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Slashing
Budgets: Destroying
Student’s Futures?
Designs
for Change, October 2006
©
Designs for Change
Report
documents harms to specific children with disabilities of the June 2006
decision of the Chicago Board to cut 200 special education teachers
and 750 teacher aides to balance the school system’s budget. The
cuts are particularly inappropriate due to extremely low achievement
and graduation rates for students with disabilities documented in the
report.
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or download a coppy of the report summary in pdf format
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of the full report in pdf format
View Complaint
Procedure
The
Big Picture: School-Initated Reforms,
Centrally Initiated Reforms, and Elementary School Achievement in Chicago
(1990 to 2005)
Designs for Change, September 2005
© Designs for Change
--The
study found major achievement gains in 144 public K-8 inner city grade
schools - all of them lowachieving in 1990 - that have, on average,
moved from 20% above the national average in 1990 to the national average
of 50% . These schools are 87% low-income and serve 100,000 students
- a network of radically improved schools in Chicago as large as the
entire Baltimore school system.
--Research by DFC and others indicates the distinctive practices of
these “Substantially Up Schools,” making it possible for
other schools to learn from their success.
--The study found no significant impact on achievment of three expensive
central office initiatives: school probation, grade retention (flunking),
and the assignment of Reading Specialists to low-achieving schools.
--Study recommendations focus on the city’s most overlooked resource:
the city’s large network of Substantially Up Schools that operate
almost entirely in anonymity.
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or download a copy of the report summary in pdf format
Read
or download a copy of the press release in pdf format
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or download a copy of the full report in pdf format
Studies
Show that Chicago Grade Retention Program is a Failure
In
April 2004, the Consortium on Chicago School Research released two studies
that indicate that Chicago's highly touted program to "end social
promotion" has failed.
Read a detailed comment on
the most recent Consortium studies from DFC.
Visit DFC's web
section on Grade Retention, Flunking, and High-Stakes Testing, which
includes Dr. Ernest House's 1998 paper, The
Predictable Failure of Chicago's Student Retention Program.
The
Consortium's most recent research indicates that the Chicago program
has led to the two results that have been characteristic of other large-scale
programs that require students to repeat a grade.
-- Retained students have not done better academically than similar
low-achieving students who were not retained. In some respects, they
have done worse.
-- Retained students were 29% more likely to drop out of high school
than similar low-achieving students who were not retained.
-- Both retention and social promotion are failures. Both policies leave
students far below the levels of academic achievement that they will
need to succeed subsequently in school.
One clear implication of these results is that school districts must
move beyond both retention and social promotion. They must invest the
millions of dollars that a retention program wastes by implementing
research-based alternatives that work. These alternatives include, for
example, restructuring the school program during the school day and
year (as many high-achieving Chicago inner city schools, like Carson
Elementary School, have already done), preparing teachers to carry out
early intervention to address students' academic problems, and, as a
last resort, promoting students but giving them intensive special help,
rather than retaining them.
Crisis:
An Alarming Percentage of Hispanic Youth in the Chicago Metro Area Are
Dropouts and Jobless
By Donald R. Moore, October 2003
©
Designs for Change
A
fact sheet that summarizes and spotlights the alarming crisis for Hispanic
youth in both the city of Chicago and the Metro Area outside Chicago.
For example, one-third of Hispanic youth in the Chicago Metro Area (88,000
young people) lack a high school diploma.
Read or download a pdf file
of the fact sheet here
Rachel
Carson Elementary School: An Exemplary Urban School That Teaches Children
to Read
By Matthew R. Hanson and Donald R. Moore, September 2003
©
Designs for Change
An
in-depth research study that analyzes how Chicago's Carson Elementary
School has achieved exceptional student achievement results-- with a
special emphasis on how Carson teaches children to read.
Carson's 1,240 students are 99% low-income, and two-thirds of them speak
little or no English when they enter school. Yet in spring 2003, 68%
of Carson's eighth graders met or exceeded the national average on the
Iowa Reading Test, and 73% did the same in math.
Read or download a pdf file of the report
here
Read or download a pdf file of the report
summary here
Read or download a pdf file of the press release in English
or Spanish here
Chicago's
Local School Councils: What the Research Says
By Donald R. Moore and Gail Merritt, January 2002
©
Designs for Change
There
is a significant body of solid research about Chicago's Local School
Councils -- much of which contradicts prevailing opinions and stereotypes,
which also pinpoints weaknesses that must be addressed. DFC's recent
report briefly
summarizes this research.
Read or download a pdf file of the
report here
Read the report online
here
Changing
the Ground Rules
By Donald R. Moore, Ed.D.
This article, published in the July/August
2001 issue of Shelterforce magazine, describes the recent history
of school reform in Chicago.
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or download a copy of this article in pdf format
National Test Experts Find Basic Flaws in Chicago's Use of Iowa Tests
to Make Critical Decisions about Students and Schools
Donald R. Moore and Matthew Hanson, April 30, 2001
© Designs for Change
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or download a copy of this report in pdf format
Chicago Test Score Research Shows That School-Level Initiative Brings
the Largest Sustained Reading Gains: Evidence
Indicates the Need for "Phase Three" of Chicago School Reform
Donald R. Moore and Matthew Hanson, April 2001
© Designs for Change
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or download a copy of the report summary in pdf format
Read
or download a copy of the press release in pdf format
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or download a copy of the full report in pdf format
New
Data About Chicago's Grade Retention Program Provides Further Proof
That Neither Retention Nor Social Promotion Works —Research-Based
Alternatives to Both Retention and Social Promotion Should Be Carried
Out
Donald R. Moore,
September 2000
© Designs for Change
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or download a copy of this report in pdf format
Rejoinder to Ending Social Promotion: Results from the First Two Years.
Chicago's Grade Retention Program Fails to Help Chicago's Retained Students—Better
Alternatives Exist to Chicago's Costly Mistake
Donald R. Moore,
December 1999
© Designs for Change
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Rethinking
Retention to Help All Students Succeed:
A Resource Guide. 8 Strategies That Educate Our Children Effectively
Without Social Promotion Or Retention
Davenport, Delgado, Meisels, and Moore
© Designs for Change, November 1998
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Missing
Children: Declining Enrollment in Chicago's
High Schools From Fall 1995 to Fall 1998
© Designs for
Change, November 1998
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or download a copy of this report in pdf format
What Makes These Schools Stand Out: Chicago
Elementary Schools With a Seven-Year Trend of Improved Reading Achievement
© Designs for
Change, November 1998
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or download a copy of the report summary in pdf format
Read or
download a copy of the complete report (177 pgs) in pdf format
School
Reform Chicago Style: How Citizens Organized
to Change Public Policy
Mary O'Connell,
Spring 1991
©
Center for Neighborhood Technology
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or download a copy of the complete report in pdf format
©1998-2007
Designs
for Change. All Rights Reserved.
