Chicago Schools Prom There: "This is Are Story"

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**Frazzled**

http://eagnews.org/prom-slogan-highlights-cps-failures/

Chicago Public Schools prom slogan: ‘This Is Are Story’
June 10, 2014
Tweet Illinois Review

Founded in 2005, Illinois Review is a digital media site, providing an alternative perspective and source of Illinois news and information. Archive » It’s hard to deny just how poorly Chicago’s public schools are performing when it hits you in the face. Such is the case with Paul Robeson High School’s 2014 prom theme: “This is Are Story.”

That image came from veteran investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, who posted this image on his Facebook page.

Some people might enjoy mocking the irony of the gross misuse of vocabulary.

But unless the organizers of the prom festivities planned the wording this way as a joke, there’s nothing funny about the situation.

Paul Robeson High School is located in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. The high school also is part of the failing Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, system.

Four out of 10 CPS freshmen do not graduate.

If they do graduate, 91 percent have to take remediation courses in college because they do not know how to do basic math and school work. Just 26 percent of CPS high school students are college-ready, according to the ACT subject matter tests.

Students in these schools whose families can’t afford an alternative are trapped in classrooms that, for the most part, aren’t equipping them to succeed in the future.

But while CPS students get left behind, their teachers receive generous compensation.

The average CPS teacher salary is $76,000. The last contract negotiations in 2012 gave CPS teachers 17 percent raises over three years.

The median household income in Chicago is just $47,408. The disparity is worse in Englewood, a neighborhood where 23.6 percent of residents are unemployed and the average per capita income is $12,255.

Something’s not adding up.

Students can’t spell. They can’t do math. They aren’t graduating. And they’re not being set up to succeed in the real world.

So why should CPS teachers be rewarded with raises?

The Paul Robeson prom theme is a glaring example of just how bad things have gotten in Chicago Public Schools. The tragic irony is that Paul Robeson students picked a theme that evokes hope for the future; something every child deserves.

But until CPS changes its ways, the system will continue failing students at schools like Paul Robeson.

It’s time all Chicago students have a reason to believe in a brighter tomorrow.

**daedalus**

I blame the victims. Also, thug culture. Also, Chicago.

But really, until you make smart "sexy", the kids won't care.

**Grey Templar**

I think smart is already sexy, except in poorer neighborhoods.

Anyway, this kinda validates my view that teacher compensation should be based partly on student performance. Otherwise the teachers have zero incentive to make students successful.

**Daemonhammer**

Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

**Grey Templar**

Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

2/10

Poor form. Too obvious. They real key to trolling is to keep it subtle.

**Daemonhammer**

Grey Templar wrote:
Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

2/10

Poor form. Too obvious. They real key to trolling is to keep it subtle.

Damn it.

**timetowaste85**

Grey Templar wrote:
Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

2/10

Poor form. Too obvious. They real key to trolling is to keep it subtle.

Who said he was trolling? He's probably right on the nose!

On topic...this sucks. That school needs a total overhaul. Or at least an investigation. Kids can easily REFUSE to learn. It's stupid, but they can. Perhaps there is something more the teachers can do.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Where does this school rank in it's athletic programs?

**nkelsch**

Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

It is also the Democrat's position, they are just better at disguising it. The entire system is about keeping people on an economic treadmill.

**daedalus**

nkelsch wrote:
Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

It is also the Democrat's position, they are just better at disguising it. The entire system is about keeping people on an economic treadmill.

But their way of keeping the treadmill going is too touchy feely!

**LuciusAR**

Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

I've never understood why this idea gets repeated over and over again. The same accusation gets frequently leveled at the Conservative Party here in the UK.

Everything I've read from the Conservative party indicates that aspiration and improvement of personal circumstances is the cornerstone of their philosophy. The idea that people should learn to do without (remain poor) seems to be a mantra of the left.

**whembly**

Grey Templar wrote:
I think smart is already sexy, except in poorer neighborhoods.

Anyway, this kinda validates my view that teacher compensation should be based partly on student performance. Otherwise the teachers have zero incentive to make students successful.

No... that won't change anything.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against that as it does have merits.

What needs to happen is to empower the teachers/schools to configure the curriculum to the student's need...

What needs to happen is to stop teaching the kids how to take the standardize tests in order to keep the government trough flowing...

What needs to happen is to allow schools to effectively discipline students accordingly. I'm a father of two kids and I'll sign a waiver to allow school to institute corporal punishment.

**Grey Templar**

nkelsch wrote:
Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

It is also the Democrat's position, they are just better at disguising it. The entire system is about keeping people on an economic treadmill.

Yup, you keep people happy with handouts(read: addicted to them) they'll never rise above their station and realize they've been totally played.

The left is the party of the downtrodden(by keeping them downtrodden)

The democrat's worst nightmare are long periods of economic prosperity and a shrinking lower class.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
I think smart is already sexy, except in poorer neighborhoods.

Anyway, this kinda validates my view that teacher compensation should be based partly on student performance. Otherwise the teachers have zero incentive to make students successful.

No... that won't change anything.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against that as it does have merits.

What needs to happen is to empower the teachers/schools to configure the curriculum to the student's need...

What needs to happen is to stop teaching the kids how to take the standardize tests in order to keep the government trough flowing...

What needs to happen is to allow schools to effectively discipline students accordingly. I'm a father of two kids and I'll sign a waiver to allow school to institute corporal punishment.

Didn't say it would fix the problem by itself, but it would at least get one of the important factors interested in fixing it.

I agree on all other accounts.

Bring back physical punishment.

Have tests be configured to local needs.

Eliminate standardized testing(at least on a national scale)

**Ensis Ferrae**

LuciusAR wrote:

Everything I've read from the Conservative party indicates that aspiration and improvement of personal circumstances is the cornerstone of their philosophy. The idea that people should learn to do without (remain poor) seems to be a mantra of the left.

I think that this, like the US conservatives give this message in their "Bootstraps" messages, whereas the more left leaning groups tend to say things that (occasionally) are construed as "wealth distribution"

**Daemonhammer**

LuciusAR wrote:
Daemonhammer wrote:
Its all part of the Republican agenda. Keep the poor uneducated and therefore unable to improve their situation which in turn will let the rich get richer.

I've never understood why this idea gets repeated over and over again. The same accusation gets frequently leveled at the Conservative Party here in the UK.

Everything I've read from the Conservative party indicates that aspiration and improvement of personal circumstances is the cornerstone of their philosophy. The idea that people should learn to do without (remain poor) seems to be a mantra of the left.

The easiest way to explain this is that the extreme right is fascist and extreme left is communist. And since the right opposes the left they are considered by them to be "enemy of the people".

Also I dont know what the conservative party was like in the last decade or so in england but from what I read they were definitely on the side of the rich in around 1850s to 1950s.

**hotsauceman1**

I remember when Oakland tried to get Ebonics accepted as a language for the SAT.

Grey Templar wrote:
I think smart is already sexy, except in poorer neighborhoods.

This goes back to my idea of "Culture of Class" The parents, the Kids and the teachers dont expect them t succeed, so they dont.
I believe that after a certain point.....it may be the poor keeping them poor.
I have seen it even in Mixed income schools. Smart kids leaving because their parents expect them to not go to college, but work outta high school

**Frazzled**

Dear God he has a point. Thats actually a well stated theory whyo's name I know not.

**whembly**

Dude... DUDE!

California Teacher Tenure Laws Ruled Unconstitutional

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that teacher tenure laws deprive students of their constitutional right to an education, a decision that hands teachers’ unions a major defeat in a landmark case that overturns several California laws that govern the way teachers are hired and fired.

“Substantial evidence presented makes it clear to this court that the challenged statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students,” Judge Rolf M. Treu wrote in the ruling. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience.”

The ruling, which declared the laws governing how teachers are hired and fired in California to be unconstitutional, is likely to set off a slew of legal fights here and in other states, where many education reform advocates are eager to change similar laws. The ruling brings a close to the first chapter of the case, Vergara v. California, but both sides have made it clear that they plan to appeal any decision that goes against them to the State Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs argued that California’s current laws made it impossible to get rid of low-performing and incompetent teachers, who were disproportionately assigned to schools filled with poor students. The result, they insisted, amounted to a violation of students’ constitutional rights to an education.

But lawyers for the states and teachers’ unions said that overturning such laws would erode necessary protections that stop school administrators from making unfair personnel decisions. They also argued that the vast majority of teachers in the state’s schools are competent and providing students with all the necessary tools to learn. More important factors than teachers, they argued, are social and economic inequalities as well as the funding levels of public schools.

Observers on both sides expect the case to generate dozens more like it in cities and states around the country. David Welch, a Silicon Valley technology magnate who financed the organization that is largely responsible for bringing the Vergara case to court — Students Matter — has indicated that his group is open to funding other similar legal fights, particularly in states with powerful teachers’ unions where legislatures have defeated attempts to change teacher tenure laws.

As Bob Dylan wrote, "The Times They Are A Changin". It will be interesting to see how quickly a suit is filed in NYC where the teachers...

In his ruling, Judge Treu added his voice to the political debate that has divided educators for years. School superintendents in large cities across the country — including Los Angeles, New York and Washington — have railed against laws that essentially grant teachers permanent employment status. They say such job protections are harmful to students and are merely an anachronism. Three states and the District of Columbia have eliminated tenure, but similar efforts have repeatedly failed elsewhere, including California.

Under state law here, teachers are eligible for tenure after 18 months, and layoffs must be determined by seniority — a process known as “last in, first out.” Administrators seeking to dismiss a teacher they deem incompetent must follow a complicated procedure that typically drags on for months, if not years.

Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist, testified in the trial that California students who miss out on a good education lose millions of dollars in potential earnings over the course of their lives. But lawyers for the state and unions dismissed the argument, saying that the problems in the state’s public schools had little or nothing to do with teacher rules.

Here's the decision.

**Grey Templar**

O'snap!

**hotsauceman1**

Frazzled wrote:
Dear God he has a point. Thats actually a well stated theory whyo's name I know not.

Well thats still not to say they got handed a pair of 1s in life. but too often on the liberal side I see blame sorely on everyone else, and conservative side sorely on them. I see evidence for both. But my ideas are always consider "Hating on the poor"

**sebster**

Whembly has the right of it, I think. Empower teachers to configure their own curriculum. Trust teachers to teach. More and more we're inventing systems to take authority and decisions away from the teachers, and putting it in to some other authority. The results have been disastrous and all we seem to want to do is double down on that.

nkelsch wrote:
The entire system is about keeping people on an economic treadmill.

Well of course it is. We produce and we consume. That's the basic reality of life and it simply is an economic treadmill.

Trying to turn it into a conspiracy built by political parties is silly.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
The democrat's worst nightmare are long periods of economic prosperity and a shrinking lower class.

That's as silly as the line earlier in the thread about Republicans plotting to keep kids uneducated.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

LuciusAR wrote:
Everything I've read from the Conservative party indicates that aspiration and improvement of personal circumstances is the cornerstone of their philosophy. The idea that people should learn to do without (remain poor) seems to be a mantra of the left.

That's nonsensical gobbledigook. In fact, worse than that, it's gobbledigook that was invented in order to dismiss one side of politics, so it wasn't even formed as an honest error.

An actual, sensible overview of the two sides would say that the Republicans believe in personal motivation as the cornerstone of personal success, and believe that government's most important role is to get out of the way, while the Democrats believe that a lot of people will have their chance at success and a better life greatly increased with some level of government support.

**Ensis Ferrae**

sebster wrote:
Whembly has the right of it, I think. Empower teachers to configure their own curriculum. Trust teachers to teach. More and more we're inventing systems to take authority and decisions away from the teachers, and putting it in to some other authority. The results have been disastrous and all we seem to want to do is double down on that.

Funny thing is, and maybe I'm right simply due to when I went to school... But I thought that's why teachers go to school to get the degrees they do.

When I was in HS, if a teacher had something they thought was a good idea for a class that didn't fit the "Standard view" of subjects, they could pitch it to the principle, design their full 9 week curriculum (as my school we were broken down into 9 week quarters) and if the principle liked the idea, they'd either put the class on the next semester (usually not, due to funding), or the next school year... As a result, I took 2 years of Latin as a foreign language, a class called "Film as Lit", as well as the History of Sport in America.

As things appear now, you may as well turn teaching into a minimum wage "babysitting" job.

**sebster**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Funny thing is, and maybe I'm right simply due to when I went to school... But I thought that's why teachers go to school to get the degrees they do.

Yeah, that's one of the big ironies of the current situation - we're demanding teachers have more and more education as we take more and more responsibility off of them.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Don't forget the class sizes. Very few teachers, even very few excellent teachers, can manage a (non-elite) class of 35-40 students and still teach an entire lesson. Add in some cultural or personal issues for some of the students and you might as well just be a prison warden.

**sebster**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Don't forget the class sizes. Very few teachers, even very few excellent teachers, can manage a (non-elite) class of 35-40 students and still teach an entire lesson. Add in some cultural or personal issues for some of the students and you might as well just be a prison warden.

Interestingly enough, here in Australia we decided decades ago to try and reduce class sizes, down from around 30 kids a class to about 20. It didn't work, despite pouring in loads more money to increase the number of teachers to make that happen, we've actually fallen back in most international measures of education (those measures have their problems, but the results certainly can't be explained away). What's being said now is that the quality of the teacher matters at least as much as the teacher student ratio, and perhaps all along we should have been looking instead to pay more and attract high quality people to the profession. That is, it's better to have 90 kids taught by three very good teachers, instead of being taught by three good teachers and a dud.

I don't think that's the whole of the answer, and as you mention cultural issues (or more really language issues) represent a large part of the reason we've declined in relative performance to other countries, but I certainly think it's worth considering as to whether just employing more teachers will give the results we're after.

**Mr. Burning**

I don't know about the states but it seems to me that here in blighty being a teacher, or training to be one is a soft option.

In reality it isn't but advertising and promotion of the training makes it appear easy and one dimensional.

I wonder at the calibre of this and the next generation of educators.

**sebster**

Mr. Burning wrote:
I don't know about the states but it seems to me that here in blighty being a teacher, or training to be one is a soft option.

In reality it isn't but advertising and promotion of the training makes it appear easy and one dimensional.

I wonder at the calibre of this and the next generation of educators.

I think part of the issue is that it's hardly anyone's first choice anymore. Other moderately difficult professions like accounting and engineering have had considerable pay increases in the last generation or so, while teaching has been left behind. Couple that with a serious decline in respect for the profession and the result is that everyone is signing up for other professions, and then turning to teaching when that first profession doesn't pan out. Of the teachers I know, one was a liberal arts student, one did journalism, another science and the last I'm not sure but she definitely did teaching as a one year dip ed. Only one did teaching as their first choice (and he was the one who found it hardest to get a job when he finished, weirdly enough).

Coming to teaching as a second (or third, or fourth...) choice doesn't mean you won't be any good at it, but as an overall system it's hardly a very good way to get our best and brightest in the profession.

**dogma**

Grey Templar wrote:

Yup, you keep people happy with handouts(read: addicted to them) they'll never rise above their station and realize they've been totally played.

So it seems that your argument is that any action to support the poor is a "handout"?

Does this include things like legal defense and minimum wage?

**Kilkrazy**

Poor performance by schools is a complex issue that has many factors.

One of the most important is what I would call "ethos", by which I mean the belief by parents, teachers and society that education is valuable and necessary, and that all children can reach a good level by working at it.

I think it is important that society presents education as not only a way to a job, but a way to a good job and -- more than that -- a life-fulfilling good in its own right.

This of course also means that society needs to provide occupations for children to aspire to.

**H.B.M.C.**

Maybe tie education spending directly to gun legislation. That outta make Americans pay attention.