Remediation and Standards

CPS leaders contend that schools are providing a comprehensive system of “special help” for failing students (CPS Promotes Retained Students, 1999), including after-school remediation programs, mandatory summer school, and transition (remedial) high schools. My data challenge CPS’s contention that these supports are getting failing students “back on track” and “prepared for the academic work of the next grade” (“CPS Promotes … ,” 1999). All of the remedial programs concentrate on the ITBS. CPS is explicit about this. The after-school program uses a board-created curriculum that “focuses on boosting standardized test scores for third-, sixth-, and eighth-graders not meeting promotion standards” (Public Schools Receive $2.25 Million,1998). Summer school and transition centers are also geared to passing the tests, the capstone experience for both.

Counter to the board’s claim of “state of the art” curricula, a review of the written curriculum in remedial programs suggests that it is test-oriented, narrow, and inconsistent. For example, the mandated, semiscripted 1999 Summer Bridge curriculum for eighth-grade math is a series of rather disconnected lessons generally aligned with the content of the ITBS and an incoherent pedagogy with practice for passing the tests as well as unrelated open-ended work. The teachers’ manual for eighth-grade math had about one error per lesson (Gutstein, 1999). Many summer school teachers are not experts in the content area that they are assigned to teach; in fact, some are learning along with the students (using an inaccurate teacher’s manual). The 1999 eighth-grade Summer Bridge reading program at Brewer had no classroom sets of literature texts, no class discussion of literature, and no writing assignments (Gutstein, 2001). Moreover, students who fail the ITBS in one area (reading or math) are required to attend summer school in both sub-jects; so many students are sitting through lessons in material they already understand.

Although transition high schools offer the benefits of small size and counseling, the course of study is narrow (math, English, and world studies — no science, art, music, or foreign language) and revolves around intensive ITBS preparation (see Duffrin, 1999a, 1999b). Former Brewer students reported that their transition center curriculum entailed no discussion of literature but rather a constant diet of worksheets geared primarily to standardized tests. The “library” had no books, and gym classes were held in an empty room with no equipment (Gutstein, 2001). A teacher at another transition center described a low-level curriculum: “We try to boil the concepts down to the point where if they just pay attention, they will succeed” (Duffrin, 1999a, p. 6). The impoverishment and redundancy of this basic skills education for students whom the school district has defined as “behind” can hardly be construed as an antidote for the inequities of the system, particularly as African-Americans and Latinos are disproportionately assigned to transition centers. Mandating a rudimentary curriculum that few middle-class parents would choose for their own children also symbolically constructs low-income children of color as deficient, a stigma that all of the students interviewed by Gutstein (2001) were bitterly aware of.

Defenders of CPS policies argue that the Chicago Academic Standards (CAS) and Curriculum Frameworks Statements (CFS) ensure that all students are taught the same challenging academic content (Board of Education, 1997). However, although most teachers I interviewed supported the concept of a common curriculum framework for each grade, my school data indicate that, in the day-to-day work of teachers, the meaning of the standards varies widely. Many teachers at Brewer, Grover, and Westlawn simply give lip service tothe CAS, plugging them into lesson plans after they write them. A few teachers at these schools, and most teachers at Farley, offered detailed critiques of specific standards and their grade-level appropriateness and adopted them selectively. (See Lipman, forthcoming.) Across the board, the standards were imposed with little discussion or professional development and with little attention to the complexity and judgment intrinsic in teaching (see Sheldon& Riddle, 1998).

Setting rigorous standards does not address how they can be met in the context of Chicago’s entrenched inequalities in resources, opportunities to learn, and teachers’ knowledge. Without addressing these inequalities, standards are likely to intensify inequality (Apple, 1996). Teachers I interviewed contended that the CAS superficially elevate academic expectations without the curricular scaffolding or intensive support necessary for students who lack prior knowledge and skills. Without support for students and teachers and without reconceptualizing curricula, pedagogy, and assessment, failure to meet the standards can deepen school failure and students’ sense of inadequacy and justify remedial experiences such as summer school and transition high schools. In fact, the emphasis on standards as a path to equity is part of a shift away from the responsibility of the state to provide additional resources to make up for past discrimination. Like high stakes testing, the standards help legitimate a system that, as a whole, continues to produce inequality. As others have argued (e.g., Apple, 1988,1996; Bohn & Sleeter, 2000; Tate, 1997), standards also elevate the knowledge and cultural capital of privileged groups and devalue the cultural capital of low-income students, particularly students of color. Teachers at Brewer reported that the standards for bilingual education validate behaviors characterized as “American” and devalue those of non–English speakers (Lipman& Gutstein, 2001).

Patterns of Inequality in New Programs and Schools

Since 1995, CPS has initiated a variety of special programs, schools, and instructional approaches with significant implications in Chicago’s current economic context. For purposes of analysis, I have divided programs and schools into “plus” and “minus.” (My analysis is based primarily on data from the 1999–2000 school year.) Under the plus category I include those that purport to offer a college preparatory course of study and intellectually challenging curricula. Plus programs that pre-date the 1995 reforms are elementary magnet schools, regional gifted centers, and classical schools; Grade 7–12 Academic Centers for “academically advanced students”; and traditional magnet high schools. New (post-1995) plus programs and schools are expanded International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, College Prep Regional Magnet High Schools, and Math, Science, Technology Academies (MSTAs). Under the minus category I include programs and schools that focus on vocational education, restricted (basic skills) curricula, and intensified regimentation of instruction and control of students. Pre-1995 minus schools are vocational high schools and elementary schools using scripted direct instruction (DI).20 Not to be confused with direct teaching of specific skills and concepts, DI employs teacher-read scripts and mastery of a fixed sequence of skills. Its philosophical underpinning is behaviorism and a deficit model of “economically disadvantaged” students (Becker, 1977). Post-1995 minus programs or schools include DI schools and Education-to-Career Academies (ETCs). Many of the vocational focuses of ETCs involve a core of nonacademic work, such as courses of study for cosmetology, secretarial science, and hospitality management. I also include the highly regimented military high schools, although CPS labels them college prep. I have not categorized some programs because, in my observations, they vary widely and may exist in name only (e.g., a “Science Academy” with no special science program); and some, such as magnet clusters, were designated with little or no knowledge on the part of the principals of the schools involved and no programmatic development.21 A few schools have plus and minus programs.22

The school district is divided like a layer cake, from north to south, into six administrative regions (see Figures 1 and 2). The area along Lake Michigan, from the middle of Region 1 to the northern border of Region 5, forms a band of high-income or increasingly gentrified neighborhoods. These wealthy and gentrifying areas along the lake are spreading west into working class neighborhoods and abandoned industrial corridors.23 Region 1 has the largest concentration of middle- to upper-income families, (24) and gentrification is progressing through the region’s mix of immigrant, working-class, and low-income neighborhoods. Region 2 includes the elite Gold Coast along the lake shore and expanding middle- and upper-income areas to the west. Regions 3–6 include the largest concentrations of very low-income African-Americans and Latinos in the city. However, the west and south fringes of the Loop (center city), located on the lake in Region 3, are exploding with upper-income residential developments, and there is gentrification along the lake in Region 4. There are large concentrations of very low-income Latinos, African Americans, and Whites in Region 6 as well, but this region also has middle-income concentrations. In sum, wealthy and gentrified or gentrifying areas are located primarily along the lake in Regions 1–4 and are expanding westward. Low-income areas are concentrated in large West Side and South Side tracts of the city, primarily in Regions 3–6.

Figure 1 shows that pre-1995 plus and minus programs and schools were distributed across the city and within each region. The wide distribution of plus programs primarily reflects magnet elementary schools and gifted centers, many of which came out of the Board’s early-1980s desegregation plan. Figure 1 also shows several patterns: (a) a concentration of plus programs and schools in a relatively small, upper-income White area along the north lake shore in Regions 1 and 2; (b) a cluster of minus programs and schools in low- and very low-income African-American and Latino areas of Regions 2, 3, and 4; (c) no plus programs or schools in the very large low-and very low-income African-American areas of Region 5. (Region 5 has no Regional Gifted Center, Academic Center, or Classical School.)

The data reveal an interesting pattern when we look at the geographic distribution of new plus and minus programs created under the 1995 reforms (Figure 2) and examine which are operational and involve all students in the school and which are not operational or involve only a small percentage of the students in the school. First, the only new plus whole schools are Regional College Prep Magnet High Schools. Four (Regions 1, 2, 3, and 4) are located in, or draw from, upper-income or gentrifying neighborhoods, and three are in prime lake shore areas.25 The Region 6 magnet is in a middle-to low-income African-American community. The Region 5 magnet, in the heart of a very low- to low-income African-American community, is the only one of the six schools that is not in a new or rehabilitated building. There is no regional magnet college prep high school in the extensive low-income African-American and Latino West Side. It is notable that two of the new schools, Northside Prep (Region 1) and Payton (Region 2) are in lavish new buildings. Northside cost $47 million; Payton, $33 million (Martinez, 1999).

Figure 1. Map of pre-1995 special programs and schools.

Both are in neighborhoods with median home prices eight to ten times those of the neighborhoods of the Region 5 and 6 magnets (Williams, 2000). In fall 2001, Jones (Region 3 magnet) began a $50 million renovation. In addition to unequal facilities, principals of college preparatory magnets have also reported dramatic north-south disparities in resources and time to design curriculum and recruit teachers. (See Catalyst, 2000.) Significantly, pressure from South Side African-American leaders reportedly pushed the board to increase the Region 6 magnet’s original renovation budget from $1.5 million to $33 million (Williams, 2000).

Second, IB programs, although distributed equitably, two per region, were funded in 2000 for just 30 students at each high school grade. IB students will comprise 4 to 9 percent of each school’s student body except in two schools where 12.6 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively, are in the IB pro

Figure 2. Map of post-1995 special programs and schools.

gram. In total, in 2000, the IBs involved 1.89 percent of all CPS high school students, and most IBs are not fully operational.

Third, there is a proliferation of minus programs and schools in Regions 3, 4, 5, and 6 in low- and very low-income African-American and Latino areas. These mainly reflect the creation of ETCs and the expansion of DI schools from 7 prior to 1995 to 45 in 2001 (personal communication, CPS Office of Accountability, October 2001). Many of the new minus programs and schools are operational and involve all students in a given school (all ETCs, military high schools, and some DI schools).26 (On Figure 2, I mark DI schools as programs because schoolwide implementation varies.) Both Chicago and Carver Military High School are in the heart of African-American low-income neighborhoods in the South Side.

In short, when we examine the distribution of new programs against CPS’s claim of expanding educational opportunity, we find that although high-profile programs and schools alleged to be academically challenging are scattered throughout the city, almost all whole-school college-preparatory-programs initiated in the last four years are clustered in middle-class, White, or gentrifying areas. Most academically challenging programs in low-income communities involve only a portion of the students. Vocational, military, and DI schools — most involving all students in a school — are clustered in low-income African-American or Latino areas.

I calculated that, in the 1999–2000 academic year, only 8.31 percent of all 95,235 enrolled high school students were in special college preparatory high school programs — including magnet high schools (5.86%), high school IB programs (1.89%), and MSTAs (0.56%) (CPS Web site; Allensworth & Rosenkranz,2000). This percentage includes three college preparatory magnet high schools, one IB program existing prior to 1995, and one military academy. In 1999–2000, the number of students in all of the new high school college preparatory programs combined (regional magnets, IBs, and MSTAs) totaled only 4,541, or less than 5 percent of all high school students. Of course, there are special college preparatory programs in other high schools, small high schools, and charter schools and advanced academic courses available in high schools across the city, but in many general high schools these offerings are quite limited. The regional magnet high schools provide little additional access to challenging academic courses of study for the majority of students. The new high schools are so exclusive that, according to news reports, only 3 to 5 percent of students who applied and tested for admission were admitted to the three North Side regional magnets in 2001 (Rossi, 2001). At the same time, there has been an expansion of minus programs, particularly Direct Instruction. This program is tightly linked to improving test scores, as revealed by its location in the Office of Accountability, not the Office of Curriculum. In sum, programs created and expanded as part of the post-1995 policy agenda have reinforced the inequitable distribution of challenging academic programs.

Historically, magnet schools have increased class differences in urban education systems, including Chicago (Kantor & Brenzel, 1993). The new Regional College Prep Magnet High Schools are no exception — they are permitted to bypass desegregation goals and have more than 35 percent White students in a district that is 11 percent White. Moreover, since the development of the regional magnets, the rate at which high-achieving students leave CPS has declined. If at least part of the enrollment in the new high schools is comprised of students who would otherwise have left CPS (see Allensworth &Rosenkrantz, 2000), then these schools represent even less expansion of opportunity for students who do not have the option to leave the CPS system.

Conversely, the MSTA college-preparatory math and science program seems to run counter to the dominant pattern of race and class distribution of new programs. Seven of the eight MSTAs are in high schools that are currently on probation and serve primarily low-income African Americans and Latinos. Each MSTA is eventually planned for 400 students, a much larger proportion of the total enrollment than that directed to IB programs. However, at six of the MSTAs, only 30–72 students were involved in 1999–2000 ,including seventh- and eighth-graders. Moreover, preparation in the feeder elementary schools is underfunded, and in public meetings and planning sessions MSTA staff noted the lack of resources for the high-quality professional development essential to building MSTAs.

From the standpoint of equity, the issue is not whether some students and parents may want vocational or military schools and some teachers may genuinely champion DI, or whether these programs are an improvement over existing schools and programs. The issue is whether all children, and especially those historically excluded, are prepared for and encouraged to pursue an academically challenging, thoughtful, college-bound program and have the support of the school system to succeed in that program if they choose it. To achieve this requires special efforts and additional resources to overcome past inequities, which have resulted in the assignment of working classs tudents and children of color to low-level vocational programs, basic tracks, and academically and materially inferior schools. Vocational programs and military academies are not inherently inequitable (although we might challenge the ethics of a public education that cultivates military values), but when working-class children and children of color, who have always been the targets of these programs, continue to be the target, and when these students have few alternatives, the programs clearly reproduce, if not exacerbate, inequality. Moreover, these inequalities take on new dimensions in the context of Chicago’s economy.

New, highly publicized academic programs and magnet schools across the city serve a dual purpose. They are an incentive for professional and middle-class families to move to the city or remain in the city, especially to areas of budding gentrification where they provide access to a separate high-status-knowledge program. As one CPS official said, the IBs are to “attract more [middle-class] students to CPS. There aren’t enough academic offerings for parents — they’re all going to private schools. That’s why this [the IBs] went out” (personal communication, February 16, 2000). Yet the Daley administration cannot ignore the city’s economically and racially marginalized majority. Small, highly publicized college-preparatory programs and magnet high schools also paint a veneer of equity on a vastly unequal system. (According to the Catalyst [Schaeffer, 2000, p. 13] the new regional magnets received almost half of CPS’s construction and renovation funds between 1996 and1999.) I do not claim that all of those involved have intended to develop programs that serve real estate development and that legitimate inequality; nor do I believe that all programs do this. The reality is more complex. For example, MSTAs may be a result of the commitment by some CPS administrators to extend challenging academic programs to historically disenfranchised students. Moreover, the city’s racial politics compel the mayor and CPS leaders to make concessions to African-American and Latino communities. A case in point is community pressure for extensive modernization of the Region 6 Magnet High School. Yet, despite concessions, in the context of a vastly unequal school system and the drive to make Chicago a global city, the aggregate effect of new programs and schools is to support educational inequality and heightened economic and social dualities.

It is important to remember that plus programs and schools, and even ETCs and military academies, are the upper tiers of public schooling in Chicago. They are layered over neighborhood elementary schools and general high schools with very limited advanced course offerings, which represent the majority of the system. Most important, although there is a good deal of dispute about Chicago’s dropout rate, a large percentage of students do not make it through the system at all. The Consortium on Chicago School Research calculates that the cohort dropout rate (following students from age13 to 19) was 41.8 percent in 2000, down only slightly from 44.3 percent in1997 (Allensworth & Easton, 2001). As an example, at Juarez, a general high school in a Mexican neighborhood, at the end of the first semester of ninth grade, the enrollment of the class of 2002 was 547. At the end of eleventh grade it was 303 (personal communication, Eric Gutstein, August 15, 2001). Another group of students did not even make it beyond eighth grade to enroll at Juarez. Including those students who have dropped out citywide is central to grasping the magnitude of inequality in Chicago Public Schools.