It has been 3 months since my last post to this blog, although in the beginning of the school year I maintained a blog about dealing with the demeaning experience of being a displaced tenured teacher working as a substitute teacher. I've also written several editorials about the Chicago Board of Education and the CEO Arne Duncan's decision to dismiss the entire staff of Harper (except for the newly placed incompetent administration), which in effect blamed the systemic Central Office neglect of Harper, its inner city impoverishment (not the least of which has been academic poverty), and its subsequent failure to progress (acceptable yearly progress based on NCLB) on the teachers. Every time I read an editorial praising the work Arne Duncan did as Chicago Public Schools' CEO, I had to respond with what I believe is the truth about his success.

In an Edutopia article, Reform Starts Now: Obama Pics Arne Duncan, I commented:

"I am not encouraged by Obama's choice for Secretary of Education. Based on my experiences under Arne Duncan's leadership, I had my school, which was on probation, but which had made significant improvements, backslide to become the worst high school in the city under 3 successive principals placed in the school by Mr. Duncan. The creation of magnet schools and academies had drawn the most academically capable and ambitious students out of our feeder elementary schools, leaving us the most challenged and at-risk students, and an enrollment of 30-35% special needs students.

Instead of looking at our students and what our school needed, Mr. Duncan used a "one size fits all" policy, which closed our vocational education program and pushed a college prep. curriculum. At the same time, social promotion became the unofficial practice again, and we started to receive students who were several years below their grade level, and if we failed students, were asked to justify it with the remediation plans we implemented for each an every student who failed. When we continued to show no improvement in the standardized tests on this uneven playing field, Mr. Duncan fired the entire staff, hiring almost an entirely new staff, calling the school a "turn-around" school.

As a teacher very much affected by this policy, I admit I am biased, but I believe such a drastic process broadcasts a negative message about the very dedicated teachers who work in extremely challenging schools. It punished all of us who were dedicated to the inner-city community where we had taught for years, and in many ways successful, because it assessed us on the basis of standardized tests and school attendance.

But let me end this on a positive note: if Mr. Duncan has learned any lesson from his "one size fits all" educational policy, it should be that with the assistance of technology, every student can have an individualized educational plan, because everyone has special needs. I would suggest that Mr. Duncan spend some time with the ed-tech visionaries who frequent this and other similar blog, wiki, and ning educational networks. I would send Arne back to school for some professional development. Unfortunately, I'm afraid he may believe the spin about all of the great successes he has had, that has been shoved down our national throats."

And in an Edutopia poll question: Do you think education will be better off in four years? I responded:

"My experiences teaching for the Chicago Public Schools for the last 32 years leaves me feeling somewhat pessimistic about the future of the schools. In this city, politics and patronage usually supplants educational experience and knowledge. Although Arne Duncan is personable and has a clean record, under his tenure as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, we have experienced more school closings and replacement of entire staff than actual reform or addressing individual school needs. It has been a policy of one size fits all, but within the context of an uneven playing field created by Central Office policies and the inequities from neighborhood socio-economics. In order to keep white and middle class families from fleeing to suburban and private schools, Chicago has created magnet schools and academies that have selective enrollment, leaving neighborhood schools with less motivated students that have less academic skills and that cannot filter out low achieving students. Yet every school is assessed by the same standardized tests. Most of the "failing" schools continue to fail, so the policy now is to close the schools and fire all the teachers. In Chicago, we hear that 50% of the public schools will be privatized by 2015. If this is the direction our new Secretary of Education plans for the schools nationally, I'm afraid it's the death knell for the public schools. I don't believe this is the type of reform that will create better schools and higher achieving students."

A Time Magazine editorial called Arne Duncan an "Apostle of Reform", which I responded to in my Classroom2.0 Ning site blog. I have been writing about my subjective observations as it relates to school reform, because it impacted on me and forced me to retire from CPS before I had planned to. I have engaged in listserv dialogue, specifically at wwwedu, a Yahoo educational group, responding to Duncan's desire to flip NCLB and to scale up, and have tried to maintain my objectivity.

It is the first week of summer vacation, and other than a few years where I taught English in summer school or assisted with technology more recently at Harper's Bridges Program, I look forward to reading and traveling and preparing for next school year. Except now I am retired from the Chicago Public Schools and will be exploring my options in other school districts as a teacher and/or consultant. The adventure continues....