New school year for Chicago brings both praise and concerns

An analysis of the trends, patterns, and challenges facing Chicago Public Schools in  2018-2019.

It’s back to school soon for Chicago Public Schools, just after the Labor Day holiday, it will, once again, be time for the bells, the smell of chalk, and the hum of fluorescent lights as the schools return to life after the annual summer break. But, the nation’s third largest school districts faces a myriad of problems, or more accurately challenges, that threaten its mission of education.

Number one is leadership - after the imprisonment of former CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett, last year, for taking bribes from a former employer for a series of dubious teacher and principle continuing education classes, and then the ethical violation of her successor, Forrest Claypool, a longtime Chicago political insider, it seems that the job is associated with criminal behavior, and ethical violations.

That was followed by another scandal, discovered in late July, of this year, with Camelot Education “to open publicly funded schools for students who’ve dropped out or are at risk of doing so,” said the Chicago Sun-Times, where Byrd-Bennett, once again, followed the same format, with bribes and payouts of $25,000 for each school that was opened with her influence; and, skirting the bidding process, said Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Nicholas Schuler.

The current occupant, Janice Jackson, is a product of CPS, and seems to be, at least on the surface, a good choice, but critics argue that many of the movements from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand picked board, were also signed off by her, as Claypool’s right hand.

While many like the idea of a homegrown executive whose own daughter is in the system, other voices are more critical: “CPS’s Executive Officers have one job: To get their talking points from the Mayor’s education people, memorize them, and repeat them at every opportunity,” Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, said in an email to Chicago Tonight.

“That was Ms. Jackson’s job as (chief education officer), and the only thing that will change as CEO is her salary.”

LaRaviere is one of Emanuel’s most vocal critics, and he headed an award winning school, some say, by breaking all of the rules as the student test scores and parental satisfaction soared. He is also running for mayor in the 2019 municipal elections.

Then, another, even more egregious investigation, this time by The Chicago Tribune which revealed the sexual abuse of  students at CPS, 523, over a nearly ten year period, from 2008 to 2017, and then shortly afterwards, another painful revelation: incidents where students had sexually violated other students; and where a majority of the perpetrators, and victims, were special needs students.

In all, as the investigation showed, there was a lack of thorough background checks, including meta checks for sex crimes, as well as violent behavior, even including the use of firearms; a situation that traumatized the students as well as their parents, by the system’s failure to protect their children.

In an eerie similarity, with the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests, it was also revealed by the school investigation, that “The Tribune found that the CPS Law Department sometimes cut confidential deals with problem educators to get them to resign. To other potential employers, the district provides dates of service but no details about sex abuse investigations — a practice that puts students in other districts at risk.”

School Closings

In 2013 the mayor infamously shuttered 50 schools in mostly black and brown neighborhoods,  who, of a total population of 371,000 students, are also the dominant student population. Angered residents, both black and white, protested, and as sociologists have noted, schools are the cornerstone of city neighborhoods, and their closing represents a further disinvestment in those neighborhoods, many of whom are on the South and West sides of Chicago, long neglected areas for economic and social opportunities.

WTTW ‘s program Chicago Tonight noted, at the end of last year, that “Chicago Public Schools’ five-year moratorium on school closings runs out in 2018, and a new slate of schools is already on the chopping block.

“Among those are four Englewood-area high schools – Hope, Harper, Robeson and TEAM Englewood – that would be shuttered in favor of a new $85 million school that would open in 2019. But those existing schools will shut down in 2018, leaving a gap year between them and the yet-to-be-constructed facility.

The proposed actions will also include the long-discussed Ogden-Jenner merger and a plan to convert the existing National Teachers Academy elementary into a high school, while shipping current NTA students over to South Loop Elementary beginning in 2019.”

Changing the award winning elementary school created an uproar, when it was announced last month, and “NTA parents have protested that move, and students at Harper have held sit-ins to voice opposition to their school’s closure.”

For Emanuel, critics, such as Chris Kennedy, former gubernatorial candidate, this represents, part and parcel, of the gentrification of some of the city’s most developing, and desirable neighborhoods; underscoring, and accelerating, the trend of city living especially by affluent whites, with school age children.

“NTA students would move into buildings controlled by the nearby South Loop Elementary School, which will take over NTA’s attendance boundary. That plan continues to face stiff opposition from a well-organized group of NTA parents and teachers.

No one is going to argue integration is not a good thing. Integration is a great thing,” said Elisabeth Greer, NTA’s school council chair, after a protest . . . “  and she clarified her statement by saying, “But there is natural integration, and then there is, essentially, forced busing — which brings two communities together by force.”

An elected school board to the rescue?

Hovering in the background of many of these controversies is the desire to have an elected school board, as many critics, lawmakers and parents feel that removing power from Emanuel's hand can advance CPS into some level of parity, if not equality.

Sponsoring a bill to do just that is House Rep. Robert Martwick who was quoted as saying that, “The thing about 2017 is our toes were at the goal line,” he said. “It’s literally hammering out two little legislative details and then the bill sits on the governor’s desk.”

Growing unease headed into legislative victory as “The House this past spring approved a bill eliminating mayoral control in favor of an elected Board of Education on a 105-9 vote. The Senate then followed suit with its own amended version, passed on a 53-2 vote.”

Segueing next into structural reforms, “This legislation would divide the city into specific voting regions and grant each the power to elect its own board representative. In one version of the bill, a 12-member commission would be tasked with creating 14 district zones, each of which could then elect its own school board member beginning in 2023,” and “A board president would also be chosen through a citywide at-large race.”

Former alderman, and now associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago at Illinois, Dick Simpson wrote last year that, ““there are problems. First, if we held school board elections citywide rather than by district, we could end up with racial imbalance. Ninety percent of the students in the system are black and Hispanic but most of the elected board could be white. Second, with more than 600 schools to supervise, it is unclear how much any school board -- appointed or elected -- can do to really govern the system. Third, when we had elections of other local agencies like Model Cities Chicago, the political machine controlled the outcome in order to control the patronage jobs. The Democratic Party could control the outcome of school board elections as well.”

That might support the age-old adage to be careful of what you ask for, and as I previously noted, in my now shuttered column for The Examiner, in our later interview with Simpson, he said that the probability of political party domination still exists, but also might be highlighted, even with district wide elections, and “some of these county board districts are huge, and many people may not even know their county board members.”

Simpson also cautioned that there could be an increased role for different participants whether they are parents, teachers unions, or others, “all with different ideological positions, and each with their own slate, and from their own perspective.”

Noting that while an elected board is not a perfect panacea, especially for quick solutions for CPS indebtedness, Simpson concluded that, “on balance we need a positive start [towards change] and no solution, no financial solution, or representation problem can be solved easily.” 

Finances: New budget shows hope

Money, or lack of, is another critical aspect of survival, for CPS, and after heavy borrowing ay high interest charges, many were ready including bond agencies to downgrade CPS’s financial outlook.

This past April, “The best news came from Wall Street, where the three firms that rate CPS debt now have all brightened their view of its future,”  noted Crain’s Chicago Business.

“Last fall, it was Fitch that moved CPS debt up a notch from B+ to BB-. Kroll followed by changing its outlook . . .  S&P moved its outlook from stable to positive, an indication, according to the firm, that there is a 1 in 3 chance of a ratings upgrade within the next year.

S&P based its shift on what bondholders like to see: increased liquidity and ability to cover debt. It specifically noted the $220 million in additional state aid CPS is getting this year under a budget vetoed by Gov. Bruce Rauner but overridden by lawmakers; $130 million in increased property taxes to pay soaring pension costs; $79 million in other new state aid; and $80 million from the city, mostly for assumed security costs.”

As a result of those "notable wins," CPS cash flow has "notably improved," S&P said, and the Board of Education has been able to diversify the purchasers of its tax-anticipation notes, "a positive sign given its reliance on lines of credit to support operating and debt service expenses,” with its new budget for FY 2019.

In 2017, the district had “budgeted roughly $79 million just to pay the expected interest costs associated with that borrowing,” noted the Chicago Tribune nearly two years ago, to this date.

Now Crain’s reports the good news that money to shore up pensions is not coming from the same pile used for teacher salaries, supplies and lunch programs, due to the groundbreaking bill, for statewide education funding

The clue to that confidence was the increase in a tax levee from 0.383 to 0.567, that in, and of itself, represented an increase from 2017, and which mostly affected affluent homeowners.

"We're in a completely different place than we were," says Chicago Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown. "We are at a point where the money (for pensions) comes from dedicated revenue sources that do not cannibalize operating revenues."

Not so fast, say others

Critics noted that the foundations of that statement are not solid, and are, in fact, based on projection: “For instance, the projections assume that growth in pension expenditures will be limited to 2 percent a year. While newly hired state workers, indeed, will get smaller pensions, assuming 2 percent average annual growth could be a bit optimistic, given that annuitants now get a guaranteed 3 percent compounded annual cost-of-living increase.

Continuing in that vein, “At least debatable is the assumption that the city's property tax base over the next 20 years will increase at least 4 percent a year. Brown says Chicago historically has easily passed that mark, but when it comes to real estate values, there are no guarantees.”

The 2019 budget does have its advocates, however, cautious that they are, and leading the pack is the non-partisan Civic Federation of Chicago who in their press release praised the budget, the first under Jackson, and said: “Fortunately, the Chicago Public Schools’ finances have begun to stabilize following Springfield’s much-needed overhaul of the decades-old education funding formula—though the work is far from over,” said  President Laurence Msall. “Unfortunately, because Illinois continues to languish in its own financial crisis, State funding will remain a source of uncertainty for CPS and other districts.”

“While CPS’ credit ratings are still below investment grade, improved outlooks from ratings agencies and upgrades from Moody’s and Fitch translate to reduced interest costs for the District’s debt issuances. . .. At the end of FY 2018, CPS is projecting its first operating surplus in several years.

Despite an improved financial position, the Federation has concerns that the nearly $1 billion capital budget will require CPS to generate $750 million in additional capital funding, the majority of which will come from issuing long-term debt on top of the District’s $8.2 billion in outstanding debt.”

After the nearly two years absence of a state budget, Illinois now has an unpaid backlog of $14.3 billion dollars, making state contributions uncertain.

“Msall is also concerned that CPS will borrow $750 million of the nearly $1 billion it plans to spend on capital projects announced  . . . That’s on top of $8.2 billion in outstanding debt — plus the public has no way of knowing which capital projects get priority, according to the 96-page analysis,” said the paper.

Finally, this extremely cautionary note, “CPS’ finances have barely reached more stable footing; this is not the right time to issue massive amounts of additional debt with only a portion going to the most critical facility needs,” said Msall, in reference to Jackson’s open letter touting the budget, where she said, that, by priority, it would help those with “the greatest need.”

Reactions

The reaction from the Chicago Teachers Union was swift, and stark. In part, their statement said: “Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey responded to Mayor Rahm Emanuel touting CPS’ new bond rating as a sign of "progress," while neighborhood schools confront desperate shortages of resources and neglected facilities.”

“The brutal truth is that this mayor is still starving Black and Brown schools across the city in every way, shape and form. The Chicago Teachers Union has advocated tirelessly in Springfield and City Hall for new revenue, and that advocacy has a real impact. We’ve succeeded in winning passage in the state legislature of a vastly more equitable school funding formula and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds, while removing pension payments from CPS’ operating funds.

We’ve forced the mayor to dip into his TIF slush fund to pay for public education. Yet conditions in the vast majority of our schools, for the vast majority of our students, effectively remain ‘junk’ because this mayor will not spend revenue equitably, and refuses to create sustainable sources of revenue that will guarantee our students the quality of education they deserve.”

Noting who the losers are, in the absence of a varied and sustainable revenue stream, the final question is: “Who ends up paying? Chicago taxpayers, including our teachers and paraprofessionals, and most critically, the Black and Brown children who make up 90 percent of our students.”

"In 2018 the district was rocked by the news in an investigative report that it had neglected special education students, and now despite the injection of $32 billion, in the new budget, the shortage of trained special education students is not enough to fill its mission, toward that student population.

The Sun-Times noted that “Chris Yun, Access Living’s education policy analyst, also questioned when the school system would be able to fill those positions given Illinois’ chronic shortage of special ed teachers. After CPS officials announced in January 2018 that they’d hire 65 more special education positions, they filled only 25 of them by that May,” she said.

“We have one month to go, one month to fill those positions by the 2019 school year,” Yun said. “I don’t think they can fill it.”

Declining Enrollment

Another glaring aspect is the decrease in student enrollment, attributed to many black families leaving Chicago, either for Northwest Indiana, or the South, or even nearby suburbs, or else to charter, or even other private schools, and, there is now a call from conservative lawmakers to decrease the budget.

Complicating matters is that CPS has played some old-fashioned back door politicking to either get public support for closings in exchange to new schools, such as the one in Englewood, but paradoxically opened 15 alternative schools were in areas that saw declined enrollment; and some are blaming the Emanuel administration, in an attempt to avoid confrontation about closings, or to even avert another teachers strike, at the beginning of the new school year.

Adding to the conundrum is the political blowback from conservatives, as seen in the following statement from the Illinois Policy Institute: “The underutilization problem has only grown worse since then. CPS has lost at least 20,000 students since 2013. And as of 2015, 50 CPS high schools were considered underutilized, with nearly three dozen of them less than half full.

With the school-closing moratorium set to expire in 2018, CPS officials should be looking for ways to combine and close the most underutilized schools – while also focusing on minimizing the disruption to students and parents. But there is little chance district or city officials will do that. With so much new state funding rolling in, they’ll have no reason to endure the wrath of Chicagoans by making necessary school closures.

So the moratorium will continue, unofficially. And state taxpayers will effectively pay for CPS to keep its underutilized and inefficient schools open.”

By the best accounting, 32,000 students left CPS in 2013, with a result of 370,000 total enrollment, down from a high of 580,000 in 1970.

In 2016, there were layoffs, and they “had been expected since the district announced last week that enrollment on the 10th day of classes was down almost 14,000 students from last year. The layoffs come on top of the more than 500 teachers and 500 school-based staff members let go in August, a move also attributed to enrollment declines.”

In 2018, the die was cast and “The roughly 371,000 students enrolled at CPS this year is a 15 percent decrease compared with the year 2000, when enrollment topped 435,000, according to CPS data. And there’s no sign the numbers will trend upward soon:  The district projects about 20,000 fewer students to enroll in the next three years. The trends mirror population drops in Chicago, which has about 182,000 fewer residents than it did 18 years ago, according to Census data. More than 220,000 black residents have left since the year 2000.”

What seems to be disinvestment in the South and West Sides, angers mayoral and CPS critics, pending an increase in gentrification, read white gentrification, and that is when schools would be built, with prominence given to charter schools.

In other areas charter, or alternative, schools are built to siphon off the existing enrollment, and close certain neighborhood schools, as they are either edging themselves to gentrification, or on the edge of a nearby neighborhood that is.

A case in point is that the Uptown neighborhood on the city’s North Side, a long desired spot for gentrification, is now getting closer to that goal: They received the extra push when CPS closed the lovely old Graeme Stewart school; and its subsequent redevelopment into expensive condominiums, despite that there remains a substantial student population, but again, being mostly black and brown, these students are on the losing side.

78 percent of CPS students are low income, giving them little bargaining power, and support from lawmakers, in the face of mayoral domination, cannot afford to offer them protection.

Chalkbeat.org an educational advocacy website had this to say recently: “Despite the criticism, and despite declines in city population and enrollment, CPS said it is taking a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach to creating new schools and academic opportunities. In a statement to Chalkbeat Chicago, CPS defended its decision to open new schools, despite enrollment declines, by citing community demand. And CPS CEO Janice Jackson told a room of business and nonprofit executives at the City Club of Chicago on Monday, “we can’t do great work without investing” — and not just in school staff, but in buildings themselves.

Critics reading between the lines note that the investment seems lopsided and that this plan, like others may be less than what the students need, but what CPS wants. It also speaks volumes of what the 2019 school year will bring to eager students on the first day of school.