“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
Every day, we see the painful downward spiral of an economy dominated by speculation and paper profits intended to maximize short-term return at the expense of our nation’s long-term health. In the current global financial crisis, we feel the effects of that philosophy in ways that threaten serious destabilization. We now must rebuild what 25 years of failure has taken from us: a vibrant, healthy middle class that honors labor, creates real wealth, grows strong communities, and helps to lift our fellow citizens out of poverty. We must rapidly implement new and innovative solutions to heal our environment rather than hasten its demise. Specifically, we must re-discover, re-invent, and re-build manufacturing in the knowledge economy.
Chicago schools chief Arne
Duncan’s seat is still warm, but the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is
wasting no time on the question of who will replace him when he leaves to become the Secretary of Education.
Marilyn
Stewart, president of the city’s teacher’s union, said at a press conference today she
hopes someone with classroom experience takes the district’s reins. She pointed out that, for
more than a decade, managerial-types like
Duncan have run the show.
Stewart may see this wish come true. The Sun-Times is reporting that Duncan’s number two, Chief Education Officer Barbara Eason-Watkins, is virtually a shoo-in to replace him. (Catalyst Chicago appears to back that up.)
If
Eason-Watkins is the ultimate pick, Stewart would be satisfied.
President-elect Barack Obama will name Arne Duncan,
the superintendent of schools in Chicago, to be his Secretary of
Education, a senior Democratic official and a second person close to
the decision said. [...]
Word of the selection comes as Mr. Obama’s
transition team said Monday that he would make an important
announcement on Tuesday morning at the Dodge Renaissance Academy, an
elementary school that Mr. Duncan and Mr. Obama visited together in
October 2005.
Before long, dormitories and
libraries at Illinois’ institutions of higher learning could be lonely
places. In its biennial report on the U.S. higher education system released today
(PDF), the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has
given the Prairie State an “F” for its ability to provide access to
affordable college education. If action isn’t taken, some fear a
college education will soon be out of reach for a majority of students.
To
be fair, Illinois is not the only state struggling with affordability.
In fact, California (which boasts a relatively inexpensive community
college system) was the only state to earn a passing grade in the
category. Nationally, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income only rose 147 percent.
But
the data is particularly grim in the Land of Lincoln. The average net
cost -- one year’s tuition, fees, room and board, minus financial aid -- at a
two-year community college was 24 percent of the state’s median family
income, up from 19 percent just eight years ago. The average net cost
of a four-year public school reached a whopping 35 percent, a 16
percent boost since 2000.
Amid all the twelve-figure bailouts and theoretical arguments about how to repair the American economy, I was so relieved to hear Dan Swinney's comments last Sunday as a guest on Bruce DuMont's Beyond The Beltway. Swinney is a labor guy and, as such, has a very practical, on-the-ground perspective when it comes to reversing our economic troubles and regaining competitiveness on the global stage. He sees the big picture and, unlike many, is focused on the "opportunity" in this crisis. But at the same time he has started small -- specifically, with a high school on Chicago's West Side.
As we wrote in a feature article last summer, Austin Polytechnical Academy seeks to train local teenagers as skilled laborers who can fill vacant, high-paying positions in the city's industrial sector. The school, which opened its doors in the fall of 2007, is part of the Chicago Public Schools' Renaissance 2010 program and there are several other similar institutions scheduled to pop up around the city in the coming years.
While there was already plenty of support for Swinney's model before the financial meltdown, interest in replicating it elsewhere is rapidly growing these days. As Swinney explains in the clip below, Barack Obama has endorsed the idea and representatives from the National Education Association and the California Teachers Association rolled through Chicago this week to take a look at his pilot project in the hopes of launching something similar on the West Coast. Watch:
As you can see, Swinney's perspective is extremely easy to wrap your head around. We've lost a lot of the unskilled labor opportunities to assembly lines elsewhere. And we're not going to get those jobs back. But if America invests in training students in advanced, skilled work -- with support from the private sector -- we can become a world leader in what he describes as "complicated products."
While there have been -- and
continue to be -- numerous obstacles to greening the Chicago Public
Schools system, Suzanne Carlson, the woman hired by the district to
oversee its new Environmental Action Plan, tells us not to rule her out.
Carlson
recently unveiled a framework for changes that include composting food
waste, bolstering recycling efforts, better managing stormwater, and
changing everyday behavior to cut back on energy consumption by
millions of dollars each year.
Her biggest outside ally is the Healthy Schools Campaign, which knows a thing or two about working for change within a bureaucracy.
A prominent line up of public
officials—including former Commerce Secretary William Daley, former
Gov. Jim Edgar, and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert—along with some
deep-pocketed foundations rolled out the state’s latest education initiative yesterday.
For some time now, the school reform community has had its eye on the emerging group, dubbed Advance Illinois.
And they’ve expressed skepticism, to say the least. Judging by today’s
lackluster response to the initiative, it appears that the people of
Illinois have also grown weary of blue ribbon commissions intended to
study what everyone already knows: stark inequities pervade Illinois
schools.
Nonetheless, the leaders of Advance Illinois have
set out to draft a set of policy recommendations for repairing the
state’s “mediocre” education system.
Barack Obama has made his first-term priorities quite clear:
begin by stabilizing the financial system, then move to energy, health
care, taxes, and finally to education. While all of these reforms are incredibly urgent, I share
Dana Goldstein's frustration that education advancements are consistently put on the back-burner by our elected officials.
Yet there is reason to believe that some progress could be made on education reform even if it's buried underneath the nation's other pressing
concerns. Indeed, Obama could make some quick
administrative decisions that would better equip schools and
communities to serve their youth. Education reporter Alexander Russo
explained how on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight. Listen:
Mayor Daley may have come out
against the idea of opening the nation's second gay-friendly high school -- one of the Chicago's most progressive education proposals to
date -- but backers
of the Social Justice Pride Campus aren't backing down.
"We have a clear strategy," said Chad Weiden, who's up for the job
of principal at the Pride Campus. "We're organizing right now. We're
beginning media outreach. ... There's more to come, I'm just not ready
to say what."
With just more than a week to go before an embargo is lifted on the
highly-scrutinized test score results, the Illinois State Board of
Education (ISBE) released some general figures today in an effort to
get out in front of what's bound to be a steady stream of reports about
lagging student achievement.
As anticipated, Illinois students this year had a tough time meeting the rising expectations established under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). More than a third of the state's schools failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress
(AYP) on standardized tests issued last spring -- up 11
points from the prior year.
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“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
