Olive-Harvey College One of the City Colleges of Chicago ENGLISH & SPEECH DEPARTMENT

Failing the Students of Chicago

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"Success in reforming education in Chicago hinges on our ability to solve the problems in our high schools," said Paul G. Vallas, the system’s former chief executive officer (Voices). At least the Chicago Board of Education knows where their problems exist. Now they need to pin point the problem and take immediate action for solutions.

Over the next few years, as it plans to continue reforming the district formerly know as one of the worst in the nation, the Chicago Public School District has many problems to tackle. The main problem is the un-uniform way it allows Chicago Public Schools to be run. In this schooling system, there are regular neighborhood schools and there are charter and magnet schools. Charter and magnet schools tend to get the best of things, while regular schools get whatever is left. Basically, the Board of Education is failing the students of the Chicago Public School system by allowing certain schools to get better programs, curriculums, and teachers; while regular neighborhood schools are being left with few to no advanced programs, poorly constructed curriculums, and teachers who barley got their licenses. Anyone who takes a look at the schools’ yearly report card can tell that this is a serious problem plaguing the city of Chicago.

As two of many examples that can be found throughout the system, let’s take a look at Percy Julian High School and Morgan Park High School. Not only are these two schools located in the same general area on the south side of Chicago, which include parts of Pullman, Beverly, and Morgan Park. They have a very specific origin that even makes the current situation between these two schools very ironic. During an interview with Mr. Roger Battles, an English teacher at Julian High School, he explained to me that Julian was originally built to relieve Morgan Park from its overcrowding (Battles). It was planned for Julian to be formatted the exact same way as Morgan Park and it was for the first couple of years, that was until Morgan Park adopted the magnet programs in the middle 1980’s (Battles). This is when their admission guidelines began to change and students started being forced away from Morgan Park (Battles). Obviously now, one school has the advantage over the other and that is where the problems come into play.

Julian is a regular high school without any seriously motivating programs for students to take part in. There is regular board-mandated curriculum, such as Math, History, English, but on the electives side, the selection is scarce. For Language classes at Julian, Spanish and French are the only electives available (Eschool). Under Fine Arts, there is not orchestra class offered, and there is only one media class offered, as well as only one music class (Eschool). There is one Honors English class offered as well as an Honors Algebra class available, but that is the extent of the advanced classes offered (Joyce). Physics and Algebra with Trigonometry are the highest levels of the Sciences and Math offered at Julian (Joyce). This is a clear demonstration that those students who are college bound aren’t even receiving the college preparation they need out of high school. If that weren’t the case, pre-calculus or even calculus would be an option of math choices for Julian students. Special extracurricular activities include boys and girl’s softball/baseball, basketball, track, and swim teams; as well as girl’s volleyball and boys wrestling (Joyce). As you can see, there isn’t a whole lot for students to choose from at Julian High School compared to other schools like Morgan Park.

Morgan Park on the other hand has a whole array of educational opportunities of which students can take advantage. Language classes offered include Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Russian (Eschool). There are regular, honors and advanced placement classes offered for all Science, English, Language, Math, and History classes at Morgan Park along with computer courses to compliment many of the areas of study, such as Computer Physics and Computer Science (Coleman). The highest level of math offered at Morgan Park is calculus. There is also an entire Computer Education department as well as a Technology department at Morgan Park (Coleman). The extracurricular activities offered include everything that Julian has to offer plus bowling, tennis, golf, water polo, and soccer teams (Coleman). ROTC, Debate teams, Business Professional clubs, and a World Language and International Studies Program are other programs offered at Morgan Park High School (Coleman).

Teacher quality is also an issue the school board needs to address immediately in response to helping the students of Chicago. "Students clearly learn more when they are taught consistently by well-trained teachers" (Teachers). In many cases teachers in the lowest-performing schools are not certified to teach the grade level or subject they have been hired to teach (Teachers). For example, Mr. Battles, of Julian High School, is teaching a Spanish class this year for the first time in his career, and he doesn’t even speak Spanish (Battles). This is a direct result of the shortage of teachers that the system is dealing with all because they don’t pay teachers enough money. "The fact remains that Chicago schools are unable to compete for the best teachers because of depressed salary levels" (Teachers). "Chicago’s high school teachers earn the lowest salaries in Cook, Dupage, or Lake Counties" (Teachers). "More money for teachers’ salaries must be viewed as an investment in quality that ultimately benefits all of society, by producing students who can obtain well-paid jobs as young adults, and are thus less likely to engage in crime, teenage parenting and other anti-social behaviors" (Teachers). These are words coming directly from the President of the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Mrs. Lynch also says that the Chicago Board of Education needs to listen more closely to their teachers so that everyone will be able to effectively contribute to the success of all of their students.

In 1990 Morgan Park enforced a more strict code of admittance into the school with the adoption of the magnet programs. Its direction came for the Local School Council and Chicago Board of Education. As a result, students who don’t get into Morgan Park are forced to go to Julian, the school without as many opportunities. Now we can see how this close-knit neighborhood had a real struggle with the different educational standards demonstrated by these two schools. Julian students know they aren’t getting a real quality education and their focus is taken away from what is so important, their education.

The students attending Morgan Park High School are more focused on what should be their main concern and the statistics prove it. In 2000, 10^th graders at Julian took a standardized test and 55 percent of them didn’t meet the reading requirements for passing, while only 21 percent of Morgan Park’s 10^th graders fell under passing on the same test (School). Morgan Park’s graduation rate for the year 2000 for freshman to seniors was 84 percent while Julian freshman to senior graduation rate was 56 percent in 2001 (School). And lastly, only 58 percent of Julian’s entire 2000 graduation class even attempted to take the ACT exam coming up with a composite score of 15.9 (School). While nearly 90 percent of Morgan Park’s graduating 2000 class took the ACT exam coming up with a composite score of 19.1 (school). All of these facts show that there is a higher standard of education being upheld at Morgan Park High School that doesn’t even exist at Julian High School, which is only a few blocks away from Morgan Park. That high standard of education is what needs to be focused on by the Chicago Board of Educations and applied to all school programs and curriculums.

Students who are not as advanced are practically shoved into the regular neighborhood schools like Julian, and they are the ones greatly affected by this problem. Let’s look at the big picture of how many of these students end up. They are attending a high school where the value of a good education isn’t really stressed at all; teachers are too busy trying to get them out of the door. This was expressed during a personal interview with an alumnus of Julian High School. "I graduated and I never even went to my classes senior year" (Rembert). Continuing education is not encouraged and if they haven’t dropped out of high school before graduation, they are subject to being stuck in low-paying, dead-end jobs. According to information found by the Chicago Public School’s Department of Research and Evaluation, Julian’s average dropout rate over the last five years has been as high as 24%, while Morgan Park’s dropout rate has only reached a high of 5% in the past five years (School). Teenage pregnancy and drug use are also great factors in this equation. The Consortium of Chicago Schools conducted research on one of the Chicago Public School District’s dropout rates, and they found that 43% of female high school dropouts left school after their pregnancies (Report). The same report quoted information found the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This survey reported, "out of every 10 high school seniors, 3 are currently using or have used an illegal drug" (Report). So now that the school system has failed them, many turn to welfare as teenage parents and others are under the penal institution in some way.

By looking at the profile of the average welfare recipient we can see that they are from low educational backgrounds. Not from schools like Morgan Park High School. Most gang-bangers, drug dealers, and prostitutes didn’t graduate from an institution where learning was strong stressed including a variety of different program selections and a vigorous, but student-friendly, curriculum provided by instructors who aced or even passed all parts of their licensing exam, loved teaching, and believed in what they were doing. According to a report done by the Department of Corrections, the average incarcerated criminal was a dropout from a regular high school such as Julian, Calumet, or South Shore with "mediocre educational capabilities" (Voices).

The Chicago Board of Education is in the process of reconstructing the school district, but it seems as though the overall focus is more on the condition of the buildings the students are attending, than on the quality of education they are receiving in those buildings. The Board is implementing a big rehabilitation and reconstruction project over the next few years called the Capitol Improvement Program (Capitol). The program is estimated to cost about 2 billion dollars over the next 5 years (Capitol). The main objectives of the program are to reduce over crowding to enhance the physical conditions of the over 600 buildings needed to be maintained (Capitol). The school system as a whole was given a letter grade of an F by the American Society of Civil Engineers declaring that 1/3 of all schools needed extensive repairs and replacements (Capitol). These projects hold over 700 small projects that will build new schools, make repairs to old ones, make all of the schools more accessible for the handicapped, and making various adjustments like redoing locker rooms, gymnasiums, and campus parks (Capitol).

These enhancements to the school buildings, after years of neglect, will be great improvements. However, I can think of plenty of other ways that the Board can spend 2 billion dollars. Hiring more teachers, giving those teachers better pay after sending them through more training and revising the curriculum in a way that all students at every school will benefit are ways that the Board could help the students of Chicago. I can’t see money being the major issue preventing my suggested solution for a better way to help the students of Chicago, given that all of this money that is being put into the Capitol Improvement Program has to be coming from somewhere. "During the first 18 months of the CIP [Capitol Improvement Program], a total of $850 million in bonds backed by the taxing authority of the CPS were issued to launch the program" (Capitol). "Although details in the funding formula and distribution schedule have not been finalized, CPS ultimately expects to receive a total of between $200 million and $300 million in construction funds from this program" (Capitol). The Chicago Public School District may not be physically passing out the money for this project, but they definitely have a say so in where and how it is applied.

In revising the curriculum, it is important that some of the same guidelines that are used in these charter and magnet schools are implemented in this new school system. These magnet schools such as Morgan Park are obviously doing something right. The vast majority of their students are graduation from high school, continuing their education, and leading productive lives rather than becoming society’s negative statistics. All schools should be uniform in their approach towards education, and special programs and activities should be offered at all schools. Also, teacher quality in Chicago Public Schools should be at high levels. "The single most important factor in student learning improvement is teacher quality" (Chicago), "The traditional public school method of measuring teacher quality has been whether or not the teacher holds a bachelor’s degree in education and is certified as a teacher" (Chicago). "But magnet and charter schools consider increased student performance to be the most important measurement" (Chicago). An overall high standard of education should be upheld and clear to see in all Chicago Public Schools, not only in charter and magnet schools.

While Mr. Vallas may not continue to be the CEO of the Chicago Public School District, the same issues are still plaguing the city of Chicago. The Chicago Board of Education is still failing the youth of Chicago by not forcing all schools to follow the same teacher quality, and curriculum standards. Charter and magnet schools produce better students because they have a well-structured system that they mandate their students to follow, their teachers are better qualified, and they stress the value of education with everything they do. This is absolutely great for the select few who attend the magnet and charter schools, but the other nearly 400,000 students are left at a grave disadvantage. The programs in the charter and magnet schools give students goals to strive towards. If all schools had the same agenda in terms of guidelines at these schools, the dropout rates would be lower, graduation rates would be higher, and the students of the city of Chicago wouldn’t make up such as large number of the negative statistics in this city. Policies, teacher quality, procedures, and programs should all be uniform in every Chicago Public School to ensure that all students will have an equal opportunity to be prepared for their future.

Works Cited

Battles, Roger. Personal interview. 25 October 2001.

Capital Improvement Initiative. 2001. Chicago Board of Education. 18 Nov. 2001 www.acct.multi.cps.k12.us/capital/1999book/hs/toc.html. 

Chicago Magnet Programs. 2000. Chicago Board of Education. 4 Nov 2001 www.chicagomagnetprograms.org/faq.asp. 

Coleman, R. Morgan Park Web Page. 2001. Morgan Park High School. 18 Nov. 2001 www.iit.edu/~rcoleman/mph.html. 

Eschool Profile. 2000. 20 Nov. 2001 www.eschoolprofile.com. 

Joyce, Michael G. Julian Web Page. 2001. Julian High School. 18 Nov. 2001 www.iit.edu/~rcoleman/mphs.html. 

Rembert, Byron. Personal interview. 23 Nov. 2001.

Report on CPS Dropouts Rates. Consortium on Chicago School Research. 2000. 5 Dec. 2001 www.consortiumchicago.org/acrobat/schoolreport.pdf. 

School Information Database. 2001. Chicago Board of Education, Dept. of Research and Evaluation. 18 Nov. 2001 www.acct.multi1.cps.k12.il.us/research. 

Teachers Point of View. 2000. Chicago Teacher’s Union. 10 Dec. 2001 www.ctunet.com/ctunet/sub/pov.html. 

Voices of Chicago Reform. 2001. Catalyst. 5 Dec. 2001 www.catalyst.com. 

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