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?

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?

[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?

[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.

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...

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Re:Public outrage?

[Swanktastic]

There is no draft.

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.

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.

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.