Progress Illinois

In recent years, Chicago Public Schools has moved full speed ahead in expanding the charter school network while failing to provide even basic information about how this rapid outsourcing has impacted students and taxpayers. The trend has invited uproar among grassroots school reform advocates.  Indeed, the vocal frustration from teachers and community groups this past year has been reminiscent of the events leading up to the overhaul of the city's school system in the late-Eighties. And there's likely to be a lot more action on this front in the near future thanks to three bills that passed rather quietly through the legislature during the final days of the spring session last week.

More Charter School Authority

With only one day left in the session, and with little fanfare, Rep. Kimberly Lightford (D-Chicago) tagged an amendment onto shell bill SB 612, lifting the cap on the number of charters schools, both in Chicago and statewide. Under the legislation, CPS can more than double its charter capacity (from 30 to 70) and add five new charter high schools (with up to 15 campuses) that will exclusively enroll dropouts. Other parts of the state will be impacted too, as the bill clears the way for a three-fold future charter expansion (up to 45 schools) outside of Chicago. An additional 35 contract schools, which also operate under private management, will be allowed to open as well.

The Illinois Federation of Teachers' Gail Purke tells us that the last-minute bill wasn't the result of any sneaky maneuvering, but months of negotiations. And the result -- combined with some of the other reforms we'll get into below -- should help bring some charter "innovation" into the publicly-run schools. But in an op-ed to the Reader last month, DePaul Education Professor Kenneth Saltman cautioned against buying into the innovation rhetoric:

The point is that the charter movement despite starting out as a progressive and grassroots movement for alternative school models and innovation has been thoroughly hijacked by business ... By suggesting that we think of public schooling as a market, students as consumers, and schools like businesses that would benefit from a “healthy dose of deregulation” by injecting competition and choice, we forget the limitations of unfettered deregulation and privatization that has produced the current economic crisis.

Also included in Lightford's bill is the requirement that 75 percent of charter teachers hold a state certification -- a substantial increase over the 50 percent required under current law -- and achievement data will  be published on a school-by-school level. Furthermore, the measure granted authority to launch a statewide task force on charter expansion.

School Closure Accountability 

Meanwhile, Rep. Cynthia Soto's (D-Chicago) bill to reform the school closure process -- which she'd initially proposed as a moratorium after CPS attempted to reconstitute nearly two dozen schools this spring -- passed, albeit in a watered-down form. The Sun-Times explains the outcome of the bill:

Under the measure, a committee of legislators and community group members would hold hearings, investigate the school closing process, consult experts and make recommendations for change that may be submitted as future legislation. 

The charter school expansion -- which zipped through both chambers within 24 hours --  only reinforces why Soto's HB 363 is so important: It makes school administrators more accountable to various stakeholders that have been shut out of the process. 

Defining Charter Schools As Public Institutions

On another point of public accountability, the legislature passed SB 1984, reaffirming that charter schools are in fact public schools and its teachers are subject to the rules of the Illinois Education Labor Relations Act. This measure comes as administrators at Chicago International Charter Schools' (CICS) Civitas recently refused to accept the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board's (IELRB) certification of a new teachers union. (You can find the backstory on this dispute here.)  Both sides are currently waiting for the National Labor Relations Board to decide whether it -- rather than the IELRB -- has jurisdiction over the union petition.  Will this bill have any effect on their reasoning?  We'll find out soon enough.