Shoesmith and Murray Add Reformers to LSC's

-posted by chicago pop

The results of yesterday's local school council (LSC) elections are in for the two most hotly contested races. At both Murray and Shoesmith, reformers were successful in gaining seats on both councils on the back of extraordinary voter turnout at both locations. This is a strong sign that Hyde Park and Kenwood residents are against two things: backsliding (Murray) and the status quo (Shoesmith). It is an equally strong sign that they are for maintaining and improving the public school options available to residents of Hyde Park and Kenwood - and are willing to put in the time to make it happen.

This could be the local impact of an overall spike in CPS (and Catholic school) enrollment, due in part to a continued sluggish economy that is sending more and more families into the public school system - as opposed to private schools or suburban districts. It could also be the buds of a distinctly local parent activism, akin to similar movements that have taken shape on the North Side, as a core of local parents commit to improving public education options in the neighborhood

At Murray, the reformist Parents for Murray group saw its top four "Slate for Change" parent candidates pull in the most votes, together with a community member endorsed by the group. Together this represents a significant contingent of new voices to agitate for change at HP-K's beloved magnet school:

Parents
Josephine Njoku-Sanders: 240
Thomas Hoffer: 230
Michael Ewing: 227
Julie Hammond: 198

Community Members:
Michael Scott: 81

A similar story at Shoesmith. Here is a school in the heart of the neighborhood that has just signed a new principal. She is open to new ideas and is testing the waters for ways to improve the school's performance and make it an option for more neighborhood children. Unprecedented voter turnout for an LSC election landed two community members on the council who are both education professionals: Lina Fritz and Tom McDougal.

Community Members:
Lina Fritz - 96 votes
Tom McDougal - 78 votes
Camille Hamilton-Doyle - 73 votes
Roxanne Brown - 36 votes

 Both of them not only know the data on urban education inside and out, but can collaborate with the administration and demand accountability, to make sure what's being done is what works, and that Shoesmith reaches out to the neighborhood.

Worth noting in both cases were the high numbers of community member (non-parent) voters: out of 153 eligible votes cast in the Shoesmsith LSC election, 81 were cast by community members, 72 by parents. I don't have a similar breakdown for the votes at Murray, but the word is that community turnout there was also very strong. Undoubtedly some of those community votes were parents of children attending other schools.

The message is pretty clear: wherever your students come from, you're in Hyde Park. We all have an interest in how well you do.

Whither Murray LA? Poor Judgement (and Poor Spelling) by Principal Mason Ding Respected Teacher

posted by chicago pop

[Source: Chicago Sun-Times]

Local 5th and 6th grade writing and social studies teacher Lincoln Brown was recently disciplined by the principal of Murray Elementary Language Academy, Gregory Mason, for using the word nigger in his classroom. Done in an educational context, this is no different from reading Mein Kampf in the presence of Jewish students, or presenting descriptions of Muslim "infidels" in the Song of Roland to students of that religion. Nothing is gained from removing these deposits of reality that run all through our culture for better or for worse. We don't condone them. We study them to understand the world that has preceded us.

As far as I have been able to determine from the press, this is a case of a neighborhood principal making a very poor judgement that affects the career reputation of a long serving CPS teacher. The fact that Mason's written statement conveyed in the Sun-Times is also misspelled and grammatically challenged - cardinal sins for an educator, as far as I am concerned - suggests that the merits of this particular disciplinary action might be in need of as much review as the grammar of his statement. 

The facts appear to be these: 

Lincoln Brown, 48, says he used the n-word in front of his majority African-American class at Murray Language Academy on Oct. 4 last year after one of his students passed a note to a girl with rap lyrics including the n-word.

Brown — who grew up in Hyde Park and has taught in black neighborhood schools for 21 years — “attempted to give his own denunciation of the use of such language” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday.

He discussed the use of the racial slur in Huckleberry Finn in an attempt to show “how upsetting such language can be,” but just as he used the n-word, the school’s principal, Gregory Mason walked into the classroom, the lawsuit alleges.

Two weeks later, Mason wrote to Brown, giving an account of the incident that disputes the precise words and context in which Brown used the n-word. Mason charged Brown with “using verbally abusive language to or in front of students” and “cruel, immoral, negligent or criminal conduct or communication to a student, that causes psychological or physical harm” in violation of the Chicago Public Schools policy.

Following a hearing in late October, the principal told the teacher that he would be suspended for five days without pay, the suit says. Brown appealed to CPS, but a CPS hearing officer ruled in December that he had “engaged in inappropriate discussions with sixth-grade students during instructional time,” ordering him to serve his suspension starting Friday.

Mason writes in his statement: “The very insistent (sic) I entered the room, I heard Mr. Brown discussing with the entire class of students on the word, ‘N*****’"  Further, "When Mason returned to the class roughly 15 minutes later, he wrote, Brown was teaching grammar, but “totally off subjected (sic), Mr. Brown asked the students, ‘have you ever thought about why blacks are killed in movies first?’”"

The idea that some words should never be uttered is not a principle of rational thought. It is a principle of superstition, a relic of magical thinking and the fear that words themselves convey actions equivalent to their meanings. In a modern worldview, free of superstition and dogma, we understand that a word carries different meanings based on the context of its utterance. It is the context that we should be aware of, not the word in isolation. Nothing in the context of this case - a context which includes Lincoln Brown's biography and career - suggests that Lincoln Brown was making racist remarks. Again, the fact that a copy of Mein Kampf sits on my bookshelf (as it does) does not mean that I support National Socialism, or that I am a Nazi. The fact that I might discuss features of Nazi ideology, or quote the speeches of Adolf Hitler, does not mean that I am anti-Semitic. Would it be inappropriate to build a class discussion around these issues if students were already discussing them?

The same applies to the word nigger. 

I don't use this word, though here I refuse to euphemize it, to blank it out with an abbreviation and a hyphen, because this is not how one should deal with the reality of past or present injustices, as people or as societies. Especially not when the word is, as we all know, commonly used by many of the people to whom it was once applied, including children. This is a contradiction that has not been sufficiently thought out in the culture at large, but that is an issue for another day.

Readers interested in showing their support for local teacher Lincoln Brown may add their names to the petition currently being circulated by the group "MLA Parents in Support of Mr. Brown."

Message to the University Architects: Cafe ECC.

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Istria Cafe enlivens the corner of 57th and Lake Park, despite all odds.

Last week, alumni, parents, and "friends" of the U of C Laboratory Schools got a letter from David Magill, Director, saying that the University of Chicago's Board of Trustees had given the Early Childhood Center (among other Lab projects) the green light.

In my opinion, the Lab campus should not be split into two locations. Nevertheless, the cogs of institutional construction are in motion, and there is probably no turning back. So I'm introducing a challenge to the University and the Lab Schools: use the new Center to enliven Stony Island; resist the urge to plunk an isolated, car-oriented fortress on an already desolate block; create a public eatery and gathering space in the front of the school that will define the new culture of that school.

You read that correctly: I challenge the architects and administrators to incorporate a lovely cafe, right at the streetfront of a nursery through grade 2 school, and to keep it open for nighttime business.

A public cafe would:

1. encourage parents to mingle before and after drop-off and pick-up, thereby discouraging an exclusively "drive-by" use of the building for families (see the Booth Cafeteria at these hours for proof)
2. provide a great meeting place for parents and their children (of all grades) after school (again, see Booth)
3. provide an informal meeting space for teachers (see Booth)
4. give University employees, students, and community members another neighborhood amenity on the east end of campus (see Istria)
5. enliven that stretch of Stony Island, both during the day and after 5 PM.

Numbers 4 and 5 are for the benefit of the neighborhood and the University as a whole. For the Lab Schools, numbers 1 through 3 would go much further toward integrating the two separate Lab campuses and creating a school community than the shuttle buses Mr. Magill plans to operate between the two campuses. Just look at how the Lab Schools have planted their own culture in the Booth Cafeteria -- that's the market in action; that's how the schools' population chooses to socialize.

Naturally there would be security concerns about a public space inside a school with young children. But since they're designing the ECC from scratch, the architects should be able to arrange it so that strangers in the cafe won't have access to the main part of the school. The cafe could funnel into the school through one door, with a permanent security guard stationed there. There could also be alternate school entrances that bypass the cafe entirely.

During the school year, the Booth Cafeteria is full of Lab students, parents, teachers, and administrators, along with other University and community members. The ECC architects should try to mimic that success.

University Considers Expanding Laboratory Schools to Doctors Hospital Site

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Early Childhood Center concept rendering for the U of C Laboratory Schools, grades N - 2.

David Magill, the Director of the Laboratory Schoools, announced to his faculty and staff last Tuesday that the University of Chicago and the Laboratory Schools were exploring the possibility of using the Doctors Hospital site at 58th and Stony Island Avenue to build an Early Childhood Center that would service Grades Nursery through 2. (The existing building would be demolished.)

The Laboratory Schools launched its ambitious Lab+ Campaign in July of 2007, to raise capital "to bring new resources to every aspect of the Lab experience," including major building renovations and expansions. Their architects (Valerio Dewalt Train Associates and FGM Architects) have been struggling in the last year to fit a new Art and Music wing and the Early Childhood Center (ECC) on the existing school campus without sacrificing too much green space...and having a little trouble doing it.

Meanwhile the University has been scratching its head about what to do with the Doctors Hospital property, which has become even more of a decrepit white elephant in the 14 months since the residents of the 39th Precinct voted their precinct dry to prevent the construction of a much-needed hotel. (The vote was 255 to 235, showing how little it takes to keep this neighborhood down.)

One apparent solution to everyone's problems is to demolish Doctors Hospital and build the new ECC in its place. The University unloads the space in a way that neighbors couldn't possibly object to, and the Lab Schools gets a state-of-the-art, possibly LEEDS-certified, custom-made facility without cramming it on the existing campus.

When enrollment peaks at the Lab Schools, Mr. Magill says there will be 2,050 students in grades N - 12. According to him, no other independent school has as many students per acre, even if the ECC is ultimately built on Stony Island. Moving grades N - 2 to the space offered on the Doctors Hospital site would allow the school to "fully actualize program possibilities." For instance, the new site could potentially satisfy a dream of the N - 2 teachers to have a fluid connection between outdoor and indoor curricula, and it would reduce congestion along 59th Street, allowing for a safer drop-off and pick-up routine on both campuses. The conceptual plans for the building (there are no architectural renderings yet) include contiguous outdoor-indoor spaces for each classroom, its own physical education facilities, and its own library.

Community Meetings

According to Steven Kloehn, Associate VP for News and Public Affairs, this proposal is exploratory only, and has not yet been approved by the Trustees. In cooperation with the alderman, the University would like to start a conversation with the community about the proposed use of the site, with the goal of uncovering what issues the community might want the University to attend to as the plan is refined. Ann Marie Lipinski, VP for Civic Engagement, met in December with a discussion group of 12 - 15 people with particular interest in the Doctors Hospital site (neighbors and at least one preservationist with architect credentials). There will also be a public meeting in the coming weeks to elicit feedback from the larger community. Mr. Kloehn says the goal of the meetings is to get the word out and to build consensus before going forward.

At some point there might also have to be two meetings held by the City -- one to announce the amended initial use, and possibly another to notify residents that a building designated with "orange" status in the Chicago Landmark Historic Resources Survey has been slated for demolition (an orange designation requires an automatic 90-day hold on any demolition plans).

So, suppose the University does build "community consensus" around this plan with its public meetings, which I assume it will? Is the proposal a good idea for the Lab Schools? That's the discussion that interests me the most. I have early misgivings (based on my educational philosophy and my family's experience) about breaking the Lab Schools campus into two pieces if there's any way in the world to make it fit on one. Yes, the University is eager to find a non-controversial use for its sad white elephant. Yes, the Lab Schools needs to expand. As a Lab alum and current Lab parent, I hope we won't leap to the "easy" solution without carefully thinking through the ramifications such a decision would have on the unique character of the school.