17 May 2013

Public Opinion on Closings

A Chicago Tribune poll finds that most Chicagoans disapprove of Mayor Emanuel’s plan to close over 50 CPS schools. As well they should:

  • In many cases, no CPS official visited the schools before slating them for closure. CPS has estimated the number of rooms that could be used for homerooms regardless of the number of support groups, auxiliary programs, special education rooms, or outside organizations sharing the building.
  • CPS quietly reduced the savings the school closings would achieve, by 20%, or $120 million, in a document that can be read on its website only by searching for the title. The document is not listed in CPS’ news and announcements list.
  • WBEZ and Catalyst Chicago found discrepancies among CPS’s estimates of the costs to maintain the schools it seeks to close. In several cases, the estimated capital costs have tripled even though no new assessment of building needs was done.
  • In 14 cases, CPS is not in fact closing the building of the school that is being closed; instead, another school’s administration, faculty, and students are being moved from their building to the building of the “closed” school. CPS is doing this in order to claim that it is offering the students of the closed school the opportunity to enroll in a better school.

In short, the process and the justifications for the closings are in shambles.

3 May 2013

Bloomberg NRAs the City Council

Mayor Bloomberg scooped up the muck that the NRA has thrown at him, and pitched it toward the City Councilmen backing an independent inspector-general for the NYPD. This is the NYPD that illegally committed one of its own officers to a mental hospital because he had filed complaints about mis-reporting crimes, quotas for arrests, and false arrests in his precinct. This is the NYPD that blames its own rank-and-file for being lazy to justify its baseless stop-and-frisk actions. This is the NYPD that tells the son of a traffic cop that he’s a “fucking mutt” and that “I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arm, then I’m gonna punch you in the fuckin’ face.”

Bloomberg said yesterday:

But if this bill [for the inspector-general] passes, the law enforcement agencies that we work with on counterterrorism and intelligence gathering might be less willing to share information with us if they were concerned that it could be released outside the Department to an Inspector General and the City Council.

This is a groundless concern. Currently, any court could demand information from the NYPD’s intelligence division. Anyone in the division could leak it or accidentally disclose it. The NY legislator could subpoena it. The creation of an independent inspector-general would not change any other agencies’ practices.

It is the same groundless logic behind US Senate opponents to universal background checks for gun purchases. They argue that it could be a step to creating a national registry, which could be a step toward gun confiscation. But if Congress were to create a national gun registry or ban types of firearms in the future, it could do so regardless of whether universal background checks exist.

Both the anti-check senators and the mayor are acting like fucking mutts.

26 April 2013

One small step for CPS…

The CPS head Barbara Byrd-Bennett announced that CPS has cancelled planned NWEA MAP for Primary Grade (MPG) tests for kindergarteners and 1st graders. This is good news. The sample test had silly and misleading questions, and the mouse interface was non-intuitive. There is no need to subject primary grade students to tests of this type.

Unfortunately, 2nd graders will not be spared a standardized test. They will take the MAP that is given to 3rd graders on up rather than the MPG. All 2nd graders took the MPG in the fall and many took the MPG again in the winter. Now, they will all take the MAP in the spring. Good luck to the teachers trying to explain to students that the test they took before is not the test that they are going to take now, but a different test that is like the one they took before but will be taken in a different way than the prior one.

Non-closing school closings

Why are so many people in Chicago skeptical of CPS claims surrounding school closings? Here is one reason.

CPS is closing the Jesse Owens school, located at 12450 S. State St., and those students will be welcomed by the Samuel Gompers School. One reason CPS gives is that the Owens building is under-used and  requires $8.8 million to maintain and update. OK. Except that the Owens building is not closing:

 If this action is approved, Gompers will operate in both facilities located at 12302 S. State St. and 12450 S. State St.

So CPS seeks “to maximize resources by supporting a reduced number of school buildings” but in this case it will not close the buildings. All that is happening is that Owens administration and non-tenured staff are being dismissed, and need to reapply for jobs at Gompers, even though the jobs will be the same ones that they previously did at Owens.

 

24 April 2013

What is education?

Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s reply to high school students protesting over-testing and school closings was this:

The only place that students should be during the school day is in the classroom with their teachers getting the education they need to be successful in life. Today’s PSAE is one of the most critical exams our students will take.

Someone should explain to her that taking the ACT is not a form of education by teachers but an exam designed to sort college-bound students. The PSAE has the ACT, an ISBE created science test (because the ACT science section is no good?), and several worker-screening tests designed by the ACTs makers. If you take the ACT, you shouldn’t be taking those tests, and vice versa.

It also is not very good at doing what its proponents claim it can do — establish “college readiness” — as this presentation and accompanying notes show.

 

19 April 2013

Bow down to your master, American subject

 

The DOJ is an irony-free zone:

Celebrating “sunshine” of FOIA. But first “papers please.”

 

16 April 2013

Justice Delayed…

The NY Times has an excellent series on delayed trials in the Bronx county/borough.* The article notes that even the line to get in the courthouse is long, extending outsize. But notice something in the picture.

It appears that only one x-ray machine and metal-detector is in use. Another x-ray machine and detector to the right has no one staffing it, and it appears to be the same to the left. The line could be shorter if the security check-point were staffed fully.

But the problems in the Bronx go far beyond under-staffed security; the entire court system is under-staffed and under-funded. And the consequences are severe:

Sam Braverman, a veteran Bronx defense lawyer, recently had a 34-year-old client charged with murder freed after someone else confessed to that killing. His client had been in jail awaiting his trial for nearly three years.

* NYC is actually made up of five counties. Each borough of the city is co-extensive with a separate county: NY county for Manhattan, Kings county for Brooklyn, Queens county for Queens, Bronx county for the Bronx, and Richmond county for Staten Island.

15 April 2013

School Closing Math

There is math, and then there is school closing math. Of the top twenty most expensive elementary schools to maintain, ten are unaffected by the closings, two are welcoming schools, and one is a turnaround. Only five are being closed and two relocated, averting $166.8 million in facilities cost, while schools costing $255.2 million remain unaffected.

Sumner has 375 students enrolled but could hold 1320, so CPS marks its utilization at 28%. Moreover, CPS estimates the facility cost at over $24.5 million. But CPS proposes that Sumner serve as the welcoming school for Ericson, which has 510 students enrolled but could hold 780 ( a 65% utilization rate) and has a facility cost of $9.6 million. Likewise, Bass costs $19.8 million and holds 336 out of 810 possible students, but it will receive students from Woods, which has 371 out of 810 possible students and costs $13.3 million. In both cases, the school that costs less to maintain and has a higher utilization rate is being shuttered.

All of this is based on CPS data.

 

 

8 April 2013

Your Papers, Please!

I attempted to attend an allegedly open meeting of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force today at the Bilandic State Office Building in Chicago. Open meetings are supposed to be held at place open to the public. But many Illinois government buildings are not open to the public. Guards demand a current government-issued photo ID for unexplained reasons (if you think “for security” please explain in the comments how a photo ID establishes security? Do people with driver’s licenses never commit crimes?). If you do no drive, and have no driver’s license, the state of Illinois wants to charge you $20 to have a state photo ID in order to attend a public meeting.

Why didn’t I have my driver’s license? First, I did not drive there; I took the El. Second, I paid a fee for the driver’s license in order to drive a car legally in Illinois. If Illinois wants me to have a photo-identification card, it can issue me one. But I shouldn’t have to hand over my driver’s license or US passport to someone who has no legal need for it. Was I violating a traffic ordinance? Is the Bilandic building not US territory? The passport is the property of the US government. If the guard doesn’t give it back, I’m out of an expensive item; a renewal cost $110. Likewise, it takes considerable time and expense to obtain a new driver’s license. Third, I am an American patriot, and I believe in freedom of movement.

At the suggestion of the State Police officer at the Bilandic desk, I went across the street to the Secretary of State’s office in the Atrium Mall to get a state ID issued. They would give me one because I had a signed credit card, knew my address and Social Security number, and my face matched the face on their screen but wanted me to pay $20 for it.*

What about the argument that identification is necessary for security? I would love to hear the argument. Having a government-issued photo ID does not make anyone less dangerous than they would otherwise be. A US passport does not even have a person’s address on it. A convicted murder legally possess a driver’s license. A cursory inspection of the document — passport, license, other government picture ID — does not reveal whether the person is a danger to others. All producing those documents indicates is that you possess those documents.

The 9/11 Commission focused on identification that would be subject to verification. Checking  a driver’s license at an airport is helpful because the name of the person on the license should match the name on the airline reservation. Booking a reservation for “John D. Smith” and showing up at the airport with a driver’s license for “Johnson E. Smyth” should raise a red flag. If Smyth tries to board with Smith’s boarding pass, there is a problem. But at state buildings, no guard is cross-referencing the name of a person with a photo-ID with a watch list. It would be impractical to do this at any facility with a large number of people entering and leaving.

I do not object to identifying myself. If the guards at the Bilandic building had access to the same database that the Secretary of State’s office across the street had, they could have called up the picture of me if I gave my name and address. The state refuses to give me a photo ID for free, so it certainly isn’t going to pay thousands to provide the desk guards at all state buildings with computer terminals linked via high-speed connections to verify documents (or pay for the additional guards). So it is not really about security; it’s about theatre.

The trip was not without irony. As I left the Bilandic building, there was a banner overhead that read “Let Freedom Ring.” Sadly, there is just a muffled bonk.

4 April 2013

Trapped in Receiving Schools

Mayer Emanuel has decried “trapping children in schools that are not succeeding” and CPS head Barbara Byrd-Bennett has similarly said that “children have been trapped in underutilized and under-resourced schools.” But how will students from the 54 schools be freed from such a “trap”? Only twelve of the receiving schools are “Level 1″ schools, the highest performance rating. Fifteen are “Level 3″ schools, the lowest rating, so children sent there will go from one trap to another, by CPS’s own standards.

CPS claims that its “performance policy points” that the receiving school earned are higher than the points of the school to be “closed.”¹ This is correct, but the performance points are often higher even when the composite scores on the state tests, the ISAT, are lower than those of the closing school. CPS values trends over the absolute scores. Only nine of the closing schools have performance point levels lower than the lowest of the receiving schools, and only twelve of the receiving schools, the same “Level 1″ schools, have performance points higher than the highest closing school. Most of the students will attend only marginally better schools.

 

¹In 14 cases, CPS is not closing the building that the school is in; the “receiving” school’s administration is taking over the building of the ostensibly closed school.

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