It is fairly common knowledge that Secretary Duncan earned his credibility as the leader of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). How did he find his way to that position with very limited experience in the education field? He had made a name for himself “turning around” CPS schools. Now reports out of Chicago are revealing the long-term success of Duncan’s school turnaround efforts. Excerpts from the Chicago media:

The Chicago turnaround model

Chicago has been opening and closing public schools every year for the past decade.

It’s a controversial strategy that former Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan believed was an answer to improving public education.

But in the most recent round of proposed school closings, CPS is shutting down the very schools Duncan created.

Eleven years ago, on April 10, 2002, Duncan announced he would shut down three elementary schools—Williams, Dodge and Terrell—for chronic low performance. The idea was to start over from scratch in order to create something better.

Five years later—it seemed to have worked.

In 2008, Dodge was where then president-elect Barack Obama announced Duncan as his pick for U.S. Secretary of Education.

“He’s shut down failing schools and replaced their entire staffs, even when it was unpopular,” Obama said at the time. “This school right here, Dodge Renaissance Academy, is a perfect example. Since this school was revamped and reopened in 2003, the number of students meeting state standards has more than tripled.”

Long-term success of turnaround?

But fast forward another five years, Dodge is closing its doors.

In fact, all three of the schools that would eventually help to launch Duncan’s signature Renaissance 2010 initiative are getting shaken up by the current CPS administration.

Williams Elementary and Middle School will close. (Drake Elementary will take over the building.) The Dodge building will close. (Dodge will technically continue to operate but will move 1.3 miles west to share a building with Morton Elementary.) The school that now operates in the old Terrell building, ACE Tech Charter School, was placed on an academic warning list in February, and district officials have warned if it doesn’t improve they will close it down.

And for the first time, CPS is pulling the plug on a “turnaround” school, Bethune Elementary. Just four years ago, all Bethune staff was fired and the privately run, nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership took over–another example of the school reform strategy that says a clean slate can lead to better schools.

CPS failure to turnaround and thoughts from Chicago parents?

“This is a model for CPS!”  said another. “It should be a school that you look at and say, ‘Man, you know what? The idea that we had about taking this school, shutting it down, rebranding it, breathing new life into  it, giving it a new model–we hit a sweet spot! We hit a gold mine! Two thumbs up!’ And then now to say, ‘Oh well, we’re not going to finish it through.’ We’re one year away from watching a full generation come through. To say, ‘Aw, oh yeah, well forget it.’”

Like it has done for lots of new schools, CPS initially poured money and resources into Williams. But over time, parents say the programs and money started to fade away.

Richmond and others say on average, it costs a half million dollars upfront to start a new school. If you do the math, that means CPS has spent at least $50 million dollars, just in start-up costs.

Richmond says if a new school is an improvement, then that is money well spent. “Any new program costs money. So starting a new school costs money, but so does buying an iPad for everybody and so does expanding early childhood. Every new idea that comes out of CPS costs money.”

For Lillian Allen, all those new ideas coming out of CPS make her feel like she’s part of one big experiment.

“Sometimes I think that we are all pieces in the game that they’re playing,” Allen said. “And the game doesn’t affect their lives. It affects our lives. It affects our children’s lives and the outcomes of their lives.”

How much know-how does it take for a leader to close a school and send students to another low-performing school? How much know-how does it take to close a school and re-open it as a magnet school that exclude students from the community that surrounds the school? How much know-how does it take to turn a school over to a charter or a university?

0.

If we have hired and/or elected leaders that only have the know-how to execute these three typical “clean slate” options for school “turnaround”… why did we hire them in the first place? Let’s face it. There is nothing harder in education than turning around a low-performing school.

It’s time to take turnaround away from our leaders (Castarphen, Duncan, Rahmbo, Rhee etc) and hire the educators that have the expertise and provide the resources (pecuniary and non-pecuniary) and control THEY ask for to get this done. The Israel Corderos and Ruth Vails of the world. Wait, you have never heard of these educators and turnaround specialist?… That’s really the point isn’t it. The wrong people have the reins in this discussion, which is why we continue failing at the most difficult task in education— because talking heads have no experience or credibility in turning around schools besides compelling words. Our current talking head leaders aren’t capable, our educators are.

See CI’s posts on school turnaround here.

Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button in the upper left hand corner of this page.