Same street, different day.

On Tuesday night at 10pm another boy was killed in Chicago. Sixteen years old. His name hasn't been released yet.

This is two blocks from the school where I teach. This was two hours after I released my players from practice, some to walk down the very same street.

Two days earlier another boy was killed a few more blocks away. This one 13 years old. The trigger finger belonged to another boy, 18. Another one lost in Chicago. No one appeared on his behalf. A few blocks away another boy, this one 20, shot. Wednesday night.

Reconcile that reality with this reality. Today, 68 students from our school in the middle of this received acceptance letters from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Three others have won Posse Scholarships. Another, Yale.

On the night of one of the murders, my team of 58 high school boys and girls were running their asses off in the locker-lined hallways, training and preparing for an ultimate frisbee season that is more than a month away.  They will mostly compete against affluent suburban kids whose background din of neighborhood noise somehow neglects to include shots fired and bodies falling.

What do you make of this? What can you make of this?

These are the same streets. The same kids in so many ways. Different days.

Put yourself in the shoes of a freshman boy at my school. You're 13 years old. Which narrative do you choose to internalize?

Will you be one who makes it to college? Or, one who is covered in a blue tarp in an alley, name still not released almost a week later?

What do people outside your community believe will happen to you?

What do people inside your community believe?

What do you believe?

Same street, different day?

I've taught at this school for five years now. Some things in the neighborhood have changed. Some haven't.

The GiGi's peep show and porn corner store has closed, making way for a cheap furniture spot to serve as backdrop for the bus stop. Progress.

On the front stoops and porches that line the one-way streets around the school a few new flags have started to hang.  In between the colors of Puerto Rico and Mexico hang Bradley University red, Illinois orange and blue. Progress.

Still, this week in an alley a block away, under a blue tarp, a 16 year old kid laid dead. Name still not released. Adding to a cacophonous din of doubt, filling the minds of my students who might not yet believe. They might not yet believe that theirs will be a porch with a university flag and not the drawn shades of another mother who lost a boy to Chicago.

"What are we going to do tomorrow"

It has been a whirlwind few days.

On Friday we celebrated 20 years of AmeriCorps with a fantastic

Picture for our Noble Pritzker alumni
on the White House lawn

event on the south lawn of the White House. President Obama and President Clinton gave remarks and a new class of 75,000 AmeriCorps members were sworn in to join the ranks of the more than 900,000 total members since 1994. Afterward there was a small reception for many of the individuals who worked on the original legislation for AmeriCorps in the early 90s - Treasury Secretary Jack Lew (who was a staffer at the time for President Clinton and helped start the program) spoke as did President Clinton to thank those in the room for their part in creating a legacy of public and community service.

It was wonderful and humbling to be a part of both events, to be in rooms with men and women to whom I am incredibly indebted, whose work has given me opportunities to serve.

But, what has stuck with me from the last few days wasn't the events at the White House, it was something said on the stairs in a lobby of a nondescript office building a short walk away.

Fellow board member Lisa Garcia-Quiroz
introduces Phyllis Segal to receive recognition
from the CNCS Board of Directors. 

On Thursday night members of the national service community gathered in the atrium of the CNCS headquarters to share stories on the eve of the 20th anniversary. There was a short program to honor Phyllis Segal for her service on the board of CNCS as well as her commitment to national service in general. Additionally, Phyllis' late husband Eli had helped shepherd the original AmeriCorps legislation through congress and became the first CEO of the agency that oversaw AmeriCorps.

As Phyllis gave remarks accepting a board resolution in her honor she related the following:

"People have been asking me what Eli would think about where we are now, if this is what he envisioned 20 years ago. Would he have been surprised at how large AmeriCorps has grown? And, I think this is exactly what he envisioned. This is exactly what he expected. I think he would have continued though and the next thing he'd say is, 'but what are we going to do tomorrow?'"

Me with fellow current and former CNCS
board members Hyepin Im, Laysha
 Ward, and Phyllis Segal

There was a lot of pomp and celebration over the last few days - all warranted given the more than 900,000 who have served in AmeriCorps, the billions of hours of work that has helped develop communities, increase economic opportunity, and improve educational outcomes.

But, if there is any message in the 20th anniversary of AmeriCorps, it has to be this: what are we going to do tomorrow?

#ICYMI: Announcement next @NationalService public board meeting

Recently released:

The next public board meeting for the Corporation for National and Community Service will be on Tuesday, March 11th at 2:30-3:30pm EST at the DC headquarters.

There will also be a live call-in conference line, I'll post those details as soon as they are available.

If you have any questions or concerns to surface at the meeting please feel free to call in during the public comment portion, or to post them here or email me.

I have been lucky to meet many members of the service community in the past few months and made commitments to be as responsive, accessible and transparent as possible.

I look forward to hearing your ideas about how we can continue to grow national service,

-Matt

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I still miss you, baby.

Whirlwind of posts this week - from charter school boundary proposals, to a debate on the equity in school funding, to tips on grading efficiency, to a discussion of local school councils and apathy and how many CPS high schools prepare students for college. Whoa.

The joys of a three day weekend enabling time to think and write.

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Chicagoans don't care about @ChiPubSchools: On #LSC elections, apathy and a challenge to do more

Headline of recent DNA Info story.

Chicagoans don't care about their local schools.

Is that the issue? Apathy? Is that why only 700 people have thus far signed up for 6,000 potential elected Local School Council seats? Or, is there something more...

Certainly more individuals will sign up as we approach the Feb 26th deadline, but a look at the results from the last election doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

McAuliffe elementary's results are pictured below, in a school with more than 650 students the leading vote getter walked away with 15. This is one of dozens of examples, click around on this map, attempt not to be depressed.

Check out other results here.

Now, maybe LSC races aren't the sexiest elected positions in the world - they don't set taxes, they don't pass laws, they don't control district budgets. But, they do hire and control principal contracts - a wildly important role for the success of a school. They do approve budgets. They can become active and help to set policy and vision for a school.

The initial conception of the LSC during the Harold Washington years in Chicago was to return schools to local control after years of a recalcitrant board entirely controlled by the elder Mayor Daley that was unresponsive to the needs to smaller communities. In the first election more than 17,000 people ran for 6,000 slots. LSCs were a resounding success.

So, why are so few people interested in running now? Is it apathy?

Dave Meslin has an eloquent take on this in his 2010 TEDx talk. The basic argument: if your design doesn't call on people to engage, they won't. My argument, right now Chicago Public Schools is not calling on Chicagoans to engage - so, they aren't.

I mean LOOK at this beauty, don't you just want to jump off your couch and get involved right now?? 

That's right folks, if you are interested in becoming involved in your local school you only need to search through 24 hard copy .pdfs, print them out, read them all, and physically walk or mail them to a designated office. At that point, someone will maybe get back to you in a few days.

Sarcasm aside, what would an actual, earnest, well-run campaign to engage communities in schools look like?

So, a challenge to graphic designers, public relations professionals, mad men - reimagine this call to action. 

And further a challenge to Chicagoans, if you care about your city, if you care about the future for children of our city at an absolute bare minimum, go vote in your LSC elections on April 7th and 8th. 

The educated citizen has an obligation to serve the public. He may be a precinct worker or President. He may give his talents at the courthouse, the State house, the White House. He may be a civil servant or a Senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser. But he must be a participant and not a spectator. 

- President Kennedy, May 18th 1963

Is school funding fair? What does equitable funding look like?

That is the question that starts of this Ed Week article looking at a state-by-state report card on school funding by Rutgers.

The conclusion of the article, and the survey is "no", of course. But, I think when considering policy the more interesting question that needs to be asked is, "What would be fair?"

Certainly the cost of living differs drastically from Idaho to Chicago, and even within states there is a wide disparity in the amount of funding required to deliver an education. So, to what should the level of necessary education funding be tied to, a certain percentage of state GDP? A number related to cost of living as gleaned from the prices of consumer goods?

Should the level of equitable funding be tied to individual schools or students or districts? Would we consider it equitable if the average spending on the west side of Chicago with significant poverty rates were $20,000 per child while the average public spending per child in affluent Winnetka would be $12,000?

What does an egalitarian society seek in an imperfect situation like this? Acknowledging the fact that each child who walks through the door on their first day of school does so with very different backgrounds and preparations depending on family structure, home life, nutrition, healthcare etc. What role does school funding play within that complex dance of working toward a more equitable society?

There are certainly policy questions to be asked about how funding streams reach schools - property taxes vs. vice taxes vs. sales taxes etc. But this question of what are we aiming for in terms of levels of funding deserves attention and debate.

(site update) Added @Disqus comments to the site

Off topic - FYI if the site looked a little weird recently, I was adding a new comment system from Disqus.

A big thank you to those who have taken the time to respond to my posts and put their own thoughts out there (Cy, Jess!) - it makes the conversation much more interesting and, I think, productive.

Hopefully the new system will encourage for more interaction on the site with nested comments (you can reply to someone else's point), the ability to vote comments up and down.

Looking forward to continuing the discussion...

- Matt

Charter schools & neighborhood boundaries - are we not thinking creatively?

The market approach to schools. Maybe one of the most charged phrased in education policy and ed reform at the moment.

But, are we looking at the controversy all wrong?

Critics of a market approach to education point to the fact that parents don't actually have that much choice as to where their students attend. Also, that so far the invisible hand hasn't moved the market in support of "higher performing" schools.

Further, students from the area immediately surrounding charter schools are not guaranteed admission so critics would say that parents can't effectively/definitively choose*.

Critics see this as a charter school's ability to cream the best students from all over the city. Even though (in my very anecdotal experience) 90% of the students that attend charter schools because they are living geographically close**.

Conversely, neighborhood schools are required to take all students within an attendance boundary. And, with the exception of magnet schools, students attending from outside the attendance boundary is exceedingly rare.

So, how about an idea.

It would likely require changes in statute, and is extremely unlikely to happen. But, hear me out:

1. Amend statute to read that every public school student in the city of Chicago has guaranteed admittance at the nonselective high school closest to their home geographically. Essentially, attach guaranteed attendance boundaries to charter schools.
    
2. All schools - traditional neighborhood and charter - are required to hold a lottery if there are empty seats after the geographic preference has been filled. Essentially, for vacant seats any student from anywhere in the city could attend any neighborhood school. If there are too many interested students, a lottery is held.

Advantages:

1. For parents and students - guarantees that the school closest to home is always an option.
    
2. For parents and students - creates more options if they want to pursue them, if there are seats available in a north-side Lincoln Park neighborhood (or wherever) school a student from west Lawndale (or wherever) has the option to attend.
    
3. For utilization/avoiding school closings - if a school is doing well but enrollment is declining because of demographics in a neighborhood, students can elect to attend said school maximizing utilization and retaining.
   
4. For fans of market-based reforms - theoretically gives parents a more equitable market place of options to choose from, increases competition by adding all non-selective schools as options. 

Potential pitfalls:

1. Lack of proactive transparency on the part of district would make it difficult for parents to make decisions.
    
2. If timeline of application/lotteries is unclear or not system-wide it could create uncertainty and chaos on budgeting and planning process (this seems surmountable to me with some foresight and planning).

So, what am I missing? Why won't this work?

 

* For the uninitiated charter schools allow students from anywhere in the district to attend, if there are more students than available space in the school the school holds a lottery.

** Side note: would love to see that metric, average distance travelled to attend each school.

Pro tip #5: Cut down on grading time, use a tabata timer

There are some great books out there on improving teaching practice, pedagogy, history of education, ed policy etc. But sometimes the day to day minutiae can detract from grand plans, and what you really need are tips and systems to improve efficiency:

The problem: grading takes for. ev. er.

The pro-tip: use a Tabata timer to ensure equitable time spent on student work and improve your own work-life balance.

Steps:

1. Decide on the amount of time you are going to spend per essay (or quiz or test etc). Maybe 4-5 minutes depending on the rubric and how quickly you read.
   
2. Use a tabata timer like this one, or download an app for your phone that does the same thing.
   
3. Include the "work" time for reading/commenting on the student work, "rest" time is for actually recording the grade on a rubric, and the cycles is the number of essays you need to get through.

The screen shot below shows a class of 25 essays at 5 minutes per essay with 10 seconds to record scores on the rubric. As you can see, the time adds up quickly. But, at least now you have an idea of the overall time requirement.

Benefits: the timer keeps you on task, allows you to block schedule out the grading, equalizes the time per essay and hopefully frees up some time in your schedule for other things. 

Caveat emptor - this is a part of an occasional series, these are all small ideas, none are earth shattering, but they have been helpful to me. Have other pro tips? Feel free to share in the comments.

How many nonselective @ChiPubSchools prepare kids for college?

Catherine Deutsch from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools has a column up at Catalyst Chicago extending the debate raised by Daniel Hertz' original analysis of the Chicago Public Schools market.

Check out the full article here: Catalyst Chicago

Most interesting addition to the conversation (in my estimation) is this chart:

While certainly the ACT is not even close to a full or complete stand-in for measures of true intellectual and academic growth one thing is certain - that without a 21 cumulative ACT score even applying to most universities is a bridge too far, let alone acceptance. 

We can, and we should have a larger discussion about the true aims of a high school education, and how we should measure those aims, and the stakes of testing. We can and we should have a discussion of what it means to be college ready and what criteria universities should use for admissions decisions. We can and we should have a pedagogical discussion about the best ways to help students grow academically within their high school years.

But, at the moment a sad fact remains in Chicago: for students who enter high school behind there are only four non-selective schools in the city that consistently (on average) move them across a threshold for college application - and that is far too few.