club, and there’s much more.

By closing Garvey, CPS would eliminate a video production program supported by Panasonic (check out Garvey Kidvids) that complements the school’s emphasis on technology. Over the years the Garvey students have won 18 first-place awards in national video competitions.

When it comes to technology, downtown administrators don’t always have a handle on what’s going on in the schools, it seems. Among the reasons given by CPS for closing Ericson and Henson are that each building “lacks a computer lab” — according to CPS, Ericson has no science lab either.

But according to Raise Your Hand, Ericson has two science labs and three computer labs. “It’s a beautiful building,” said Wendy Katten, wondering what group CPS wants to give it to. And according to the Lawndale Alliance, Henson has a computer lab in addition to computers in the library and a computer in every classroom — indeed, it’s much better equipped than the receiving school CPS has designated.

Closing clinics

Also at Henson, a school-community health clinic run by Erie Family Health Center will be closed. CPS seems to have dropped language promising to look for a new location for the clinic from its public notice on the closing.

That’s too bad, since CPS only has 200 nurses for 680 schools.

CPS is promising to keep open the health clinic at Ryerson Elementary, which takes up two of Ryerson’s 31 classrooms. (As the General Assembly’s Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force has repeatedly argued, CPS doesn’t follow the new school facilities law, which requires it to account for “use of school buildings by governmental agencies and community organizations” in its utilization standard.)

That’s going to make things tight, since the combined student body when Ward takes over the building could be 780, in a building with an official capacity of 690. Ryerson has three special ed classes capped at 15 students, and Ward has a high special ed population. And now they’re getting a new engineering lab to go with their new STEM program.

Let’s hope they don’t have to close the fitness center donated to Ryerson by the Chicago Bulls two years ago. But in any case, they are going to have some very large classes.

Social services ousted

Meanwhile, in a city wracked with violence — in a district which has 320 social workers for 680 schools, and where school counselors’ caseloads are five times as high as professional standards recommend, according to CTU — CPS closings threaten social services which help kids survive and thrive in dangerous neighborhoods.

At May Elementary, the YMCA provides after-school, weekend, and summer programs, making use of six classrooms in the building. They also offer family support services and job readiness and career development classes for parents. According to the Y, they’ve heard nothing from CPS about continuing or relocating the program if May closes.

Westside Health Authority and Fathers Who Care also provide programs that will be threatened by May’s closing.

At Pope Elementary in North Lawndale, also on the closing list, America Scores provides an after-school program combining soccer and reading, and the Juvenile Protection Association provides a counseling program.

At Yale Elementary, closing the school will shut out Children’s Home and Aid, which provides academic support, sports and arts programming, mental health services and parent involvement.

At West Pullman Elementary, which CPS wants to close, a comprehensive Boys and Girls Club program opened in January with a five-year state grant, offering after-school arts and recreation activities along with homework help and health, life skills and character development programs.

These are just a few examples. Across the city, in neighborhood schools that aren’t provided enough art teachers, nurses, or social workers, principals have worked with nonprofits to fill gaps. It appears that in their rush to close schools on a very accelerated timeline, CPS has dropped the ball on sustaining these relationships.

Elevators

In the rush to close schools, CPS is even seeking to close two schools that have elevators and air conditioning — in order to send their special-needs students to schools without elevators, where air conditioning will have to be installed.

At Morgan, according to Every School Is My School, 20 percent of the students have special needs, and 70 percent of those kids use wheelchairs or crutches.

Here’s what the CPS draft transition play for their transition to Ryder elementary says about that: “CPS will work with Ryder to ensure that classrooms are set up to meet students needs.”

It also says this: “Ryder is not accessible to persons with disabilities according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. For more information, contact the CPS Director of ADA Policy at 773-553-2158.” And that’s all it says about that.

Hearing officer David H. Coar notes that Rod Estvan of Access Living testified that he’d been assured that the first floor (though not the second) of Ryder would be made accessible; Coar also notes that there’s nothing in the capital investment budget submitted by CPS that reflects that commitment.

Mahalia Jackson not only has an elevator and is ADA compliant, it has expensive equipment and accommodations to serve a cluster program for hearing-impaired students. They’re being sent to Miles Davis, which will require major investments to install appropriate accommodations.

Coar was the hearing officer for both schools, and he recommended against closing either of them, citing insufficiencies in the draft transition plans regarding safety and security as well as lack of assurances that receiving schools can accommodate student with special needs.

Rubber stamp, please

General counsel Bebley charges Coar with, again, having “exceeded the scope of his authority,” saying his job is to “summarize the hearings” and decide whether CPS complied with the law by submitting the proper notice and documents.

Coar did more than summarize the hearings, he listened to the concerns of parents and teachers and took them seriously.

He listens when people say the district’s utilization standard isn’t fair to schools with larger special needs populations. And it doesn’t seem to be: the CPS formula assigns Morgan eight ancillary rooms, to cover special ed, art or music, science and computer labs, and parent and teacher resource rooms.

But Morgan uses six rooms for special ed. It’s got two rooms — with enrollment limited by law — for mild cognitive disability, two for autism, and two inclusion resource rooms. Doesn’t leave much for art and science.

Jackson has 8.5 “ancillary rooms” according to the CPS formula, and uses nine for cluster programs for kids with autism (class size limit: 6 to 8) and hearing impairment (limit 13).

Coar says both schools meet the official criteria for underutilization under CPS standards, but adds, “My reading of the utilization standards leave me concerned the the formula used is not appropriate for a school in which 20 percent of the students have special needs.”

He also listens on safety concerns — when Jackson parents express dismay at CPS sending their children across unfenced railroad tracks, where they’ll be tempted to take “short cuts”; when they talk about receiving school Fort Dearborn being located in rival gang territory, where gang violence has included a fatal beating with a baseball bat.

Walk the walk

He listens when a Morgan mother talks about taking the walk her second-grade daughter will be forced to take to Ryder — across gang lines — and being assailed by taunts and threats of harm to Morgan children if they come to Ryder. (That was one of the walks Mayor Emanuel was invited to join; he was otherwise occupied.)

All closing schools’ draft transition plans include identical language on safety and security, which Coar judges to be “deficient in failing to provide the information necessary to allow parents, students, and the [Board of Education] to evaluate safety issues specific to [each school].”

He also urges CPS to pay attention to the discretionary factors to be considered, including safety and security, culture and climate, school leadership, facility conditions, specal programming and community feedback. (In other responses, Bebley hangs his lawyer’s hat on the language in CPS guidelines that such factors “may” be considered, arguing that they such consideration isn’t actually required, and hearing officers shouldn’t address those factors.)

Coar notes that much of the testimony by parents and teachers addresses these “discretionary” issues, while none of CPS’s submissions do with any specificity, and CPS officials testifying never mentioned them. Coar strongly urges the board to take them into account.

He’s most impressed by the inclusive culture at Jackson, where the new principal is hearing-impaired and many non-disabled students and teachers know sign language. The “signature moment” for him was when a deaf student testified and the entire room responded by signing applause.

“Nothing emerged at the hearing that indicated that [Byrd-Bennett] has exercised her discretion to consider school culture and climate,” Coar writes. “Had she done so, I must believe that, given the uniqueness of the culture there, the problem of underutilization at Jackson would have been addressed in a way not requiring the closing of the school.”

(One way to eliminate overcapacity might be to close and demolish one of two annexes at the receiving school, which is also rated underutilized. As it stands, Jackson parents fear their special needs kids will be segregated in one of the annexes.)

Squeezing special ed

Because CPS’s utilization standard discriminates against schools with higher proportions of children with disabilities, a disproportionate number of schools with special ed programs are on the closing list. And it’s not clear how student’s IEPs can be met without sufficient space.

Take Otis, which CPS grants nine rooms for art, science, special ed, and other “ancillary” purposes. Seven of them are used for special ed classes with legal limits up to 15 in a room, according to RYH. Now Otis is receiving 255 students from Peabody, including nearly 50 additional students with IEPs.

At Stockton, two schools with high special needs populations are being combined. Courtenay, with three self-contained special ed rooms, is taking over the building at Stockton, which has nine self-contained classrooms. CPS’s utilization formula gives the school ten rooms for special ed and other “ancillary” purposes.

That will jeopardize a new Snoezelen room, a controlled multisensory environment used in therapy for children with autism, which was installed after Stockton speech therapist Marilyn Sandler raised $65,000 in grants on her own initiative, according to Every School.

Class size

Another program at risk is the use of Title 1 funds for high-poverty schools to reduce class sizes; principals can decided to use the money to fund additional positions. That won’t be possible at a number of high-poverty, low-performing schools once CPS closings go through, according to RYH.

The group lists thirteen school closing proposals in which the receiving school is on academic probation and asks how adding hundreds of students — in most cases pushing the student body over the receiving school’s official ideal capacity — will help those schools.

Overcrowding resulting from school closings is also likely to undermine better-performing receiving schools, according to RYH. Schools like Chopin, a top-performing school which the Sun-Times warns “may be yet another casualty” of the rush to close schools.

“Packing Chopin with as many as 400 extra students from neighborhing Lafayette jeopardizes much of what has made it thrive: small class sizes, an intimate environment, room to spread out.” Consolidation means “Chopin will likely have to discontinue some of what it offers now, boost class sizes, or both.”

Or Nicholson, which has moved from Level 3 to Level 1 over the past four years, with the school’s small class sizes credited for playing a major role. Or Leland, a small school with small classes that will now absorb two other schools and expand frm K-3 to K-8.

Under CPS’s plan, a small number of schools will get libraries, air conditioning and learning gardens, a handful will get STEM and IB programs, and some with half-time art teachers may get a full-time position. But many crucial resources flowing from the initiative of neighborhood school communities will be jettisoned, and many students who could use more individual attention will end up with less access to it.

For more: Every School Is My School

Raise Your Hand: 40 Terrible Decisions on School Actions

On Wednesday, President Obama responded to growing demands to replace DeMarco, naming U.S. Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) as his replacement.

“It’s long overdue,” commented Katie Buitrago of the Woodstock Institute.

“This is a good day for homeowners and families across the state of Illinois and a big step in the right direction for our economy,” said Rev. Marilyn Pagán-Banks of IIRON, a Chicago-area organizing network.

“We now encourage Congressman Watt to implement common-sense policies like principal reduction to bring relief to tens of millions of homeowners and to jumpstart the economic progress our country needs.”

Community groups and housing advocates have called for DeMarco’s replacement for over a year, faulting him for blocking principal reductions on mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the FHFA oversees.

They argue that reducing mortgage principal to reflect the fair market value of homes that since the housing crash are worth less than what homeowners owe would prevent foreclosures, stabilize the housing market, and boost the economy.

DeMarco has been “the biggest roadblock to our country’s economic recovery,” said Tracy Van Slyke of the New Bottom Line coalition, which has spearheaded a “Dump DeMarco” campaign.

At last week’s action, as 500 people from National Peoples Action gathered at DeMarco’s Washington D.C. home,  Reverend Cliff Parks of Illinois Peoples Action noted that Fannie and Freddie control over half the mortgages in the nation, including those of nearly 14 million  underwater homeowners.  (See video below.)

Elizabeth Scrafford, a DePaul student and leader with IIRON Student Network, read a resignation letter drafted for DeMarco, holding him responsible for 1,800 families facing unnecessary new foreclosures every day that he has delayed approval of principal reduction.

Watt is known as an early advocate for action against predatory lending, Buitrago said.

Noting that he faces an uphill battle to win confirmation from the Senate, Buitrago said Obama should consider installing Watt with a recess appointment.  The administration’s previous nominee for the post withdrew in 2011 after Senate Republicans refused to act on his nomination.

Republicans say they want a plan from the administration for eliminating Fannie and Freddie before they consider an FHFA appointment.  But IIRON and other groups are calling on Watt to “support the vital role [the agencies] play in ensuring housing opportunities.”

Check out “NPA knocks on Ed DeMarco’s door,” from April 22:

Immigrant rights mobilizations have become a May Day tradition in Chicago in recent years, and this year’s supporting coalition is larger than ever, said organizer Jorge Mujica.

They’ll meet and rally at 2 p.m. at Union Park, Ashland and Lake, marching to Federal Plaza, Jackson and LaSalle, for a rally at 4:30 p.m.

At 2:30 p.m, the Chicago Federation of Labor and church and labor groups will mark May Day — an international holiday commemorating the immigrant-led movement for an eight-hour day in Chicago in 1886 — at the Haymarket Monument, Randolph and Desplaines, before joining the march to the Federal Plaza.

Dramatically ramped-up deportations — 400,000 a year under the current administration — have “really galvanized the community and highlighted the need for reform,” said Fred Tsao of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.  “They have affected many, many people in our communities.”

Dragnet raids, supposedly aimed at criminals, have swept up asylum seekers, lawful permanent residents with minor infractions, and immigrants with no criminal record, many of whom spend months in detention without judicial review, human rights groups say.

Path to citizenship

Meanwhile, an immigration reform bill introduced in the U.S. Senate is “overall fairly good,” offering a path to permament residency and citizenship, and protecting applicants from immigration enforcement, Tsao said.  It remains to be seen whether the path to citizenship survivies the legislative process, he pointed out.

ICIRR is concerned about new restrictions on family reunification visas and the elimination of diversity visas which have been provided to immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe, he said.

He also questioned the need for “millions and millions of additional dollars” provided by the bill for fence construction, increased border patrols, and surveillence drones “at a time when immigration from Latin America is almost nonexistent” and the detention system is overloaded.

And advocates say the path to citizenship is too long, offering provisional residency for ten years before permanent residency is offered, with another three years to eligibility for citizenship — especially with work requirements for applicants.

“The longer it is, the more danger there is of people falling off,” Tsao said.

The work requirement is particularly daunting for immigrants who work in small businesses that pay cash, said Mujica, an organizer with Arise Chicago, which assists low-wage immigrant workers.

“Often we meet workers in restaurants, car washes, and small laundries who are paid in cash and have no documents showing they are employed,” though they may have held the same job for many years, he said.  Such workers “don’t know what they’re going to do,” he said.

The long provisional period could also leave immigrant workers vulnerable to exploitation by employers — the same problem those with undocumented status are face, he said.