Posted on 08/04/2003 8:59:59 PM PDT by JustPiper
The Daley Generation started out 36,000 strong.
They began first grade in a Chicago public school eight years ago, just after Mayor Daley won control of the school system, and today should be among the best students in decades.
Since 1995, they've ridden a wave of new resources, new expertise, and a new enthusiasm--all under the watchful eye of a mayor who's staked his political reputation on their progress.
For those who made it through eighth grade after eight years in the city's public schools, the results are impressive.
Six out of 10 started out below the national norm in reading. Now, nearly six out of 10 are above it. And that's true even though most of these kids are poor, coming from homes where books may be scarce and one parent may be absent.
Where They Stand
Despite the successes of Daley's plan, only 49.3 percent of the 36,069 students who started in Chicago public schools in 1995 made it to eighth grade. More than 11,000 kids left the school system entirely by 2002.
"This goes to show that it's possible to make significant progress with poor, minority students,'' said Craig Jerald, senior policy analyst with The Education Trust, a nonprofit Washington, D.C., group focused on closing the achievement gap.
But some say it's too early to call this a success story. In fact, it's less than half the story of the first Daley Generation.
That's because, by this past school year, only 49 percent of the Daley Kids even made it to eighth grade in a Chicago public school. Nearly a fifth of the kids sat in a lower grade, having been held back at least once--often because they failed a key standardized test. And almost a third had left the school system altogether, with middle-class kids leaving at a higher rate than poor ones.
Those are some of the results of a detailed statistical analysis, performed by the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research at the Chicago Sun-Times' request, that tracked the first generation of students to start first grade under the Daley banner and reach what would normally be their eighth-grade graduation years.
The analysis indicates many Daley Kids are doing better academically, but Daley and his handpicked school team have yet to stem the exodus of students from the system's elementary schools. And, this academic success comes at a price that cannot yet be calculated--the fate of the 6,550 kids still in the system who were forced to repeat at least one grade.
Daley and his school managers insist that "socially promoting" these ill-prepared students--moving them up despite bad grades--would have guaranteed their failure. But many experts say the final test is still ahead. They point to stacks of research showing that kids who are held back, and sit in classrooms surrounded by younger students, are much more likely to drop out in their high school years.
Following the zigs and zags
To study the Daley Generation, Consortium analyst Steve Ponisciak and executive director John Easton looked at kids in an entirely new way. They followed each student over an eight-year continuum, using Board of Education records that pinpointed each child's grade level each September. Some of the results were startling.
The researchers found routes up the ladder they never knew existed: kids who repeated a grade, then skipped a grade and rejoined their peers, only to stumble and repeat a grade yet again. Some kids repeated the same grade three times; others repeated three different grades.
As a result, almost 1,600 Daley Kids sat in sixth-grade classrooms this past school year.
Most of these kids were held back by the most controversial hallmark of the Daley era--a new crackdown against social promotion that requires students to pass a test to be promoted after third, sixth and eighth grade. But more than a third were held back in other grades, the result of decisions made by schools with no systemwide policy to guide them.
Some of these grade patterns are so unusual that Schools CEO Arne Duncan says he now wants to closely examine them. After all, only 40 percent of all Daley Kids took a traditional route through grammar school, going from first through eighth consecutively.
Whirlwind of reform
Regardless of their current grade, over the last eight years most of the Daley Generation experienced an almost dizzying array of efforts to rejuvenate the country's third-largest school system--once labeled by then-U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett the "worst in the nation.'' Daley and his new school team brought a new energy to a once-lumbering system and showered it with new resources: a $3.6 billion construction boom, $99.4 million in extra after-school classes and $98.8 million in new mandatory summer school classes.
Paid experts from universities citywide were dispatched to the city's lowest-performing schools. Other specialists later joined them, armed with new training on how to teach reading. The whole city pitched in, with CEOs, movie stars and athletes recruited to serve as "principals for a day.''
Labor tensions were replaced by eight years of labor peace. Enrollment increased from 407,000 to 438,600, and the school budget ballooned from $2.7 billion to $4.8 billion.
Eventually, homeowners saw the Chicago Board of Education swallow up 49 percent of their property tax bills.
But under Daley, parents also knew their public schools would open each fall on time. Budget deficits that once wracked the system and threatened the opening day of school were plugged early on.
Daley Kids and destiny
Destiny has tied the Daley Generation to Daley, whatever their path. Many of the Daley Kids were born in 1989, the same year Richard M. Daley became mayor of Chicago. They started first grade in 1995, just months after a Republican-dominated Legislature handed Daley, a Democrat, the reins of the city's public schools. Daley got direct appointment of all Chicago School Board members, who immediately began voting in unanimous blocs. He hand-picked the CEO charged with running schools on a day-to-day basis. The Chicago Board of Education became, in effect, Daley's Board of Education.
The fruit of that effort, the first Daley Generation, is being watched not only by Chicago parents and voters, but also by cities nationwide that have since handed over their schools to their mayors and followed Daley's nationally recognized crackdown on social promotion.
Donna Tisdale still remembers the excitement and promise of that September day back in 1995. She walked her two daughters past the boarded-up buildings and vacant lots of impoverished Englewood and into Copernicus Elementary for their first day of first grade.
For these kids, for this generation, Tisdale hoped, things would be different.
"I was very optimistic,'' Tisdale said. "I felt Mayor Daley was working with the city. Maybe he could do something with the schools.''
Chicago Sun-Times Special Report Home
About the series At the request of the Chicago Sun-Times, the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research tracked all 36,069 students who began first grade for the first time in a Chicago public school in 1995, just months after Mayor Daley won control of the system. Continue »
Flunking grades Four times as many students now must repeat grades. Experts warn that's a recipe for drop-out disaster.
Coming Monday
Despite tougher academic standards, the schools continue to lose students, with middle-class kids leaving at a higher rate than poor kids. Why do they leave and where do they go?
Despite the successes of Daley's plan, only 49.3 percent of the 36,069 students who started in Chicago public schools in 1995 made it to eighth grade. More than 11,000 kids left the school system entirely by 2002.
Four times as many students now must repeat grades. Experts warn that's a recipe for drop-out disaster.
That's because, by this past school year, only 49 percent of the Daley Kids even made it to eighth grade in a Chicago public school. Nearly a fifth of the kids sat in a lower grade, having been held back at least once--often because they failed a key standardized test. And almost a third had left the school system altogether, with middle-class kids leaving at a higher rate than poor ones.
Daley and his handpicked school team have yet to stem the exodus of students from the system's elementary schools. And, this academic success comes at a price that cannot yet be calculated--the fate of the 6,550 kids still in the system who were forced to repeat at least one grade.
They point to stacks of research showing that kids who are held back, and sit in classrooms surrounded by younger students, are much more likely to drop out in their high school years.
Some kids repeated the same grade three times; others repeated three different grades.
only 40 percent of all Daley Kids took a traditional route through grammar school, going from first through eighth consecutively.
the school budget ballooned from $2.7 billion to $4.8 billion.
homeowners saw the Chicago Board of Education swallow up 49 percent of their property tax bills.
Homeschooling has grown alot in Chicago and the voucher program would be less expensive to school children and give parents a choice where their children attend school. Under Daley,the school budget ballooned from $2.7 billion to $4.8 billion.
BTW how much of the daley money went to JJ and BJ. But what the hey the jj's of the world love the city.
Astonishing. The person in charge says they haven't reviewed the numbers.
An alternate explanation is that students who can't keep up with the class are more likely to drop out whether or not they are left back. If you don't leave them back, then they will slow down the pace of the rest of the class to the point where hardly any learning happens
There is a fact of life which the educational establishment refuses to acknowledge: that there is an unequal distribution of intelligence, and a pace that satisfies the class segment that is below IQ-80, will completely bore the segment that is above IQ-120, and a pace that will keep the latter interested, will completely lose the former
But to acknowledge this means that you would have to face that not all students are equal, and many parents don't want to hear this. There would also be lawsuits (as there have been in the past) if there were too many white/asian kids in the "gifted" tack, and too many black kids in the "special-ed" track, so the politically easiest solution is to put everyone together so that nobody learns. AT this point, the middle-class pulls out
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