CORE: The Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators
Press Statement: CPS School Grade Changes
March 10, 2010
“Today’s grade changing scandal isn’t news to those of us in the trenches, particularly in neighborhood schools. This is the illegitimate child of CPS’s dysfunction. The blame cannot be placed at teachers’ feet,” said Jesse Sharkey, Senn High School teacher and CORE member.
Karen Lewis, King College Prep teacher and CORE Co-Chair, CTU Presidential candidate, explained that, “To non-educators peering down on data sets, grade changes may look like cheating or grade inflation, but what is really at play is CPS’s failure to place teachers in schools from day one, the pressure to increase freshmen on-track numbers – no Fs in core subjects – and graduation rates, and the simple fact that because part-time and substitute teachers don’t have access to the electronic Gradebook clerks must enter their grades.”
Referring to the Sun-Times Fran Spielman’s report that, “Pressed on where the pressure to change grades is coming from, Daley said, ‘I don’t know. Ask the teacher who did it … [Schools CEO] Ron Huberman would never do that.’” Jackson Potter, CORE Co-chair calls the Mayor’s statement disingenuous. “The Mayor should know CEO Huberman’s singular focus on data to close or turnaround schools and to withhold funding is in part to blame for school staff possibly gaming the system.” Potter noted that Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago by the Chicago Consortium on School Research shows that there was a spike in illegal behavior to cheat and manufacture test results beginning in 1995, the year the Mayor took control of the schools and the inauguration of using test scores to label and punish schools.
“Let’s for once look at the top – the people charged with running our schools. Management, not teachers, is to blame. Mayor Daley was half right – he and the media should be asking teachers to identify the problems and solve them. I’ll start. Misusing data to close and threaten schools — Huberman’s performance management initiative – should stop immediately. It does little to improve teaching or learning,” said Potter.
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CORE is the reform caucus of the Chicago Teachers Union that represents rank-and-file members and the students and families they serve. The group is comprised of teachers, retired teachers and educational staff.
