Chicago Mayor Calls For "Brainiac High"

theodp writes "In a private lunch with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, BusinessWeek's Michael Arndt was taken aback by the mayor's candid monologues against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure of public schools — Chicago's included — to adequately train kids today in technology, math, and science. Among the education fixes Daley said he's contemplating are a fifth year of high school and elite math and science academies for Chicago's brainiest students. Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is."

Comments

Schools vs. Killing brown people

[koreaman]

Thank god at least one elected official has some sense of priorities...

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Actually, his message hints at an end to the "social promotion" and "everyone is equal" memes that has plagued the system. If he thinks he can do that with more money, then by all means please. We just had an article about Jaime Escalante who was a pioneer of that braniac concept, who was forced out by the union for promoting "inequality" (especially among teachers). He tried again at other public schools but was unable to hire the quality of teacher he needed for his program to work.... apparently "those who can" got paid big money for "doing".

Of course, Daley being Daley, I'm sure the money will quickly disappear into people's pockets never to be seen again.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[introspekt.i]

But, but, some people are more equal than others!

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[PopeRatzo]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money. It does take money to teach kids. The more the better.

People point to public schools and say "See, they spend more money and don't get better results" than private schools.

What those people don't take into account is that private schools self-select their students based on social and economic measures, and start off with better students. Further, unlike the public schools, private schools are not required to take the most difficult cases: students with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, behavioral problems. Public schools MUST take those students, and that's where a huge amount of the funding in public schools goes.

Anybody who parrots the right-wing talking point that the problem is teachers unions has never taught in both public and private schools. I taught in both systems, back when I was working my way through grad-school in the 80s, and was on the school board for both my daughter's k-8 and high schools. She went to public schools here in Chicago and got a first-rate education (she's in grad school now). Chicago is supposedly "ground zero" for a school system that is dysfunctional because of the teachers' union, and I can tell you from direct experience that's not the problem.

The problems are many, but at the top are funding, shitty parenting, a growing socially and economically-impoverished underclass (thank you Ronald Reagan) and a society that is increasingly anti-education (thank you, Fox News).

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[$RANDOMLUSER]

This is Daley, he'll say anything to get more votes the idiots who live in Chicago.

Perhaps if he had his way, you and your ilk would be able to troll in complete, comprehensible sentences.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[russotto]

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money.

There are, however, such things as schools that will not do a better job educating kids if given more money.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Ant P.]

indoctrinated, trained, and equipped in Afghanistan

By whom?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Attila Dimedici]

No, I point to public schools that spend more money than other public schools and get worse results. I am pretty sure if you take the top 10 schools in spending per pupil the majority will be among the bottom 10 schools as far as actually educating students goes. Washington DC school district is among the worst schools in the country and yet they spend more per pupil than just about any other public school district in the country.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money.

There are, however, such things as schools that will not do a better job educating kids if given more money.

It always amazes me that this isn't more obvious. Doubling the salaries of poor quality 30k teachers does not produce good quality 60k teachers, but the same poor teachers with inflated salaries. Unions contribute to this in that they seek to limit teacher turnover from year to year. So in a school that only averages 2-3% turnover year to year, doubling salaries will produce results, but only after a decade or so. In contrast, were the old school closed down and a new one opened with the new salary rate, and management given the ability to deny roll-over from the previous school, I can imagine the result would be quite different.

(why is "brown people" a part of the parent? It's silly and distracting.

5th year?

[sanosuke001]

How about let the smart kids finish the required classes and go to college a year early? Or at least work on college classes their fourth year (like a community college set of classes for free given to them by the high school). Making them wait another year seems cruel when they can do the same coursework in college and actually further their education instead of taking classes that will probably be required in college anyway, effectively making them take those classes twice.

Re:5th year?

[salesgeek]

Nah... they should go to school for and extra year to get the smart ground out of them.

Re:5th year?

[russotto]

How about let the smart kids finish the required classes and go to college a year early?

Where's the money in that for Daley?

Re:5th year?

[pooh666]

The practical effect of this *should* be just that the kids get a free year of collage on the state under the guise of another year of high school. Sounds like a great deal to me. So not so cruel. Many kids manage to cut close to a year off as it is with advanced classes. If this opens up those chances to a few more, then great as well.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

This is a very valid point.

I taught HS science for 5 years. The only class I really liked teaching was Physics, because it lacked a hardcore, "test them to see if they learned the items on the list" metric. I could spend 2/3 of the time teaching, and 1/3 of the time letting my students "run wild", applying what they had learned, and generally just screwing around and LEARNING stuff. No, not the stuff on the checklist.

If this was a year before college where students could just play, use what they had learned, create things, and explore the world, then it would be FANTASTIC! We'd be producing some really amazing scientists and engineers. If it's just another year of HS, I agree with you. We'd just be grinding the smart and ambition out of them.

Re:5th year?

[fermion]

I feel it really depends on the available funding and teachers, as well as maturity of the student. 'Smart' kids can finish school early, but they don't necessarily have the self discipline to succeed in an environment where they are not being coached by an adult, being parent or teacher or whatever. For some kids, an extra year before college might provide time to grow up and become ready for rigorous work. In addition this year can be used to model how to succeed in college, especially in a natural science, math, engineering and architecture.

For the student in the last year of high school, at least those that are college material, they are mostly taking near college level courses, often for dual credit. of course the two problems with this system is that high school teacher does not, in many cases, have the freedom to grade on a college level, and most students are not going to apply the appropriate effort, as most students see the last year as a time to relax rather than engage in a big finish. As such I see the last year as a time to give them a preview of what is expected in college. Though the may be required in college, more college prep work may help the up to 25% freshman drop out rate.

Here is where the Mayor is on point. There are schools that teach to the college level, but these are mostly for the top 10% of the population. These schools are in urban and suburban districts, and are cost effective because students are bussed in from 20 miles away to make up the student body of much less than 500. These will only serve the highly motivated student who will live on six hours of sleep due to homework and travel time. The question is how we deliver comparable opportunities to the local school. This requires money and trained teachers. Equipment like $50,000 computer labs with large format and 3D printers, pro 3D rendering and design software, pro circuit and aerospace simulation software. A grand of consumables per student. Funding these for the top 10% of motivated students is easy. Funding these for everyone else requires a redirection of funds. But without the funds, kids that do not have parents of friends with such equipment simply aren't ready for the required work.

Re:5th year?

[Metasquares]

1/3 of the time letting my students "run wild", applying what they had learned, and generally just screwing around and LEARNING stuff. No, not the stuff on the checklist.

If this was a year before college where students could just play, use what they had learned, create things, and explore the world, then it would be FANTASTIC! We'd be producing some really amazing scientists and engineers.

Bingo! Someone else who gets it. The message we're sending right now is "if you're smart we're going to make you work harder" when it should be closer to "Hey, look at how cool this is! Try it out! I can tell you more about it if you're interested..."

Seriously, lots of intelligent people have this amazing propensity to learn about stuff on their own and many have fun doing it. As educators we should be assisting them in this mission rather than trying to brutally suppress their interests in favor of some canned curriculum.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

The problem is that the beancounters can't "measure" this. In this day and age, "accountability" is the keyword. Standardized tests give numbers. You can compare those to other numbers. Letting students actually do shit and create things doesn't results in numbers you can compare to other numbers.

That's the real issue.

CPS

[crumbz]

The Chicago Public Schools are laying off teachers and closing schools due to budget constraints. Howver, despite da mayor's feelings on the issue, I am not sure that dumping more cash into the the arguably bloated CPS bureaucracy would result in students receiving a better education. At some point, parental responsibility ensuring that students actually attend the schools and complete the days assignments might have a greater impact.

Re:CPS

[thbb]

How is this "Insightful"? The USA are really doomed if its educated population actually believes this shit.

And how exactly, do you want to increase "parental responsibility"?

You want to set up a mandatory adult "schooling" education program? With what funds and who do you put in charge of creating this program, which would, admitedly, be a world premiere?

Or perhaps, you have the idea of sanctioning the parents when their children don't do their homework or don't attend school? This has been tried: it merely results in even more children dropping out of schools and even poorer education. Notwithstanding the creation of ghettoized populations cut back from any chances of ever raising out of poverty and poor education.

Even though it's costly, pouring more money at schools, providing teachers with the means to do their job well is the only method that has a track record of actually raising the education levels.

Yes, maybe the CPS' bureaucracy is choking the attempts of the few remaining dedicated teachers to do their job properly. In any case, I doubt it is much worse than the US Army bureaucracy, which is completely sold to the military industry.

Throwing more money in the school system provides the ability to hire more talents (at the management and operational levels), motivate the education personnel and, ultimately, raise the education levels globally. As for the details, let the teachers and their administration, who are in daily contact with the population they have to deal with, decide how it's better done.

Why add a 5th year?

[commodore64_love]

It would just be wasted as a "babysitting service" like the first 4 years of high school typically are. The amount of time my teachers spend goofing-off in class, not teaching anything, was ridiculous. When I got to college the professors taught the same material in about one-quarter the time. - Take the existing 4 years and concentrate them. Instead of Algebra 1 and 2, make it a combined course. Then take the resulting extra year and teach some "tech oriented" like Programming.

Final thought - I wonder where Mayor Daley thinks he'll get the money? You can't get more juice out of an already-squeezed orange. A wiser course is to hold costs at present levels, and make sure the 12 years in school are maximized to full potential rather than wasted.

(But of course "I'll give your kids an extra 13th year" will probably sell better to voters.)

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[Nerdfest]

We had 4 and 5 year paths through high school in Ontario up until fairly recently and I think it worked quite well. The 5th year in the advanced path had lots of science and math courses (physics, chemistry, calculus, functions and relations, algebra) as well as the usual English, history, etc. I'm still not sure why it was cancelled, the class sizes were always big enough (20-30).

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[RobinH]

I was in the 5 year program, and I think the problem is that when you got to University, you're in first year with a bunch of other students who may not be from Ontario, so they may not have taken the 5th year of high school. The idea of the 5 year program was to help subsidize post-secondary education by teaching introductory level university courses to university-bound students without them having to pay tuition or live away from home, etc. I agree that it originally worked that way in principle, but once students started going to university out-of-province, the universities in Ontario had to assume you didn't have those courses, and universities outside of Ontario assumed nobody had them either, so you just ended up with a lot of repetition in first year.

Specifically I remember thinking that calculus was really easy in first year, but I was in class with people who hadn't done integration in high school. Things got harder again when everyone was up to speed.

I agreed with removing the 5th year. Not because it was a bad idea in principle, but because it was flawed in practice.

Too Dumb To Protest

[b4upoo]

Infested with the lies of corporatism and capitalism our general public is far too dumb to make intelligent demands for education. It
has reached the sad point where one supposed leader has remarked that education should be run like a business. That translates rather
  easily into giving students as little as possible while taking as much from the public as they can get.
              Limit summer holidays to three weeks in total. Stop honoring lesser holidays. Get rid of teacher work days. Make school a 8 am to
5 pm activity with half days on Saturday. Get rid of equivalency diplomas and be quick to permanently expel students who either show
little interest in academic life or have behavior problems. Let the parents pay for private schooling for the expelled.
              In essence every student should know that endless help is at hand for excellence but endless rejection and failure are also very real and immediate consequences. Make courses just hard enough so that some good students can not pass them.
              Be certain that Texas has no influence over text books. And isolate schools from parental influence or complaints. Pay teachers as if they were professionals in the same sense that doctors or lawyers or CPAs get paid.
              That will do the trick. Do less and we will serve foreign masters.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[Ironchew]

Lots of good points, but some seem unnecessarily and impractically harsh.

Stop honoring lesser holidays.

Which ones are the important holidays, and how can you justify those in an impartial manner?

...be quick to permanently expel students who either show little interest in academic life or have behavior problems.

Sounds like one-strike-you're-out to me. Suspensions and counseling should make things clear the first or second time, and you can consider expulsions afterward. Having little interest in academic life is relatively normal, otherwise everybody would be scholars. Not bothering to make a minimal effort suggests a problem.

In essence every student should know that endless help is at hand for excellence but endless rejection and failure are also very real and immediate consequences. Make courses just hard enough so that some good students can not pass them.

This is utterly impractical and it sounds a little vindictive. Set the bar so that some good students are eternally unable to pass any of their courses? Intellectual improvement is the point of going to school, and there should be help for students who have the determination to pass a course.

Be certain that Texas has no influence over text books.

Care to be a little more specific? I'm sure there are many intelligent professors in Texas that publish adequate material for the subject(s) at hand.
Though I agree with most of the other stuff. Education should be a higher priority in the United States than our military prowess.

No, it's backlash against the 60s and...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the country doesn’t have enough money for better schools or job retaining, he went on, is that it is spending hundreds of billions a year on war. This isn’t what the U.S. should stand for, he added. He also wondered where the public outrage is. Back when his father was Chicago’s mayor, he recalled, thousands of people would routinely take to the streets to protest the Vietnam War. Nowadays, he said, there are no demonstrations—people shrug off war and say if enlistees want to go off and risk their lives, well, that’s their choice.

First, a lot of it, I think, is some sort of backlash against the 60s and calling kids that had no choice to go to war "baby killers" and horseshit like that. Many of our boys coming back from Viet Nam were treated like shit for no good reason.

Secondly, it's the new patriotic sentiment. We got caught with our pants down on 9/11 and folks are pretty steamed about it still - especially the older folks who grew up with a secure and invincible America. There are also the folks who just like the fact that the US is "asserting" its power. Personally, I think power should be used sparingly and only when absolutely needed because others will:
not be afraid or respectful
and consider us to be bullies instead of beacons of freedom.

Third, there's a lot of apathy. Just what will protests do? What can you expect? There have been protests since the beginning and nothing has come of it an many protesters were harassed by folks - see #2.

Forth, there isn't the news coverage like we had in Nam. No stories with the soldier's coffins coming home. Hardly any battlefield coverage. And the economy is showing everything. So, of course there's no outrage. Folks are worried about paying their bills.

If they're smart kids...

[icebrain]

...then they don't need another year of high school. Off to college with them.

Simply dumping more money into education does not make it better.

Buying all this "technology" stuff is a waste of money if it's not implemented right. You don't need a computer to learn basic subjects.

Paying bad teachers more doesn't make them teach better. There are good teachers out there who deserve more for what they put into their jobs, and plenty more people who would make great teachers but won't take that big a pay cut from their current jobs in science, engineering, etc.

Similarly, elementary schools don't need two "counselors" each making $70k+. High schools don't need "career counselors" making $90k. And the school board doesn't need six figures (hell, no elected official does). Stop wasting money on administration and get some better teachers.

Hire some former drill instructors to fix discipline problems. Yes, your little deviant brat who "would never do anything bad" might get his feelings hurt a little bit, but maybe he'll finally get his shit straight and go on to be a decent member of society.

Spend some money and get some real scientists and engineers to teach. Teach hard science and math to the kids. Let's try to stop the reverence for idiocy while we can.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[sco08y]

Paying bad teachers more doesn't make them teach better. There are good teachers out there who deserve more for what they put into their jobs, and plenty more people who would make great teachers but won't take that big a pay cut from their current jobs in science, engineering, etc.

Similarly, elementary schools don't need two "counselors" each making $70k+. High schools don't need "career counselors" making $90k. And the school board doesn't need six figures (hell, no elected official does). Stop wasting money on administration and get some better teachers.

I'll be up front and admit that I have no idea how much teachers and administrators should be paid. However, I know that if someone wrote the same thing about IT people, we'd be pointing out that if you don't offer a decent salary, you're guaranteed to get crap people.

Hire some former drill instructors to fix discipline problems. Yes, your little deviant brat who "would never do anything bad" might get his feelings hurt a little bit, but maybe he'll finally get his shit straight and go on to be a decent member of society.

Understanding how the recruiting process works might dispel the notion that some guy screaming at people can turn "deviants" into good citizens.

First off, the Army gets to be pretty picky about who it lets in. They can screen out a lot of physical and mental disorders that few employers are allowed to screen. And felonies are right out, whereas schools pretty much have to teach kids even if they've been expelled from other schools.

Now, my experience was combat arms, so this may not be as universal in the Army as it should be. But even if only at an abstract level, we understood that the stuff we were doing could get us or our buddies killed, which becomes pretty concrete when you're dealing with heavy weapons. Further, there was a real sense of camaraderie, and the feeling that we were doing something truly worthwhile. I was older than others, but I thought that even for teenagers they were pretty damned good about paying attention, even when no one was looking over their shoulders.

Finally, our drill sergeants (drill instructor is the Marine term) had gone through everything we were going through. Just in case they hadn't, in drill sergeant school they got to be treated like brand new privates. So the younger guys especially looked up to them and tried to emulate them.

None of those three factors are in play in a school. The bottom line is that parents aren't going to listen to any erudite arguments as to why some guy is yelling at their precious baby, they're just going hire a lawyer and sue the school into submission.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[russotto]

I'll be up front and admit that I have no idea how much teachers and administrators should be paid. However, I know that if someone wrote the same thing about IT people, we'd be pointing out that if you don't offer a decent salary, you're guaranteed to get crap people.

That's because IT doesn't have unions assuring that performance and pay are orthogonal. Also I think GP is implying that the "counselor" positions he mentioned are entirely superfluous, not merely overpaid.

As long as the system works the way it does, throwing money at the schools won't work. As soon as more money might be available, the unions will smell it and go on strike until they get it. And everyone else with a pet project within the system will grab for a cut too. Net result: more money being spent for the same people resulting in the same results. And maybe a new library (but don't count on actual books) with some politically powerful person's name on it.

Re:More money?

[sjames]

To be perfectly honest, we would be better off digging a big hole, tossing the money in and then covering it over than spending it on war. Unlike the never ending wars including the war on [demon of the day], throwing the money down a big hole will create jobs and can be stopped at any time when we think of something more worthwhile to spend it on. It would have the side benefit of not making the rest of the world hate us as much as war and not alienating as many of our own citizens as the war on drugs does.

Given that, throwing the money at schools and seeing what sticks can hardly do worse.

Outstanding chutzpa!

[Bearhouse]

Not THE Richard M. Daley, from the outstanding bunch of politicos who have shaped Chicago's history for the last 50 years?
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daley_family
Reap what you sow, then bitch about it...what amazing hypocrisy.

We already have this for brainiac kids...

[ducomputergeek]

It's called college.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this post serious? Because if we're speaking seriously, every single sentence is absolutely wrong. Except maybe the "brainy kids are treated terribly by their peers", which is only true until college.

Re:More money?

[pluther]

Good questions.
And where would answers possibly be found. Oh, gods, if only there were an article linked from that summary!
Or... and I know this is crazy talk here... but, what if the summary itself mentioned something other than billions of dollars!

money from wars?

[phantomfive]

Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added

Right. I'll tell you, I've heard so many times people say, "we could easily pay for X if we weren't spending money on wars" that if all those things people have in mind got funded, the money would be spent twice over. I don't know where the money would go if we stopped fighting wars, probably to cover medical/social security expenses, but Mayor Daley is very low on the priority list for recipients of the money.

wondering where the public outrage is

Where it is? It's everywhere. Outrage is the American national pasttime. Aren't there tea parties in Chicago? I mean, doesn't he watch TV? Every news program you watch has some segment trying to make people outraged. What we need is less outrage, not more, and more rational thought. I will happy when Americans realize outrage really doesn't help (or maybe they already are, maybe mayor Daley is noticing that). Of course politicians like outrage, it makes people easier to manipulate.

5th F#@!% year?

[Bai jie]

Why would we want to send them to school for another year when the four they already are forced into are a waste of time? Most college educated people I know will admit that they learned more their first semester of college than they did in four years of High School. How will another year of crappy education help? It'll only delay their real education. I say shorten High School to 2 years and make it into a preparatory school for either getting a trade or going to college. Take the extra money saved by not running a four year high school and funnel it into making higher education cheaper to get access to. This will have kids done with school by 16, when most of them really should start thinking about how to take care of themselves.

Re:Missed the mark

[segmond]

You can't be serious.

Once upon a time, there was not any job that really required science, math and technology skills? Go back to 1850.

So I suppose we should not have taught them. Do you think the job comes before the skills or the skills come before the job?

Frankly. There are more than enough jobs that require math, science, and technology skills. It's 2010. We are no longer in the industrial age, we are in the tech age. Even if people don't work in the tech fields, they will be able to apply their skills using technology. We are at the point where physicists, chemists, biologists are needing to know how to program to dig in into their work. Do you think it doesn't apply to other's in different fields? Please!

Jobs will be created when we know we have people with the needed skills.
It's when there aren't enough people with the skills that you need that we hesitate to create jobs because training is expensive!

Re:Missed the mark

[T Murphy]

At my highschool there wasn't a real problem between smart students and the rest of the school. I mean geeks still tended to hang out with each other, but if anything smart students got a little more respect than your average student. It's all about the culture of the school. Finding the right way to emphasize academic success could eliminate the geek-hating problem, and that could produce a positive feedback loop as people look up to straight-A students and try to become as successful as them.

That said, I realize not all students can pull off an A in calculus, so there has to be some balance so as to avoid sidelining the "dumb" students instead.

No Oprah moment

[SmallFurryCreature]

The problem is that there isn't a problem. There are a whole lot of them, all interconnected and unrelated all at the same time. And that means there isn't a solution. Not a simple one anyway.

The problems are:

• The elites (several, not all the same group), who live in their own world and have carefully surrounded them by like minded indivduals (unpaid yes-men) so they never hear anything that disagrees with them.
• Voters who want to be involved but not be involved. Who don't trust everything that is told to them but don't bother to find out the truth either.
• NIMBY.
• Politicians getting elected on promises, not on what they deliver.
• People keep voting for taxcuts despite taxes never ever having being cut, ever anywhere.
• Taxes being considered the only measurement, people not asking what you get for them. Fine that someone promises to cut spending, but if this means that you now have to pay more yourself, then you lost. Oh and remember, spending cuts never result in less taxes.
• Long term plans don't appeal to politicians facing re-election in two years. Take Obama, has to fix 8 years of bad goverment in less then a year before being judged. HOW? If a politician initiats a policy that takes years to prove successful, he will have lost and the opposition takes the credit. Why bother? Instead shout "TAXCUTS" and get elected now.
• Media with clear agenda's ruled by an elite who never has to take responsibility.
• Secret ballots. I know how to solve the deadlock around global climate change. The republicans get their way, but if in 10-20 years they are proven wrong, all republicans and their offspring are killed off. Now we get voters voting for whatever but without any accountability. So they vote for their own short term self intrests, then bitch when the long term bites them in the ass. AKA all the people who voted for this major for 20 years that lead to Chigaco needing a bullet detection system.

  • And the list goes on. Frankly, I think democracy is to blaim. Democracy only works if the voters take an intrest and the elected people are accountable. Neither of these two is happening in western democracies. Fix that and you will start fixing the system. good luck.

British television could help with this.

[Shag]

On British TV, there have been some Brainiac shows about science and history that I dare say are more engaging than any typical American curriculum.

Chicago Political Machine

[fwarren]

I think the big thing to take away from this is that Mayor Daily IS the Chicago Political Machine. To do business as a politician you have to be in his good graces and of the same mind.

Obama is cut from the same cloth. Much of his staff grew up as part of Chicago Politics. As a rule, what is popular in Chicago does NOT play well in the rest of the country. So Obama can't say these things himself. But watch how he governs. His mindset and agenda are the same.

If you agree with that agenda then you should be very happy with his presidency. If you don't agree with his agenda, at the very least you should not be surprised by it.

Two ideas that don't address the problems

[kenh]

The mayor 'floated' two possible 'fixes' for what ails chicago's ailing school system (wasn't our 44th president a community activist trying to improve public education in Chicago? What happened? Why is it not better?) - a fifth year of high school and a brainiac academy. Neither addresses the problems and would likely impact the average Chicago Public School student.

A fifth year of high school would have little impact, as these children managed to avoid getting a proper education in the first 13 years of public school, plus some amount of 'Head Start' programs, how in the world can anyone think adding a 14th year make a difference? It would increase the number of teachers by 1/14th and would require 25% more high school classrooms. Why not simply enforce a 'no social promotion policy' and start to cull the ranks of the teachers weeding out those that aren't effective?

A brainiac academy ony supports/aids those already succeding, draining the teaching pool of all the good teachers, and leaving those most in need of help to fend for themselves without even the benefit of a smart kid to help them with their homework/copy off of during tests.

In these tough economic times, several states are looking at eliminating the requirement for a 12th grade/senior year of public school, since kids are able to complete their required studies in before their senior year. Iowa is considering granting a bit of money as a scholarship (of sorts) of $2,500 toward their freshman year of college.

Mayor, get your teachers to do their job in the first 13 years (K-12), don't punish the kids for one more year, and pulling the brainiacs out of the general student population only helps those that have overcome the challenges your schools pose to their students, it does nothing for those left behind.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

I'm against the war in Iraq. I think the war in Afghanistan was justified (but very stupidly prosecuted).

Racism is discrimination against people based on (perceived or real) racial characteristics. It's not using certain words. For the record, I harbor no ill will for members of any race and have many friends who could reasonably be called "brown".

Obviously no politician who cares less about non-Americans is going to publicly announce that by calling them "brown people". When I and other people against the war use that term, it is to signify that that is the mindset of most of those in favor of the war continuing, NOT to say that I condone people being lumped together under that label.

Re:Missed the mark

[mc moss]

I take it you have no clue at all about the science job market.

You work your ass off in college, then grad school, and are often required to do a post-doc these days. For what? You have a snowballs chance in hell getting tenure these days, and there is little stability in industry (especially biotech/pharma which I'm familiar with). And even if you have the PhD that is required for the job, if you don't have the right specialization, you can forget about getting the job. Add in the fact that companies are off-shoring or brining in H1B workers, why in anyone in their right mind do a science PhD?

There's a reason why if you go to the grad department of any university, it's filled with people from China and India with few if any Americans. There are no decent paying jobs for all the training and schooling required.

I know plenty of science PhD's. A lot of them still have the interest and love for science, but regret going down that path. It's hard work, little pay (compared for the training), heavily dependent on funding, and little prestige (compared to a doctor/lawyer/ibanker).

What we need is...

[elnyka]

This is what we need:

1. Better parenting and accepting responsibility for one's children teaching: my sisters when to public school and got an awesome education. But then again, we expected that from them, taking every hard elective they could get, even on summer, never taking a summer break.
2. A public education system that resembles the German model of education, a system geared towards training kids from an early age so that they become useful and self-reliant. We have this notion of middle and high school that are just baby sitting for teens, and that the only way to *make it* is to get a university degree. Bullshit on both.
3. Abandon the "everyone is equal". No, we are not. We have been confusing "we have a right to the same opportunities" with "we are equal". This is strongly related to the previous point: not everyone is made for university and not everyone that goes to university is guaranteed to make it.
4. Get rid of the stigma of technical trades. We have this shitty thinking of "plumber bad, mba good". Incredibly stupid way of thinking. College professions and technical traders are to be nurtured and respected.

Instead of throwing money for a 5th year for brainiacs, fix the entire system. It makes no sense to have HS graduates who can't do fractions. Many kids in other parts of the world (even in developing countries) end their HS with a solid foundation in algebra, trig/geometry, vectors, biology, chemistry, classical physics and world history.

If we are to throw money, do it for the purpose of changing our way of thinking.

Re:Public outrage?

[Joce640k]

Same thing here in Spain ... we had massive anti-war protests here and for weeks on end everybody would go out on the street at 8pm and bang frying pans with spoons to make a huge noise all over the city.

Did anybody listen? Nope. It took a change of government to get us out of Iraq.

(But hey, at least the 'democracy' part worked in the long term...)

Re:Public outrage?

[Swanktastic]

There is no draft.

You're missing something here

[tuxgeek]

His point is that if we stop spending so much money on wars in far away lands and put that money into out school systems, our own people and nation will be much better off in the long run.

I have to concur with this view
All our national wealth is spent on military industrial complex while the nation is slipping away into 3rd world status. The majority of Americans are morons that still believe Saddam was behind 9/11. Education can fix this ..

We need to redirect our priorities sooner than later. The longer we continue to dick around not dealing with our social problems, the worse things will become. Improving our school system is a great place to begin

Re:You're missing something here

[aurispector]

Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it? Certainly if we cut all other spending to the bone we could fund individual tutors for every student, free laptops, massages, anything. The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS. Not the government. End of story.

No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting. Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.

Free Public Colleges

[Doc Ruby]

Public school should be free at least through college. At the very least loans should have their interest rates set, or be refundable, depending on one's graduating scores.

If we spent $10,000 a year on only the (1.5 million) top half of graduating students for each of four college years, that $60B would buy more than the $120B+ a year we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan (plus the "business as usual" $TRILLION+ annual expenses for the Pentagon and intelligence budgets). That's free education and expenses for every American above the median performance. If we gave $1000 to everyone who graduated high school on time, and $500 to everyone graduating only a year late, cash and no strings attached, the extra $1.5B would pay for itself in the drop in people who instead "graduate to jail" at $40,000 a year (plus the cost of whatever damages put them there, and the loss of their taxable productivity).

And more Americans who can think and research for themselves would reduce how often we go into these expensive wars.

Education investment is the best investment. We've got plenty of places from which we can redirect the wasteful expenses instead into education, where the public is really building something that protects and benefits the public.

Don't serve the advantaged students

[symbolset]

This is patently unfair. Yes, there needs to be an education system that provides for the needs of students struggling with language, with disabilities and even schools that help the intellectually challenged achieve their potential. There's no question about this.

The proper way to do this is not to refuse to serve the students whose intellectual or artistic gifts become special needs for out-of-mainstream education. Neglecting our brightest students is not a good way to drive America to the fore in the new century. To turn an old saw: the world needs physicists, research chemists and brain surgeons too.

A couple of points

[notjustchalk]

Reposted (I have no idea why my original was posted as AC while I was logged in?!)

I've seen enough "if they're smart, off to college!" type responses here and elsewhere to know that it's a fairly popular proposition. However, as someone who did just that - I left high school as an under-18 kid to enroll in a very demanding engineering faculty in a prestigious university - I can attest that the transition can be extremely difficult. I simply didn't have as mature a mindset I needed as well as the social skills to easily succeed that early. Eventually, I did graduate, but for the first couple of years, I was very close to simply dropping out (and I knew enough colleagues who did - which was a complete waste of their talent and knowledge). I know anecdote =! data, but high school allows a child to struggle and fail without some very real consequences (mostly having to do with the already high and growing cost of retaking courses in university and/or continued residency, or not being allowed to proceed in a field due to low marks, etc).

The Ontario (Canada) HS system used to have an "extra" year (Gr13 or OAC) that was abolished some years back. As someone training to become a teacher (thus, my nick), I've already observed some very obvious negative trends (from talking to and working besides teachers who've been on the front lines for the past 10-20 years) due to the loss of a school year. Without the extra year of prep, students interested in university are discouraged from taking courses outside of the core curricula necessary for entrance. Sadly, this means stuff like comp sci courses, which used to have packed classes, are now sparsely attended and are close to being removed (if not already gone) at many high schools. Other things like integration in calculus (something OAC math used to have) have been dropped for parity with students coming from HS boards that only go up to 12 (who don't teach it) - leading to students being behind the eight ball almost immediately upon walking into any high science or engineering math course.

These two factors (amongst others) can lead to a situation where your high achievers, the ones who are so glibly asked to "go to college!", are negatively impacted by timing pressures or the attitude that they can succeed purely on academic terms.

I don't know anything about this mayor, so I don't know his politics or whether or not this is just a thinly disguised cash grab (as some have implied), but extending HS is not such an evil thing in and of itself.

Re:Missed the mark

[zippthorne]

Add in the fact that companies are off-shoring or brining in H1B workers, why in anyone in their right mind do a science PhD?

Well, that's certainly quite a pickle you've described there!

Hope and Change - the early years

[kenh]

For those of you not paying attention a couple years ago, our current President spent (invested) two decades of his life building the Chicago Public School system up (as a community organizer and local politician) to what it is now - from the NY Times:

One of the biggest lessons Mr. Obama drew from his experiences in Chicago, associates said, is that student achievement is highly dependent on teacher quality.

In the two decades since Mr. Obama arrived in Chicago, its public schools have undergone a sweeping turnaround, from an education wasteland to a district that, while still facing major challenges, is among the most improved in the nation. The city has closed many failing schools and reopened them with new staffs, making it an important laboratory for one of the country’s most vexing problems

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10educate.html

Remeber, improvement is easy, if you're already at rock-bottom...

Lewis Black, on President Clinton's educational achievements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7axLyrK12ms

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

If you think that Katrina was handled the way it was because the government doesn't care about black people, then I would have no problem with you satirically referring to it as "letting niggers drown". Words are just arbitrary sequences of sounds. They are only "bad" if they are used to express harmful or offensive thoughts.

Money DOES NOT equal better schools

[DesScorp]

"Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money. It does take money to teach kids. The more the better."

That's absolutely farcical, and further, is demonstrably untrue. And the argument about public vs. private here doesn't wash, because the rankings for school spending and test scores don't even take private schools into account. The rankings for dollar per kid are for public schools only.

Washington D.C. spends more per pupil than any other major city, and far more money than most states. And yet they have arguably the worst school system in the nation. And if you look around the country, you'll see that in terms of dollars-per-child, most of the worst performing systems are those with the highest average spending. Money will not fix schools. Period. If you're spending enough for books, teachers, and keeping the lights on, then the success of your students depends overwhelmingly on factors completely unrelated to cash. While DC spends more for less results, Utah public schools spend less than anyone per pupil, and yet has test scores and graduation rates well above the national average. So D.C. spends money comparable to many fine private schools, and they still stink, while Utah public schools spend a pittance. Again, money is not the problem here.

And BTW, it's not like the US is skimping on education spending when compared to our competitors, either. The US is third globally in spending-per-pupil, far ahead of other countries that regularly beat us in math and science scores, like Germany and Japan. Only Austria and Switzerland spend more per child, so again, the notion that "more education money = always better" is just flat wrong.

"Anybody who parrots the right-wing talking point that the problem is teachers unions has never taught in both public and private schools."

Unions by themselves are not the only problem, but they are a big one. And I come from a family of teachers in both public and private schools. Go to a unionized public school and take a private survey. Ask how many teachers send their kids to non-unionized private schools. You're going to be surprised just how many do. Many teachers join the union because they basically have to do so to get a job at a public school. Further, every boneheaded "reform" of the last 50 years... new math, whole language instruction, bussing students, etc, were all firmly backed by the teachers unions. Any real reform... pay for performance, charter schools, making it easier to fire bad teachers, etc, have all been fought with a scorched earth campaign by the same unions.

" She went to public schools here in Chicago and got a first-rate education (she's in grad school now). "

What a shock. The daughter of a professional academic does well in school wherever she is. No one saw that one coming. I mean, it had nothing to do with parents that expected her to perform, right?

"The problems are many, but at the top are funding,"

Again, bull.

"shitty parenting"

We agree on something

"a growing socially and economically-impoverished underclass (thank you Ronald Reagan)"

We've always had an underclass. We always WILL have an underclass. That's humanity. That's never going to change. And yet we never had the systematic problems in school with that underclass that we have now until the 1960's. I look forward to your explanation of how Ronald Reagan is responsible for that, or how he caused black kids to decide that academic success is "acting white", or how despite the fact there is more opportunity to better yourself than in any time in history... more colleges, weaker entrance requirements, more pell grants available... some kids just don't give a ****.

"that is increasingly anti-educ

Mod that up

[jbengt]

Really, mod it "insightful"

Re:It will work at least as well

[koreaman]

It's wrong to suggest that federal and state taxation have nothing to do with each other. Decreases in federal spending leave more money in the pool that states can tap.

If the federal government stopped taxing its citizens to pay for the military, state and local governments could either
1) keep taxes the same so that people get to keep more of their own money, or
2) raise taxes so that the tax burden would be the same as if the feds were spending trillions on the war, but instead spend that money on schools.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[dwillden]

Not to mention, that the afghans are actually a mostly fair skinned people. (At least until they spend their lives out working in the fields.) Blue/green eyes are the standard eye colors found among the people there. The racist "brown people" accusation just does not fit.

These folks are not Arabic, they actually have a strong Aryan (Persian/Iranian ethnic background) and Caucasian (The Caucasus mtns are just to the north) genetic background. The one exception to this are the Hazera who are descended from the Mongols.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[AK Marc]

Please stop using the words "brown people" like that. I don't care if you think you're being snide or ironic.

Then let me be the first to say "fuck you." The fact it was in quotes conveyed to me that the writer thought that racism was involved in the war. From your complaint, you are supporting those that kill for race reasons, but whine when someone points it out. That's why you earn a hearty "fuck you."

In fact, I've never heard a US politician in favor of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan use those words. It's always those who oppose them.

Great, so if you kill people because they are lesser than you because they are brown, that's ok. But actually saying that out loud is unacceptable. Again, the hearty "fuck you" is all I can muster for the pro-racist brown person. Lets push the racism down so that we can't see it. It doesn't matter if they really are racist, as long as they pretend they aren't, at least according to you. And for that, I muster "fuck you." I may not be "brown" but I am from a family that is a minority. I'd rather people wear their racism on there sleeve so that people would at least know that it's so prevalent and still a very real problem in the US.

You gotta be kiddin' !!

[Taco Cowboy]

I went to the Illinois state-run brainiac school (IMSA) upon which Daley is dreaming -- let me tell you, this is not the model that will help Chicago's education program. These elite schools spend exorbitantly on a small crop of students, giving them (myself included) a fucking awesome education while students who didn't make the cut are stuck in the ineffectual morass of public high schools.

Look buddy. This world isn't a flat world and there's no equality in anything.

You got a leader and you got 1000 followers. Not everyone can be a leader.

So what if the school spent a lot to give a few true brains a fucking awesome education?

The aim is clear --- to make you guys leaders, so that when you grow up (if you grow up, that is) you can become a good leader and take care of your followers.

So what if your followers got crap for education now? They will have you as a good leader.

To really solve Chicago's education problem, you have to prioritize the schools that cater to the very worst students

Reading the sentence above makes me thinking. That brainaic school has chosen a wrong candidate.

You shouldn't be there since you have no brain.

Worst students will stay worst no matter what.

There are always a certain percentage of human population that will become scumbags. No matter how you educate them, they will still become scumbags.

Educating scumbags is a waste of precious resources.

It Just Disgusts Me

[Zancarius]

Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it? Certainly if we cut all other spending to the bone we could fund individual tutors for every student, free laptops, massages, anything. The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS. Not the government. End of story.

No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting. Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.

Not only that, but forcing another year of high school on smart students seems like punishment. I'm sure most of us can recall horror stories of our own public education (if we're from the US and went to public school) and, at the time, wanted nothing more than to get the hell outta dodge. After all, if the public education system has failed, why force another year of it onto the students to "train" them? That sounds to me to seem more like the real problem in our society: Punish those who succeed.

If nothing else, he should be advocating less time in high school. Place them in accelerated programs and graduate them early, give them scholarships to university--anything--but get them out of the public education system as quickly as possible. After all, if the students are "brainy," chances are they're more well motivated and organized than their peers and need to be challenge. Only university can provide them with the challenge they need.

You're right, though. It does smack of the entitlement mindset. I think it's really rather disgusting, because the system is so broken and rewards mediocrity so much more that forcing extra time for "more training" isn't going to accomplish anything. I really don't think that the solution to a broken system is to say "Hey, we know it's not working, but just give us another year of your lives and we'll promise to make it better."

Yeah, that's really going to work.