Chalkbeat

With no chemistry teacher, Chicago student teaches her own class: ‘They forgot about us’

2024-09-13T11:00:01+00:00

A week after their teacher left, the students were growing restless.

Despite promises that a permanent new teacher was coming, students in the sophomore-level chemistry class at Roberto Clemente Community Academy were sitting in their classroom with little to do. Though a substitute teacher was assigned to the room, the students quickly concluded that he didn’t know much about chemistry.

Carolina Carchi was struck by the reaction of one of her classmates: “They forgot about us.”

“When I heard that, this spark and passion grew in me,” Carolina said. She told herself: “No, you’re not going to be left out, they didn’t forget about you, and I’m going to be here to prove that.”

The following day, the 15-year-old got up in front of the class and began to teach her peers about the properties of liquids and solids and how to balance chemical equations.

Carolina went on to teach the class for two months during the winter of her sophomore year. A permanent teacher didn’t take over the classroom until the following fall.

When Clemente was built in the mid-1970s, the school was a symbol of hope in Humboldt Park and West Town, offering the promise of a new beginning for the Puerto Rican families who had settled in the area.

But now, 50 years later, Clemente students are missing critical instruction because so many teachers are regularly absent and positions go unfilled for long stretches.

Clemente is emblematic of a broader problem: CPS schools — and many other public schools across the country — are hamstrung by funding constraints and a nationwide teacher shortage, education experts said.

“It’s a resource issue that’s much larger than Chicago, much larger than the state,” said Erika Méndez, director of P-12 education policy for Latino Policy Forum, a state advocacy organization. “We have some big gaps to meet in terms of school funding. We are in a really tough financial time, and that’s coming with some big costs.”

Students file out of Roberto Clemente Community Academy in Humboldt Park at dismissal on Aug. 29, 2024.

But Clemente’s challenges are compounded by the management and leadership approach of administrators, teachers told Block Club Chicago.

As they deal with the stresses of working with students with significant needs, teachers say they’re not getting support from the school’s principal, which has left them burnt out and demoralized — and often absent.

At Clemente, about 46% of the teaching staff had more than 10 absences in 2023, according to CPS data. That means nearly half of Clemente teachers missed the equivalent of at least two weeks of school.

Yet CPS officials insist Clemente doesn’t have staffing issues.

The result is dozens of students sitting in what one teacher described as “dead classrooms” — unadorned spaces without permanent teachers where students receive little if any instruction and can essentially do whatever they want, according to interviews with teachers, support staff, and students.

Teacher absences

Last year was stressful for Betsy Garcia, one of Clemente’s school clerks.

Every morning, she checked her phone to find out how many teachers were absent that day. It was typically a high number — sometimes as many as 20, about a third of the school’s teaching staff.

Garcia frantically called in substitute teachers, but sometimes she and other support staff had to watch over a class or two because no one else could do it.

“We’re not teachers, but we have to do what we have to do,” Garcia said during a Local School Council meeting in May.

Across the district, teacher attendance hit a five-year low last year, according to state data reviewed by Block Club. About 43% of CPS teachers had 10 absences or more, the level the state considers “chronic” absenteeism that negatively impacts student achievement. The rate was even higher at Clemente.

On top of teacher absenteeism, 9% of Clemente’s staff positions were vacant as of last October, more than double the district average of 4%, according to district figures.

Clemente has a regular roster of substitute teachers who fill the gaps when teachers miss work. The district pays subs more to teach at high-poverty schools like Clemente. But subs are no replacement for full-time teachers, school employees said.

“I definitely have students who have [substitute teachers] for 3-4 classes easily everyday — that’s half their schedule. There’s a profound lack of instruction happening,” said one teacher who asked not to be named. “It affects school culture. … You have a lot more students cutting class or disorderly hallways because there’s less staff, less relationships.”

And sometimes the school doesn’t even have enough subs, leaving Garcia and other school employees scrambling to cover classes.

The result: Students are falling behind academically. SAT scores have dropped in recent years, according to state data, though learning disruptions at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic could be a factor.

“Our kids are coming to school to learn, but they just sit and watch movies or wander the halls,” said Dennis Acosta, Spanish teacher and member of the LSC.

A troubled history

Many in Humboldt Park were hopeful when Clemente opened in 1974 after years of issues at Clemente’s predecessor, Tuley High School.

“You had a school system that literally wasn’t listening to communities,” said José López, a longtime Humboldt Park activist. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, CPS schools were considered some of the worst in the United States, and there was no attempt to address major issues of language support, trauma.”

López and other Humboldt Park leaders were instrumental in getting Chicago Public Schools leaders to open Clemente as a community-based school. It felt to them like Puerto Rican families would finally get the school they deserved, López said.

“What happened almost immediately was the total opposite,” López said.

José López, executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, speaks after Governor JB Pritzker announces ‘Puerto Rico Town,’ and nine other areas, as official state-designated cultural districts at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Humboldt Park on Feb. 26, 2024.

Poverty and disinvestment in Humboldt Park and West Town led to gang violence around the school. The school also suffered from overcrowding.

The trouble continued in the mid-1990s, when a front-page Sun-Times story alleged school leaders used state anti-poverty funding to indoctrinate students into a Puerto Rican liberation group called FALN. Though investigators weren’t able to find concrete evidence of fraud, officials put the school on financial probation and then-district chief Paul Vallas replaced the principal.

Since then, school leaders have carried out a number of reforms, including some that the district turned into citywide initiatives like launching a satellite program for at-risk students and hiring parents as tutors and office help.

The Puerto Rican Cultural Center made Clemente the centerpiece of its “Community as a Campus” initiative. Under the program, Clemente regularly hosts practices for feeder elementary schools’ sports teams and offers tech training and financial literacy classes for parents, said López, the executive director of the cultural center.

In addition, Clemente became an International Baccalaureate school in 2015, meaning it offers a range of college-level courses, and its graduation rate and student attendance have improved over the last two decades.

“There’s a history of Clemente that is not a good history. Yet over the years, we’ve done everything possible to make sure Clemente would maintain itself as a school of choice for the young people in the community,” López said.

Juanita Garcia, Clemente parent and chair of the school’s Local School Council, said battles between teachers and administrators are negatively impacting students.

But as selective-enrollment and charter schools have become more popular, and as Humboldt Park and West Town have gentrified, Clemente’s student population has steadily dropped, which has led to fewer resources under the district’s system of student-based budgeting.

The school has capacity for 2,000 students, but today enrolls about 750, according to the district. About 200 of those students are migrant kids who enrolled last year after the district made Clemente a “welcome center” for families arriving from Central and South America, according to teachers.

The school is 70% Hispanic and 25% Black. Most students — 86% — are low-income, according to district data. Last year, about 28% of Clemente students were getting special education services, nearly double the district’s rate of 15%, according to state data.

Juanita Garcia, parent and chair of the LSC, said the counselor at her son’s Wicker Park elementary school discouraged her from sending him to Clemente.

“She said the [International Baccalaureate] program at Clemente wasn’t fully developed,” Juanita Garcia said. “If she had that conversation with me, I’m sure she had it with other people.”

Teacher turnover

In addition to the day-to-day absences, Clemente has struggled with teacher turnover.

Clemente had 57 teachers in the 2019-20 school year, a total that includes special education teachers and military instructors. But by the 2023-24 school year, less than half of those teachers — 23 — were still at the school, according to a Block Club analysis of CPS data.

Teachers and other school employees who spoke to Block Club said several teachers have left, gone on leave, or considered quitting because the school’s principal rarely provides support and often ignores requests for help.

Teachers said they’re instructed by administrators to give students a passing grade even if they do very little work.

“The principal does not support teachers in any capacity,” one employee said. “Copiers rarely have paper, classroom resources are not ordered, textbook requests are denied, and we are forced to give inflated grades. Students know the game.”

Adults watch over as students file out of Roberto Clemente Community Academy in Humboldt Park at dismissal on Aug. 29, 2024.

District officials contend Clemente doesn’t have staffing issues.

Clemente’s teacher retention rate — the year-over-year percentage of teachers returning to work at the school — has been “relatively stable” in recent years, though lower than the district average, officials said in an emailed statement.

But students aren’t learning core subjects like chemistry, algebra and Spanish for months, sometimes a full year, because full-time teachers aren’t in classrooms, according to teachers, employees, and students interviewed by Block Club. Teacher morale is the lowest it’s been in years, signaling more problems to come, the teachers said.

These issues aren’t unique to Clemente.

As it pushes for a new teachers contract, the Chicago Teachers Union last week launched a school vacancy tracker to illustrate “an alarming level of understaffing” in CPS schools. Some schools have 7-10 teacher vacancies. Union leaders said it’s the result of “the district’s lack of a plan to fully fund our schools.”

All CPS schools have felt the impact of a nationwide teacher shortage, which has gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic, said Ben Felton, the district’s chief talent officer. But Felton said the district is “trying to get away from post and pray” by extending early job offers and expanding residency programs to attract more teachers.

While some schools have openings, Felton said overall the district has 2,500 more than it did five years ago.

To bring down chronic absenteeism, the district is trying to connect teachers with more wellness programs and mental health resources, while also backing up principals who need to discipline employees for excessive absences, CPS officials said in a statement.

‘No one … to teach me’

Yet many Clemente students have stories of going long stretches without permanent teachers.

Mya Maldonado-Bustamante loves being in the classroom and is eager to learn.

But last school year was frustrating for the 16-year-old. Mya didn’t have full-time teachers for math and chemistry, which meant she usually spent a couple hours of her school day sitting around, without much school work to do. Now she doesn’t feel prepared for junior year.

“It was just really challenging because I love math, but no one was really there to teach me about it,” Mya said.

Similarly, 15-year-old Annaliz Stovall went without math, English, and Spanish teachers for long stretches of last year. She spent part of her summer trying to learn Spanish on her own.

“They expect us to take Spanish II next year and pass. It really upset me,” Annaliz said. “I care a lot about my grades, but I don’t know anything. I obviously can’t excel at it.”

Mya Maldonado-Bustamante, a junior at Roberto Clemente Community Academy, said she doesn’t feel prepared for her classes because of teacher absences.

Mya and Annaliz consistently show up to school and have no plans to transfer out, but the instability has led dozens of students to leave the school or not show up, according to interviews and state data.

Last year, Clemente’s student mobility rate — the percentage of students who transferred either in or out of the school — was 27%, nearly triple the district-wide rate of 10%, according to state data.

High student mobility, along with chronic truancy and low student attendance, are common issues at schools like Clemente that serve mostly low-income students. But students are feeling the impact of teacher absences, according to interviews with teachers and other school employees.

“Today a student came up to me and confided [in me]: “All day everyday at this school I do nothing,” a school employee said during the last school year.

‘It starts at the top’

A number of teachers at Clemente say Principal Devon Morales has made the staffing issues worse.

Morales became Clemente’s principal in 2022. Since then, his leadership style has created a culture of fear and retaliation, pushing some teachers out of the school, current and former teachers told Block Club. They said Morales is cozy with his allies at the school, a group made up of longtime employees and friends, but shuts out teachers and other employees who question him.

Teachers who have decried his leadership have struggled to get new supplies and approvals for time off, they said.

Principal Devon Morales speaks at a press conference at Roberto Clemente Community Academy before the opening of a pilot CPS welcome center for newly arriving families on July 17, 2023.

Morales didn’t notify teachers that there was a shooting outside of the school at the end of last year — one example of his “lack of communication about anything that’s important,” one teacher said.

Another employee said Morales’ administration turns a blind eye to the school’s challenges and fails to discipline students for serious misconduct, like threatening a teacher.

“The kids don’t want to be there, the teachers don’t want to be there, and it starts at the top,” the employee said.

Almost all of the teachers interviewed by Block Club spoke on the condition they not be named because they’re worried about retaliation, even if they’re no longer employed at the school.

Despite Block Club’s repeated requests over two months, Morales wouldn’t make himself available for an interview for this story. District officials didn’t respond to questions about Morales’ leadership.

Though they’re troubled by the principal, many teachers, staff, and parents have poured energy into the school and want to see students succeed. School employees and community leaders are fiercely protective of Clemente; many were apprehensive about participating in this story for fear it would cast a negative light on the school.

Student becomes the teacher

Carolina grew up in nearby West Humboldt Park and felt a moral responsibility to go to Clemente instead of one of the city’s selective-enrollment high schools, she said.

When her algebra teacher left during her freshman year, Carolina started to teach the class herself.

“No students at Clemente are ever in an unsupervised classroom and substitute teachers have access to any lesson plans they may need on any given day,” district officials said in a statement.

But the substitute teacher assigned to Carolina’s class didn’t know algebra and let her take over, according to interviews with students and school employees.

“I took it as a good journey and challenge to simply just do something for my class, and not leave them behind,” she said.

The same thing happened in her chemistry class the next year. Carolina prepared lesson plans during her free periods and went to FedEx after school to print out assignments. She brought in a bag full of extra pencils and other supplies, including a plasma ball, for students to use while she taught.

“My classmates are more visual learners,” she said.

Clemente student Carolina Carchi taught her alegbra and chemistry classes in the absence of permanent teachers.

Sabrina Negròn, one of Carolina’s classmates, said she and other students struggled with the state science exam after going without a certified teacher, but Carolina “got us as far as she could knowing what she knew.”

“I think she’s an amazing person for what she did because she didn’t need to,” Sabrina said.

Carolina, now a senior, said she was simply following her passion for Clemente.

“I strongly believe in community schools, and that they should be an anchor in their communities,” Carolina said. “A school with the proper resources can be just as successful as any other school.”

This story was originally published in Block Club Chicago.

Who’s the boss? Chicago principals report to many different people.

2024-02-27T20:48:12+00:00

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During Femi Skanes’ 10 years as a Chicago principal, her boss was primarily a district official known as a network chief, she said. Alan Mather, who was also a principal for a decade, says he answered to then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan.

Many principals in Chicago also feel their Local School Council, or LSC, is a boss, while others view the council as more of a partner.

Principals are the leaders of their schools and staff. But in Chicago, multiple entities have power over principals. Later this year, Chicagoans will begin electing school board members, marking another shift in control over the city’s school system, which has been run by the mayor and a hand-picked CEO since 1995 and by a decentralized system of elected LSCs since 1988.

The city’s principals have unionized in hopes of creating more job protections for a role that has seen high turnover in recent years.

“Right now it’s kind of the wild wild west,” said Cynthia Barron, program coordinator and assistant professor with UIC’s Urban Education Leadership Program. “We’re kinda all waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Barron, who spent more than three decades at CPS, said she doesn’t foresee immediate changes as a result of unionization or an elected school board. But, given that details around the future principals union contract and the elected school board are still being ironed out, she said there are “so many unknowns.”

How Chicago principals ended up with many bosses

Those unknowns — as the principals union takes root and the city moves to an elected school board — may disrupt an already complicated hierarchy.

As it stands now, a Chicago principal’s direct supervisor is the head of their network — the geographic area their school is organized under — and they are also accountable to their Local School Council, or LSC, a unique-to-Chicago elected body at most schools made up of parents, teachers, students, and community members, that can hire principals. Both have different hiring and firing powers.

Local School Councils were created in 1988 under the state’s Chicago School Reform Act, which gave LSCs the power to hire principals, approve school budgets, and approve annual school improvement plans.

The state amended that law in 1995 in an effort to centralize and improve the city’s school system. Lawmakers voted to keep LSCs but mandated training for them. The changes also gave the mayor sole authority over appointing the school board and replaced the superintendent title with “chief executive officer” — which stands today.

Today, LSCs can hire a principal and offer them a four-year contract. They can decide to keep the principal or fire them when their contract is up for renewal.

Network chiefs, on the other hand, work for the district and are tasked with ensuring that schools are complying with district policies and meeting academic and instructional goals, according to interviews with school leaders. Network chiefs answer to district leaders who report to the CEO, the Board of Education president, and the mayor. School leaders can also turn to their chiefs when they need extra support.

Both chiefs and LSCs use a similar rubric to evaluate principals annually. Only network chiefs can fire principals at any time for just cause.

Though LSCs hold power over principals, they do not have the same connection to district officials and the school board that a network chief does. It’s also not clear how they’ll interact with the school board once it expands and includes elected members.

Froy Jimenez is a member of the city’s Local School Council Advisory Board, which the state created to advise the Board of Education. Jimenez, a teacher and LSC member at Hancock College Preparatory High School, said he believes that LSCs and principals are “co-leaders” with the shared goal of supporting students.

“When we look at [the] budget, when we look at curriculum, when we look at any specific need of our school,” Jimenez said, “we’re doing it like we’re collaborating.”

Principals balance multiple interests

Principals’ responsibilities have grown over the past two decades and especially since the pandemic. Today, in addition to being instructional leaders, they’re expected to maintain relationships with students, families, staff, and sometimes elected officials, said Jasmine Thurmond, director of Local School Council principal support at CPS.

Some school leaders appreciate the variety of voices, but others often feel torn between conflicting demands.

One principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, was asked by parents who attended LSC meetings to “publicize or encourage things like picketing or public demonstrations” over a district decision this year to suspend bus service for 5,500 general education students, largely those at selective enrollment and gifted schools.

The principal agreed that the lack of busing has been challenging for many of her students. But she explained to parents and the LSC that publicly protesting the busing decision could put her in hot water with her other boss: the district.

“I have to figure out how I can advocate for the needs of my students and the needs of my families,” she told Chalkbeat, “but in a way that is very respectful of the people that are making these decisions — and that is a really difficult balance to strike.”

She has a good relationship with her LSC, which she said is “fair and reasonable” but also demanding. The council requests a lot of data and presentations. Meeting those needs and building personal relationships can be difficult along with all of her other responsibilities as a school leader, she said.

Ryan Belville, principal of McAuliffe Elementary School, said he has a close bond with his LSC that grew during the pandemic, when they worked hand-in-hand to make sure students and families had what they needed. Belville said the LSC has also held him accountable “to serve the school community effectively.”

“I really see why LSCs were developed and why they were put into action,” Belville said. “It’s something we’re very fortunate to have in Chicago.”

Sometimes the LSC wields its power, as Hancock College Preparatory High School did last year when it decided not to renew its principal’s contract in the face of student and teacher opposition.

But there are limits to an LSC’s authority.

At Jones College Prep, the LSC voted in 2022 to recommend the district fire then-principal Joseph Powers based on various allegations, including that he was ignoring problematic teachers and was not addressing issues around gender and racial discrimination. His contract was not up for renewal at the time, so the LSC could not fire him outright.

CEO Pedro Martinez declined to fire Powers, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence. Later that year, CPS put Powers on leave after a student dressed in a Nazi uniform was seen goose-stepping in the school’s Halloween parade. Powers then retired.

One Chicago elementary school principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said that contract renewal time can sometimes feel political. She must ensure that she’s keeping “these X number of people happy or satisfied” so that she can keep her job. At the same time, she wishes she had “more robust” feedback from her LSC, which she thinks is lacking at her school because people often don’t have time to participate — an issue many LSCs face.

On Chicago’s West Side, the LSC at Oscar DePriest Elementary School is working on ensuring enough participation on its council. It is also figuring out how it will work with the school’s new principal, whom it hired in November after interviews and a candidate forum, said Wallace Wilbourn, a teacher and LSC member.

He wants the LSC to have a greater voice on the school’s curriculum, its culture, and how it approaches assessments.

But he’s already seen that many people are trying to hold the principal accountable. Ever since being hired, Wilbourn said, his principal has had to spend a lot of time in meetings with the network.

Network chiefs, top CPS officials hold power

Barron, with UIC, said the relationship between a network chief and principal more closely resembles a typical employee-manager relationship: The two work together on a leadership plan that has goals to hit throughout the year.

Skanes, who was the principal of Morgan Park High School until 2022, always viewed her network chief as her main supervisor. Feedback from the network chief was sometimes “attached to next steps, even in terms of promotion and opportunities,” she said.

The Chicago elementary school principal said the network chief is looking for things at the school that parents or community members may not have expertise in, such as best teaching practices, she said. Her LSC is more interested in school uniform policies or community events for families, she said.

“I think both of those perspectives are super important,” she said. “It shouldn’t be all one or another.”

A former Chicago principal, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly, said most of his network chiefs were good listeners and open to his ideas of how to improve his school. But he also felt pressure from the network to boost certain metrics, such as raising attendance by 10 percentage points, including by visiting student homes.

Those efforts resulted in a lot of pressure on staff and kids at his school who were already experiencing “so much trauma,” he said. After hitting the network’s goal, the principal eased up those efforts, saying it didn’t feel “worth the squeeze and my time and emotional energy.” Attendance rates dropped.

In that case, he decided to “take the heat from the network” because it meant more “sanity” for his school, he said.

A small share of schools have Appointed Local School Councils, or ALSCs, which don’t have the power to hire or fire principals but can provide nonbinding input on who they want to lead their schools. In those cases, the CEO gets final say on hiring a principal.

That was the case for Alan Mather, now the president of the Golden Apple Foundation. He became the principal of Lindblom Math and Science Academy in 2005 when the school was reopened as a selective enrollment high school. Mather was appointed by then-CEO Arne Duncan and the new school, which drew high-performing students from across the city, did not have an LSC. It wasn’t until his last year at Lindblom that an ALSC was formed, Mather said.

Mather considered Duncan to be his boss and was given a lot of autonomy to craft Lindblom’s culture and academics, such as adopting a year-round schedule during his time.

“It was the CEO who could have removed me at any time,” Mather said. “I was not working under a contract.”

As principals unionize, a question about management

When the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, or CPAA, decided to unionize last year, its president Troy LaRaviere promised to fight for better pay, less focus on bureaucratic tasks, more job security – including the ability to voice opinions publicly without punishment – and more due process when principals face accusations of misconduct.

LaRaviere did not respond to multiple requests for an interview for this story. Another CPAA representative declined to comment, including to confirm whether the union has started bargaining, and deferred to LaRaviere.

The unionization effort could impact how network chiefs discipline and evaluate principals. But huge questions remain.

“We don’t know what is to come,” said Thurmond, from the district. She added that they’re “looking forward to deepening the collaboration” with CPAA to make sure principals are supported, versus the district “being perceived as an enemy.”

Some observers have wondered how a union contract might impact the authority of a network chief or LSC. For instance, will it be tougher for the LSC not to renew a principal’s contract?

Changes to an LSC’s powers, however, would likely require a change to the state law that created them, said Barron, the expert from UIC.

For the district’s part, Thurmond said CPS will continue “empowering LSCs and ALSCs” so that “communities continue to have control of their schools.”

One former principal thinks an elected school board could make LSCs feel redundant or powerless, since board members will represent different parts of the city.

LSCs were created when there wasn’t an elected board and are seen by some as mini-school boards at individual schools. But come January 2025, the Chicago Board of Education will be made up of 10 members elected by their communities and 11 members appointed by the mayor.

“If we have an elected school board of 21 and you have them passing resolutions saying we’re doing this, this and this,” he wondered, “then what does the LSC have the autonomy to say and do if it’s all coming from downtown?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago public schools run by principals given more independence saw better student achievement: study

2023-08-03T21:55:39+00:00

Eight years ago, Chicago Public Schools launched a program that gave certain principals more control, such as more flexibility over budgets and being freed of extra oversight from district leaders. It was an effort to reward effective veteran school leaders with “more leadership and professional development opportunities.”

Now, a new study by a Northwestern University professor shows that the initiative — known as the Independent School Principals program, or ISP — resulted in better test scores and school climates and could be a cost-effective way to improve schools.

The analysis looked at 44 elementary schools that joined ISP between 2016 and 2018. Those schools saw pass rates for state reading and math tests grow, on average, by about 4 percentage points more than similar schools that weren’t part of ISP, according to the study. (Comparison schools were chosen based on things like demographics and test scores.)

The findings suggest that schools can benefit from more empowered principals, who are “closer to the ground” and may have a better sense than district leaders of what their students need, said C. Kirabo Jackson, an education and social policy professor at Northwestern who conducted the study.

But there are some caveats, Jackson said. The ISP schools with the best test score results were also run by principals who are considered “highly effective,” as determined by teacher ratings and other evaluations. Less effective principals saw test scores grow at a slower rate. Other studies have found mixed results when giving schools more autonomy, Jackson noted in his study.

The benefits of such a policy depend on “the capacity of the leaders to manage on their own,” said Jackson.

Test scores don’t show the full picture of how well students are doing, Jackson said, and his study found mixed results in other areas. For example, ISP schools on average had better ratings for school climate. But he found no evidence that these schools saw better student or teacher attendance.

The ISP initiative was launched under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel as part of an effort to pair principals with “more leadership and professional development opportunities,” according to the district.

Currently, district leaders identify veteran principals to apply for the program and then evaluate them based on several criteria, including their school’s test scores, their “five essentials” survey data and a series of interviews, according to the district.

A spokesperson did not respond in time for publication on whether there were minimum test scores that schools had to meet in order to be eligible.

Jackson noted that nearly all of the elementary schools he evaluated were highly rated by the state. In all, 86% of the city’s current 63 ISP schools — which also include middle and high schools and one early childhood education center — were rated either commendable or exemplary by the state, according to the most recently available Illinois Report Card information.

In addition to less oversight and more budget flexibility, ISP school leaders also have more power over professional learning for their staff and more flexibility over principal evaluations. In exchange, principals must meet several requirements, including maintaining or improving school performance, remaining compliant with district wide policies, and remaining as the school’s principal for at least two years.

Having more power over professional learning was among the biggest boons for Patricia Brekke, principal of Back of the Yards High School, who joined the ISP program in 2016. Her school, like others, used to spend time addressing student needs in ways that district leaders recommended.

While she considered those good strategies, her staff didn’t have extra time to focus on other issues they believed to be important, such as drilling down on students’ analytical and essay writing skills.

For the past seven years, she and other teachers have created their own professional development sessions to, in part, improve kids’ analytical skills. Her team draws on good examples from their own classrooms, including taking videos during the school day, so that teachers can see how their own colleagues are approaching instruction, Brekke said.

“I’ve got a lot of brilliant teachers, and their ideas really pushed me, I think, to be a better principal, you know?” Brekke said. “And it was really important for me to have them around the table and identify our problems of practice.”

Jackson only studied elementary schools, so he doesn’t know the program’s impact on high schools.

SAT scores at Brekke’s school were within five percentage points of the district’s. But Brekke said she’s noticed her students demonstrating “elevated” writing skills that go beyond a classic five-paragraph essay response.

“They’re really starting to think more deeply about text,” Brekke said.

Jackson found another bonus of the program: Principals “tend to remain in their schools” even after the two-year requirement. That is by design, said Jerry Travlos, a former ISP principal who now works as a district leader.

Travlos conducted a study, which Jackson cites, and found that ISP principals largely preferred the autonomy they got under the program. Extending more power to veteran principals is also a “retention strategy,” he said, at a time when school leaders are heading for the door.

Brekke, who has been an educator for 32 years, said she sometimes misses the camaraderie that comes along with a traditional network like most of Chicago’s public schools. But she loves being able to “geek out” and customize instruction for her students.

“Having those kinds of conversations are really just so refreshing and encouraging and motivating,” Brekke said. She paused and added, “Maybe it’s contributed to why I’m still here.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Five Illinois early-career teachers speak about entering education during the COVID-19 pandemic

2023-02-14T15:06:53+00:00

Kayla Metcalf started teaching middle school science in the fall of 2020 just as the COVID pandemic upended education. Nathaniel Joseph had made a career switch from line cook to special education teacher when he was thrust into the world of remote learning. Jhaianne Cooper, now in her first year of teaching dance, is still figuring out what support her students need to succeed after a couple of school years not performing on stage.

They are just three of the hundreds of Illinois teachers who began teaching during the pandemic. These educators not only had to learn the basics of lesson plans, classroom management, and the needs of students and families, they also had to navigate a constantly changing education landscape.

Over the past three years, teachers of all experience levels had to switch between different modes of instruction — from virtual to hybrid with some students in class and others at home and then to in-person learning when classrooms finally reopened. They have also had to help students adapt to a return to the classroom, learn again how to socialize with their peers, deal with mental health, and handle concerns around COVID-19.

It hasn’t been easy. Some teachers are struggling to overcome burnout, with others resigning or changing careers. Illinois has a teacher shortage and school districts around the state are struggling to attract and retain teachers.

But some novice educators are excited to head into classrooms despite the challenges. Chalkbeat Chicago spoke with five early-career teachers about going from student to professional, teaching during the coronavirus pandemic, their challenges and successes, and why they love being teachers.

Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Nathaniel Joseph, 38, Chicago Public Schools

Nathaniel Joseph, a special education teacher at Al Raby High School, started his teaching career in the fall of 2021.

Start: Fall 2021.

High school special education teacher at Al Raby High School.

Joseph was a line cook at different restaurants around Chicago before becoming a teacher. He said that his experience was similar to Hulu’s original show “The Bear” — a comedy-drama about a chef coming back to Chicago to work in a family-owned restaurant after working in fine dining restaurants.

What was it like to go back to in-person learning and teaching in your own classroom? What were you feeling?

I think mostly excited because it’s a huge step in a new direction for me, coming from a totally different field. There’s always going to be nerves working with young people. You just don’t know what to expect. But I felt really supported by other teachers. There’s a mix of young teachers who have a lot of experience and older teachers who’ve been at the school for a while. I felt like I was entering a situation where people had a lot of experience and support. It felt like being welcomed into a family. So a lot of those nerves subsided. Within the first couple weeks, and obviously with how present the pandemic was last school year, there was a lot of emphasis on taking things slow and not feeling like we’re going to catch up on everything we missed on day one. My principal kept saying give each other grace and don’t feel like you have to solve it today. This is a long process. So I felt really good.

What were some challenges that your students faced when coming back to school?

Last year there were so many different protocols in place for health and safety because of COVID-19. Certain things just kind of shut down. For instance, there was a school store where students could buy snacks and get stuff after school and even during lunch. That hasn’t been opened since I’ve worked here. The kids will wax poetic about it like, “The school’s store was almost like a candy shop.” It was a part of the school’s fabric. I feel like a lot of those unique things that schools have, at least at my school, haven’t started back up.

Kayla Metcalf, 26, Horizon Science Academy McKinley Park

Kayla Metcalf, a science teacher at Horizon Science Academy McKinley Park in Chicago, started teaching in Fall 2020.

Start: Fall 2020.

Seventh and eighth grade science teacher at Horizon Science Academy McKinley Park in Chicago.

Metcalf comes from a family of teachers. Her grandmother and dad were educators. At first she pursued a degree in microbiology to go into medicine. During the pandemic, she decided to switch to teaching. After two years in the field, she says she loves being a teacher. “I think the best part honestly is seeing how much of a difference I can make in a student’s life even if it’s just for a moment.”

How did your students respond to the COVID-19 vaccine as they were rolling out?

Teaching in a science class, a lot of students were very curious about how the vaccine worked. We all took this as a teaching moment to encourage students to go get vaccinated. The thing that caught me by surprise was that a lot of students wanted to go get vaccinated, which really surprised me. To see their own activism around vaccines really surprised me in a positive way.

What advice would you give to other early-career educators?

Take time to understand your students and their needs. If you see that a student learns one way, you should try to tailor the lesson to how they learn. I find that it helps a lot because students pay attention to teachers who put in the effort. I became a teacher to make a difference and when students see that they think “Oh, this teacher is actually trying to help me learn.” It motivates them to do better. That’s, at least, what I’m seeing.

Ashley Tyler, 38, Decatur Public Schools District 61

Ashley Tyler, an elementary school special education teacher at Dennis Lab School in Decatur Public Schools District 61, started working in a classroom in fall 2021.

Start: Fall 2021.

Second and third grade special education teacher at Dennis Lab School.

After getting married and becoming a mother, Tyler decided to switch careers and become a teacher. She started working as a paraprofessional at her local school district and then decided to join the Golden Apple Accelerators Program to become a teacher.

What was it like to transition from student teacher to full-time educator during remote learning?

So I feel comfortable in the classroom, in this district and I love these kids and their families. I will say that teaching during a pandemic was difficult for a lot of reasons. You don’t get to build those one-on-one relationships like you do in a classroom, especially teaching special ed. Everything was over a computer. So, sometimes it was hard to read body language, expressions, and tones. So, there were a lot of challenges and a lot of growing that had to be done. But, there were also some really amazing things that happened. Teachers were in all of our students’ homes. Where parents were getting to hear us teach and getting to hear their children learn. We were building relationships with families, not just students.I think that kind of carried into my teaching in person, where I realized the importance of that relationship to teachers and families.

Once your students came back into the classroom, did you notice any skills they were missing?

My kids in second and third grade, the only time that they were in school was maybe preschool or kindergarten. They didn’t have time in those really formative education years where we’re learning the alphabet, sounds, letters, numbers. So we’re seeing a lot of students that are not even near grade level because of things they have missed.

Jhaianne Cooper, 25, Chicago Public Schools

Jhaianne Cooper, a dance teacher at Hamilton Fine Arts and Performance School in Chicago Public Schools, started her career in summer 2022.

Start: Summer 2022.

Dance teacher at Hamilton Fine Arts and Performance School.

Cooper has been dancing since she was 3 years old and started teaching at dance studios during her time in high school. However, she didn’t think she would become a dance teacher. In fact, she majored in rehabilitation services and minored in dance in hopes of becoming a chiropractor.

But when the pandemic hit, she started teaching dance classes virtually and fell in love with teaching. She decided to get her master’s in education in 2021 and joined Chicago Public Schools’ Teacher Residency Program.

What has it been like to become a teacher during the coronavirus pandemic?

It has been a challenge, but beneficial at the same time. Using technology when we were virtual was beneficial in my dance classes. Right now, I’m teaching a dance media class, where we’re integrating technology in class. We’re learning how to create videos as well as doing photo shoots. Now technology is still inside of my classroom every single day.

What have been some of your challenges and successes during your first year of teaching?

It has been a challenge to create my own scope and sequence that I have for the dance program at my school. Taking the time to create and build that while being a first year teacher, it can be a lot. But you know, you just take the time to figure it out. I would say a huge success is seeing every student perform. We have 444 students and when we have a showcase to see everybody come together and perform and no one is shy, it’s always a huge success for me because they got out on stage and went for it.

Brandon Pease, 24, Elk Grove Township Community Consolidated School District 59

Brandon Pease, a middle school math teacher at Elk Grove Junior High in Elk Grove Township Community Consolidated School District 59, started teaching in spring 2021.

Start: Spring 2021.

Middle school math teacher at Elk Grove Junior High.

Pease always wanted to be a school teacher. He would make his friends play school in the afternoon during his childhood years, even though they were exhausted by the school day.

Since the coronavirus pandemic hit, many educators have been concerned about learning loss. Have you noticed that your students have gaps in their learning?

What I’ve noticed is that in math students have been at least three or four grade levels behind. Some students have even been five grade levels behind. Students in eighth grade are at a second grade level. Although I have to teach my seventh grade math standards, I’ve been working a lot more with building confidence in math and making sure that students are able to be comfortable with being wrong. Disrupting those thoughts that they have to get the right answer to make someone happy or “I’m supposed to do this and I’m not doing it so I’m gonna shut down and not talk to anyone.” I know that getting students confident in school again will help improve their math skills.

What advice would you give to other early-career educators?

As an early-career educator, the only advice I can really give is to get through that first year or that second year. That’s when you’re really going to learn who you are as a teacher.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher shortage is making it harder for Illinois schools to find qualified educators, says new survey

2023-02-02T20:23:31+00:00

Teacher and staff shortages exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic are making it harder for Illinois school districts to find qualified teachers – especially for special education and bilingual positions, according to a new survey.

Of the Illinois school leaders from 690 school districts surveyed, 73% say they have a teacher shortage problem, 93% say the shortage is as bad or worse than last school year, 95% report receiving the same or fewer applicants for vacant positions, and 92% say they have a substitute teacher program. School leaders also said those who do apply for open roles aren’t qualified for the position.

The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools partnered with Goshen Education Consulting for the sixth annual Educator Shortage Study, which was conducted in the fall of 2022.

In previous years, the survey focused on issues schools face to hire and retain educators and support staff while understanding what positions and geographic areas saw the most shortages. This year, the study asked school leaders what state officials could do to help schools increase staffing.

Across the state, the study found that 2,728 teacher, special education, and support staff positions were either vacant or filled with someone less qualified. While schools across Illinois are struggling to fill positions, towns and rural areas especially in east-central and west-central Illinois had more vacancies.

John Meixner, regional superintendent for the Regional Office of Education 26, said his office supports small districts in rural communities in west-central Illinois. The report reflects what he has seen on the ground, Meixner said, noting that one of the main issues for the school districts his office serves is finding applicants for vacant positions.

“I’d say 10 to 15 years ago, if an opening happened in an elementary education position a school district would have 20 applicants,” said Meixner. “Now they’re lucky to get maybe two. There are some positions where they don’t get any.”

To fill in gaps, Meixner said school districts have found retired teachers to come back to the classroom. However, retired teachers can only work for a limited amount of time to keep their pension. Districts have moved current teachers to different subject areas to fill positions, whether they have a license to teach that grade level or content area.

School leaders around the state are dealing with similar issues and would like the state to step up to help districts hire more teachers.

The survey found that 68% of school leaders believe incentivizing teachers to get additional endorsements will have a positive effect on recruiting and retaining teachers. To get students into the teacher pipeline and into classrooms, school leaders suggested scholarships for students, additional compensation for staff in high-need areas like special education, and increased funding for pension plans.

Last year, the State Board of Education created a $4 million grant to support teachers who wanted to get a bilingual educator endorsement. The state has increased the Minority Teacher Illinois Scholarship, which is aimed at increasing the number of teachers of color and bilingual educators, to $4.2 million..

In addition to a staff teacher shortage, school districts across the state are dealing with a substitute teacher shortage — which also has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey found that school leaders want state policymakers to allow retired teachers to substitute without harming their pensions, make it easier to become a substitute teacher, and increase substitute teaching days to 120 each year.

At a press conference on Monday, Mark Klaisner, president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, said the state has made investments to deal with school staffing shortages, but more funding is needed.

Klaisner and other education advocates are asking the state to invest $550 million in the state’s evidence-based funding formula “to give schools the money they need for professional development for additional education.”

“If the base funding minimum goes up, it allows us to address teacher and paraprofessional salaries,” said Klaisner. “This will help keep people where they are and make it a viable profession given the income levels.”

Illinois teachers would be able to use sick days for mental health. Will it help?

2022-03-15T21:14:46+00:00

Teachers like English teacher Briana Morales worked overtime to support their students through two years of disruptions and emotional upheaval during the pandemic. Now, Morales wonders who will help those exhausted teachers.

The fifth-year teacher at an alternative high school in East St. Louis District 189 in southern Illinois has provided academic and mental health support for students reeling from coronavirus issues, as well as gun violence and poverty that predate the pandemic. In summer 2020, she attended funerals for three of her students who were killed in shootings.

“In the fall of 2020, I had to just bounce back because my students still needed me at that time. But I had no time to process what I needed for myself,” Morales said. “On top of that no one even asked me, ‘What do you need?”

A bill, SB 3914, in the Illinois general assembly proposes one step to address the needs of educators like Morales — by allowing teachers to use sick days for mental health reasons. It comes in response to the increased demands on teachers over the last two years: shifting instruction from remote to hybrid classrooms to in-person learning while balancing the needs of students who have lost learning and need mental health support.

SB 3914 passed the Senate unanimously and is scheduled for a House committee hearing Wednesday. The bill has changed a few times throughout the legislative process; the first version of the bill would have given teachers five mental health days at full pay but now it has expanded how teachers can use sick days to include mental health concerns.

To Morales and other educators, the bill is a step in the right direction — but not enough.

Teachers burn out from the pandemic

Under the Illinois school code, teachers receive a minimum of 10 sick days per year. That puts the state in line with the average across the country, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit policy organization. The vast majority of districts allow teachers to carry over unused sick leave from year to year without a limit.

Chicago Public Schools teachers receive at least 10 sick days per year and as many as 13 based on experience level, plus three personal days. Chicago gives five days for bereavement leave and allows up to five days of sick leave to be used for bereavement.

The pandemic has made the need for additional mental health support even more important. According to “Job-Related Stress Threatens the Teacher Supply,” a report by the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research institute, one in four teachers said that they were likely to leave their jobs by the end of the 2020–2021 school year. According to the report, 78% percent of teachers reported job-related stress compared to 40% of the general population. While teachers across the nation have voiced frustration with their jobs during the pandemic, a Chalkbeat analysis of data from the states and large school districts found that a mass teacher exodus has not happened yet.

The state’s largest teachers union, the Illinois Education Association, supports the bill.

“If our teachers are overworked or overwhelmed and need to take a break from the classroom for a day, they should absolutely be able to do so without fear of being punished for taking care of themselves,” Kathi Griffin, president of IEA, said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

Allowing teachers to take time off for mental health reasons would help districts retain educators and recruit new teachers, Griffin said.

The public supports giving teachers mental health days, according to an IEA survey of 1,000 Illinois residents. Of those polled, 72% supported allowing educators to take mental health days.

Not everyone agrees. Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she’s concerned about giving more days to educators because students have to recover learning after the pandemic.

“I don’t see how having [teachers] out of school more often is going to help anyone. It may be a temporary fix, but we’ve got to put kids first here,” Walsh said. “We can’t have kids showing up to school and getting escorted into a gym to spend the day because there’s nobody to teach them.”

Are mental health days enough?

Lisa Thyer, a teacher of 16 years, has found the current school year to be the most challenging. While school district leaders have promised that this year would be a return to normalcy, it’s been far from normal, according to Thyer.

She teaches English to high school students at Consolidated School District 230 in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Thyer has struggled to figure out the academic and emotional needs of her students this school year and feels unsure about her ability to teach.

“No one knew how to do hybrid instruction and we were all doing the best we could, but I was supposed to know how to do classroom instruction,” Thyer said. “I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job anymore.”

Morales, the East St. Louis teacher, and Thyer think that the proposed mental health days would be useful, but they feel that educators will need more to stay in the profession and get past burnout.

Morales wants to see districts provide more mental health support for educators. Her district has contracts with therapists to support students and families. She would like to see that extended to educators.

Morales said that teachers have multiple obstacles blocking them from seeing therapists on their own like the cost of going to therapy and time to schedule an appointment.

“Is there a way that we can balance a school day so that both students’ families and educators are all getting the same levels of support that they need to sustain themselves during this time and going forward?” Morales asked.

Thyer is cautiously optimistic about the proposed mental health days for educators. She wants it to be the first step in the conversation on how to support teachers but worries that some will not even take sick days due to the state’s substitute shortage.

“If there’s no one who can cover your classes, taking a day off is gonna fall on your colleagues to miss their plan period or things like that to help cover your classes,” Thyer said. “It’s nice to have them but for them to actually be useful is a different thing, especially in this pandemic.”

Illinois wants to diversify teacher ranks. Will a pilot program help?

2021-11-18T22:58:54+00:00

Illinois hopes a new pilot program to recruit future teachers of color will help lead to the hiring of more educators of color and diversify the state’s teaching ranks, which are disproportionately white.

The state board of education announced on Thursday that 24 Illinois colleges and universities have volunteered to develop plans to recruit and retain future teachers of color. The pilot will help the board create best practices for 54 of the state’s teacher prep programs to develop plans the following year. The initiative is a part of the board’s three-year strategic plan, which includes increasing teacher diversity.

“All students, and especially students of color, benefit from having diverse educators throughout their school experiences,” said State Superintendent Carmen Ayala. “When the role models and people in positions of authority in our lives look like us, that shapes our perception of our place in the world in a positive and powerful way.”

The state’s recently released 2021 report card showed a slight uptick in the number of teachers of color hired last school year, with an increase of 1,251 Hispanic teachers and 184 Black teachers. However, 82% of teachers in the state are white — roughly the same number since 2010 — while the state’s student population is only 47% white. Studies show that teachers of color increase the academic performance of students of color, with significant increases in test scores, graduate rates, and college success rates.

At its monthly meeting on Thursday, the state school board also weighed how to get more student teachers of color to pass the state’s licensure exams.

The state board listened to a presentation by the National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) — a nonprofit that researches teacher quality and is examining elementary content teacher licensure exams to see where teacher candidates leave the pipeline.

The report, titled “Driven by Data: Using licensure tests to build a strong, diverse teacher workforce,” looked at tests in 43 states including Illinois. While there are critiques of teacher licensure tests, Hannah Putman, managing director of research at NCTQ, says licensure tests are the best way to ensure that teachers know the content that they are going to teach.

For this study, researchers looked at best-attempt rates — the number of students who pass regardless of the number of times they took the test; first-pass rates — important because they shows how effective teacher prep programs are in training teachers; and walk-away rates — the proportion of students who fail on their first attempt and do not retake the test within three years.

In Illinois, teacher candidates must take the Illinois Licensure Testing System. All candidates must pass the test before earning an elementary teaching license. Data shows that the average best-attempt pass rate in Illinois is 94%, with institutions ranging from 80% to 100%. On the first attempt, 70% of test-takers pass the exam.

Currently, Illinois does not publish walk-away rates. According to national data NCTQ was able to collect from states that reported it, 22% of people who failed on the first attempt did not retake it. Nearly one in three test-takers of color did not retake the test within three years.

“We are losing a lot of teachers at this initial failure point,” said Putman. “That can be a really powerful metric to help identify where to better support people in entering the classroom.”

There has been some criticism of teacher licensure tests, with critics who say that the test is a barrier to getting more teachers of color into the pipeline and doesn’t measure the effectiveness of teachers.

In response to NCTQ’s presentation, Cynthia Riseman, legislative director at Illinois Federation of Teachers, one of the state’s largest teacher unions, said the organization relies on teacher licensure tests to tell a full story of teacher quality.

“A narrow approach that ignores the complexities of a public education system that hasn’t escaped or atone for its roots of segregation, underfunding, and disparities in opportunities and access for Black and brown students and teacher candidates,” said Riseman.

In addition to studying what the state’s institutions of higher education can do to increase potential students of color, some board members are looking at historically Black colleges and universities for answers.

Donna Leak, board members and superintendent of Community Consolidated Schools District 168, asked Putman if NCTQ would look at the pass rate for students at historically Black institutions. Putman said that she plans to look into minority-serving institutions in their national data set.

“We talk about African American children and children of color having teachers of color,” Leak said, “but it really comes down to whether all children need to see a teacher of color at some point in their academic career.”

Illinois Report Card: State reports 88% graduation rate, but some other accountability measures blank

2020-10-30T17:01:00+00:00

The four-year graduation rate in Illinois held steady at about 88%, according to the 2020 report card released Friday.

State officials cautioned against comparing this year’s rate to the previous year, however, because some requirements were relaxed amid the pandemic. In May, Gov. J.B. Pritzker waived the constitution exam and physical fitness test for eighth graders and high school students.

The annual report card is the most detailed look at how the state’s nearly 2 million students are faring in public schools. But this year, the report is missing data on a slate of closely monitored assessments — requirements temporarily waived by the U.S. Department of Education after school buildings abruptly closed in March. It’s also missing culture and climate surveys and new state school ratings (schools kept ratings from the previous year).

Since local school districts were not able to administer state assessments in the spring, there is not enough data to determine learning achievement gaps, which is a serious concern after months of remote learning. Brenda Dixon, research and evaluation officer at the state board of education, said the state will conduct a learning loss survey to get a sense of how students are doing.

She said the survey will at least provide a “snapshot” of how much the pandemic has affected students, with a sample of school districts voluntarily submitting several years of data.

This year’s report card does include data on student attendance and whether ninth graders are on track to graduate. Two other areas included in the report that weren’t affected by the pandemic include teacher workforce and advanced coursework.

Here’s a closer look at a few key metrics:

Teacher workforce

Illinois saw its teacher workforce grow by more than 2,000 teachers this year, but the percentage of white teachers barely budged. The state has slightly increased the number of Hispanic and Asian American teachers, but the workforce is still majority white, at almost 83%.

The three-year average teacher retention rate remained the same at almost 86%.

State superintendent Carmen Ayala said the state will be introducing culturally responsive teaching and learning standards to be implemented at teacher preparation programs in Illinois. The state also will start requiring teacher prep programs to create and implement recruitment plans for educators of color.

“We don’t know yet how the pandemic has impacted the current future workforce,” Ayala said. But she added that the state is surveying districts about unfilled positions to try to understand where there are talent gaps.

Advanced coursework

Illinois has been pushing districts to offer students more opportunities to earn college credit while in high school. According to one metric, that push has been paying off: High school students across the state took about 70,000 dual credit courses, up from 64,000 courses last year.

But despite efforts to encourage more students to take Advanced Placement courses, Illinois high schoolers took around the same number of AP classes in 2019-20 compared with the previous year, about 142,400.

There was an increase in the number of exams taken by high school seniors, even with the pandemic. Last school year, seniors took 278,000 exams, compared to 261,000 exams the previous year, a difference of about 14,500. Pritzker committed $2 million to cover exam fees last school year and has said that support will continue, despite flat education spending overall.

However, the number of seniors who took exams dropped by almost 3,300 students this year in comparison to last year. The number of seniors who passed at least one exam decreased by a little over 700.

International Baccalaureate, a rigorous academic program, had a modest increase of about 400 more students taking courses statewide. About 6,000 students took the courses in 2020.

Career and Technical Education programming

This year, about 1,500 more students took career and technical education courses, for a total of 286,237 students. State officials said they need to do more work to diversify the group of students who take the courses — 58% of white students were enrolled in courses, while the state’s overall white student population is 48%.

“For the first time, Illinois will now require CTE programs to analyze disaggregated data on students’ participation and performance. Programs must identify gaps and create strategies to recruit and support special student populations, such as students who are parenting, military connected or in temporary housing,” said Ayala.

New financial data included

This is the second year that the state has included site-based expenditure reporting. Last year the state only reported on expenditures at the district level, but this year it showed information at the school level.

Ayala said: “This data will indicate how well funded the district is, the school summative designation indicating school performance and the school’s percentages of low-income students, English learners, and students with IEP who all require greater investment to meet their learning needs.”

The board said they hope the information will aid conversations about funding equity at schools and within districts.

Solving Illinois’ teacher shortage is complicated. These five charts explain why.

2020-05-14T14:01:28+00:00

Thousands of education jobs around Illinois went unfilled last school year.

The 6,052 teaching and support vacancies signal a complicated problem that won’t be solved just by recruiting more college students, according to education experts. Instead, they said, the solution lies in making the profession more attractive, providing more support and funding across the board, improving teacher retention, and diversifying educators.

Warnings about the teacher shortage have reverberated around the state for years, but a new report released Wednesday from the policy group Advance Illinois offers insight and suggests possible remedies.

And while much of the focus in education is currently on stemming learning losses due to extended school closures and the coronavirus disruption, the discussion has started to turn to the future of in-person learning.

“The single most important thing we can give a child coming out of this pandemic is a quality teacher,” said Robin Steans, the president of Advance Illinois. “It has never mattered more.”

The pandemic has narrowed the window to legislate solutions to the teacher shortage, as well as intensified financial pressure on public education systems. But Steans said the teaching profession might draw renewed interest, as other industries shed jobs and workers seek new careers.

“I’ll be surprised if there aren’t some number of young people looking ahead who don’t set their sights on teaching,” she said. “What will be interesting is whether we take advantage of that and do it in a way that really increases diversity.”

Here are five things that stand out in Advance Illinois’ analysis.

The state has lost half of its educator prep programs since 2012.

Teaching is a rewarding but difficult profession. More than 6,000 education positions around Illinois went unfilled last year, including instructional, administrative and support positions, but the policy fix won’t be as simple as recruiting more college students.

Since 2012, Illinois has seen a 50% decline in the number of graduates of education prep programs, as well as a decline in the number of teacher prep programs. Fewer programs has translated to fewer graduates: In 2012, there were 11,000 graduates. In 2017, there were just under 5,000, thus sending fewer teachers into the workforce.

“This is not just an interest problem,” said Ann Whalen, director of policy at Advance Illinois.

Research has shown that it matters where programs are located. Whalen noted that a majority of teacher candidates choose to teach near where they went to school or where they are from originally. In Illinois, nearly one in five districts is more than 30 miles from a teacher training program, hampering their ability to recruit student teachers and build pipelines to future educators.

Traditional training programs are particularly sparse in southeast Illinois, Whalen said. Alternative non-traditional certification programs are mostly located in Cook County. But even those have seen a decrease, dropping from 12 to six programs from 2008 to 2016.

The decline is due in part to state disinvestment in that time period, Whalen said. According to information from the Illinois Office of Management, spending on teacher recruitment and financial assistance programs, including the Illinois Teacher Loan Repayment Program, Golden Apple tuition assistance and scholarship program, and minority teacher scholarships, has shrunk by more than $3 million since 2008.

“We need to ensure both our districts and our educational prep programs have the resources they need to support these candidates but also for teachers to grow and be retained by the profession,” said Helen Zhang, policy associate at Advance Illinois, who analyzed data from the Illinois State Board of Education, the census, and federal Title II reports on national teacher preparation.

“Maintaining the status quo isn’t going to be sufficient to get us out of where we are right now.”

2. The shortage is most acute in special education, followed by elementary education, bilingual education, and science, math and technology (STEM).

Linda Perales teaches reading and math special education to kindergarten, first and second graders — many of whom also require English and Spanish language instruction — at Corkery Elementary School in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago.

The number of students in her classroom has fluctuated throughout the years, but reached a peak of 17 students. That’s small compared with a traditional classroom, but her students aren’t typical. She said it’s difficult to give each child the attention they need when she has a full classroom of students with different needs.

“I have to basically do the job of eight teachers,” Perales said. “The kids that need the most support are actually just getting a fraction of what they need because of the shortage … It’s a disservice to the students for sure and also unfair to the teachers who have to do way more.”

From 2012 to 2016 the number of special education teacher prep programs in Illinois dropped 25%; the number of bilingual education programs for aspiring teachers fell by half. The number of graduates from each specialty program likewise plummeted.

A similar trend happened with STEM preparation programs, which dropped by a third.

The numbers have started to inch back up. But the increase has not caught up to previous supply levels, and the need meanwhile has increased. In Illinois, the proportion of students in special education, as measured by those with Individualized Education Programs, has increased from 14% to 16% in the past five years. The share of English learner students has risen, too.

Perales said she believes fewer people are entering teaching because the profession is undervalued.

“A lot of people are not choosing teaching as a career because they know that it’s exhausting and they know that our profession is poorly respected, they know that we lack resources and that our schools are underfunded,” Perales said. “They know that they’re going to be overworked and underpaid.”

3. The state can’t tackle the teacher shortage without addressing teacher turnover.

For Kira Baker-Doyle, an associate professor and director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Literacy, the slowdown in students entering teaching is exacerbated by a wave of older teachers retiring. Education experts have braced themselves for a national shortage for 30 years, she said, anticipating when baby boomer career teachers would retire and leave a multitude of unfilled positions.

According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s annual financial report, the number of retiring teachers peaked in 2017 and has been declining, but retiree counts still top 1,000 each year.

The losses aren’t just among older teachers.

Younger teachers are leaving the education field in search of higher-paying, less stressful opportunities, something that wasn’t as common in the past, Baker-Doyle said.

Across the country, turnover rates are highest among new teachers with less than three years experience. Statewide teacher retention rates have hovered around 85% for the last five years, but vary widely when broken down by district, from 35% to 100%, according to Illinois Report Card data.

With fewer teachers, the increased workload lands in the laps of the remaining teachers who then may be more likely to quit due to stress, said Catherine Main, an associate professor at University of Illinois at Chicago.

When a school can’t find a teacher, often it will rely on temporary employees to fill in. Main said her students report difficulty with having a succession of teacher assistants while they complete student teaching rotations in the classroom. Students entering the field won’t have trouble finding a job, she said, but many have already witnessed the pressure that the loss of teachers and teacher assistants puts on the remaining employees.

“People are excited that there are lots of [job] opportunities from the student perspective,” she said. “But on the flip side, there’s a lot of turnover in the workplace because of the shortage … it’s a vicious cycle.”

4. Teachers of color enter teacher prep programs but don’t end up getting hired.

Aspiring teachers of color are entering the teacher prep pipeline, but they’re not ending up in classrooms. Steans, of Advance Illinois, said policymakers need to focus on why.

Research has shown that teacher diversity affects many learning conditions and outcomes for students, including test scores, graduation rates, attendance and suspension rates.

About 50% of bachelor degree candidates are black, Latino, or non-white, but in Illinois, just one in four new hires is non-white.

There has been slight progress, the report notes, as Latino teachers have increased from 7% to 9% of new teachers in Illinois from 2013 to 2018.

“Every student in Illinois deserves skilled educators who reflect their diversity and are dedicated to challenging them academically and supporting their growth and development,” Zhang said. “These data make clear that not only are we not recruiting and graduating enough teachers of color, we are doing a poor job retaining them in the classroom. This is something our state needs to bring greater transparency to in order to ensure we are sufficiently addressing the need and targeting effective strategies.”

5. There’s not going to be a quick fix for the issue.

State leaders, including the governor, have acknowledged that the teacher shortage is a critical issue. That was before the coronavirus forced the shuttering of all school buildings in the state at least through the end of the school year and began squeezing state revenues.

Before the crisis, a change in the state funding formula and a boost in state spending on public schools allowed some districts to add teaching jobs. But some other approaches that would help with recruiting, such as prioritizing loan forgiveness programs and offering scholarships to early-career teachers, were slow to get off the ground.

What will happen now is unclear.

Pre-coronavirus enrollment numbers had slowed at Northeastern University, including among Latino and African American students in the education college, said Andrea Evans, interim dean of the Daniel L. Goodwin College of Education.

Some potential students may have decided to attend out-of-state schools that offer more student loan forgiveness, less costly housing, or higher supply stipends for early-career teachers, Evans said. Illinois’ dwindling support for higher education, which means oversaturated scholarships and programs that often don’t cover enough, may have also played a role.

“The entire education enterprise — federal, state, local — has to be willing to provide the types of professional development, financial, and social supports early-career educators need,” Evans said.

Solving the shortage will also require a cultural shift in how our society values teachers, she said.

“The public perception of the job may make it difficult to recruit students,” Evans said. “The manner in which we talk about teaching as a profession — challenging work environment, low pay, disrespect from parents, students, and/or administrators — can make it difficult to recruit talented students into the profession.”

But with broad shifts in the economy likely coming with the coronavirus pandemic, this could be a moment for renewed interest in the job. In a shrinking economy, Steans said, “there is a real chance that teaching will look more appealing than it did six months ago.”

Cassie Walker Burke contributed reporting.

Teacher turnover hits high-poverty schools particularly hard. Here’s how Chicago plans to keep more educators.

2019-07-30T22:19:54+00:00

Just last week, Michele Clark Academic Prep Magnet High School Principal Charles Anderson completed a task that can vex even the steeliest of urban school administrators: He filled his final staff vacancy for fall.

That’s an accomplishment in a district that, also last week, reported more than 1,000 teaching vacancies across its more than 600 schools. On Tuesday, at a press conference where Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot laid out her planned investments for schools across the next few years, Anderson spoke in support of expanding a program that helps recruit and retain teachers at schools hit hardest by turnover.

“It has helped me assemble a dynamic team of high-quality educators who are ready to invest in the success of our students,” said Anderson, whose school enrolled 570 students last year and employed more than 30 teachers. “This is one of the first times I can say this: By July 25, I was fully staffed.”

Chicago Public Schools said Tuesday it is expanding its “Opportunity Schools” program to 10 more high schools, including Clark, that have high percentages of students living in poverty. Research shows schools with higher populations of poor students and students of color tend to have a harder time hiring and holding on to teachers, and often have higher concentrations of inexperienced teachers compared with majority-white schools. The district said hiring is already underway for the new crop of schools in the program.

“We are prioritizing the highest-need schools in order to make sure the professionals who work in these schools every single day have the resources — and the human-resource support outside of that — to do their best work on behalf of children,” schools chief Janice Jackson said.

The district launched its Opportunity Schools in 2016. The expansion will bring the number of participating schools to 60. The program recruits early-career teachers for jobs at high-needs school, pairs them with veteran teacher mentors, and assigns them monthly coaching and professional development sessions in small groups.

“For the first time in my professional career, I was surrounded by peers who cared about my story and wanted to learn even more,” said Marlon Henriquez, who moved to Chicago two years ago to teach at Pilsen Academy after working two years as an educator in Minnesota. “I know I am where I belong.”

About 500 teachers participate in the program, more than half of them people of color, and more than two-thirds teach subjects that have been impacted most by an ongoing teacher shortage, such as special education, according to the district.

District-provided data show that from 2017 to 2018, the program boosted the one-year retention rate of early-career teachers — that is, educators with one to three years experience — at participating schools to 67% , a 19 percentage-point improvement compared with 2016-17. At all district-run schools, early teacher retention increased from 74% to 78% during that span.

Teacher vacancy rates at participating schools also fell from 6.6% to 6% from 2016 to 2018, the district said. The rate for all district run schools grew slightly from 3.7% to 3.8% in that span.

Here are the 10 high schools joining the Opportunity Schools program:

Air Force Academy High School
Chicago Vocational Career Academy High School
Michele Clark Magnet High School
George H. Corliss High School
Edwin G. Foreman College and Career Academy
Gage Park High School
Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy
Greater Lawndale High School for Social Justice
Kelvyn Park High School
Multicultural Academy of Scholarship

According to Chicago Public Schools human resource data, of the 1,470 new teachers hired in the 2014-15 school year, only 55% still worked in the district three years later. Of the 214 new black teachers hired that year, only 51% were still working at the district by their third year, compared with 69% of Latino teachers and 53% of white teachers, who accounted for three out of every five new teachers.

The one-year retention rate for all new teachers in the 2017 fiscal year was 80 percent, but the retention rate for new black teachers was about 4 percentage points below that, the lowest among the three biggest racial groups at the district.

Help wanted: Ogden school looking for sixth principal in six years

2019-07-03T00:02:05+00:00

Running Ogden International School was a tough enough job, even before it merged with Jenner Academy for the Arts.

Now Chicago Public Schools prepares to seek the sixth principal in six years, a steady leader who can defy Ogden’s scandal-prone history and help the experiment in integration flourish.

Meeting Monday in the library at Ogden’s primary school campus on the Gold Coast, Local School Council members opened a search they hope will lead them to a special person who can temporarily take the reins after acting Principal Rebecca Bancroft’s sudden resignation last month.

“I don’t think we want to rush into just getting anybody,” council Chair Thea Kachoris-Flores said. “But I do think that we really need someone who is strong, because it’s important to have strong leadership to make sure that we continue to move forward.”

Bancroft’s resignation after eight months dealt a blow to the hopeful but contentious merger between Ogden, a diverse but relatively affluent school with a large white population, and Jenner, which had served mostly black students from low-income households in the Cabrini Green area.

A challenging school climate and high turnover in leadership have been two of the biggest threats to the integration project at Ogden, which just wrapped up Year 1. A recent district survey characterized Ogden as “partially organized,” with weak ratings in effective leadership and collaborative teachers.

While Ogden is an anomaly in some ways because of the merger, the council’s high-stakes pursuit of a strong leader offers a window into the stress and uncertainty that many schools weather during principal searches, and illustrates the challenge that principal turnover poses at the district.

About 20% of principals who responded to a 2016 survey said they were considering a new job, and half of them who had at least a year of experience reported being less satisfied than they were the previous year.

Research indicates that effective principals can drive school improvement and bolster student learning by fostering a strong school climate while engaging and empowering teachers to solve problems. But change takes time and can be hard to sustain once the catalyst has moved on to a new gig.

Nearly half of all Chicago principals have been in their role for three years or less, and only two in five have been on the job longer than five years, according to the Chicago Public Education Fund.

The council hopes to have the acting principal in place by August. But from there, things get more complicated, because the school district hasn’t concluded its disciplinary case against Ogden’s suspended principal Michael Beyer, one of the merger’s architects.

If he wins his case, he could return to the school, but if the district fires him instead, that clears the way for the council to open a principal search and eventually tender an offer to a new school leader — or keep whoever the district appoints as acting principal this summer.

On Monday, the school district appointed retired Alcott School principal David Domovic as “administrator in charge,” on a 100-day contract in lieu of hiring an acting principal, his second time in such a stint at Ogden. The principal search can’t get started in earnest until the district fills a vacancy in the next week for the school’s network chief, who will help compile a candidate pool for the council to review before the district chooses an acting principal.

At the council meeting, Domovic pledged to ensure the school continues to operate, and to help oversee filling staff vacancies.

“My position isn’t to just sit here in a chair and vegetate,” he said.

“The turnover has been tough here.”

Suspended Ogden Principal Michael Beyer.

Until recent years, Ogden had enjoyed stability in leadership — even if it was periodically tinged by drama. In 1996 Kenneth Staral took the helm, after his predecessor was shot to death by the husband of a teacher he had an affair with. Staral stayed for 17 years.

But in 2013, Staral was reassigned amid allegations that he charged $17,000 to his district credit card on school trips abroad, lavishing at famous restaurants and luxury hotels. Domovich then ran the school for a semester until January 2014, when the council hired Joshua Vanderjagt.

Six months later, Vanderjagt wanted out following accusations that Jewish students had suffered anti-Semetic bullying and that the school hadn’t done enough to stop it.

Shane Goldstein Smith was named interim principal over the summer, but left abruptly after less than a year, for a job at a New York charter school.

Michael Beyer replaced her in spring of 2015 and helped the council engineer the merger with Jenner. But last November, the district suspended him for allegedly falsifying attendance records, a charge he’s fighting via a lawsuit against the school district.

Last week, Beyer reflected on how challenging Ogden’s top job is.

“It’s too large and unwieldy,” with three campuses, 14 grade levels including pre-K, and a diverse demographic, he said. “I’d say it’s one of the most challenging schools to manage in the district, and with the merger it’s probably been the most challenging school to manage this year.”

Local School Council members on Monday declined to discuss past scandals or speculate their impact on Ogden today.

But council member Mary Schwartz said that Bancroft did a god job under pressure, stepping in at a time when there was a lot of infighting within the integrated school community. “The turnover has been tough here,” she said.

Council member Simeon Henderson said that the Ogden school community can make a principal’s job hard. It’s a high-performing school with more affluent families than in most of the schools in the district, and very engaged parents.

“I think sometimes it can be a bit much, because there’s this high standard,” he said, “and so much comes from so many different ways, it can overwhelm you.”

But Schwartz emphasized, Bancroft pushed for a few changes at Ogden that should help whoever replaces her — including a business manager and a family communication specialist to share duties at the top.

Former Acting Principal Rebecca Bancroft (standing) leads a January LSC meeting at Ogden International School.

Beyer suggested making the high school its own separate entity would ease the next principal’s burden.

“Having three campuses across pre-K to 12th grade is really setting anybody up for failure, I don’t care who it is,” said Beyer, who accepted a real estate broker job in June after the district suspended his pay.

About the next leader, Henderson said. “I think we have to find somebody who’s unbiased, who’s open minded, who has empathy, who really has the kids best interest at heart.”