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Correction appended May 19, 2025

The buildings have sat empty for 12 years.

Several are architecturally significant with striking details and character taking up multiple city blocks. But many are in rough shape, with copper stripped from the pipes, broken windows, and graffiti covering walls. One had to be torn down after an extra-alarm fire last year.

Now, Chicago Public Schools aims to sell the former schools, , with the hopes of seeing them repurposed and the possibility of bringing in around $8.2 million and avoiding spending more on future upkeep.

鈥淥ur goal is not to sell them for the highest dollar amount, really. It鈥檚 to find the most responsible, compatible use,鈥� said Stephen Stults, director of real estate for CPS. 鈥淲hat we get paid, of course, helps with our budget challenges. But they鈥檝e been sitting there long enough, and we need to do everything we can to try to get them repurposed.鈥�

The solicitation for bids, which are due May 30, . Each property includes a minimum bid and all properties have schools on them with the exception of one on the Near West Side.

That property, the , has a minimum bid of $1.3 million and sits about five blocks from the United Center in an area poised for , called the , a nod to the sports stadium鈥檚 address.

The city demolished the school building last fall in late May. Prior to the fire, CPS put the building on the market and received just one bid for $1, which was 鈥渂elow what the district was willing to accept.鈥� Demolition cost the district $1.25 million.

All of the properties have deed restrictions that do not allow them to be used as a K-12 charter or school or for the sale of liquor or tobacco products.

Stults said CPS spends between $100,000 and $150,000 to maintain and secure each vacant school per year. That鈥檚 at least $2 million annually for the past 12 years 鈥� or $24 million. The ongoing expense comes as CPS is currently in order to close a $529 million deficit for the coming school year.

Even though many vacant schools are not in great condition, Stults said the 鈥渂ones of the buildings鈥� are good. Demolition may be expensive, but so is rebuilding a core structure. After the deadline, he said the district will consider all bids and select the two 鈥渉ighest and most responsible鈥� to present to the school board, as required by state law. Stults anticipates bringing some building sales to the board before the end of the calendar year.

If there is no demand for certain vacant schools, he added, the district plans to reach out to sister agencies, such as the Chicago Park District, to see if they鈥檙e interested in the properties.

Vacant schools are a visible reminder of the 2013 closures, which disproportionally impacted Black children from low-income families and led to further population loss. Many community groups and neighbors near these properties have called for reinvestment in these public assets for many years.

Efforts to sell and repurpose old CPS schools a mixed bag

Following the , then-mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennet appointed a committee to develop guidelines for school repurposing and community development. Their laid out potential uses for each vacant school and recommended a process for repurposing.

CPS put and sold two dozen properties in subsequent years for a collective $38 million. Some have been redeveloped into or . One was torn down to and another was .

More recently, the former after a more than $40 million renovation supported by city, state, and philanthropic money. The former Overton Elementary in Grand Boulevard on the south side with weekend market events and a community garden.

Ghian Foreman, a managing partner with the Washington Park Development Group, which has , said they will begin renovations to convert the building into offices later this year as soon as the city grants the permits.

鈥淚t鈥檚 harder than you think it is,鈥� Foreman said. 鈥淭his has been a really long process of learning. You have to really be committed, and you have to ensure that you have the resources to see it all the way through.鈥�

Many vacant schools shuttered a decade ago have garnered interest from buyers and community proposals. But actual redevelopment has stalled for myriad reasons.

Some schools up for sale now had buyers previously, but the sales never went through. For example, the for the old Henson Elementary in 2018, but the local aldermen at the time held it in a City Council committee. The building remains vacant. The school board in for the old Morgan Elementary in Chatham from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241. But the project never came to fruition.

Some schools have been sold and are off the district鈥檚 books, but remain vacant and undeveloped.

One notable example is the old Von Humboldt school, which still sits vacant after being for $3.1 million to the nonprofit IFF. The group planned to convert the old school in gentrifying Humboldt Park to a mixed-use building with affordable apartments and market-rate townhomes built on part of the parking lot. But IFF eventually sold the property to Newark, New Jersey-based RBH Group, which promised to convert it to a 鈥淭eachers Village鈥� with subsidized housing for teachers, similar to projects it鈥檚 done in Atlanta, Newark, New Jersey, and Hartford, Connecticut.

Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st Ward, put , but it eventually in 2020. The city in 2022 and last fall, the Chicago Housing Authority . Today, sits waiting for activity.

Local elected officials influence vacant school sales

What to do with school real estate is another area of .

By state law, the City of Chicago or the Public Building Commission hold the title 鈥渋n trust for the use of schools.鈥� The sale of old schools must be approved by the City Council in order for the deed to be transferred to a new owner. It also must be approved by two-thirds of the Chicago Board of Education, which now means 14 members must vote yes.

In the bid materials, interested buyers are encouraged to contact the local aldermen and local school board representatives for the properties they鈥檙e interested in purchasing.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who represents the 20th Ward on the south side, plans to hold meetings later this month to get feedback on repurposing the schools in her ward. Taylor is the City Council鈥檚 chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development and also participated in a roughly a decade ago.

School board member Che 鈥淩hymefest鈥� Smith, who was elected to represent District 10 on the south side, said he hasn鈥檛 heard from any prospective buyers yet. He doesn鈥檛 want to prescribe any uses for the vacant buildings in his district but just hopes that investors would tune in to what communities in these neighborhoods want and need. He also thinks any money the district makes from the sales should be poured into schools in those neighborhoods.

鈥淚 would like to see any revenue benefit local schools rather than disappearing into the district bureaucracy,鈥� he said.

When asked if she鈥檇 been contacted by anybody hoping to buy vacant schools, Therese Boyle, the elected school board representative for District 9 on the south side, said: 鈥淣ot a soul.鈥�

But she said what to do with these vacant properties is a critically important question for communities, especially given the district鈥檚 looming deficit.

鈥淲e need every penny for the operation of the schools that are open,鈥� Boyle said.

Boyle, a retired school psychologist, worked inside the old Wentworth school building now up for sale when it was closed in 2013. She remembered how difficult it was for students and staff to move to a new building and said it鈥檚 awful to have an old school sitting empty in a neighborhood.

Michilla Blaise, who was appointed to the school board by Mayor Brandon Johnson to represent District 5 on the west side, said she鈥檚 been talking with district, city, and county officials about what to do with the old vacant schools. She said it鈥檚 important to do something because right now, they鈥檙e just reminders of neighborhood disinvestment for the people who live around them.

Foreman, the community developer that owns the old Overton school, echoed that sentiment. For the 10 years he鈥檚 owned the old school, he鈥檚 allowed the community to use the gym to play basketball and workout. He had to stop that in the past year to prepare for construction and said there have been break-ins recently, but not from people looking to steal things.

鈥淭hey were young people who wanted to come and play in the gym,鈥� he said.

Even though financing Overton鈥檚 redevelopment has been a big challenge, Foreman questioned the argument often made by city officials that it鈥檚 too costly to repurpose these properties or make them available to the community while trying to sell them or even demolish them for use as a park.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 more expensive?鈥� he asked. 鈥淲hat we pay the police in overtime or opening up a gym for the kids to play basketball?鈥�

This was originally published by . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.听Sign up for their newsletters at .

Correction: The headline on an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the number of school properties are that being put up for sale. Chicago plans to sell 20 properties.听

The U.S. Education Department鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights that the district鈥檚 Black Student Success Plan violates federal law because it discriminates against students on the basis of race.听

The , released in February, outlines strategies over the next five years to improve Black student鈥檚 daily learning experiences and life outcomes. 

Stacy Davis Gates, Chicago Teachers Union president, said in a Tuesday that the plan was developed to address the 鈥渕an-made educational achievement gap鈥� for Black students caused by inequitable policies such as redlining.

鈥淲e expect CPS to stand up against this baseless investigation 鈥� and we call on our city and state leaders to take real action to protect our students and schools,鈥� Davis Gates said.

An Illinois law signed in 2023 required the Chicago Board of Education to create a and develop a plan to 鈥渂ring about academic parity between Black children and their peers.鈥� 

The plan was based on the , which include providing comprehensive resources for Black students鈥� academic and social-emotional needs and partnering with historically Black colleges and universities to create a teacher pipeline. 

The plan鈥檚 main goals include doubling the number of Black male educators, reducing out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for Black students by 40% and increasing Black history and culture in classrooms.

The investigation into the plan is based on a by conservative Virginia-based advocate Defending Education, which targeted a similar program last year in the Los Angeles Unified School District called the Black Student Achievement Plan. A district spokesperson said Thursday that Los Angeles Unified resolved the complaint by opening the plan鈥檚 services to all students.

The Education Department said in a press release Tuesday that the Chicago plan violates federal law by focusing 鈥渙n remedial measures only for Black students, despite acknowledging that Chicago students of all races struggle academically.鈥� It鈥檚 the latest move by the Trump administration to eliminate school diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Craig Trainor, the department鈥檚 acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a that the administration won鈥檛 allow federal funds to be used 鈥渋n this pernicious and unlawful manner.鈥�

The department previously said government funds were at risk for states and school districts that didn鈥檛 to end DEI programs. Last month, federal judges blocked the department from withholding federal funds because of DEI.

A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said Thursday that the district will not comment on pending or ongoing investigations.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez is one step closer to becoming the top education official in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted during a public meeting on Tuesday to recommend Martinez to be the next commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Nine of 11 members of the Massachusetts board voted for Martinez. The other two abstained. Both said earlier in the meeting that they supported candidate Lily Laux, the former deputy commissioner of school programs at the Texas Education Agency.

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The board will now send its recommendation to the Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler, who must give final approval and is also currently serving as the department鈥檚 interim commissioner. However, Tutwiler, who also sits on the board, said he supports Martinez and voted yes for him.

Martinez, without cause in December, was for the Massachusetts job and one of 42 people who had applied. If he takes the job, he will be responsible for overseeing and providing state support for Massachusetts鈥� roughly 400 school districts. He would also become the first Latino to have the job, according to a press release from Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

鈥淭his is someone who has had progressive experience in increasingly larger and more complex organizations with significantly increased, let鈥檚 say, political situations that they have to balance,鈥� said Matt Hills, the board鈥檚 vice chair, during the meeting. 鈥淏ut at the end of the day, this is someone who has been able to lead large organizations to get pretty significantly positive results in key education priorities that we have.鈥�

Several board members said they were impressed by Martinez鈥檚 leadership experience 鈥� with some generally noting controversy he鈥檚 faced 鈥� as well as his interest in students from low-income households and those learning English as a new language. Another noted she was impressed that he was able to raise teacher salaries in Chicago, which most recently came after with the Chicago Teachers Union.

Martinez鈥檚 firing was fueled in part by a tense disagreement with Mayor Brandon Johnson and

Board member Martin West said he was concerned about Martinez鈥檚 lack of state experience relative to Laux, but he found through Martinez鈥檚 interview that district leadership is 鈥渋n some ways more similar to the state role in terms of the levers available for driving change.鈥�

Board member Ericka Fisher said she felt Martinez was the sort of candidate who 鈥渃an stay standing and continue fighting the good fight鈥� in the face of the education climate both in Massachusetts and under the Trump administration.

The board鈥檚 decision comes after it interviewed Martinez and two other finalists at an hourslong public meeting last week. Martinez attended that meeting in person and spoke about a variety of topics, including serving English learners, students with disabilities and efforts to expose students to early college programs.

In a statement, Martinez said he is 鈥渉onored鈥� to be selected for the job and that Chicago and CPS will 鈥渁lways hold a special place in my heart.鈥�

鈥淚 am committed to finishing the school year strong here and will leave CPS in mid-June with a deep sense of pride and optimism for its future, knowing the district is in strong hands and moving in the right direction,鈥� Martinez said.

Once the education secretary finalizes the board鈥檚 recommendation, Martinez plans to accept the job after negotiating terms of his contract, according to a source close to the CEO.

The Massachusetts board chair previously said she hoped to have a commissioner in place by July 1, according to Jackie Reis, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Per his CPS contract, a firing without cause allows Martinez to stay at the district through June.

Before CPS, Martinez was the superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District and held various education roles in Nevada.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat.听Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Chicago Public Schools unveiled a five-year plan Thursday to improve the outcomes of the district鈥檚 Black students 鈥� at a time of unprecedented backlash against efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in education.

The release of the , during Black History Month, is part of CPS鈥檚 broader five-year strategic plan and aims to address long-standing disparities in graduation, discipline, and other metrics faced by its Black students, who make up roughly a third of the student body.

The district set out to create the Black Student Success Plan in the fall of 2023, but its quiet posting on Thursday comes as both conservative advocacy groups and the Trump administration are taking aim at race-based initiatives in school districts and on college campuses.

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Late last week, the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 top acting civil rights official that they could lose federal funding if they don鈥檛 scrap all diversity initiatives, even those that use criteria other than race to meet their goals. He cited the 2023 Supreme Court Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision that banned the use of race as a college admissions factor.

CPS 鈥� in a progressive city in a Democratic state 鈥� has largely been insulated from standoffs over diversity and inclusion in recent years, when districts in other parts of the country have come under intense scrutiny over how they teach race and how they take it into account in hiring, selective program admissions, and other decisions. Increasingly, though, deep blue cities like Chicago are finding themselves in the crosshairs.

Last year, a Virginia-based advocacy group aimed at boosting outcomes for its Black students, which CPS said inspired its own plan. At the urging of the Biden administration, Los Angeles made changes to downplay the role of race, causing an outcry from some of its initiative鈥檚 supporters.

Chicago鈥檚 plan vows to increase the number of Black teachers, slash suspensions and other discipline for Black students, and embrace more culturally responsive curriculums and professional development to 鈥渃ombat anti-Blackness鈥� 鈥� goals some of which could run afoul of the Department of Education鈥檚 interpretation of the Students for Fair Admissions decision.

Still, some district and community leaders in Chicago say CPS鈥檚 plan might be better-positioned to withstand challenges than Los Angeles鈥� initiative 鈥� and they said the district must forge ahead with the effort even as it braces for pushback.

鈥淣ow is not the time for anticipatory obedience and preemptive acquiescence,鈥� said Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a University of Illinois Chicago professor of African American history and a former Chicago school board member who served on a working group that helped craft the plan. 鈥淭his is not the time to shrink but to live out our values.鈥�

The new plan says Illinois law mandates this work and cites a state statute that requires the Chicago Board of Education to have a . That committee has not yet been formed.

CPS declined Chalkbeat鈥檚 interview request and did not answer questions before publication. The district is hosting a celebration at Chicago State University at 3 p.m. Friday to mark the plan鈥檚 release.

Chicago set out to create Black Student Success Plan years ago

CPS convened a working group made up of 60 district employees, parents, students, and community members that started meeting in December of 2023 to begin creating .

The following spring, it with residents across the city 鈥� what the plan鈥檚 supporters describe as one of the district鈥檚 most extensive and genuine efforts to get community input.

The working group in May that included stepping up efforts to recruit and retain Black educators, promote restorative justice practices, ensure culturally responsive curriculums that teach Black history, and offer more mental health and other support for Black students through partnerships with community-based organizations.

The district adopted many of these recommendations in its plan. It sets some concrete five-year goals, including doubling the number of male Black teachers, increasing the number of classrooms where Black history is taught, and decreasing how many Black students get out-of-school suspensions by 40%.

鈥淭he Black Student Success Plan is much more than simply a document,鈥� the plan said. 鈥淚t represents a firm commitment by the district, a roadmap, and a call to action for Chicago鈥檚 educational ecosystem to ensure equitable educational experiences and outcomes for Black students across our district.鈥�

The effort built on equity work to help 鈥渟tudents furthest from opportunity鈥� that started five years ago under former CEO Janice Jackson, said Dominique McKoy, the executive director of the University of Chicago鈥檚 To & Through Project. In CPS, by a range of metrics, those students have historically been Black children.

McKoy, whose work focuses on college access, points out that the district has made major strides in increasing the number of students who go to college. But more students than ever drop out before earning a college degree 鈥� an issue that has disproportionately affected Black CPS graduates.

鈥淭here鈥檚 evidence and data that we haven鈥檛 been meeting the needs of Black students,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his plan is about responding to the data. Being clear about that is one of the best ways to insulate and defend that process.鈥�

But McKoy acknowledges that now is a challenging time to kick off the district鈥檚 plan.

鈥淯ndoubtedly there will be critics who will think it鈥檚 racial preference to help students who need help and will attack the district for doing so,鈥� said Pedro Noguera, the dean of the University of Southern California鈥檚 Rossier School of Education.

Last year鈥檚 challenge against a $120 million Los Angeles program aimed at addressing disparities for Black students offers a case study, Noguera notes. Parents Defending Education, which opposes school district diversity and inclusion programs, filed a complaint with the Department of Education鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights. The group has also challenged programs to recruit more Black male teachers and form affinity student groups based on race in other districts.

Ultimately, Los Angeles overhauled the program to steer additional staffing and other resources to entire schools serving high-needs students, rather than more narrowly to Black students. The that to some critics, those changes watered down the program, which was beginning to show some early results. But Noguera says he feels the program is still helping Black students.

However, it is clear that the Trump administration plans to go much further in interpreting the Students for Fair Admissions decision and seeking to root out DEI initiatives. In Friday, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department, said efforts to diversify the teaching force or the student bodies of selective enrollment programs could trigger investigations and the loss of federal funding. About 20% of CPS鈥檚 operating revenue comes from the federal government.

鈥淭he Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation鈥檚 educational institutions,鈥� Trainor wrote. 鈥淭he law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.鈥�

鈥楪et the help to the kids who need it鈥�

Chicago, like Los Angeles, might consider a focus on schools 鈥� chosen based on metrics such as graduation rates, test scores and others 鈥� where the plan would help Black students and their peers, Noguera said. Maybe it doesn鈥檛 even have to refer to Black students in its name, he said.

鈥淭he main thing is to get the help to the kids who need it,鈥� he said. But, he added, 鈥淚n this environment, who knows what鈥檚 challenge-proof.鈥�

He said what helped in Los Angeles was deep community engagement that lent that district鈥檚 initiative credibility and good will; the changes that the district made in response to the legal challenge did not erode those.

Darlene O鈥橞anner, a CPS great-grandmother who served on the working group, said CPS got the community engagement piece right. She thinks the plan will offer a detailed roadmap for improving Black students鈥� achievement and experience.

鈥淚 am not going to think of the unknowns and what鈥檚 going on in the world,鈥� O鈥橞anner said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just going to hope for the best. We can鈥檛 put the plan on hold for four years.鈥�

The working group issued its recommendation in early fall and stopped meeting following the September resignation of all school board members, who stepped down amid pressure from the mayor鈥檚 office to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez over budget disagreements.

Valerie Leonard, a longtime community advocate who also served on the working group, said during the community meetings for the Black Student Success Plan last year, there was no discussion of possible legal pushback to the plan.

鈥淚llinois is a liberal state,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t never really occurred to us a year ago that this plan would be in danger.鈥�

But more recently, as she heard Trump assail DEI initiatives, Leonard said she wondered if the plan would survive.

Leonard pushed Illinois lawmakers last year to mandate the Board of Education appoint as part of that cleared the way for an elected school board in Chicago. The district鈥檚 plan invokes that committee though it hasn鈥檛 been formed yet. The board formed a more generic student success committee earlier this month.

鈥淲e believe that the problem with Black children in public schools is so dire that it needs to be elevated to its own committee,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen our children get lumped into something that鈥檚 for all, they inevitably fall between the cracks.鈥�

McKoy at the University of Chicago said he feels 鈥渃autious optimism鈥� and hopes the city and state rally around CPS as it pushes to improve outcomes for Black students.

鈥淭he plan itself isn鈥檛 going to do the work,鈥� he said.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

From strategic defiance to more open compliance, school districts across the country are gearing up in very different ways for how to respond if 鈥� or when 鈥� immigration agents arrive on campus.听

Their deliberations are occurring as Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and as President Donald J. Trump鈥檚 new administration placing schools, hospitals and churches off-limits to such enforcement actions. 

Sonja H. Trainor, executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, told 蜜桃影视 on Monday that her members are already reporting a significant decrease in student attendance 鈥� and tremendous concern among parents about Trump鈥檚 latest orders.  

And while many education leaders have pledged to keep ICE at bay 鈥� Georgia鈥檚 Gwinnett County Public Schools instructed staff to make a copy of agents鈥� identification cards and to 鈥渘ot offer any information鈥� 鈥� others are advising greater degrees of cooperation. One extreme outlier: Oklahoma鈥檚 Republican state Superintendent Ryan Walters, who said he welcomes . 

鈥淪chools haven鈥檛 been working with law enforcement on this,鈥� he . 鈥淗owever President Trump decides to carry out the actions around his immigration policy, we are going to absolutely work with him on that.鈥�

Trainor said her organization will be offering their members information and support on how they can counsel districts in responding to ICE, including a webinar presented by an immigration attorney, in the coming weeks.

Most school protocols for visits from law enforcement agencies, including immigration agents, she said, call for a school official to greet the officer; ask for credentials and any order, subpoena, or warrant; and to get a specific administrator to interact with them.

鈥淭he administrator may also want to consult legal counsel based on the circumstances,鈥� she said. 鈥淓ach scenario may be fact specific and require schools to be neutral and objective looking at state/federal law for release of student information.鈥�

The United States is home to some and as of 2018, roughly lived with at least one family member, often a parent, who was undocumented, according to the American Immigration Council.

Tom Homan, Trump鈥檚 border czar, told ABC鈥檚 鈥淭his Week鈥� that he鈥檚 willing to execute raids in K-12 schools, saying it will help solve another problem:  

鈥淗ow many MS-13 members are the age 14 to 17? Many of them,鈥� Homan said Sunday, referring to a  

Longtime Oklahoma science teacher Jenny Bobo said students and families in her school community are filled with dread. 

鈥淧eople are terrified,鈥� she told 蜜桃影视. 鈥淲e, as educators, fear for our students. We are terrified that, in order to advance political careers, entire buildings full of children will be traumatized.鈥�

in Oklahoma have already begun, as students and adults plead to keep families together.

Bobo’s 14-year-old son, Preston Lee Bobo, was among a group of protestors who attended the state Board of Education meeting Tuesday morning in Oklahoma City. The board Walters’ proposal requiring that families provide information on their immigration or citizenship status when enrolling their kids. The move is seen as possibly violating Plyler v. Doe, the landmark 1982 Supreme Court ruling that a child cannot be denied a public education based on immigration status, and could potentially create a trove of data making undocumented students in Oklahoma more vulnerable to ICE enforcement.

Preston said he wanted to call attention to what he believes is unfair treatment of undocumented children. The teen was not permitted to speak as the public comments portion of these events has been greatly curtailed: . If given the chance, Preston said he was ready to be heard.

鈥淚 think that they should be treated like any other student,鈥� the teen said of his undocumented peers. 鈥淎gents coming in and looking for undocumented children is inappropriate. If they find them, then they will presumably try to get them deported and I don’t support that. I also don鈥檛 really want a bunch of cops in my school. We already have SROs (school resource officers).鈥�

John Seidlitz, a long-time educator, immigrant advocate and founder of the California-based Seidlitz Education, said he鈥檚 concerned about the stress raids could place on children. 

鈥淎s educators, we have spent years learning about the effects of trauma on educational outcomes,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he threat of ICE presence in schools will have a serious negative impact not only on undocumented students, but on all students attending public schools.鈥� 

about ICE agents on or near school grounds continue to spread through social media. But it鈥檚 unclear whether immigration agents will actually come to campus. Some school officials have been told their districts are not targets.  

Christopher Cram, a spokesperson for Maryland鈥檚 Montgomery County Public Schools, said the school system was led to believe through a virtual call on Friday with immigration officials that campuses are still safe. 

鈥淒espite the Department of Homeland Security’s recent statement that ICE agents no longer have to 鈥榟onor鈥� the 鈥榮ensitive locations鈥� guidance, recent comments by ICE officials to Maryland superintendents indicate that there are no plans to visit or take action near schools,鈥� he said. 

But the atmosphere remains tense. The Chicago Public Schools reported last week that ICE agents visited one of its campuses only to later realize this : It was the Secret Service on an unrelated matter. But immigration raids were conducted within the past few days and also in among a host of other early locations, including the area and  

people in Arizona and New Mexico were caught up in the sweeps. Citing a senior Trump official, Tuesday that immigration authorities made close to 1,200 arrests in just one day, roughly 245 more than initially claimed. Nearly half of those detained don鈥檛 have criminal records, it reported, which Trump had said .

In an effort to prepare for any outcome, and local education agencies have provided school personnel 鈥� and, in some cases, parents 鈥� varying directives. Many reflect the fine line between protecting students鈥� rights and violating federal law. 

• The state superintendent of schools in Maryland said in a memo that 鈥渟chool personnel should not argue or debate with immigration enforcement officials but should direct them to the local superintendent or designated administrator for further action.鈥�

• Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina said its administrators must, when told by agents they want to speak to a particular child, attempt to contact their parents and remain with the student during a law enforcement interview. The directive said they 鈥渟hould not interfere with any ICE enforcement action, which may include service or execution of warrants, interviews, searches, or arrests,鈥� but that students have a right against self-incrimination and may not be required to provide information that would establish residency status.

• Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia provided staff with a script, advising them to welcome the agents and say, 鈥淲e will cooperate within the boundaries of the law, but to ensure minimal disruption, please have a seat until the principal arrives.鈥� They鈥檙e further instructed to make copies of any warrants, not allow agents access beyond the vestibule until their identity is confirmed and to document the agent鈥檚 name, badge number, agency affiliation, time, date, and details of the request.

• The School District of Philadelphia asked parents Friday to make sure that all emergency contact information is updated for their children.  

• Chicago Public Schools , in English and Spanish, to support immigrant students and their families, saying at a press conference last week: 鈥淩egardless of this policy change, our protocols will remain in place. There is complete alignment here between our state, our city and our district 鈥� CPS does not ask for a family鈥檚 immigration status. CPS will not coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. CPS does not share student records with ICE except in the rare case where there鈥檚 a court order or consent from a parent or guardian.鈥�

• Orange County Public Schools in Florida was advised by one of its attorneys to contact students鈥� parents whenever possible to ask for their permission for an ICE agent to interview their child. But, it notes, that if an administrator informs the parent of an interview after being told not to by law enforcement, refuses to leave the room when directed or interferes with a student鈥檚 arrest, they 鈥渕ay be subject to arrest on charges of tampering with a law enforcement investigation or obstructing a law enforcement official.鈥�

• Clark County School District in Las Vegas told staff that if there is a concern with the identity of the officer or agent 鈥� or the reason for their visit 鈥� they should call the Clark County School District Police Department. 

A Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled Tuesday that the Chicago Board of Education may not block schools chief Pedro Martinez from doing his job and may not attend teachers contract negotiations without his approval.

Judge Joel Chupack granted Martinez鈥檚 request for a temporary restraining order in a Christmas Eve ruling from the bench, marking another dramatic turn in the power struggle between the CEO and Mayor Brandon Johnson鈥檚 hand-picked board members.

The board on Friday, meaning he will stay on the job for another six months and collect more than $130,000 in severance pay. As part of that vote, the board said it would modify Martinez鈥檚 powers without specifying how.

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But on Tuesday, the judge ruled that the Board of Education members are barred from 鈥渙bstructing鈥� Martinez鈥檚 鈥減erformance of his job duties.鈥� They also cannot attend the district鈥檚 high-stakes contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union 鈥� as three did on Monday 鈥� without first getting permission from Martinez, the ruling said.

Board members also cannot attempt to manage any of Martinez鈥檚 staffers, the ruling said.

Another court date has been set for Jan. 9.

鈥淧edro Martinez is still the CEO, and there鈥檚 no question about that,鈥� said Bill Quinlan, Martinez鈥檚 attorney. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 have the right to restrict his duties and limit his statutory obligations.鈥�

Jeremy Glenn, an outside attorney representing the Chicago Board of Education, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday鈥檚 ruling.

At least three school board members took the unusual step of without an invitation from the CEO or the mayor. Martinez鈥檚 lawyer demanding board members cease and desist from attending, describing it as 鈥渦nlawful interference鈥� with Martinez鈥檚 authority.

After Tuesday鈥檚 ruling, Martinez told reporters that the current board 鈥� picked by a mayor who is a close ally of the teachers union 鈥� could 鈥渇orce a contract down our throats,鈥� and that CPS鈥檚 negotiating team considered resigning en masse when board members showed up to Monday鈥檚 negotiations and attempted to interfere, For his part, board President Sean Harden said he and others attended simply to support CPS鈥檚 team.

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates acknowledged that no one but Martinez is in charge 鈥� and that he should be ready to take the blame if the recent progress stalls in .

鈥淧eople get to say that this contract is being bargained with the Chicago Teachers Union and Pedro Martinez, so we look forward to finally seeing him on Thursday,鈥� Davis Gates said.

Martinez has not attended negotiations. Typically, school district CEOs and superintendents leave contracting negotiations for district bargaining team members with rare exceptions, such as when a deal is nearly at hand.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.  Sign up for their newsletters at . 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson鈥檚 hand-picked school board voted Friday to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, taking a step their predecessors had resisted and capping a months-long campaign by the mayor and teachers union to oust the schools chief.

The board voted unanimously to fire Martinez without cause, which under the terms of his contract means he will stay on the job for six more months 鈥� through the end of the current school year 鈥� and then receive severance pay of about $130,000.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not right,鈥� an angry and emotional Martinez told reporters after the vote.

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鈥淥bviously I鈥檓 disappointed by the board鈥檚 decision tonight,鈥� he said, adding that he would ensure a smooth transition for the next CEO. 鈥淟eading the system that shaped me has been an opportunity of a lifetime.鈥�

The firing was a dramatic culmination to months of turmoil that pitted the mayor and the teachers union 鈥� a close ally that catapulted him into office 鈥� against Martinez. The unprecedented development comes weeks before begins work. It also comes as the district enters a decisive phase in its high-stakes over a new contract.

Martinez made Friday to save his job before the vote. His attorneys filed motions seeking to block his potential firing, alleging board members were appointed 鈥渢o do the bidding鈥� of a mayor and teachers union that have 鈥渟capegoated鈥� Martinez.

According to a source close to the CEO, Martinez earlier turned down a settlement offer of more than $500,000 to depart, which would have amounted to salary and benefits owed to him for the remainder of his contract.

CTU issued a statement after the vote saying Martinez was stalling by not agreeing to a new union contract that 鈥済uarantees every CPS student a quality school day, protects recent academic gains, and provides classrooms with the resources our students and families deserve.鈥�

鈥淲e look forward to the road ahead for CPS, and we urge the board and the mayor to step into the leadership gap that the CEO has created and choose a future candidate who understands the assignment,鈥� the statement read.

Ahead of the vote, incoming elected school board members, education organizations, and former CPS CEOs Arne Duncan and Janice Jackson in support of letting the new board decide Martinez鈥檚 fate. That list grew Friday to include U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia and Yesenia Lopez, an incoming elected school board member who was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union 鈥� which cast a vote of no-confidence in Martinez in the fall.

At the meeting, a group of principals expressed support for Martinez and raised concerns about CTU proposals that they feel will take away instructional time from children. The principals union has expressed similar concerns over the past several weeks. Meanwhile, Jackson Potter, vice president of the CTU, said the union has made more progress in negotiations this week and wants a swift deal.

More than a dozen elected officials also spoke 鈥� both in support of and against Martinez.

Tara Stamps, a Cook County commissioner, former teacher, and CTU staffer, blamed Martinez for schools on her home turf of the West Side that still have 鈥渃hronic underfunding鈥� and 鈥渃rumbling infrastructure.鈥�

鈥淧edro Martinez鈥檚 leadership have left these schools in a drought and our teachers and our students are paying the price for that,鈥� Stamps said.

Others called for the board to wait. Jennifer Custer, an incoming elected school board member who was backed by the CTU, asked the board to hold off on a decision. She also criticized the union鈥檚 contract proposal.

鈥淎re you going to condemn the first elected board to serve in a capacity where our sole job for the next two years is not to address student outcomes and making CPS a better place, but to figure out how to steady the ship in the wake of the chaos that is created by the decision to fire a CEO mid year and inevitably agree to a contract that we can鈥檛 afford, and while the district suffers financially already?鈥� Custer said.

After the public comment period, the board met in closed session. After 90 minutes, members emerged and voted Martinez out without comment. The board then left without taking any questions from reporters.

Tensions stem from district鈥檚 money woes

The conflict between Martinez and the mayor鈥檚 office reflects a fundamental rift over how the district should navigate a time when and major .

The union and Johnson have argued that the district should add more staff, reduce class size, and agree to a litany of other proposals. The mayor鈥檚 team suggested over the summer that 鈥� and then redouble its push to line up new revenue from the state or other sources. The Martinez administration countered that any prospects for new funding are uncertain, and the district should avoid adding to its significant debt burden.

The previous appointed board 鈥� under pressure to oust the CEO and take on the loan 鈥� in October. While that board with Martinez, it wasn鈥檛 prepared to fire him, sources previously told Chalkbeat.

Johnson . He four of them would continue to serve, while three will step down because they are not eligible based on where they live. The mayor announced six other appointments to the new board and has yet to name one more.

More recently, the fate of schools in one of the city鈥檚 largest charter networks has proven divisive.

The board and the mayor鈥檚 office criticized Martinez for not acting aggressively enough to find alternatives to planned school closings at Acero charter school network. On Friday, the Board of Education approved a resolution to cover Acero鈥檚 budget deficit to keep all seven schools open next school year. The board also directed CPS leadership to create a plan to transition five of the campuses into CPS schools for the 2026-27 school year.

Martinez oversaw pandemic rebound, new strategic plan

Martinez by Johnson鈥檚 predecessor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot. He arrived at a turbulent time 鈥� as school buildings reopened for full-time in-person instruction after being shuttered during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak 鈥� and began the work of addressing the pandemic鈥檚 academic and social-emotional damage.

By some accounts, Martinez鈥檚 tenure has brought a measure of stability after COVID鈥檚 massive disruption. His administration has touted data showing the district鈥檚 students have than most other districts across the country.

During his roughly three years at the helm, Martinez presided over a significant expansion of the district鈥檚 workforce, using and support staff.

He also oversaw the adoption of a controversial plan to and an this spring that ; instead, the district now provides base staffing positions to all schools and factors in a school鈥檚 level of student needs in budgeting for additional positions and support.

Martinez was also at the helm when thousands of migrant children from Central and South American countries enrolled in the district鈥檚 schools, leading to for students at many schools, particularly those in low-income, Black communities.

On the day the previous school board passed a new 鈥� which focuses on Johnson鈥檚 priority of boosting resources for neighborhood schools 鈥� the mayor asked Martinez to resign.

When Lightfoot appointed Martinez, a Chicago native and former CPS chief financial officer, he was the superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District. Johnson chose to keep Martinez in the role after defeating Lightfoot in the 2023 mayoral election 鈥� which teachers union president Stacy Davis Gates said at the start of this school year she requested of the mayor. The union said at the time that the CEO appeared to be ushering in a new era of more collaboration and better rapport between the CTU and district officials.

But things changed this summer amid over an extensive, Martinez, along with the Johnson-appointed school board, balked at taking on the Johnson had urged the district to take out the loan to pay for the contract鈥檚 costs and cover a $175 million payment to a city pension fund that covers non-teaching staff.

The CTU had lambasted and argued the city should continue to cover it as it had in the past. The Johnson administration has in part blamed the city鈥檚 budget woes on that pension payment. On Monday, the Chicago City Council narrowly passed Johnson鈥檚 $17.1 billion budget plan after a bruising two month budget process during which even his progressive allies criticized his leadership.

Martinez said in September that , citing a need for stability in a district roiled by frequent leadership turnover in recent years.

In recent weeks, the teachers union intensified its criticism of Martinez, even as his administration in the coming years and benefit increases at no cost to teachers, among other concessions. Union leaders have said Martinez is resisting union staffing, class size, and other proposals that would transform a district historically plagued by inequities in the student experiences among campuses and neighborhoods. They also claimed Martinez didn鈥檛 lobby for more state funding aggressively enough or make a plan for the expiration of federal COVID relief money.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at . 

Mayor Brandon Johnson picked 10 of 11 people Monday to round out the city鈥檚 new half-elected, half-appointed school board 鈥� including some who ran unsuccessfully in this November.

The new board will be sworn in Jan. 15, 2025, and will include 10 people who won in November. State law required the mayor choose the other 11 people, including a board president, by Monday.

The shift to an elected school board in Chicago . The process set forth in state law is complicated. Though there were 10 school board races in November, each district was split into two subdistricts. State law limited who Johnson could pick 鈥� allowing him to only choose people who did not live in the same subdistrict as winners of the election.

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Johnson announced the school board appointees late Monday, just hours before the deadline.

• Sean Harden, a South Side native and former CPS employee, will serve as president of the Board of Education and represent the city at large.
• Ed Bannon, who ran for alderman in 2023 and served on the Dever Elementary School Local School Council, will represent District 1a alongside Jennifer Custer in 1b.
• Debby Pope, a current appointed school board member and former CTU employee and retired teacher who filed campaign finance paperwork and considered running for an elected school board seat, will represent District 2b alongside Ebony DeBerry in 2a.
• Norma Rios-Sierra, an artist who also works as cultural events manager for nonprofit Palenque LSNA, will presumably represent District 3a alongside Carlos Rivas Jr. in 3b.
• Karen Zaccor, a retired teacher and active CTU member who finished second in a six-way race in November鈥檚 election, will represent District 4a alongside the winning candidate Ellen Rosenfeld in 4b.
• Michilla Blaise, a current school board member who withdrew as a candidate one month before Election Day, will represent District 5b alongside Jitu Brown in 5a.
• Anusha Thotakura, a former teacher who also lost her bid in November, will represent District 6a alongside Jessica Biggs in 6b.
• Emma Lozano, a Pilsen pastor and advocate for bilingual education and immigrant rights. It is not clear which district Lozano lives in, but it would presumably be either district 7b or 8b alongside either Yesenia Lopez in 7a or Angel Gutierrez in 8a.
• Frank Niles Thomas, a current board member appointed last month, will represent District 9a alongside Therese Boyle in 9b.
• Olga Bautista, a current board member appointed last month, will presumably represent District 10b alongside Che 鈥淩hymefest鈥� Smith in 10a.

It was not immediately clear why the mayor only announced 10 of 11 picks before the deadline. State law does not spell out any impacts for partially missing the deadline.

Johnson鈥檚 picks will make up a majority of the board, giving him significant influence over a governing body that for the past three decades was exclusively controlled by Chicago鈥檚 mayor.

The mayor鈥檚 appointees included most of the current board members as well as losing school board candidates who were endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, a close ally of the mayor鈥檚.

Johnson鈥檚 office announced the names after the mayor struggled to negotiate a deal with aldermen on his second city budget. Late Monday, after multiple amendments and Johnson tossing out his proposed property tax increase entirely, the City Council approved a $17.1 billion city budget by a vote of 27 to 23.

After that budget vote, as he called for more state revenue, Johnson told reporters he was looking for school board members 鈥渨ho understand the urgency of this moment, people who know that they have to organize and work collectively to fight for progressive revenue in the state.鈥�

鈥淏ut really the big characteristic that I鈥檓 proud that people demonstrated was a real care for the families who do the work as well,鈥� Johnson said, adding that he also searched for people who were not 鈥渄ismissive鈥� of teachers.

The mayor鈥檚 influence over the school board may extend beyond his own picks. Four of the election winners were backed by the union, which ideologically aligns with the mayor. That means 15 of the 21 members could often vote in alignment with his policy preferences, such as avoiding school closures and sending more money to neighborhood schools.

It also could mean the board could vote to borrow money in order to cover pension obligations and labor union costs, as Johnson pushed CPS to do in the spring and summer, helping to lead to the resignation of the entire previous board.

Before taking office, school board members are required to complete state-mandated training. Last week, newly elected board members were notified by the school district鈥檚 board office that would be postponed, per a request from the current board. Carlos Rivas, who was elected to represent District 3 on the West Side, said the Academy of Local Leadership at National Louis University, in light of the district鈥檚 cancellation, is now providing training this week. Rivas was part of .

鈥淎t the end of the day, what鈥檚 most important is that we are prepared to govern on day one,鈥� Rivas said.

Rivas said the school district鈥檚 board office said they still plan to hold five days of sessions with new board members from Jan. 6-10.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.  Sign up for their newsletters at . 

But researchers with The University of Chicago say such data points represent a mere snapshot of student achievement for those still learning a new language, telling just a fraction of a greater story. 

They鈥檝e been turning their attention instead to a different group of children: Former English learners who, by the time they reached ninth grade, had graduated from language support programs.

Their of 78,507 Chicago Public School students who started high school in the fall of 2014, 2015 and 2016 shows this group is thriving: They had better cumulative grade point averages and SAT scores and were more likely to graduate high school than the district average.

Their two-year college enrollment rate was also higher. 

鈥淭here is this perception that English learners are particularly struggling, that they don鈥檛 do well 鈥� that they are perpetually behind,鈥� said Marisa de la Torre, a managing director and senior research associate at the . 

Incoming Vice President JD Vance furthered the notion that these students are a burden, when he pointed to the tens of thousands of school-age children in whose parents are undocumented.

鈥淣ow think about that,鈥� he said in October. 鈥淭hink about what it does to a poor school teacher, who鈥檚 just trying to get by with what they have, just trying to educate their kids, and then you drop in a few dozen kids into that school, many of whom don鈥檛 even speak English. Do you think that鈥檚 good for the education of American citizens? No, it鈥檚 not.鈥�

Xenophobia and race-baiting were central to Donald Trump’s re-election efforts. The incoming president has said he will to drive millions of undocumented people from the country, a plan and  

de la Torre said the belief that all children associated with English learner programs are forever adrift is misleading and unfair to students and their teachers: It鈥檚 a far smaller subset of active English learners 鈥� those who struggle to make it out of English learner support programs 鈥� who tend to have lower grades, she said.

Jorge Macias, now a senior consultant to the Latino Policy Forum, led Chicago Public School鈥檚 multilingual program for years. He said the narrative must be changed to reflect reality. 

鈥淪tate-level data and national data doesn’t capture this group properly,鈥� Macias said, noting that 78% of English learner students in the Chicago school system transitioned out of the program by 8th grade, according to an earlier study. 鈥淎nd once the students exit, they actually show just as much success 鈥� if not more 鈥� in the factors that matter most for postsecondary success. 鈥�

UChicago researchers divided active English learners into categories, including long-term English learners. These students were in the program for at least six years: Many had learning disabilities and Individualized Education Programs outlining their mandated special education services.

The final category consisted of late-arriving students, those who came to the district after the third grade and remained active in the English learner program in their freshman year of high school. 

Former English learners represented 23% of the school system鈥檚 ninth graders in the years the study covered. Long-term English learners without IEPs made up 4%. Their performance was substantially lower than the district average. 

These students were more likely to enroll in a two-year-college and less likely to enroll in a four-year college 鈥� and when they did enroll in a four-year college, they had lower persistence rates., they had lower persistence rates.听

Long-term English learners with IEPs made up 3% of ninth graders in the study. Their high school performance and college enrollment and persistence rates were similar to non-English learners with IEPs.听

Late-arriving English learners, who also made up 3% of the study鈥檚 ninth graders, graduated high school at similar rates to their peers: 81% compared to the district average of 84%. But their college entrance exam scores were lower. 

Despite this, their two-year college persistence rate was markedly higher than most other students who enrolled in college.

Researchers found that while late-arriving English learners struggled with standardized tests, their grades were strong. And they were more successful than their native English-speaking peers 鈥� and former English learners 鈥� in college, suggesting their poor test performance was not predictive of later success. 

This new report builds upon earlier research in this area. Another de la Torre of Chicago Public Schools found that English learners who demonstrated English proficiency by eighth grade had higher attendance levels through elementary and middle school, better math test scores and core course grades compared to students never classified as ELs.

It found, too, that English learners who did not achieve English proficiency by eighth grade struggled with declining attendance by the middle grades and also had considerably lower grade point averages.

Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, the Latino Policy Forum鈥檚 vice president of education policy and research, said quality bilingual programs and other supports can help active English learners succeed. 

The achievements of former English learners, she said, are “a powerful reminder that bilingualism is not a barrier, but a bridge, to greater opportunities.鈥�

Among Chicago Public School employees, no one has been a bigger cheerleader for an invention designed to reduce dangerous amounts of lead in water from school drinking fountains than top administrator Robert Christlieb.

Christlieb, the district鈥檚 executive director of facilities, operations and maintenance, has worked for at least seven years on the problem of lead in drinking water at CPS schools, a critical issue for student health.

He鈥檚 appeared on panel discussions, in news articles and podcasts to highlight the district鈥檚 strategies, which has included installing an invention called Noah 鈥� a device that automatically flushes student drinking fountains on a set schedule to reduce the build up of lead in stagnant water. Christlieb has touted the device as a cheaper solution than doing extensive plumbing work in hundreds of aging school buildings.

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In public, Christlieb says Michael Ramos, who works for a CPS contractor as the chief building engineer at Von Steuben High School on the Northwest Side, is the inventor of Noah. Christlieb tells the story of how Ramos wanted to protect his students from lead and worked to create a low-cost, reliable device to do just that.

鈥淢ichael [Ramos] has solved the lead problem in public schools, not just in Chicago,鈥� Christlieb was quoted as ,. He added in the story that the district had approved expanding Noah to 25 schools as part of a pilot program. But the expansion never happened, 鈥渄ue to resources, staffing and the COVID-19 pandemic,鈥� according to CPS. For now, the Noah device is in five CPS schools 鈥� three high schools and two elementary.

Christlieb, who makes more than $170,000 a year at CPS, neglects to mention one key detail as he tells the story of the device鈥檚 creation.

He鈥檚 more than just a fan of Noah. He鈥檚 listed as the co-inventor of the device he鈥檚 been promoting for years. Christlieb and Ramos share the U.S. patent for the Noah device, federal records show.

Nor does he mention that he once formed a business with Ramos to sell the device 鈥� a business that has since dissolved.

CPS declined to make any school official available to Illinois Answers Project reporters to discuss the district鈥檚 actions. CPS repeatedly did not address questions regarding whether Christlieb violated any of its conflict of interest policies but stands by him continuing to promote autoflushing, despite him having a patent on the Noah device. CPS said Christlieb does not supervise Ramos or oversee the contract with the CPS contractor that employs him.

The district explicitly prohibits its employees from working as a vendor and doing business with the school system. Christlieb formed a company with one of his friends and Ramos, in March of 2017 called RCS Water Quality Solutions to sell Noah. RCS listed as its corporate address a residence Christlieb owns in Wisconsin.

In the fall of 2017, CPS says it learned of the partnership and told Christlieb that he could not continue to work at CPS if he didn鈥檛 divest.

On the same day that Christlieb dissolved RCS, he completed paperwork to create a new business called Lead Out Manufacturing and listed Ramos as the registered agent. He again used his residence in Wisconsin as corporate headquarters, corporate filings show.

CPS said in a statement that Christlieb 鈥渧olunteered鈥� his time to help Ramos fill out the administrative paperwork to set up Lead Out and allowed Ramos to use his Wisconsin address but has nothing to do with the company.

CPS said it has no evidence that Christlieb ever profited from the Noah devices. Christlieb wrote in answers to questions that he did not make a profit, and Ramos, in an interview, agreed that Christlieb never made any money from them. Both men indicated that they had been interviewed by the CPS inspector general鈥檚 office regarding their ties to Noah, and no action was taken against them.

鈥淢r. Christlieb helped develop a product that helps remove lead from drinking water and kept his name on the patent as a matter of intellectual property,鈥� CPS said in a statement.

Christlieb used CPS testing data to support the patent for the Noah device as well as for a white paper designed to promote autoflushing at Orr High School, where Noah had been installed. When asked whether Christlieb鈥檚 use of the testing data for personal use violated CPS policy, the district noted that water testing data can be obtained by anyone through a public information request.

Despite Christlieb鈥檚 significant role in the school water testing, CPS argued that the fact that he has a patent on the Noah device did not compromise its water testing.

The district said in a statement: 鈥淐PS implements a proactive lead testing program that goes above and beyond any state requirements and uses the best known practices for testing and preventing lead build up in drinking water. A flusher system … is in a handful of our more than 600 schools and we stand by our district鈥檚 proactive practices and testing procedures. The district鈥檚 lead mitigation program is overseen by a team of professionals in our facilities department. Mr. Christlieb鈥檚 invention of one tool in this field 鈥� and that tool鈥檚 use in a small fraction of the 600-plus schools in the district 鈥� has no impact on the quality or veracity of the district鈥檚 program to test for lead, mitigate lead in water and/or repair/resolve for lead in water.鈥�

Conflicting stories

In separate interviews, the two men, once partners in selling the device, disagree on basic facts about who invented the device, what money they contributed to get it patented and what roles they played in the business, called Lead Out Manufacturing. Christlieb has offered varying accounts of his role in the firm, from initially writing in response to questions from reporters that he had 49 percent ownership of Lead Out, to saying in a CPS statement that he divested from the company soon after it was created, to indicating, in a final CPS statement, that he was never an investor at all. Ramos, in an interview, said Christlieb was involved for 鈥渁 couple years鈥� in Lead Out.

In an interview, Ramos said he is the sole inventor of Noah and he put Christlieb on the patent to persuade Christlieb to become a partner with him. Ramos noted that Christlieb as a high-ranking CPS official had 鈥渁 big reach鈥� and having him as part of the company could help sales of the device to other school districts. He said that they weren鈥檛 鈥渘ecessarily鈥� going to go after CPS business.

“His name does appear on the patent, but that doesn’t mean that he had anything to do with the invention,鈥� Ramos said in an interview with Illinois Answers reporters earlier this year.

Michael Ramos, chief building engineer at Von Steuben High School, shows a Noah device in December 2023 installed at one of the drinking fountains there. (Victor Hilitski/For Illinois Answers Project)

Ramos said initially after they met in 2016 both men 鈥渨ere basically planning on starting a partnership to take it to New York, New Jersey, and do all these other things, you know, because Rob has a big reach. And I felt like, wow, what a better partner than having Rob, you know, so 鈥� as a sign of like, good faith to, like, try to bring him in and say, Rob, you know, I’ll put you on a patent with me.”

鈥淚’m trying to introduce this to districts,鈥� Ramos said. 鈥淭he schools need it. I figured this is something that’s affordable, the districts could use. Why wouldn’t I reach out to someone like Rob, who has the title, who has the name and has the respect in the industry?鈥�

Earlier this year, within some school buildings, prompting Ramos to text Christlieb.

鈥淕ood morning Rob, this is another candidate for Noah. Is there any way you can reach out to them? I can reach out, but they usually don鈥檛 respond because I seem to come across as selling snake oil. If it comes from you, they will see it as valid.鈥� Records provided by CPS do not include Christlieb鈥檚 response.

Ramos said the men worked together for a couple years trying to sell the device to school districts across the country but never realized much success. Ramos said he and Christlieb parted ways after he realized the arrangement could look suspect to CPS but argued the men never did anything wrong and that Christlieb never received any money from the company.

In an interview at Von Steuben High School in December last year, Christlieb credited Ramos with inventing the device and marveled at how Ramos was able to build what Christlieb could only think about. He talked about how just the month before he came out to Von Steuben High School, where Ramos worked, to see his Noah device, he had just been thinking the month before about such an invention.

“So the interesting thing was, before I came out here in October of 2016, to see what he had done. In September of 2016, I had sat down one night, and I sketched out the idea of doing a bypass filter and having some type of controller on it,鈥� Christlieb said in the interview with Illinois Answers reporters. 鈥淎nd I’m like, ‘Man if I could build something like this.鈥� But I didn’t have the skill set, right? And Michael did, and Michael must have been listening to me across the city because we didn’t know each other at that time and then all of a sudden I’m being called out here a month later and I’m like this is exactly what I was hoping for. But someone was actually able to put it together and the concept works and the mechanics work. It’s very simple … Simplicity is key for us.”

After reporters discovered that Christlieb鈥檚 name was on the patent, they attempted to interview him at his Wisconsin address where he was staying. He declined to answer questions in person but responded to a set of written questions.

Christlieb wrote that he was on the patent because he had made substantial contributions to the invention of Noah. He did not answer follow-up questions that asked him to detail those contributions.

Robert Christlieb, right, CPS’s executive director of facilities, operations and maintenance, talks during a demonstration of the Noah system at Von Steuben High School in December. (Victor Hilitski/For Illinois Answers Project)

The men also disagree on other issues regarding the patent. Ramos said he paid all the legal fees for the patent work on the Noah device. Christlieb, though, wrote he contributed about $5,000 for the legal work. The patent was granted to Ramos and Christlieb in 2021.

CPS provided two documents that it said showed that Christlieb had nothing to do with Lead Out. One is the most recently available Wisconsin corporate filing that shows Ramos is the registered agent for the firm, but while Christlieb鈥檚 name is not on the document, it does not address ownership. The document lists Lead Out鈥檚 corporate address as Christlieb鈥檚 Wisconsin address.

The other document provided by CPS and Christlieb involves him assigning his rights to the patent on the Noah device to Lead Out. The document is dated June 2018, more than six months after Lead Out was formed. The document is signed by Christlieb, but not by Ramos, and once again lists Christlieb’s Wisconsin address as Lead Out鈥檚 corporate address.

Starting with Flint

The district began focusing on assessing its drinking water in 2016 after , and began a 10-year testing program by sampling its over 12,000 water fixtures for lead levels.

In the first year of testing, 60% of the 490 schools tested returned at least one sample with a lead level over 5 parts per billion, exceeding the state鈥檚 action level for lead in water. Last year, the district tested 174 schools, and 92, or 53%, had at least one sample exceeding the state limit.

Since replacing all lead pipes could cost up to $2.5 billion, according to district estimates, CPS first focused on limiting the stagnant water in pipes, where lead collects, by having building engineers manually flush all drinking water faucets in its 528 campuses. Building engineers, tasked with maintaining the HVAC, electrical and plumbing systems, are required by district protocols to flush schools after a 鈥減eriod of nonattendance,鈥� such as a weekend or break, once a week.

At a campus like Von Steuben, where Ramos works, manual flushing would require him and his team of two engineers to individually run the water on all 42 fixtures in the school for 3 minutes before students arrive on Monday or after a long break, Ramos said. Additionally, they would still need to complete other responsibilities such as preventative maintenance and repairs before students arrive. Experts say that while flushing can decrease lead levels, the manual process doesn鈥檛 guarantee water is safe to drink because it鈥檚 prone to human error. The district employs 685 engineers who oversee 800 buildings, meaning some engineers cover multiple schools.

A sign on the wall at Von Steuben High School in December tells students the Noah device has been installed at a drinking fountain there. (Victor Hilitski/For Illinois Answers Project)

Christlieb and Ramos argue that Noah works well because the device automatically flushes the water fountains and doesn鈥檛 rely on employees to do it.

In addition to Von Steuben, the devices have been added to drinking fountains in CPS schools at Orr High School, Belding Elementary, Onahan Elementary and Kelvyn Park High School.

All the devices installed at CPS schools have been donated by Ramos or purchased by local school councils.  There are no records showing that CPS has cut a check to Lead Out Manufacturing, but in some instances, CPS paid a contractor to install the devices. The devices cost about $395.

The devices also have been installed at two suburban school districts 鈥� Crete-Monee School District Indian Springs School District 109, according to documents obtained by Illinois Answers.

Years of promoting autoflushing 鈥� and Noah

Christlieb has promoted the Noah device for years, at times using CPS resources, starting as early as July 2017.

In that month, Christlieb a case study about the Noah flushing system at Orr Academy. And Christlieb shared the Orr case study widely to multiple school districts and city governments using his CPS email account.

In March of 2019, he appeared in a Chicago Health Magazine article that promoted autoflushing and appeared in a photo with Ramos in the story.

In a podcast interview, Christlieb said he installed Noah in his own home and that it worked 鈥減erfectly.鈥�

And as recently as May of this year, Christlieb, using his CPS title, for , in which he discussed the Orr High School pilot program and Noah鈥檚 benefit to the district.

CPS emails and text messages show that Christlieb and Ramos also talked during the workday about promoting Noah to schools in Chicago such as City Colleges and outside Illinois including Philadelphia Public Schools and New York City Public Schools.

Christlieb appears to have played a role in efforts at establishing Noah鈥檚 credibility as an effective solution.

In March of 2021, Christlieb emailed the white paper he wrote on Noah鈥檚 use at Orr as well hundreds of pages of testing data to a Philadelphia school official, who was interested in the invention and who thanked him for his time 鈥渆xplaining the benefits of your Noah system.鈥�

Christlieb responded to the official by telling him who else at CPS was involved in the project.

鈥淔or Noah,鈥� Christlieb added, 鈥淚 would recommend talking with Michael Ramos.鈥�

Von Steuben High School on the Northwest Side of Chicago was the first site where Noah autoflushing devices were tested to reduce lead in water from student drinking fountains. (Victor Hilitski/For Illinois Answers Project)

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

At the end of the last school year, with the teacher contract expiring, the union released an list of demands, asking for even more staffing and a minimum of 9% annual raises for the next four years.

But over the last few months, the budget reality has started to hit home. The district is considering taking out a high-interest $284 million loan to cover this year鈥檚 operating budget. And next year, the city will face a shortfall of .

The math is not that complicated. Chicago has more employees and is paying them higher salaries than before the pandemic, even as it has lost student enrollment. According to state data, Chicago added 895 general teachers and 1,140 special education teachers from 2018-19 to 2023-24. Across all categories of teachers and administrators, Chicago added the equivalent of 3,448 more full-time staff members, an increase of 17%.

Chicago Has More Teachers and Administrators

Over the same time period, Chicago lost 38,000 students, a drop of 10.5%. With more employees serving fewer students, the district dramatically lowered its staffing ratios. In elementary schools, for example, it its student-to-teacher ratio from 24.5 to 1 in 2018 to 18.5 to 1 in 2023.

Chicago has also not skimped on salaries for those employees. In 2019, an analysis by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that Chicago already its educators more than any district in the country. That didn鈥檛 stop the union from going out on an 11-day strike or eventually winning what then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot called a “” contract that raised the teacher salary schedule by 16% over five years.

But that figure is underselling what actually happened, because individual teachers continued to move up the salary ladder. As an example, consider a new hire who started teaching in Chicago right out of college in 2019-20. That novice would have earned $54,547 the first year. By year five, the salary would have jumped to $67,444, a 24% raise over five years. Of course, pay varies by experience level, but teachers with master鈥檚 degrees earned increases of 20% to 38% over the same period. Inflation also rose a lot over that time, but almost all Chicago teachers did better.

In fact, despite adding a lot more new teachers, who tend to come in on the lower end of the salary schedule, average teacher pay in Chicago rose from $68,153 five years ago to nearly $88,000 last year. That鈥檚 a five-year increase of $19,055, or 28%.

Chicago Is Paying Higher Salaries

Going forward, the district鈥檚 budget office has annual raises of 4% to 5%, and even at that level it already projects a substantial budget deficit. The union is asking for a minimum of 9%, compounded annually for the next four years. That works out to at least a 41% increase, and that鈥檚 before taking into account teachers advancing up the salary ladder. District officials estimate these increases would put Chicago into by the end of the contract.

Chicago’s first-ever school board election next month will go a long way toward determining the fate of these proposals. Will Johnson be able to deliver another 鈥渉istoric鈥� win for the teachers union? And if so, how will he pay for it? 

The entire seven-member Chicago Board of Education will resign in the coming weeks after months of tension between Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.

The resignations pave the way for Johnson to appoint new board members who could then carry out his wishes, including potentially firing Martinez. Johnson鈥檚 office said late Friday he will announce new appointments on Monday at 10:30 a.m.

Word of the resignations comes more than a week after the school board took no action to remove Martinez and about a month before the city鈥檚 first school board elections, which will create for the first time a hybrid board of 10 elected members and 11 appointed by the mayor. In three decades of mayoral control, no Chicago mayor has replaced all of their hand-picked members so quickly. Johnson last July.

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The upheaval is also happening amid with Johnson鈥檚 former employer the Chicago Teachers Union.

In a joint statement Friday, Johnson and the current appointed school board announced all current members would 鈥渢ransition from service鈥� later this month.

鈥淣one of the members leaving the current Board planned to continue onto the hybrid Board, and none are running for election. With the unprecedented increase in Board membership, transitioning new members now will allow them time to orient and gain critical experience prior to welcoming additional elected and appointed members in 2025,鈥� the statement read.

Johnson said this week that he never discusses personnel issues in public. But he , 鈥淚 was elected to fight for the people of the city and whoever is in the way, get out of it.鈥�

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Jen Johnson, deputy mayor for education, youth, and human services, said the mayor鈥檚 office 鈥渄id not ask for resignations.鈥�

鈥淲e knew that none of these board members were running [for election] or going to stay, and so we collaborated to ensure that there was a shepherding, a passing of the torch, as we approach this new board,鈥� Johnson said, adding that all seven board members signed on to the statement the mayor鈥檚 office sent to the press.

Earlier this month, the mayor asked Martinez to step down 鈥� which he Nonetheless, Martinez and the has declined so far to fire him.

Board members have declined to comment publicly on Martinez鈥檚 clash with Brandon Johnson, but the board has in recent months backed Martinez in a couple of decisions that defied the mayor鈥檚 wishes. That includes adopting this year鈥檚 budget, as well as declining Johnson鈥檚 request for CPS to take out a short-term loan to cover some upcoming costs.

The board members stepping down are Board President Jianan Shi, Elizabeth Todd-Breland, who was appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Mary Fahey Hughes, Tanya Woods, Mariela Estrada, Michelle Morales, and Rudy Lozano Jr.

Shi and Todd-Breland declined to comment further Friday. The other members have not returned emails or calls asking for comment on the resignation rumors this week.

The resignations will pave the way for Johnson to appoint new people to fill the vacancies on the board, who could then vote to approve a short-term loan and fire Martinez. The next school board meeting is Oct. 16, one of few remaining scheduled meetings before the is sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025.

鈥淭he board certainly will have the same authority, to evaluate the CEO against the objectives, and they will, you know, have to certainly tackle the incompleteness of the budget,鈥� Deputy Mayor Johnson said.

Johnson did not directly answer when asked if it is the mayor鈥檚 hope that the new board will fire Martinez and approve a loan.

The mayor 鈥渨ill work with this new board just as he did with the current board to ensure we are protecting investments in our schools and that we are not cutting and using the truly chaotic solutions of past administrations, which harmed students in communities for generations,鈥� she said.

In a statement, CPS CEO Martinez commended the board members 鈥渇or their steadfast dedication to ensuring greater equity in our system, emphasizing our collective responsibility to improve the quality of education for those who are furthest from opportunity.鈥�

If the mayor鈥檚 intention is to install a new board in order to fire Martinez, it would 鈥渂e a group that has never evaluated [Martinez], has never worked with him,鈥� according to a source familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak with the press. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 know any of his work, they haven鈥檛 been part of any of these conversations.鈥�

That source also noted that new board members typically have an orientation, which could be difficult to wedge in before the board鈥檚 first meeting.

In order to conduct business, the school board must have a quorum, which define as 鈥渁 majority of the full membership of the Board of Education then serving.鈥�

Deputy Mayor Johnson declined to specify the exact date of departure for each current board member, calling the latter a 鈥減ersonal decision鈥� for each person.

A CPS central office staffer, who was not authorized to speak with the press, said the board 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 want to undermine the mayor publicly鈥� and feels board members were pressured to leave for not adhering to the mayor鈥檚 wishes. Another source familiar with the situation, also not authorized to speak with the media, questioned the official explanation.

鈥淭he mayor鈥檚 office will try to spin this as a transition,鈥� the source said. 鈥淭here is no credible explanation for why seven people would all leave a month or two ahead of time to facilitate a transition.鈥�

The mood in the CPS central office was 鈥渓ike a funeral home鈥� Friday as news of the resignations broke, according to the central office staffer, who said many people were sad to see the board departures.

鈥淵ou could tell they really care about what鈥檚 going on at the district,鈥� the staffer said, adding that they have worked with multiple CPS boards. 鈥淭hey have a sense of responsibility that I think I haven鈥檛 seen in the past.鈥�

Multiple board members had been in serious discussions to resign as of at least Sunday, three sources told Chalkbeat.

As rumors of resignations floated earlier this week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said before new members are elected. Friday morning, former Chicago school board member and once interim-CPS CEO Jesse Ruiz thanking current board members and urging them to 鈥渟tay the course.鈥�

鈥淒espite all the pressures I know you all are under, I truly hope you continue to provide the steady leadership, governance and oversight that is critical for our public institutions to operate in the best interest of ALL its stakeholders,鈥� Ruiz , the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The school board shakeup likely won鈥檛 have an immediate effect on schools, students, and educators, said Jeffery Henig, professor emeritus of politics and education at Columbia University鈥檚 Teachers College, who has studied mayoral control of school boards.

The resignations 鈥渨ill create a potential embarrassment鈥� for the mayor, but also give Johnson a chance to 鈥渟tep in strongly鈥� and make swift decisions that he thinks are necessary, Henig said.

The turmoil could, however, create long-term problems for the new board, which may be tasked with replacing Martinez, hiring a permanent replacement, or addressing the issue of borrowing to cover costs, he said.

鈥淭his dramatic gesture by the current board could set into motion enough turmoil and public positioning and open vying for leadership in one faction [of the school board] versus another, that it would make it harder for the new board to set an even course at the beginning,鈥� Henig said.

Some candidates running for school board in the November election began issuing statements.

Kate Doyle, a candidate in District 2, said she was 鈥渄isappointed to see leaders step away鈥� at a critical time and that if elected, she would 鈥渨ork to ensure that decisions are made transparently and with the long-term success of our students in mind.鈥�

Tensions between Martinez, Johnson building for months

In its year-plus tenure, the Johnson-appointed Board of Education has pursued and approved policies that line up ideologically with the mayor. That includes making a commitment to moving away from , and

Martinez and his administration worked in tandem with the board to develop and implement those changes. But the school board has had some with his performance, WBEZ . According to documents related to his annual evaluation, board members felt blindsided or unprepared in certain circumstances. Still, CPS told WBEZ that the board and Martinez 鈥渉ave worked collaboratively throughout our tenure to have open dialogue, fostering a respectful and professional relationship.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 true that the board has been frustrated with Pedro along the way,鈥� said the source familiar with the situation. 鈥淏ut I do think that, in my knowledge of the situation, there has been this relentless pressure to fire Pedro for cause and do it quickly, and the board is not comfortable doing that.鈥�

According to Martinez鈥檚 contract, the board would need to provide six months notice before firing him without cause. If the board fired him for just cause, such as criminal activity, he would have to leave immediately. Martinez could sue the district if he believes he was wrongfully terminated.

At the heart of the tension between Johnson, his school board, and Martinez is the district鈥檚 budget, which faced a half-billion-dollar deficit before CPS made cuts to close it. That deficit existed largely because that the district used to beef up staffing and invest in new programs, such as tutoring, expired this week.

The district鈥檚 $9.9 billion did not set aside dollars for the new teachers contract, which it is currently negotiating. It is not unusual for the school district to amend its budget once a contract deal has been reached. WBEZ recently reported that the district has outlined several options, of furloughs and layoffs.

Johnson which included the same amount of funding for schools but resulted in other cuts, including of support staff who CPS said will be reassigned or paid for the rest of the year.

The district also did not include a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching staff that . Johnson opposed that cost shift before he became mayor, but has now asked CPS to continue paying it as he works to close .

Johnson was expected to deliver his city budget proposal in a speech to City Council on Oct. 16, but earlier this week the mayor鈥檚 office announced Johnson would deliver his budget on Oct. 30, a week after the school board is scheduled to meet.

Over the summer, Johnson asked CPS to take out to help pay for the cost of the pension payment and the added expenses of contracts for the teachers and principals unions. Martinez and the board refused, in fear that taking on such a loan would saddle the district with high-interest rates and deepen its looming deficit for years to come.

The board鈥檚 departure so close to the election will likely turn up heat on school board candidates, said Henig, the Columbia professor who has studied mayoral control.

鈥淚f the candidates haven鈥檛 been forced to address this, there鈥檚 gonna be a lot of pressure on them to address this,鈥� Henig said.

Union negotiations turn up heat on Martinez

The conflict is compounded by between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union, where Johnson worked as an organizer before his foray into politics. The union鈥檚 wide-ranging proposal package asks for 9% raises, more staffing, and more support for students, but the district has said its financial challenges remain 鈥� and less than 10% of the CTU proposals could create .

The union further turned up the heat on school district officials after saying it obtained a list of potential co-locations between 140 schools. The district, Martinez, and the Board of Education have said they have no plans to close schools. In letters to staff and families earlier this month, Martinez said the list was created as part of its analysis for the five-year strategic plan, and that it led district leaders and the board to affirm that they did not want to close schools.

The union鈥檚 House of Delegates recently passed a vote of no-confidence in Martinez.

Under state law, no school closures can happen in Chicago until Jan. 15, 2025. After the union鈥檚 claims over the past couple of weeks, the now-outgoing board passed a resolution Thursday, which Martinez prompted, that calls for .

This was originally published by . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .听

Chicago Public Schools unveiled a new five-year strategic plan Monday that sets out to increase the number of students attending schools in their neighborhood and redefine what it means to be a successful student.

The plan did not call for specific changes to selective enrollment, magnet, or charter schools, a possibility signaled in December when the board first announced its . But the plan does seek to bolster resources for neighborhood schools 鈥渨ith an intentional focus on disinvested communities.鈥�

Roughly 44% of elementary school students enrolled at a school other than the one they were zoned for in the 2022-23 school year, while about 75% of high schoolers did the same,

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Twenty years ago, when Chicago started expanding magnet, selective, and charter schools, just about a quarter of elementary school students enrolled in schools outside of their attendance area and 46% of high schoolers did the same.

The plan outlines priorities and specific goals to reach by 2029 in three different areas 鈥� students, schools, and communities 鈥� but did not signal policy changes. Officials, however, left the possibility open for future changes as a result of the plan.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think this document is intended to indicate new policies,鈥� Chicago Board of Education Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland told reporters. 鈥淎s engagement continues around the different topics and areas there, if a policy change is seen as necessary, then perhaps that will be the case.鈥�

The board will vote on the plan on Wednesday at a special meeting.

Under the plan, the district set the following goals to reach by 2029:

• Increase the percentage of students who attend a school in their neighborhood or community area. The district said it does not have a specific percentage it wants to reach, and that this is not just limited to a student鈥檚 zoned school.
• Increase the number of students in grades 3-8 who pass the state鈥檚 reading and math exams by 20%.
• Reduce chronic absenteeism 鈥� when a student misses 10 or more days of school 鈥� by 15%.
• Reduce teacher vacancies by 25% in schools that serve majorities of Black and Hispanic students.
• Increase funding for improving school facilities by $250 million.
• Increase internet bandwidth by 400% at elementary schools and by 900% at high schools to prevent outages and slow internet connections.
• Ensure that all schools will have a 鈥渞obust鈥� behavioral health team.
• Decrease class sizes, with priority on schools with higher needs.
• Ensure that all schools have the capacity to hire arts, P.E., and other 鈥渟pecial instruction鈥� staff.
• Increase the percentage of students enrolled in at least one district after-school program by 8 percentage points, from 42% currently to 50%.
• Transition 25% of personnel who come from the private sector, such as custodians and bus drivers, to district employees.

District wants to redefine student success

The plan also outlines specific priorities for certain groups of students. For example, the district said it wants to improve achievement and opportunities for Black students, who are disproportionately less likely to read and do math on grade level compared to their peers and are disciplined at higher rates; ensure students learn more than one language by the time they graduate and boost support for English learners; and improve quality of education and instruction for both students with disabilities and kids in pre-K through second grade.

District officials and school board leaders also want more emphasis on how students experience school.

Officials said the district will continue to track things like graduation rate and student growth and proficiency on subjects for their grade level. But it will also consider other factors when considering student and school success, such as how well schools are supporting students who are chronically absent, how many students are participating in early college and career credit programs, and if schools are providing 鈥渉igh quality curriculum,鈥� according to CPS CEO Pedro Martinez and Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova.

The district has also set an explicit goal to improve the number of schools rated strongly as 鈥渟upportive environments鈥� on the annual survey, which comes from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and is supposed to measure a school鈥檚 culture and climate.

鈥淪ocial-emotional learning, student well-being, it鈥檚 not an add-on,鈥� Todd-Breland said. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 not deeply integrated into everything that we do, then learning cannot happen.鈥�

The district also included priorities to increase funding for all of its schools.

Todd-Breland said board meetings will soon be restructured so they monitor the plan鈥檚 goals, 鈥渟o that every month when you come to a board meeting, you鈥檙e going to find out something new about how the strategic plan is being monitored and how things are moving.鈥�

But it鈥檚 unclear if that meeting structure will remain come January when the school board grows from 7 appointed members to 21 members, on Nov. 5.

Strategic plan comes amid change, tensions at CPS

Martinez and his administration unveiled the plan eight months after the signaling the district鈥檚 intent to curtail a choice system that leaders said has undermined many neighborhood schools and bred inequities in the experience of students in different parts of the city.

That resolution was in keeping with campaign promises by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, who called the district鈥檚 system 鈥渁 Hunger Games scenario鈥� in which families scramble to flee their neighborhood campuses for spots in coveted test-in and lottery programs across the city. Chicago鈥檚 selective enrollment, magnet, and charter schools are , and district leaders have spent the intervening months reassuring state lawmakers, parents, and others that they won鈥檛 close or severely weaken these choices.

Asked why the plan revealed Monday did not include explicit policy changes for choice schools, Todd-Breland said the board heard from people who valued schools beyond their neighborhood options, including selective enrollment and charter schools.

鈥淲hat felt more important, and what continues to be the more important thing 鈥� is that the lever of change in Chicago Public Schools is to invest in neighborhood schools and our communities furthest from opportunity to make sure there are pathways that families are confident in and have high quality education provided in them from pre-K through high school in their neighborhood,鈥� Todd-Breland said.

Still, the strategic plan says academic gaps among students and challenges have worsened because of 鈥渙ur current competitive enrollment policies and previous accountability policy, which pitted schools against each other and sorted students based on academic performance in an under-resourced system, reinforcing cycles of inequity.鈥�

Martinez is putting out the plan just as reports emerged that Johnson might be following disagreements with City Hall over and with the Chicago Teachers Union. Those reports raise questions about the district鈥檚 ability to see the new blueprint through, after a run of frequent CEO comings-and-goings that have destabilized CPS.

In a statement, CTU president Stacy Davis Gates said the 鈥渂est parts鈥� of the plan mirror the union鈥檚 current contract proposals with the district and that, at the bargaining table, Martinez is 鈥渙ut of step鈥� with his own district.

鈥淚f the district actually led with this plan, then we鈥檇 have the partner we鈥檙e looking for to deliver for our students,鈥� Davis Gates said.

Efforts to reinvigorate Chicago鈥檚 neighborhood schools date back to the tenure of Martinez鈥檚 predecessor, Janice Jackson, who served for three and a half years. She launched 鈥渆quity grants鈥� to give campuses with shrinking enrollment a funding boost as well as a program in which schools applied for dollars to start specialized programming, such as arts or STEM, in a bid to lure families seeking distinctive learning options. also emphasized improving how the district serves its Black students, especially Black boys.

After the school board鈥檚 December resolution, Martinez鈥� administration disclosed few details about the development of a new strategic plan, with officials saying they wanted to first hear from community members at . Officials said Monday that nearly 14,000 people 鈥渆ngaged鈥� with the plan by providing feedback or attending community meetings.

But for some, the wait for more details on the plan produced anxiety about the future of school choice in Chicago. Families in the district鈥檚 selective enrollment and magnet programs worried those schools would be diminished 鈥� a claim CPS officials repeatedly denied and is not a part of the strategic plan released Monday. On some campuses, those worries spiked as the district unveiled in the spring that district leaders said would steer more dollars to campuses with the highest needs and correct for historical inequities in how Chicago distributed resources. At some selective schools, officials and parents said newly tight budgets made it hard to staff specialized programs.

The plan released Monday calls for the district to monitor both the strengths and weaknesses of the new funding formula.

In the spring, state lawmakers introduced if Chicago moved to close any of its selective and magnet programs. The bill didn鈥檛 gain traction during the legislative session, but it elicited reassurance from Johnson and district leaders that there were no plans to shutter these schools.

Anxiety has also run high among charter operators and families, who felt that the December resolution was taking clear aim at their schools. Last week, charter officials and parents to demand more clarity on the plan and a promise that it won鈥檛 undermine the city鈥檚 charters, which serve roughly a fifth of its students.

The plan calls for revisiting the district鈥檚 renewal process for charter schools in a couple of years, but provides no additional details.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. 

It was 2004. A Honduran immigrant who鈥檇 arrived with her family in the late 1990s, she secured a slot at a local community college, but reality hit when a counselor revealed her first semester鈥檚 tuition: $700, up front.

鈥淚 didn’t have that kind of money,鈥� Alvarado said. And her high school offered scant advice on how to pay for it. 鈥淪o I started working,” first as a daycare assistant, then in a series of manufacturing jobs, all while raising two kids on her own.

Now 37, Alvarado works for , the manufacturer of those ubiquitous plastic Hefty cups.

But this fall, 19 years after she graduated from high school, she鈥檚 about to get a second chance at college, compliments of an unusual benefactor: her oldest daughter.

Alvarado鈥檚 first-born, Yolany Baltazar, is among the first beneficiaries of , an unusual experiment in college access. Like many 鈥渃ollege promise鈥� programs, it essentially offers a free ride to a bachelor鈥檚 degree, covering tuition and fees for students who graduate from high school and persist through college.

But in Baltazar鈥檚 case, there鈥檚 a difference: Once she made it through her first semester, Hope Chicago made the same life-changing offer to her mother.

It鈥檚 part of a 鈥渢wo-generation鈥� approach to attacking poverty, said Janice Jackson, Hope Chicago鈥檚 CEO. She noted that many college access organizations that support low-income families often 鈥渢inker around the edges, instead of going to where we know we need to go: making sure that there is much more of a pathway to the middle class.鈥�

Advocates say research shows that greater access for both groups increases parents鈥� earnings and encourages kids to stay enrolled long enough to graduate.

鈥楢 different conversation鈥�

If Jackson鈥檚 name sounds familiar, it鈥檚 because she spent four years, from 2017 to 2021, as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, the fourth-largest district in the U.S.

鈥淭he thing about Hope Chicago is [that] when you first hear about it, it almost seems too good to be true,鈥� Jackson said. 鈥淎nd I think that’s the response that a lot of people have.鈥�

Once they sit with the idea a while, she said, many begin to ask why it isn鈥檛 true everywhere. 鈥淲hy don’t we have a system in place so that kids across this country, quite frankly, can continue their education, and that finances are not the biggest barrier to them?鈥�

At the moment, Hope Chicago has agreements with just five city high schools, offering graduates and their parents free access to 28 colleges, most of them Illinois public four-year and community colleges, along with a handful of private institutions.

Students must gain admission based on their own academic achievements 鈥� Hope Chicago doesn鈥檛 ask colleges to change their admissions criteria. And the program has no GPA cutoff, so students remain eligible to continue as long as they鈥檙e enrolled in classes.

But those who drop out also make their parents ineligible 鈥� a bit of subtle, intra-family peer pressure to stay in the game.

鈥淪tudents obviously can go if their parents don’t go, but parents cannot take advantage of this unless their child is enrolled in school full-time,鈥� Jackson said. 鈥淪o they have an incentive, right? If I’m a parent and I’m in school and things are working out, but my child wants to drop out, that’s a different conversation.鈥�

She said Hope Chicago deliberately chose its five high schools for the greatest possible impact, working in buildings that had seen 鈥渄ecades of chronic disinvestment,鈥� lower achievement levels and graduation rates.

The focus, she said, is on helping the entire school. 鈥淚t’s really about making a big difference.鈥�

Baltazar, 20, still remembers the day she learned about the program in February 2022, at an assembly at Benito Juarez Community Academy on Chicago鈥檚 west side.

She texted her mother to warn her to stay off social media until she could deliver the news herself, Baltazar said. 鈥淲hen she picked me up from school, she was like, 鈥榃hat have you got to tell me?鈥� I’m like, 鈥楳om, we get to go to college debt-free!鈥欌��

Alvarado was dumbstruck. 鈥淚 was really happy if she got the opportunity to go [to college], just herself or my kids,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut for me, it was a little bit hard to process.鈥�

In a few years, Alvarado鈥檚 younger son, 16-year-old Adrian, also a Hope Chicago scholar, will be able to attend college for free when he graduates from Benito Juarez.

鈥業n the center of a tornado鈥�

The program launched in early 2022, with a from two philanthropists, Pete Kadens and Ted Koenig. Jackson wants to raise another $1 billion over the next decade to expand it and make more families eligible.

Recent research shows that these more educated parents will almost certainly earn more money 鈥� about $4,000 annually, according to , even though many are already years into their careers. 

But multi-generational college enrollment not only benefits parents. It also has a significant 鈥渟pill-over effect鈥� on their children. One reason is obvious: Parental education is a strong predictor of whether a student will attend college. 

A recent study by City University of New York economist noted that children whose parents are college graduates are three times as likely to attend college themselves. Investing in multigenerational college-goers, he said, is 鈥渆conomically efficient.鈥� 

When Hope Chicago came to Ajani Cunningham鈥檚 school, Johnson College Prep, in spring 2022, it was co-founder Kadens who told an assembly of students they鈥檇 be going to college for free. Cunningham鈥檚 mother, Yolanda White, was filming the moment with her mobile phone and began crying. But then Jackson, Hope Chicago鈥檚 CEO, joined Kadens onstage and told the parents they were also eligible for free college. 鈥淎nd then the uproar was, like, magnified a thousand times,鈥� Cunningham recalled.

鈥淚t was almost like 鈥� what people describe as being in the center of a tornado,鈥� White said. 鈥淚 think [Kadens] broke my brain because I could not react. I just .鈥�

But stunned as she was, she knew immediately what she would do with her good fortune: finish her culinary education.

The 50-year-old mother of five had earned an associate鈥檚 degree at the for-profit Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago in 2014, which closed in 2017, part of a of for-profit closures. 

She studied to be a pastry chef and nutritionist and has spent the past few years running an online bakery called . She also created and teaches a handful of home economics and mentoring courses for Chicago Public Schools. 

White dreams of earning a bachelor鈥檚 degree and teaching people how to source and eat higher-quality, locally grown food, especially in so-called urban 鈥渇ood deserts.鈥� She knows these issues firsthand: In the eight-year period when she and her five kids were homeless, White recalled, 鈥淚 had to make $20 work鈥� for a week’s worth of meals. 鈥淎nd they were never hungry.鈥�

White plans to study at Kendall College鈥檚 Culinary Arts School in Chicago, but she鈥檚 holding off on enrolling for a year while she figures out how to cut back her hours at the district. She also needs to put the online bakery on hiatus.

鈥淲hen someone presents the physical manifestation of a lifelong dream to you,鈥� she said, 鈥測ou kind of have to pay attention to that.鈥�

Meanwhile her son will matriculate this fall at Loyola University Chicago, thanks to Hope Chicago, studying psychology while planning for law school and a career in civil rights law.

鈥楢 different life鈥�

The organization鈥檚 efforts unfold as the district faces an odd mixture of crisis and confidence: While Chicago Public Schools in 2022 boasted a record-high graduation rate of 83%, just one-fifth of high school students were reading and doing math at grade level, according to the . And nearly half of students missed at least 18 days of school.

Hope Chicago says its work is already having an impact: An April report by Belfield, the City University scholar, found that college enrollment rates averaged 74% 鈥� a 17% increase 鈥� in the organization鈥檚 first year partnering with the five schools.

The program is looking to expand 鈥� at the moment it serves about 4,000 students, and is fund-raising both publicly and privately with hopes of announcing more high schools in the future.

While the two-generation approach is unique, the program operates in the tradition of 鈥渃ollege promise鈥� programs that for nearly 20 years have guaranteed tuition-free access to higher education. The movement began in 2005, in , and now counts more than 300 programs in at least 32 states, according to the .

The offers Kalamazoo Public Schools graduates up to 100% of tuition and fees at in-state public universities and community colleges. A found that six years after high school graduation, students in the program had higher rates of college credential attainment 鈥� 46%, up from about 36% before 2005. 

While the researchers said making college free won鈥檛 necessarily ensure that more students enroll, they found that offering a 鈥渟imple, universal, and generous scholarship program鈥� can significantly increase educational attainment, especially among low-income students.

Last spring, Baltazar finished her first year at in Normal, Ill., about a two-hour drive south of Chicago. Studying biology and pre-dentistry, she spent much of her freshman year adjusting to dorm life.

Baltazar had the advantage of bunking with a friend she鈥檇 known since middle school. She made new friends by simply leaving the dorm room door ajar and playing music.

Meanwhile, her mother is putting the finishing touches on an application to attend , an online program, in August. She plans to study finance while keeping her job at Pactiv Evergreen, and still can鈥檛 get over her good fortune 鈥� or her daughter鈥檚. 

鈥淚 think just the idea of her going to school without any debt, and including myself, is just like 鈥︹�� She paused for a second. 鈥淚n four or five years, this is just a different life.鈥�

As part of their work, researchers determined school鈥檚 effectiveness based upon its impact on students鈥� social-emotional development, test scores and behaviors. They concluded that the most effective schools provide a welcoming environment for students, an experience that shapes their later years. 

鈥淗igh schools matter,鈥� said Shanette Porter, senior research associate at UChicago Consortium on School Research and the study鈥檚 lead author. 鈥淎nd they matter quite a lot. How safe students feel 鈥� physically, socially, psychologically 鈥� how deeply connected they are to others, how much they trust their teachers and their peers matters.鈥�

She said, too, that student voice is a powerful tool, one schools can use to design better, more effective systems: The biggest predictor of student outcomes in their study was what the students themselves said about their school experience. 

And the impact isn鈥檛 just social-emotional, Porter said. It influences trackable metrics such as test scores, high school graduation rates and college attendance, researchers found. 

鈥淭hese things that feel soft are inextricably linked to these hard measures of learning,鈥� Porter said.  

Researchers drew their data from six cohorts of 160,148 of eighth and ninth grade students who attended CPS between 2011鈥�12 and 2016鈥�17: 42% were Black, 44% were Hispanic and 86% received free or reduced-price lunch, a key indicator of poverty. The college attendance-related data came only from those who attended ninth grade for the first time between 2012 and 2014. They totaled 55,564 students. 

The study examined students鈥� administrative records 鈥� including those related to attendance and discipline 鈥� plus surveys provided by both children and teachers about their school鈥檚 climate, whether it had effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, a supportive environment and ambitious instruction.

Students also completed a questionnaire focusing on their emotional health, connectedness to school, academic engagement, grit and study habits. 

The study found that students who attended a highly effective school 鈥� one ranked by the researchers as being in the 85th percentile based on their collected data and student and teacher survey responses 鈥� saw their test scores improve more than those at other CPS campuses. They noted, too, that attendance increased for this group while suspensions and disciplinary infractions dropped.

And the beneficial effects continued well beyond freshman year: Students who attended a school at that 85th percentile increased the likelihood of graduation by 2.41 percentage points and the chance of attending college within two years of graduation by 2.57 percentage points. They also were 20% less likely to be arrested on campus as compared to the average rate of arrest for all high schoolers in the district. 

A spokeswoman for the Chicago school system said it remains committed to social- emotional development: CPS has spent millions growing such offerings in recent years, based in part on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . The study found that in 2021, 10% of high school students attempted suicide one or more times in the prior year. 

CPS has hired 123 additional school counselors since 2021, placing the staff at its highest-need campuses. It also has expanded training and support for school-based counselors, social workers, and psychologists so they can implement small-group and individual social-emotional interventions, the spokeswoman said.

But the social-emotional learning tactics underpinning the positive results seen in Chicago Public Schools 鈥� and employed by many other districts around the country for several years 鈥� are now under attack from the far right. 

Members of the conservative parent group Moms for Liberty have labeled social-emotional learning, which can include lessons on self-regulation and relating to others, indoctrination, saying it leads to the idea that the country is  

They say it infringes on parents鈥� right to raise their children. Karen VanAusdal, vice president for practice at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, known as CASEL, acknowledged the pushback. 

鈥淐ertainly there are groups like that that are trying to make social-emotional learning a political soundbite,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut 鈥� there are many more parents, educators and policy leaders who understand the importance of social-emotional learning. The work is continuing.鈥�

VanAusdal said helping students develop skills outside academics is invaluable, especially now, in the wake of the pandemic, when so many are reporting mental health struggles. showed some consensus among parents: 66% said it鈥檚 鈥渆xtremely or very important鈥� that their children鈥檚 school teaches them to develop social and emotional skills. Twenty-seven percent said it was somewhat important, Pew reported.  

鈥淭his has always been a bipartisan issue,鈥� VanAusdal said. 鈥淲e want children to have healthy relationships. We want them to have the skills they need to achieve their career and life goals and be caring members of our communities 鈥� and we know social-emotional learning is the pathway to achieving that.鈥�

Flush with federal dollars, new and robust offerings have been open to a wide swath of students starting in the summer of 2021 and will continue in many districts this year. But the trend could stop as that pandemic relief money runs out.

Some districts, including , have summer programs, inviting only those students identified as struggling, while others can鈥檛 even reach all the children on that list 鈥� at least not during the summer. 

Baltimore City Public Schools saw some of the most staggering losses in mathematics at the fourth-grade level 鈥� on the 2022 NAEP exams compared to those in 2019 鈥� tying it with Cleveland for worst-in-the-nation.

Baltimore’s and Cleveland’s decline in fourth-grade math scores was nearly double the average eight-point drop among the 26 big city districts that took the tests and dwarfed the average five-point drop of fourth graders nationally. 

Eighth graders in both cities also saw their math test scores plummet: They dropped nine points in Baltimore and eight points in Cleveland. These losses are on par with the rest of the nation: The major cities鈥� average and the national average for eighth grade math both declined by eight points. 

The 76,000-student Baltimore district has been working for years to remediate those who have fallen behind. It offers extensive summer programming for children at every grade level 鈥� more than 22,000 seats from pre-K through 12th grade for summer 2023 programming, up by 2,000 from the year before, district administrators said. But only 15,000 children participated last year, meaning thousands of seats were left open. 

And even with the additional slots, the number might not match the need as it relates to this subject: Just on recent state exams. At 23 Baltimore schools, not a single student tested proficient in math.

Administrators said their district鈥檚 summer program was developed, in part, in response to recent NAEP scores. But they know some children who might have benefited from the program will be left out because of budgetary restrictions. 

鈥淥f course, we would love to be able to offer every student an opportunity to engage in learning during the summer,鈥� said Laurie-Lynn Sutton-Platt, director of summer and extended learning.

The upcoming program can鈥檛 be a catch-all, but it can help, district administrators said. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 a start,鈥� said Kerry Steinbrenner, Baltimore鈥檚 director of mathematics. 鈥淪ummer is an ideal opportunity for students to continue to develop their math skills and we don鈥檛 want to miss that 鈥� We want to try to impact as many kids as we can during that time.鈥� 

Cleveland Metropolitan School District, which serves , is also working to undo damage done by the pandemic. Some 4,200 students are enrolled in its five-week summer learning program with more added to the list every day. The district hopes the figure will reach the height it did last year at 6,500. 

But it can鈥檛 guarantee participation. 

鈥淲e are working to reach all of the students we can during the summer, but it is dependent upon students and families electing to enroll,鈥� said chief communications officer Roseann Canfora. 鈥淲e cannot require them to do so.鈥�

Although driven by poor reading, not math scores, some third graders in Tennessee are summer programming this year if they performed poorly on that portion of the state exam and are at risk of being held back.

In the long term, average for fourth and eighth graders on the NAEP between the early 1970s and 2012. Between 2012 and 2020, just before the pandemic struck, they largely flattened while achievement gaps between high and low scorers 鈥� a persistent equity issue with NAEP 鈥� widened. And then the unprecedented drop in the 2022 scores brought COVID鈥檚 impact into full relief. 

How long it will take children to recover from that 鈥� or what it will take for more students to reach grade-level proficiency in math 鈥� are big questions, but recent research has shown the sharp decline in math proficiency could have lifelong negative consequences. 

Talia Milgrom-Elcott, executive director and founder of Beyond100K, a national network focused on preparing and retaining 150,000 excellent STEM teachers in 10 years, believes wealthier children have long made up what was lost. 

But others will never reach that goal, she said. 

鈥淲hat鈥檚 different isn鈥檛 the kids: It鈥檚 their experience during the pandemic and the support they鈥檝e received since,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e could have corralled all our resources to accelerate the mental, emotional and academic recovery of all kids 鈥� and if we would have, we鈥檇 likely have created the next great generation 鈥� but we haven鈥檛. At least not yet.鈥�

The federal government gave schools $190 billion in COVID aid with $3 billion available for summer learning. Experts say the type and quality of the summer programming counts, while some researchers assert that even that unprecedented overall sum is not enough to reverse the level of learning loss. 

Melodie Baker, national policy director at , an organization that promotes math policies that support equity in college readiness and success, said students need engaging and meaningful content that helps them make sense of the material and retain what they鈥檝e learned. This is true whether it鈥檚 delivered during the school year or the summer, she said. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 also important to recognize the role of teacher diversity as a long-term strategy for improving student engagement and learning outcomes,鈥� Baker said. 鈥淎 diverse teaching staff can provide students with a range of perspectives and experiences that can enhance their understanding of the material and make it more relevant to their lives.鈥�

Some 110,000 of New York City’s roughly 1 million students will participate in summer learning this year, a spokeswoman told 蜜桃影视. NYC students slid nine points on the fourth-grade NAEP mathematics tests and four points on the eighth-grade exams. 

One program, , will focus on grade-level instructional priorities for grades K-8, helping students build math foundations, fluency and conceptual understanding to support learning recovery, acceleration and enrichment, she said. It includes assessments meant to identify weaknesses and help teachers narrow learning gaps ahead of the upcoming school year. Other programs include project-based learning and financial literacy.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, where fourth graders saw their math scores drop 13 points and eighth graders 11 on the 2022 NAEP exams, plans to grow its summertime math offerings for middle schoolers heading into ninth grade.

Mark Bosco, the district鈥檚 senior administrator for expanded learning and partnerships, said the four week-long program is expected to swell from 400 to 1,000 participants this summer. 

“This is designed for students who find math abstract,鈥� Bosco said. 

Pre- and post-assessments reveal improvement: Children who stayed for the 16-day duration who could not answer a single pre-algebra question correctly at the start of the program could successfully answer five or six questions out of 20 at the end, Bosco said. 

He described the summer program as hands-on and project-based. In one instance, he said, reflecting on last year鈥檚 program, students were made to go through the steps of finding and financing a car, learning about credit applications, compounding interest and loans. 

鈥淚t really got them thinking about how math can be so important in everyday life,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he kids are applying concepts in pretty advanced ways.鈥�

Chicago Public Schools is encouraging schools to implement math camps this summer for rising third and fourth graders in addition to programs for students in middle and high school, a spokesman said. Fourth graders in the district saw a 10-point decrease on math NAEP scores. The loss was worse for eighth graders, who suffered a 12-point decline. 

More than 73,000 of Chicago Public Schools鈥� engaged in at least one summer program last year. Math enrichment at the district includes the Summer of Algebra and Math Camp programs. A group of elementary schools also will host a Computer Science/Engineering Camp for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. 

Despite the success of some programs, funding remains a concern: Canfora, of the Cleveland schools, said federal COVID relief funds likely will not be available for summer 2024. Her district is building next summer into this fiscal year’s general fund budget, which will be submitted to the school board this month. 

Aaron Philip Dworkin, chief executive officer of the , said districts should always work to establish and strengthen relationships with outside partners to build better programs and to secure funding so they are not as reliant on federal dollars. 

鈥淲hat do you do when the money runs out?鈥� he asked. 鈥淲e will figure it out. Everyone will contribute what they can and we will make it work.鈥� 

Confronted with that startling reality, the from the University of Chicago鈥檚 Education Lab has identified a cost-effective, school-based model that can support young girls: group counseling and mentorship. 

Attending weekly in-school counseling for just four months through the program decreased PTSD symptoms brought on by witnessing or experiencing violent attacks or or losing a loved one by 22%, depression by 14% and anxiety by about 10%, according to the randomized control trial, considered the gold standard of research.

The program is currently offered to groups of 10 teen girls in about 30 Chicago Public Schools and more in Dallas, Kansas City and Boston.

鈥淸Because of] the violence we see, and there’s violence everywhere, not just in Chicago鈥� they are experiencing a lot of loss,鈥� said Christine Diaz Luna, a senior counselor at Hancock College Prep which serves mostly Latino students on the city鈥檚 southwest side. 鈥淚’ve seen in my experience that loss, that grief, that longing for connection.鈥� 

The high prevalence of PTSD shocked lead researcher Monica Bhatt, whose team studied over 3,700 9th- through 11th-grade girls across 10 high schools from 2017-19. 

鈥淭hese are girls who, despite the very, very high levels of trauma that they were experiencing, are coming to school. We see a B average 鈥� We don’t see a lot of externalizing behaviors,鈥� Bhatt said.听

鈥淚t really adds evidence to this notion 鈥� of having a set of latent mental health challenges that do surface later in life, but aren’t apparent early on.鈥� Research has shown that leaving depression and PTSD unchecked can affect girls鈥� future ability to succeed in their careers and family. 

Earlier this year, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shed some light into just how pervasive traumatic experiences are for young girls: 1 in 5 nationwide experienced sexual violence in 2021.

The Chicago research is the first large-scale study to look at effective mental health interventions specifically for Black and Latino girls 鈥� who are more likely than their peers to experience traumatic childhood experiences and have higher rates of depression and anxiety. 

鈥淯sually, we sort of study program effectiveness on a large sample, and then we try to understand, does this vary for particular student groups?鈥� Bhatt added. 鈥淭his is a program that was designed particularly with Black and Latino girls in mind 鈥� We’re starting to develop a body of evidence where there wasn’t a lot prior.鈥�

Students who are actively suicidal, have learning disabilities or are absent more than 75% of the year were excluded from the Chicago sample. More research is needed to understand how a program like WOW might impact those student groups. 

Researchers believe results would be even greater for girls attending for the designed length, two school years. According to , the local nonprofit that launched the model in 2011, girls who start within clinical range for PTSD and depression have even more success: decreasing symptoms by 62% and 71%, respectively.听

WOW in Action

After her freshman year, whenever TK Nowlin was overwhelmed by family, school and friend stress, she鈥檇 get frustrated, and get into arguments, or stop communicating.听

Now a junior at Fenger Academy High School in her second year of WOW programming, she feels more calm and sure of herself. 

鈥淸WOW] helped me work on my healthy relationships 鈥� It’s very important to listen to understand instead of listening to respond, and I know that played a big factor in my life, because it was like I always had a rebuttal to something,鈥� Nowlin said.听

Fellow junior Yazmin Hunter told 蜜桃影视 she now has a system when she鈥檚 reaching the point of frustration: take a break, sit down, breathe, listen to music, take a walk. 

Once a week, TK, Yazmin and peers across Chicago leave their elective or physical education classes to head to their WOW room. They start with a check-in, sharing a rose, bud, thorn from their week or comparing their mood to songs and colors. 

Her counselor facilitates either full group discussions or individual journaling. Surrounded by colorful walls, affirmations and mirrors, they sometimes pull cards from a container: Who is the most important person in your life? What does success or a support system look like to you? What are your views on parenting?听

Informed by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the sessions get girls to reframe or question negative thoughts, reflect on how their day-day actions align with their personal values and listen openly to each others鈥� stories.听

鈥淥ur thoughts are powerful. And sometimes we think thoughts that aren’t necessarily true. As an example, you look in the mirror, 鈥極h my God, I’m ugly,鈥欌�� Diaz Luna explained. 鈥淟et鈥檚 take that thought and break it down. What’s going on there? Where’s that coming from? Have you been told this before by someone else?鈥�

Having the group offered during the school day is critical to reach students who work or have family commitments after school that would prevent them from attending otherwise. Students are never pulled out of core classes or lunch, only electives or physical education. 

Students can volunteer for the program, pending a parent鈥檚 permission. School staff can also refer students to the program if they notice someone struggling. 

Cost and space are typically the biggest barriers for potential school partners, Youth Guidance鈥檚 chief program officer Nacole Milbrook told 蜜桃影视. 

At about $115,000 per school for one counselor, who works with four to five groups of students, WOW is still about $40,000 cheaper to run than the accepted threshold for similar services.

That鈥檚 the day Brandon Johnson, a former organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, will lay down the mantle of progressive insurgent and take the oath of office as mayor. Last month, in the city鈥檚 closest mayoral race in 40 years, Johnson prevailed by just 26,000 votes over former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, a technocrat who ran on a record of support for education reform. 

The win represented a generational breakthrough for Johnson and his union, which has waged a decade-long struggle against a regime of school choice and accountability that stretches back to Vallas鈥檚 tenure. That ambitious complex of policy and regulation was carefully installed over decades, including a lengthy interval during which Chicago saw some of the fastest academic growth of any major school district in the United States 鈥� but also a steadily building resistance from educators and community members over controversial policies like school closures.

The lessons of the long reform era are detailed in a new book, , released in April by Harvard Education Press. In five chapters, the text chronicles the genesis of Chicago Public Schools鈥� transformation 鈥� beginning with a 1988 state law initiating an unprecedented decentralization of autonomy from the district office to local school communities 鈥� and the adoption of stringent accountability measures that in some ways anticipated the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The book鈥檚 lead author, Anthony Bryk, offers a rare perspective on the city. A veteran researcher and former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bryk previously served as a professor of urban education at the University of Chicago. In 1990, he helped found the , a data hub that has generated a host of influential studies on America鈥檚 fourth-largest district.

Bryk believes the evolution of CPS under leaders like future U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and long-serving Mayor Richard M. Daley helped spur a leap forward in student performance by engaging CPS families, improving the selection and development of teachers, and allowing administrators more latitude in running their schools. The results were revealed in by Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, which found that Chicago elementary and middle schoolers gained six years of academic benefits from just five years in school.

But he has reservations about the future of the city鈥檚 schools, and particularly the gradual establishment of an elected board that will oversee them. In an interview with 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken, Bryk offered his views on what worked during Chicago鈥檚 turnaround; the warning signs ahead, including dramatically falling enrollment numbers and mounting debt; and the union鈥檚 overnight move from one of the district鈥檚 biggest critics to perhaps its most important actor.

鈥淭his might be as radical a reform in governance as one could envision,鈥� Bryk said.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Your book depicts a long journey toward school improvement in Chicago during the 1990s and 2000s. But the years since have been marked by a great deal of tumult, obviously including the pandemic. How far has the district come, and where is it headed?

Anthony Bryk: I think about Chicago Public Schools within the broader context of major American school systems at the moment. We are clearly in an unprecedented time with respect to post-pandemic trauma and learning loss, which have been especially pervasive for those students who are most dependent on strong civic institutions. Of course, we’re also living through a period of racial reckoning as we come to better understand the vestiges of systemic racism that operate in big urban school districts. 

Then you bring in the Chicago-specific context of a new mayor and, perhaps even more important, the shift to a 21-person elected school board over the coming years. Most people don’t realize that Chicago has never had an elected board, and a 21-person board is just a huge change. Over the last number of years, there’s also been renewed conflict between labor and management in schools, and 鈥� like a number of other places, but maybe more so in Chicago 鈥� the district is experiencing a new round of budget shortfalls.

Together, these factors pose extraordinary challenges. Although the array is quite different, it appears to me in some ways like what Chicago felt like in the 1980s, at the beginning of the work to turn around local schools. [Then-Education Secretary] Bill Bennett visited Chicago and public school system in America. I doubt if it was the absolute worst, but it was clearly one of the most troubled public school systems in the country. And while the specific challenges that had to be confronted were different at that time, their scope certainly strikes me as comparable to what the city is facing now.

The big difference, as we write about in the book, is that there is now a civic architecture that grew up over the past several decades. It’s an interesting kind of architecture in that the politics of urban districts typically tend to focus on shaping what happens at the system’s center; but a lot of the energy in Chicago’s reform push was focused on making ideas work out in schools and finding new ways of developing teachers and school-based leadership. A lot of social learning emerged around the work of school improvement, and there was space for new ideas. The district, over the period of [Arne] Duncan, was open to partnerships with the business community, foundations and lots of new organizations. It generally kept things stabilized even through the period of 2010鈥�2017, when we saw a lot of financial issues and . 

That’s what leads me to think that Chicago is still positioned well to take on these new problems. The improvement work in Chicago 鈥� keeping kids on-track through high school and onto college, developing a framework of essential supports and regularly reporting evidence 鈥� has created coherence among an incredibly diverse array of actors, and those will be resources in the years ahead. Having said all that, it’s really hard for me to discern how this shift to an elected board will unfold. In my mind, that’s the real wild card.

Can you be more specific about the steps that led to academic improvement over the last few decades?

We describe decentralization as the DNA of reform. Over the decades, there’s been a lot of attention paid to governance as a key lever for reform. What’s important to take from the Chicago story is what governance change did and the mechanisms it opened up. One of the things it did was to recognize schools as the principal unit for change: How do we get schools to get better at their core work?

The [the Chicago School Reform Act, which formed local school committees that gained authority over hiring and budgetary practices in individual campuses] made that critical. It helped reform the relationships between and within schools and local communities, and it brought a horizontal dimension to relationships where, traditionally, educators looked vertically up to bureaucratic actors to tell them what to do. And by virtue of the fact that there were real resources made available to schools, there were opportunities for innovation to occur; , but some very positive things emerged and eventually spread across the system. 

One of the key initiatives was all the attention to how principals were selected, supported and evaluated. Again, when you see schools as the prime mover for change, you focus carefully on the quality of leadership at school sites. Chicago is a huge district, but there are only about 600 people who do this work, and maybe 100 get replaced each year. That makes the task of identifying and developing school leaders a manageable one, and it did become a priority in CPS.

There were efforts to create more aligned instructional systems: curricular materials, professional development, assessment data to judge the progress of students and feedback systems to support teachers in their own improvement. In the past, it had been the task of central administrations to make all these pieces run and work together because it’s so hard to put them together in individual schools. Not impossible, but hard.

That’s where some tension plays out. It’ll play out, for instance, around that CPS has heavily invested in. From what I know of the design principles behind Skyline [an online compendium of learning resources that the district spent $135 million to develop], it’s an attempt to create a coordination environment across various systems and generate good, formative information to support improvement. But that’s a huge undertaking, and it runs the risk of the central office defining what’s to be taught, how it’s to be taught and what evidence should be used.

The tension lies in the fact that you need lots of capacity to build an integrated instructional system that has the promise of actually delivering more ambitious academic outcomes, both reliably and at scale. But then you confront this political issue that democratic localism was intended to solve, i.e., “We want to push these problems into local school communities to decide what they think is best for their own children.” So to some extent, we’re shifting back now to more centralized control.

You’re describing these organizational dynamics and players in a very different way than I’m used to hearing about them, which is always through the prism of reformers vs. unions. Do you think that debates over K鈥�12 politics are cast too simplistically, both by the press and the combatants themselves? 

I do. When the second major reform act , it turned over control of the system to the mayor of Chicago, who appointed the board and the CEO. Since the mayor at that time [Richard M. Daley] also basically controlled the City Council, 49-1, you essentially had unitary politics in Chicago for a 15-year span. You just don’t see that in big, urban districts. And there from 1995 to around 2011.

There were a few things that established that peace. One was that in 1994. We had a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, which had been very rare, and downstate Illinois was intent on taking a sledgehammer to the Chicago Teachers Union by stripping out a lot of provisions around collective bargaining. But when the mayor took over, his office chose not to use a lot of the power it had been given. They didn’t bludgeon the union; Paul Vallas actually figured out how to negotiate a multi-year contract with decent wages for CTU members. In the early 2000s, there was an element within the union that emphasized professionalizing teaching, and the system sent some resources in that direction as well. 

At that time, there wasn’t a traditional labor-management conflict. In some regards, it looked more like a European system, where they’ve got than you tend to see in American cities. But it broke down after 2010, largely because enrollments were declining, and we had financial issues affecting both the city and the state. Those are what led to the closure of all those schools. The conflict is quite active again in Chicago, but there was a period of time when these forces were working together in a more productive fashion.

Those long-term declines in enrollment, combined with big deficits of academic and social-emotional skills following the pandemic, seem to pose the biggest problems to Chicago schools right now.

The situation is extraordinarily challenging. In big districts like Chicago, where revenues are predicated on a per-pupil basis, it’s all fine as long as the student margins are growing. But when you start subtracting, which is what the city has been doing for years, the fixed costs don’t go down with every person who walks out of the building. They closed a lot of schools, but they’ve still got a lot of schools that are already under-utilized and will probably become more so. The way we financially support school systems doesn’t really take that into account.

It’s going to be interesting to see a mayor coming out of the teachers’ union. With the move to an elected board, I would expect the teachers’ union to organize and have a significant voice within that new board. If you get this kind of progressive alignment 鈥� the union and the mayor and school board and the governor in Springfield 鈥� I’m curious to see whether these people can actually solve these challenges. It’s one thing to go around criticizing what others do, but they’ll now be in a position to do something. What would better look like, and how would they get to it?

Would you agree that, whatever the political configuration moving forward, the urgent question is whether the district can shrink its footprint to match the roughly 100,000 fewer students it now educates compared with 20 years ago?

From a purely financial point of view, CPS has got more buildings operating than it surely needs. But one of the results of that is that the typical school, particularly at the high school level, has gotten smaller. Of course, more personalized relationships to form between faculty and students and parents. Going back to the ’90s, we did see that smaller schools were more likely to engage in reform in productive ways. You tended to see stronger reports about relational trust in that students felt that adults knew and cared about them more. No one intended this, but in shrinking the size and population of schools, they actually created resources for improvement by making them less bureaucratic places. 

That certainly contributed to improved high school graduation outcomes: Reduced size has enabled more intimate relationships to form between adults and students which have, in turn, allowed more students to graduate. At the same time, you do have this financial squeeze that will almost certainly force the district to close more buildings.

Do you think that’s feasible, that school closures spawned during Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration? The shrinkage that you’re describing as almost inevitable is also a politically explosive scenario.

Without question, one of the most contentious issues in Chicago politics is that of closing schools. Emanuel closed 50 of them all at once, and there had been an initial threat of something like 130 candidates for closure. It fractured political alliances, and it was a key component of as a political force. 

If you go back to 1987, the union was broadly vilified across Chicago by parents and community leaders. In the opening pages of our book, we reproduce a very critical Chicago Tribune cartoon of the CPS from that era. If you fast forward to 2015 and the aftermath of the school closings, it was the union that organized parents and community members against the system. It was a fundamental realignment 鈥� but having said that, there was another shift of some dimension during the pandemic. The union was largely responsible for closed for a very long time, which didn’t necessarily work to the benefit of all parents and children. 

Another equally important factor is this period of racial reckoning. Race has always been a big issue in Chicago, but it’s gotten really heightened attention over these last four or five years. That has made it much more challenging to form the community relationships that supported improvement for several decades.

Is the CTU now the most important single actor in Chicago Public Schools?

In all likelihood, yes.

This is brand-new territory. Teachers’ unions have organized in other cities to get members elected to boards of education, but when a teachers’ union is recognized as being responsible for how a system operates, that’s really new. The elected board is structured to phase in over the next four years, such that half the seats are appointed 鈥� but they’re appointed by the mayor. In that sense, this is positioned to be as novel a governance reform as we saw in 1987, which was the most radical decentralization of public education that had ever been tried in the United States. Chicago is positioned to have a public school system run by its teachers’ union. 

As an aside, something on the horizon that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is . Whether that actually comes into play is an open question, but if principals organize, it’s not clear to me that their union will be on the same side as the CTU on all issues.

At the same time, is it fair to say that some of the measurements of school performance in the district 鈥� , which have relied to one degree or another on student test scores 鈥� are due to be refocused on different metrics?

I totally agree that these things are all being challenged. But they’re essentially written into regulations, and some of them are federally mandated by things like Title I and the Every Student Succeeds Act. While the existing assessments and their use will be challenged, they’re going to have to be replaced by something; I can’t imagine us going to nothing, no measures of achievement and school quality.

The question is, what are they going to replace it with? Over the last couple of decades, there’s been so much focus on being evidence-based in how researchers and policymakers do our work; but of course, that is predicated on evidence. So if you don’t like the evidence we’ve been using, what’s going to take its place? It might be hard to arrive at suitable replacements, especially in a heavily choice-based district like Chicago. In a choice district, parents have to have evidence to make their choices about where to send their kids to school 鈥� what are they going to use? 

Again, that’s the difference between being in a critic’s role, where you challenge the status quo, and being in the governance role, where you say, “Here’s what we’re going to do instead.” Right now, it’s not clear that there is an “instead.”

If you were designing a district from scratch, would you create a school board of 21 elected members?

No, I’d have to say I would not. 

Chicago Public Schools is something like a $9 billion operation. It’s a huge enterprise that has to be managed. A 21-member elected board managing a $9 billion enterprise 鈥� like I said earlier, this might be as radical a reform in governance as one could envision. There’s just no way to predict how it plays out. 

Could I imagine a scenario where this really works well? Yeah. I could imagine one where labor and management begin to come together because labor really has a stake in the success of the system. In the old days, they might have said, “Well, that’s management’s responsibility, not ours.” Now it’s all “ours.” So yes, this could evolve in a productive fashion. But would you want to be a superintendent accountable to a 21-member board? It just opens up challenges for which we have no precedent to suggest that it will work well. 

But they weren鈥檛 enough. An estimated one out of every five requests for substitutes typically went unfilled pre-pandemic, leaving tens of thousands of classrooms unstaffed and instruction in thousands of schools in near-constant turmoil, especially in under-resourced schools serving Black, Hispanic and low-income students. COVID-19 has only further diminished the substitute supply and heightened competition among schools for a dwindling resource amid widespread teacher shortages.

But a new we鈥檝e done of substitutes in Chicago points to a simple and relatively inexpensive solution that could go a long way toward addressing the problem: providing subs with financial incentives to work in hard-to-staff schools. Though common in the private sector, financial incentives don’t have much history in public education, where educators have long been paid based on their college credits and years of teaching.

The substitute gap is stark in Chicago, where over 100 schools in predominantly low-income communities were able to fill only half of their sub requests in the 2017-18 school year, while another 100-some schools, mostly in more affluent neighborhoods, secured substitutes for more than 95% of their requests.

Chicago鈥檚 Black students experienced classrooms without a substitute at more than three times the rate of their white peers (33% versus 10%). And students from low-income backgrounds faced uncovered classrooms more than twice as often as their more affluent peers (26% compared with 12%). These inequities, also seen in other large urban districts, make substitute coverage a matter of civil rights.

We partnered with Chicago Public Schools, the nation鈥檚 fourth largest district, to design an approach that would bring more substitute teachers into hard-to-staff schools and keep them coming back consistently. The premise was simple: The district would pay a stipend 鈥� $30 to $40 on top of the daily rate of $165 鈥� to all subs working in the schools with the lowest rates of classroom coverage.

The program started with 75 schools in the 2018-19 school year and expanded to a total of 125 the following year. These were almost exclusively located in highly segregated Black and Hispanic communities on Chicago’s South and West sides. The stipends added only $1.1 million to the $42 million the district spent for substitute teachers in the program鈥檚 first year, and $1.7 million in 2019-20, before the pandemic shut schools down in March 2020. 

The results: Those hard-to-staff schools saw a nearly 50% increase in filled substitute requests. Essentially, subs covered an additional 114 teacher absences, on average, in each of these schools 鈥� equivalent to more than 13,000 total student-hours of classroom coverage per school. It鈥檚 hard to put a price tag on learning time, but we estimate the total potential lost investment in instructional expenditures per teacher absence amounts to $1,283. Recouping even a portion of that with a $30 to $40 incentive payment is a rarely matched return on investment in the education research world.

The payoff also extended to a slight but significant positive effect on student achievement in English language arts. The increased coverage didn鈥檛 impact teacher turnover, but it did increase teacher absenteeism slightly in 2019-20, largely because more teachers attended professional development programs knowing that their classrooms would be covered.  

At the Richard J. Daley Academy, Principal Kamilah Hampton saw the difference almost immediately after the policy took effect. 鈥淚 was seeing a huge increase鈥� in substitutes鈥� availability, she told us. The year before, she had struggled to fill classrooms when teachers called in sick. She would send requests to the district, but no substitutes would show up. 鈥淚t was crazy. I didn’t get subs,鈥� she recalled. 鈥淪o my bilingual coordinator, my assistant principal, myself or any free clerk, we鈥檇 have to step in and cover.鈥� 

The public school, a low-slung brick building in Chicago鈥檚 Back of the Yards neighborhood, serves students from pre-K through eighth grade. About 90% are Hispanic, 10% are Black and all qualify for free and reduced-price school lunch.

Citywide, most of those taking advantage of the pilot program鈥檚 stipends were Black and Hispanic substitute teachers who lived within a 10- to 20-minute drive of the school where they were filling in. This reflects the highly segregated nature of the neighborhoods where these schools are located. Many of these subs had already worked at the target schools, though not exclusively. Some had stopped working and may have been drawn back by the higher pay.

Even so, about two-fifths of Chicago鈥檚 substitute teachers who responded to our survey said they wouldn鈥檛 work in the targeted schools even with a 25% pay hike. Of those, a third cited the distance from home and a quarter worried about the safety of the neighborhoods surrounding the schools; many are in under-resourced communities with higher crime rates. 

For schools in Chicago and beyond, the pandemic only intensified the challenge of covering classes. Not only were more teachers absent due to illness and quarantine, but fewer substitutes wanted to set foot in schools when COVID transmission levels were high.

Not surprisingly, as a result, 60% of district leaders in a recent Rand Corp. said they have raised pay for substitute teachers since 2020, with the typical district increasing daily compensation by 6 % over pre-pandemic levels. After adjusting for inflation, that pales in comparison to the pay boost in our Chicago study and is only slightly higher than the 4% average hourly wage increase retail workers experienced during the same period. 

Our Chicago study suggests that a 6% pay hike won鈥檛 come close to solving the substitute shortage, much less making access to subs more equitable across schools. We found that schools in the city鈥檚 more affluent neighborhoods were still filling substitute teaching vacancies at higher rates than the schools offering subs an additional 25% stipend. We estimated that it would take almost a 50% bonus targeted to hard-to-staff schools to fully level the playing field. 

Ultimately, the substitute dilemma points to the way racial and economic segregation degrades the quality of education for many students in the nation鈥檚 cities. Residents who have college degrees 鈥� required until recently to become certified as a substitute 鈥� and flexible schedules are more likely to live in higher-income areas, far from the schools that struggle to attract substitutes. Not surprisingly, they鈥檙e reluctant to commute long distances to higher-crime neighborhoods.

Building cadres of local community members to serve as full-time substitutes could help. So would improving training and working conditions. But a more permanent solution requires a vastly larger effort: confronting the causes and consequences of the racial and economic inequality that plague urban centers.

The upward trend was even more pronounced in several major cities whose NAEP results are tracked separately. In Chicago, now home to the country鈥檚 , the score for English learners on the eighth-grade reading test shot up a jaw-dropping 17 points to 234, the highest level since reading data was first reported on this group in 2002 and 10 points more than the next-highest score of 224 in 2017.听

The same held true in Los Angeles, the district with in the country, where their eighth-grade reading scores leapt from 202 to 210. That eight-point gain essentially mirrors a all L.A. 8th graders made in reading on the 2022 exam. 

The 8th-grade reading scores for English learners in Albuquerque climbed from 211 to 223. Fort Worth, Texas also showed remarkable gains, with scores jumping from 219 to 231. Nationally, English learners鈥� scores on the eighth-grade reading test went from 221 to 225. 

The scores for English learners are still far below NAEP鈥檚 grade-level proficiency for math and reading and sizably lower than the scores for students overall, but remain noteworthy in a closely watched test where changes of even a few points are considered significant. They also are emerging after a pandemic that harmed all student learning, but was seen as particularly detrimental to English language learners. 

While some educators, including Los Angeles Unified schools chief Alberto Carvalho, point to concentrated remediation 鈥� the superintendent cited tutoring and summer programs targeting these children 鈥� others are less sure why these gains were made. 

鈥淚 don’t know that I have a good explanation for why that would be,鈥� said Tim Boals, founder and director of , an organization that provides resources to those who teach multilingual learners. 鈥淚’d like to think that maybe we’ve been doing a better job of supporting ELs over the last few years, but I don’t have evidence to support that conclusion. It also flies in the face of the COVID panic about our kids losing even more ground.鈥�

Grady Wilburn, a statistician and research scientist for the National Center for Education Statistics which administers NAEP, also could not explain these students鈥� success, especially considering the obstacles they faced throughout the pandemic.

Multilingual learners were, in some cases, more transient because of their parents鈥� job loss and unstable housing, and, as a result, often more difficult to find. They were also less likely to have reliable internet access and devices through which to learn remotely.

鈥淎nything we saw that showed improvement we saw as a surprise,鈥� Wilburn said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have a good explanation as to why.鈥�

Carol Salva, a Houston-based educational consultant who has worked with multilingual learners for 15 years and is recognized as a leader in the field, is unsure what to make of the results. While she hopes they reflect a substantive improvement 鈥� she observed that multilingual learners benefited from having additional time to complete assignments and were more likely to talk during online lessons when they could type rather than speak their comments 鈥� she鈥檚 concerned about their meaning. 

鈥淲hile I’m grateful for any positive news when it comes to our multilingual students, this data gives me pause and I feel that it needs to be studied further,鈥� she said. 

Chicago focuses on its English learners

Jorge Macias, chief of language and cultural education at Chicago Public Schools, said the improvement among English learners in his district was no shock: CPS, which currently serves 73,000 such children, has been focusing on this group for years, increasing the number of bilingual and English-as-a-second-language teachers from under 5,000 in 2014 to well more than 6,000 now.

The 325,000-student district also has invested in rigorous training for staff who then share their knowledge with teachers at hundreds of schools. Their tactics are constantly evaluated for their effectiveness and measured against student achievement, Macias said. 

The University of Chicago, in published in 2019, found that CPS students who started out as English learners and who demonstrated English proficiency by eighth grade had higher attendance, math test scores, and core course grades than their peers. So, even a force as strong as the pandemic couldn鈥檛 derail them, Macias said. 

鈥淲e had a four- or five-year runway of getting all of these structures in place to achieve that outcome,鈥� he said. 

Los Angeles in the NAEP spotlight

Carvalho, the longtime Miami-Dade superintendent who took over in L.A. March 1, also cited an easier transition to online learning than some other major cities, although there have been multiple reports of L.A. Unified students struggling with remote instruction. And while Los Angeles was among the last in the country to return to in-person schooling, the district saw improvements for all of its students in 4th-grade reading and in both 8th-grade reading and math.

Carvalho has been on the receiving end of both and since the NAEP scores were released last week, especially because his students in both math and reading on the 2021-22 California state tests. The veteran superintendent noted that NAEP advises school leaders 鈥渢o be careful about drawing conclusions based on NAEP data.鈥� 

Longtime education researcher Tom Loveless put an even finer point on it, telling 蜜桃影视, 鈥渢ests are fluky, and they go up and down. L.A. may give up all those points in the next administration of the test. A lot of people who cheer the NAEP one year are downtrodden the next.鈥� 

English learners narrow the gap 

Jennifer Lumb, who teaches multilingual learners at Oakbrook middle and elementary schools in Ladson, South Carolina, said her students’ attendance was solid throughout the pandemic for classes involving English language instruction. 

“The majority of my students missed the in-person peer/teacher interactions, so they looked forward to that connection with our daily virtual (English language) instruction,” she said. 

But they didn鈥檛 always log-on for their core subject matter courses, she said. 

Nationally, scores dropped in eighth-grade math across the board, but less so for English learners. They slipped just two points 鈥� from 243 in 2019 to 241 in 2022 鈥� while they nosedived from 285 to 277 for all non-English learners in that grade and subject.

Fourth-grade reading scores also decreased, but the shift was closer between the two groups and not as stark. They went from 224 in 2019 to 222 in 2022 for those students who were not identified as English learners 鈥� and from 191 to 190 for those who were.

In fourth-grade math, both groups saw their scores sink by four points 鈥� from 220 in 2019 to 2016 in 2022 for English language learners and from 243 to 239 for those students who were not.

But the gap between English learners and all other students 鈥� long thought to have widened during the pandemic 鈥� didn鈥檛 grow: It stayed the same for fourth-grade math, decreased a point for fourth-grade reading and decreased by six points each for eighth-grade math and reading.

And not all cities reported gains: Eighth-grade English learners鈥� reading scores held steady in Washington, D.C., at 224, and fell by a point in New York City to 208. Miami also suffered a loss, with scores dipping from 225 to 222. Boston dropped four points to 2016. 

More than 115,000 students took the eighth-grade reading test in 2022, down from roughly 146,000 in 2019, Wilburn said. The percentage of English learners who took the NAEP tests remained almost unchanged between 2019 and 2022. In 2019, 13% of all students who took the 4th-grade math test were identified as English learners, in 2022, 14% were. In 4th-grade reading, 13% of all students who took the 2019 test were English learners as were 15% of students who took the 2022 test. 

No matter the scores, Boals said, educators must advance these children.  

鈥淎t the end of the day, the issue is supporting the kid who’s in front of you and moving him/her forward,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat, for me, is always the main thing.鈥� 

蜜桃影视鈥檚 senior writer Kevin Mahnken contributed to this report.

Despite a dramatic decline in suspensions as students moved to remote learning during the pandemic, Black children and those in special education were disciplined far more often than white students and those in general education, according to a recent New York University .

The report also indicates students’ this past academic year, echoing news accounts of as a result of and of 850 school leaders where roughly 1 in 3 reported an increase in student fights or physical attacks.

And, it notes, some schools have turned away from restorative justice programs that grew out of the Obama era to more punitive tactics, including out-of-school suspensions, which are particularly damaging to students: shows they and can foreshadow .

The Department of Education is in the process of revising its own disciplinary recommendations with a focus on these same student groups. 

鈥淭his is perhaps one of the most urgent civil rights and social justice issues in education,鈥� said Richard O. Welsh, assistant professor at NYU鈥檚 Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the study鈥檚 author. 鈥淚t is incredibly important in our effort to create a more equal and just society that we look at the school system and consider opportunities to learn and grow.鈥�

Welsh cites two sources in his June 10 report: a 13,000-student district in the Atlanta metro area that allowed him to scrutinize its disciplinary records from 2014 to 2022 and news reports on student discipline culled from around the country. 

He found that while suspensions plummeted at the Georgia district during the pandemic, Black students were still more likely to face punishment as compared to white and Hispanic students. from .

Welsh learned that while the Georgia district鈥檚 office discipline referrals 鈥� such as a teacher sending a child to the principal鈥檚 office during in-person learning 鈥� declined in the 2020-21 school year, 82% of those referrals involved Black children, who made up only 48% of the student body.

Special education students accounted for 15% of the district鈥檚 overall population, but were 42% of the referrals that year. That number was not only disproportionate, it marked a significant spike from pre-pandemic years, when special needs students represented 29% of discipline referrals. Welsh found, too, Black children continued to be singled out in this category: Between 2015 and 2019, 23% of students referred for office discipline were Black students enrolled in special education. The figure jumped to 37% in 2020-21. 

Disproportionality is a longstanding problem when it comes to school discipline. 

American children lost of instruction in the 2017-18 academic year because of out-of-school suspensions, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. 

While Black students made up , they accounted for nearly 42% of the suspensions: were 13.75% of and more than 24% of suspensions.

Too much punishment, or too little

Many school systems around the country have not yet compiled their disciplinary data for this past school year. But Welsh said interviews with staff at the Georgia district plus information gleaned from local news reports 鈥減oints to an uptick in disciplinary infractions and consequences鈥� in 2021-22. 

In step with his findings, Rohini Singh, assistant director at the School Justice Project for Advocates for Children of New York, said some schools are ratcheting up the punishments for incidents that would have been handled differently prior to the pandemic. 

This is particularly true of on-campus fights, she said: A scuffle between two children that drew a crowd of onlookers might not have resulted in an out-of-school suspension in the past, but has stark consequences today 鈥� and not only for the students at the heart of the tussle. Onlookers are also being targeted, she said, charged with an infraction called 鈥済roup violence,鈥� a punishment previously doled out only to those who planned an attack in advance.

鈥淭he school is seeking a [lengthy] suspension for all of these students instead of looking at the individual circumstances, understanding what happened, the context,鈥� Singh said. 

New York City Department of Education Press Secretary Nathaniel Styer said he could not comment on specific discipline cases without knowing the names of the students involved. In 2019, the DOE moved to to 20 days, restrict student arrests and train educators in alternative disciplinary practices.

At least reports some NYC teachers and parents believe children are not being punished enough and that serious student misbehavior is often ignored. DOE data does show, from 14,502 for the first four months of the 2017-18 school year to 8,369 for the same time period four years later.

The city school system has committed millions to restorative justice programs that focus on reconciliation over punishment to address long-standing racial disparities. are mixed but a 2021 showed children with the highest levels of exposure to restorative practices experienced Black鈥搘hite discipline disparities five times smaller than those with the lowest levels of exposure.

Dana Ashley oversees a joint program between the United Federation of Teachers and the DOE aimed at changing the culture and climate in dozens of schools, moving them away from after-the-fact disciplinary tactics. She said teachers who have had continuous training on how to handle student meltdowns feel less discontented than those who have not. 

鈥淭eachers are frustrated when they are told they are supposed to know something, but are not given the resources to know it and do it well,鈥� she said.

Elsewhere in the country, Chicago Public Schools saw a 16% increase in out-of-school suspensions for high school students in the first semester of the 2021-22 school year compared to the same time period two years earlier. 

But, said Jadine Chou, head of safety and security at the 341,000-student district, it could have been far worse: CPS saw a 38% reduction in police notifications and a 50% drop in expulsions at its high schools during this same time period, which Chou attributes to the district鈥檚 long-standing commitment to restorative justice. 

鈥淲e are very grateful to our school staff that they have signed on to this mindset,鈥� she said, calling it, 鈥渢he right thing to do.鈥�

Pandemic-related trauma

In the current climate, Andrew R. Hairston, director of the Education Justice Project at Texas Appleseed, said schools must factor in pandemic-related trauma when evaluating student behavior: Educators must remember many of these children lost loved ones, survived food and housing insecurity and endured unprecedented levels of isolation 鈥� and, in some cases, abuse 鈥� prior to returning to the classroom. 

Their re-entry was botched, he said: Children needed greater flexibility and compassion. 

鈥淭here is some lip service to social-emotional learning, but the investments don鈥檛 meet the needs,鈥� he said. 

Anell Eccleston, director of care and sustainability at the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan, said his organization鈥檚 helpline received nearly 300 calls this past school year from families concerned with disciplinary issues 鈥� up from roughly 150 prior to the pandemic. 

鈥淭he majority of calls are from students who qualify for free or reduced lunch and single-parent homes, where their parent or guardian has also been impacted harshly by the pandemic,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ome schools are reimplementing zero tolerance practices and pushing out students at high rates.鈥�

Out West, Paradise Valley Schools, which serves some 30,000 students in Phoenix and Scottsdale, also saw a jump in out-of-school suspensions, from 1,223 in 2018-19 to 1,356 last school year. In-school-suspensions dropped from 1,135 to 1,091 in that same time period. 

School should have given younger students more time to play and older kids a greater opportunity to manage their emotions, perhaps allowing them to leave the classroom to cool off, said Meenal McNary, a co-collaborator with the Round Rock Black Parents Association in Texas. But a 鈥渞eturn-to-normal鈥� mindset won out, she said.

McNary pulled her three children, ages 5, 10 and 12, from her local public school district last year in favor of a small charter with a far higher percentage of Black and Hispanic children. 

But even that didn鈥檛 spare them from what she believes is outsized punishment for minor infractions, like their failure to sit still and listen: When one of her kids was talking to another student in class while his teacher was delivering a lesson, the educator took away his Chromebook for a week as punishment, she said.

鈥淭hey use that to learn,鈥� she said. 鈥淗ow does that make any sense? Why can鈥檛 we do something different? OK, he鈥檚 bored, so what else can we do?鈥�

Add high-stakes tests, pandemic-related stress for all and the constant threat of gun violence and both teachers and students are flailing, she said.

The roughest year of my life 

Some states, recognizing the long-term damage of strict punishment, have tried to dramatically curb heavy-handed measures: Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2015 signed legislation aimed at making suspensions a last resort in an attempt to disrupt the . , including Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana and Nevada, have limited the grade levels in which out-of-school suspensions and expulsions can be used. 

Denver Public Schools, which served 86,600 students last school year, started implementing restorative justice practices in 2005. A 2017 grant grew the program exponentially, prompting a 64% decrease in out-of-school suspensions overall, with a 77% decline for Black students and a 79% drop for children with disabilities, said Jay Grimm, the district’s director of student equity and opportunity. 

But this past school year brought new challenges. The district saw a marked increase in what the state of Colorado dubs “detrimental behavior,” including student fights and bullying. In 2018-19, such behavior resulted in 1,155 out-of-school suspensions. Last year, the figure jumped to 1,754. 

The district shrunk by roughly 4,000 students in that same time period.

Grimm said the school system remains committed to alternative forms of managing student misbehavior. There was a 41.5% reduction in expulsions this past school year compared to 2018-19, partly because the district changed the way teachers report classroom insubordination, which, he said, 鈥渃ould be subjective or have some bias.鈥�

Nearly everyone who returned to the classroom last school year was at a disadvantage, administrators said. Teachers started the year burned out and those who were new to the profession, who joined the field when school was remote, had trouble managing their students. 

Melissa Laurel, an educator for 21 years, said her South Texas charter school saw a four-fold increase in disciplinary referrals this past academic year. While fights remained relatively uncommon at her 6th- through 12th-grade campus, vandalism skyrocketed as children answered TikTok challenges that left her school鈥檚 bathrooms damaged. 

Worse yet, she said, parents, who used to be allies in helping teachers manage their children at school, were suddenly unsupportive. A high-ranking administrator on the road to becoming principal, Laurel left the post to work at the charter鈥檚 regional office in part because of poor student behavior.

鈥淚t was the roughest year of my life,鈥� said Laurel, who starts her new position in July. 鈥淭he kids were just more aggressive.鈥� 

David Combs, former assistant principal at a Knoxville, Tennessee high school, said staff observed an increase in racial slurs among students and more vandalism than he had ever seen in his 23 years in education 鈥� combined.

Combs, who will start a new position at a different district in the fall, attributes the change to too much time at home and on the internet. 

鈥淚t was as if they missed a stage in development and maturity,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut, toward the end of the year, that was starting to decline.鈥� 

McNary, the Round Rock parent leader, is empathetic to teachers, saying they had to manage an entirely new, fraught landscape: Not only did they have unruly students but they also had to abide by new Texas state laws restricting discussions of systemic racism and LGBTQ issues.

鈥淭eachers not only have to make sure their kids are OK, but also to not say anything wrong,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen are they supposed to get to know the children?鈥�

A 2021 from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and the Latino Policy Forum argues that policymakers should consider prioritizing English learners for access to pre-K programs, especially those arriving with lower English skills and students with identified disabilities. Any plan to increase access to those services should include recruiting and retaining a bilingual workforce for the early childhood settings, the report adds.

Researchers examined attendance, grades, test scores and English proficiency among 14,058 English learners in pre-K, and 16,651 English learners in kindergarten through third grade in Chicago Public Schools, to determine which factors were associated with stronger outcomes for English learners and how schools can identify English learners who would benefit from additional support. In the 2021-2022 academic year, 330,411 students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools with 15,430 in preschool and 21,405 in kindergarten, according to . At least 46.6% of CPS students are Hispanic and 21% are English learners.

The report emphasized the positive effect of attending full-day preschool for English learners, which was associated with stronger attendance, English language development and early literacy. Between 2016 and 2018, 19% of English learners enrolled in CPS pre-K attended a full-day classroom compared to the district average of 34%, according to the report. English learners who enrolled in full-day pre-K attended 2.5 more days of school than their peers who enrolled in half-day classes.

Enrolling students in pre-K before age four also supported English learners’ language development and early reading skills. At least 90% of the students who had enrolled before age four scored almost one level higher on an English proficiency test. The study also found that those students were more likely to demonstrate reading proficiency in the beginning of kindergarten.

鈥淲e’re trying to open more and more classrooms and more and more seats that are full-day seats,鈥� said Marisa de la Torre, managing director and senior research associate at the UChicago Consortium. 鈥淪o we really think that this population of students will benefit from a full day pre-K classes.鈥�

The students who attended CPS pre-K before age four still led their peers in reading proficiency even as far as third grade, according to the report. They also had better attendance, reading and math grades, test scores, and were more likely to demonstrate English proficiency, the report stated.

The 2021 report builds on a 2019 report from the University of Chicago and the Latino Policy Forum, a nonprofit promoting educational outcomes, affordable housing and immigration reform for the Latino community in Chicago and across Illinois. The earlier study examined 18,000 Chicago Public School students who began kindergarten as English learners and tracked their academic development through eighth grade. The study found that students who began kindergarten as English learners progressed to eighth grade on an academic achievement level that was similar or better than their peers who began kindergarten with English proficiency. Almost 80% of Chicago Public School English learners achieved English proficiency by eighth grade, with 76% earning proficiency by fifth grade. The research helped change the narrative about English learners, said Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, director of education at the Latino Policy Forum.

鈥淔or so long, English learners have been looked at through a real deficit lens,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t was always this comparison. But they’re always doing a snapshot of looking at a child at one point in time and how they were doing on a test.鈥�

Those studies didn鈥檛 account for students who were still in the process of learning English and exiting English learner services, she added.

鈥淪o it was a really great kind of shift of narrative, that if we look at the data differently, we actually find these kids can and will do well when they’re given appropriate services and support.鈥�

The latest study also builds on the advocacy work of the Latino Policy Forum, which has pushed to expand universal pre-K in Illinois, a in his run for office.

鈥淣o matter where that kid is in the system, they deserve to have these services,鈥� said Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, director of education at the Latino Policy Forum. 鈥淭hey deserve to be identified for support with a common home language screener, and then they deserve this teacher who will know how to serve them.鈥�

Earlier this spring, the Illinois State Board of Education to boost the bilingual teacher pipeline. Using federal covid relief funding, the grant covers the cost of tuition so current teachers can earn a full license to teach English learners.

Today there are 2,220 bilingual educators throughout Illinois who hold a non-renewable five-year provisional license: the Educator License with Stipulations with a Transitional Bilingual Education endorsement. But to continue teaching beyond that five-year term, teachers must earn a Professional Educator License. Teachers with a PEL can also earn a supplementary English as a Second Language endorsement. The two-year grant allows school districts to pay tuition for both teachers with the five-year license and those who hold the PEL but want to earn the bilingual endorsement as well.

Illinois requires a home language survey, a questionnaire given to parents and guardians that helps schools identify which students will need an English language proficiency assessment to determine their eligibility for English learner services. The pre-K assessment can begin as young as age three.

鈥淲hat’s so important is that the teacher is explicitly prepared on how to build language in both the home language and in English,鈥� Vonderlack-Navarro said.

In Illinois, teachers must be licensed by the State Board of Education and take 18 hours of courses to specialize in building both home language and English language acquisition. As policymakers look at expanding preschool opportunities not just in Illinois, but across the country, they should examine how the workforce is equipped to teach specialized priority populations like English learners, said Erika M茅ndez, associate director of education for the Latino Policy Forum.

鈥淭hat has been the nuance that has been unpacked through some of the research as we’ve been disseminating,鈥� M茅ndez said. 鈥淛ust having someone with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood who might speak different languages doesn’t necessarily mean that they know how to teach building that language.鈥�

The program, called , founded in 2007, spans students鈥� junior and senior year of high school and their freshman year of college. It began with a class of 25 and now serves nearly 14,000 students nationwide 鈥� including in Chicago, Houston, New York City, Massachusetts, Metro Atlanta and the Bay Area 鈥� with plans for expansion.

The study, conducted by the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab, examined the outcomes of students who were slated to graduate from high school between 2011 and 2020. It found OneGoal students were also 46%  more likely to enroll in college, and 47%  more likely to come back for their sophomore year than similar students who did not go through the program. 

鈥淚 would tell any high school student who would listen, 鈥楧o not turn your back on OneGoal,鈥欌�� said Mariam Ajose, 22 and a senior at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 鈥淭hey are a huge gateway to success in college or whatever goal you choose to pursue.鈥�

Ajose credits the program for her success: Both of her degrees 鈥� the associate鈥檚 she has already earned and the bachelor鈥檚 she is working toward 鈥� will have been completely funded through sources she discovered through OneGoal.

Students learn about the program in informational meetings their sophomore year of high school. Some are selected for participation and others opt-in. 

Participants take a OneGoal class daily for two years: They spend their junior year reflecting on their own backgrounds and how they would like to use their talents to augment their communities. They close out the year with a list of colleges they鈥檇 like to apply to and spend their senior year examining each school even further before completing their applications 鈥� transcripts, recommendation letters, essays 鈥� and financial aid forms. Each OneGoal fellow is assigned a counselor to guide them through the process. 

Students鈥� freshman year of college is different: it consists mostly of individual check-ins with OneGoal staff tailored to participants鈥� needs.

Vanessa Lee, a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, started working with the program in 2013. She said many students who enroll in OneGoal see themselves and their life experience in a negative light and that the program helps them view their challenges as assets, proving they already have what it takes to overcome obstacles.

鈥淭here is a deficit model when we think of low-income, first-gen students,鈥� she said. 鈥淥neGoal is flipping the script on that, telling students to look at all of the things they do possess and strengths they do have.鈥� 

Melissa Connelly, chief executive officer at OneGoal, understands how students from low-income communities might lose faith in themselves and in their education. Connelly missed 53 days of 8th grade and was on the road to becoming a high school dropout. She suffered from depression and had an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness about her future: Like many of the students OneGoal serves today, she couldn鈥檛 imagine living past age 18. So why bother investing in her education? 

It wasn鈥檛 until she met a compassionate social worker that she was able to turn her life around.

鈥淪he helped me see what was possible for myself,鈥� Connelly said, adding that it took time for the woman to earn her trust. 鈥淟ike the old education saying goes, kids don鈥檛 care what you know until they know that you care.鈥� 

After gaining her confidence, the counselor moved onto some of the more practical matters of shaping Connelly鈥檚 future by working on her financial aid documents. 

OneGoal, a nonprofit funded in large part by philanthropic contributions, works on that same principle, winning students鈥� trust before shifting to the academic tasks at hand. 

鈥淭hat鈥檚 why OneGoal is so special,鈥� Connelly said. 鈥淲hen you walk into a OneGoal classroom, you will hear the word 鈥榝amily鈥� at least once.鈥�

Kelly Hallberg, scientific director for the Inclusive Economy Lab, said researchers compared OneGoal fellows to students who came from a similar demographic: They attended the same Chicago high school, had similar past academic performance, came from a similar neighborhood, were of the same race or ethnicity, and had the same rates of housing instability and Individualized Education Plans.

鈥淭here is a growing body of evidence that shows holistic programs that touch many aspects of kids鈥� lives 鈥� shaping their mindset, navigating the college selection process, the financial side 鈥� move the needle more than a program that targets one aspect, as in, just tutoring, application support or funding.鈥�

The findings were so remarkable that Hallberg doubted their accuracy.

鈥淲hen we first saw the results, I said, 鈥榃e need to kick the tires on this, make sure these numbers hold up because they are pretty big,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淏ut, the results are consistent.鈥� 

Ajose said the program taught her far more than she anticipated, including how to find the college that best suited her by considering the local cost of living, student-professor ratio, graduation rate and the quality of the program itself. OneGoal staff can take kids on college trips: The organization also partners with universities for tours. 

Most important, the kinesiology major said, she felt like her OneGoal instructors truly cared about her. They noticed, for example, when her grades fell and she could come to them to talk about problems at home. 

Their involvement didn鈥檛 end when she aged out: OneGoal still helps her pay for books even though she is in her senior year, Ajose said.

Elijah Wright-Jefferson, 23 and a student at Illinois State University in the town of Normal, hails from the South Side of Chicago. Resources in his community were few, he said: Nearly a dozen of his high school classmates died by the time he reached his mid-20s.  

鈥淧eople get desperate and upset, which leads to violence, stealing and a lot of anger,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat was the environment I had been around my entire life. I had never been anywhere else.鈥�

His high school counselor knew he could do better: She asked him five times to join OneGoal before he relented.

Not only did the program teach him about the college admissions process, but introduced him to all different types of people 鈥� including basketball legend and community investor Magic Johnson 鈥� with myriad jobs, who lived and thrived in various parts of the city.

鈥淒uring college, they helped me a ton,鈥� Wright-Jefferson said, adding he鈥檚 thrilled to participate in the program to this day, encouraging other students to join and stick with it.

Lee, who teaches in the Chicago Public Schools, credits OneGoal for its adaptability: The program has changed dramatically through the years, building on teacher and student feedback.

鈥淚t has become much more inclusive,鈥� Lee said, broadening its focus, upon teacher and students鈥� request, from four-year colleges to other routes to success, including associate鈥檚 degrees, trade schools and the military. 鈥淚t puts students at the center of their own plan. It validates that there are alternative pathways 鈥� and one is not better than the other.鈥�

She attributes at least a part of its success to the fact that it utilizes teachers who already work inside the schools: They know and have relationships with the students they serve.

OneGoal is currently working with the Illinois State Board of Education to partner with 24 districts across the state. It is spending this first year providingstrategic postsecondary coaching for district and school leaders to build the infrastructure needed to launch the program before offering the class as an elective in those school systems. It will also add districts in the six states it already serves, plus Kentucky. 

Connelly estimated there are roughly 1.4 million low-income 11th graders in the nation鈥檚 schools. OneGoal hopes to reach half of them in the next 10 to 15 years: It aspires to grow from 14,000 to 50,000 students in the next three years.  

That鈥檚 how long it鈥檚 been since more than half the nation鈥檚 schools crossed into the pandemic era.

On March 16, 2020, districts in 27 states, encompassing almost 80,000 schools, closed their doors for the first long educational lockdown. Within nine days, the nation鈥檚 remaining districts followed suit.

Since then, schools have reopened, closed and reopened again. The effects have been immediate 鈥� students lost parents; teachers mourned fallen colleagues 鈥� and hopelessly abstract, as educators weighed 鈥�pandemic learning loss,鈥� the sometimes crude measure of COVID鈥檚 impact on students鈥� academic performance.

To mark what will soon stretch into a third spring of educational disruption, 蜜桃影视 spoke with educators, parents, students and researchers about what Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University鈥檚 Edunomics Lab, called 鈥渁 seismic interruption to education unlike anything we鈥檝e ever seen.鈥� They talked movingly, often unsparingly, about their missteps and occasional triumphs, their moments of despair and fragile optimism for the future. [You can scan through our expanding archive of testimonials right here.]

As spring approaches, there are additional reasons to be hopeful. More children are being vaccinated. Mask mandates are lifting. But even if the pandemic recedes and a 鈥渘ew normal鈥� emerges, there are clear signs that the issues surfaced during this period will linger. COVID heightened inequities long baked into the American educational system. The social contract between parents and schools has frayed. Teachers are burning out.

鈥淭here are kind of two camps,鈥� said Beth Lehr, an assistant principal of Sahuarita High School, south of Tucson, Arizona. 鈥淭here’s the one camp of 鈥楾his too shall pass,鈥� and then there’s the other camp of 鈥榊eah, it’s going to pass, but I don’t know if I want to wait for it to.鈥欌��

But none of this was on anyone鈥檚 mind on March 16, 2020.

The World Health Organization had a pandemic only five days earlier. Two days after that, then-President Donald Trump called a . And in the Northshore School District, a system of 22,000 students northeast of Seattle, schools had already been closed for over a week. In late February, one of its schools shut for deep cleaning after an employee traveled out of the country with a family member who had become ill. The district鈥檚 closure offered a glimpse into what many thought would be a short-term disruption.

鈥業 realized it wasn鈥檛 science fiction鈥�

Susan Enfield, superintendent of Highline Public Schools in Washington: A very good friend of mine who works in the called me, end of February, and said, 鈥淚 think we’re going to close 鈥� and I think the rest of you won’t be far behind.鈥� I said, 鈥淣o way, there’s no way they’re going to close schools.鈥� I mean, I really was incredulous.

Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education: I was having brunch with my sister in Kirkland, Washington, when the news broke that there were multiple cases and deaths at the Life Care Center nursing home just a few miles away. My husband sent me a text telling me to get out of Kirkland right away, and everything felt ominous.

Marguerite Roza, Seattle-based director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University: My daughter and I were driving to go pick up some fish for dinner. In the car, they announced the governor’s order 鈥� it was with a bigger lockdown kind of order 鈥� and we walked into the fish market place, and the guy behind the counter goes, 鈥淗ave you heard anything yet?鈥� We were like, 鈥淵ep.鈥� And he goes, 鈥淲hat did he say?鈥� We said, 鈥淟ockdown.鈥� And he [grunts], 鈥淯hhhh.鈥� Already, the streets were pretty empty, and the first person we talked to was the guy packaging up our salmon.

Tony Sanders, superintendent, School District U-46, near Chicago: I was asked to serve on a statewide panel of superintendents 鈥� to provide guidance to school district leaders across the state. Our first meeting, held on Sunday, March 15, was attended by prominent legislators, state health officials, the deputy governor for education and state superintendent of schools. Hearing the projections of worst-case scenarios should we not 鈥渇latten the curve鈥� was surreal. At the conclusion of that meeting, where we worked to socially distance, but had no idea yet about the need to wear a mask, I made the four-hour journey home in complete silence and disbelief.

Michael Mulgrew, president, United Federation of Teachers, New York City: We started tracking this during the Christmas holiday. We had some teachers who were in China. We had them quarantine when they came back. I didn’t realize [things had changed] until March 16, the day after the New York City public schools closed. I was in my car driving around the city and I was shocked that the streets were empty. That’s when I realized it wasn’t science fiction. 

Bridgette Adu-Wadier: freshman, Northwestern University, graduate of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandra, Virginia: By the end of March, Gov. Ralph Northam basically announced that all the schools would be closed due to the pandemic for the rest of the school year. I watched the livestream, and I was texting my friends. One of them was actually really upset and crying about it, just because it was such a stressful situation to be in 鈥� like, things are never going to be the same again.

鈥榃e were completely unprepared鈥�

Parents, superintendents and others 鈥� many in a state of shock 鈥� had little time to plan as events unfolded at frightening speed.

Toni Rochelle Baker: family liaison for Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy organization, Walnut Creek, California: They gave us curfews in our city and then they told us to stock up for food. I don’t live my life like that. I’m a single mother. I go grocery shopping when I can. We get what we need, and now you’re telling me to stock up on food? That was scary. I didn’t have a deep freezer. I didn’t have extra money just laying around [to] go spend $300 on food. I didn’t have Wi-Fi at the time because I didn’t really need it. I have my phone, and now I need Wi-Fi for three people.

Maria Amado, family child care provider, Hartford, Connecticut, who opened her program for school-age children during remote learning: [Translated from Spanish] Educators, including myself, sewed masks for the children, and we looked for resources to support each other. Some gave fabric to make the masks, others the elastic. It may not have been in big ways, but they all contributed. And now I remember this and think, 鈥淲here did I find the time to make the masks?鈥� It was the adrenaline to survive, knowing this would protect me and I had to do it.

Tony Sanders: We needed to place emergency orders for Chromebooks and other devices. We had to completely transform our approach to food service so that by March 17 we were feeding our students and community at food pickup locations throughout the district. There were decisions that had to be made that I would never have thought of. We had to determine how we would ensure employees would continue to be paid. During the first days of the pandemic, I recall sitting alone in my office. The view from my window was a large parking lot with one vehicle.

Sherrice Dorsey-Smith, deputy director of programs, planning and grants, San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families: I had to figure out how we were going to open what we called emergency child and youth centers. These were spaces for essential workers to leave their children for the day while they were at work. Child care centers were closed, schools were closed, but some people needed or were required to continue working. They needed a safe place for their children during the day. I had to figure out how to get breakfast, lunch and snacks to all the sites. I remember working through the weekend nonstop, literally 48 hours.

Michael Mulgrew: It was a mad scramble to get everyone trained quickly how to get their classrooms up. How do we teach parents how to help their kids? It was non-stop. It was hundreds of decisions every day. Even though everything was closed, we were still moving stuff literally, like laptops and iPads and different things, trying to get them to our members鈥� houses so they had something to work off. [Former] Mayor [Bill de Blasio] had resolved never to close the schools, so he would not allow the Department of Ed to put any contingency plans in place. On the Friday before the schools closed, at 3 p.m., the mayor would be banging on the table saying he was going to keep the schools open. And that Sunday afternoon he closed the schools. So we were completely unprepared.

School, interrupted

As the deadline for lifting lockdown kept slipping away, some took longer to grasp the new reality: Life wouldn’t be returning to normal anytime soon.

Mariela Garcia: freshman at the University of Houston, graduate of Eastwood Academy High School in Houston: It was during spring break when we ended up having two weeks instead of one. And two weeks turned into three. This went on for a couple of weeks before we noticed that we weren鈥檛 going to go back to school. Stores started closing down, schools started closing, many things started closing because everyone was scared. That鈥檚 when I noticed that this was becoming very serious.

Dale Chu, senior visiting fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute: I realized everything had changed 鈥� on May 10, 2020. How do I remember the date? My at-the-time 5-year-old daughter 鈥� after nearly two months on Zoom 鈥� drew a picture of her class for me. Seeing Kellan鈥檚 classmates through her eyes on a Zoom grid really hit things home for me.

Ricardo Miguel Martinez, president, Latino Parents for Public Schools, Atlanta: I had people worried about getting kicked out, evicted, lights being turned off, not having groceries. These are people who weren’t making excuses. The people who are fighting masks and stuff, they have a choice to either follow the data or not follow the data. God bless them in their fight. But these people didn’t have a choice. They got thrown into the chicken factories and died. They got thrown into manufacturing and died so that we could have chicken at the grocery store.

Mourning the lost

Some felt the pandemic鈥檚 effects up close: sick parents, dead teachers. This month, the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. , with an estimated 2,200 of them educators. Many of the effects have been harder to measure, but are certain to leave lasting damage. Recent four out of five secondary school principals experienced 鈥渇requent job-related stress鈥� last year, and educator surveys show over students鈥� mental health, including anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

Susan Enfield: We lost two middle school students to suicide early in the pandemic. We lost staff members.

Michael Mulgrew: I had to read the names of our members who passed away. I had to make the phone calls to those families. We lost a lot of members, and I always think that if we could have closed earlier, how many more would we not have lost.

Shawnie Bennett, a COVID-19 investigator, Oakland, California: I lost my brother [from COVID] in May of 2020. He was only 32. As a family, when we would gather to try and go see him or just sit outside the hospital window. We were afraid to touch each other, so it was hard to comfort each other. [My son] came home [from college] for Christmas, and he saw me so weak and broken. He had always seen a very strong Black woman as a mother. I was gone, emotionally wrecked, mentally, physically, and it broke him down to the point that he did not want to return to school. He’s in Atlanta now, got an apartment and he’s just trying to figure life out. He was very close to my brother. That loss, on top of what he physically saw me go through, was detrimental for him.

David Brown, principal, Hillcrest Heights Elementary, Prince George鈥檚 County, Maryland: Family vacations, going out to eat, visiting family 鈥� I think all of those things disappearing created a milieu where it was tough to manage. And when you’re in charge of leading a large group of individuals, how do you help and support them? How do you keep your teachers upbeat? Because the mental health of every adult who receives a paycheck from our county impacts the mental health and the wellness of children who are just simply here to learn. I remember there was discussion that we’ll be able to eat and enjoy ourselves come the 4th of July, and then that didn’t happen. You’re holding out hope that it’s going away, but it’s not, and [you鈥檙e] trying to remain that positive, invigorating leader that the principal has to be.

Bridgette Adu-Wadier: Graduation was a really tough time. I don’t remember enjoying it, honestly. Just collectively, it was like a year or so of the pandemic, and then also, my family was impacted a lot financially, which was stressful. I was basically helping my two younger brothers through virtual school for the whole year. I had a lot more family responsibilities, and it took a toll on me mentally. I had trouble balancing things, especially with Zoom class sessions while my brothers needed help or were playing loudly in the other room. I relied on music and audiobooks as a form of escape.

Ashiley Lee, tech and operations coordinator, Para Los Ni帽os, a Los Angeles charter school, where last year she taught seventh-grade history: I remember being in a class full of blank screens, because we no longer required cameras on, and then after that, putting my grades in for the semester and realizing just how low they were. I was trying to brainstorm with my team: What is something, anything, we can do to encourage our students to at least get the one assignment we post a week in by the end of the semester? My kids, it was so funny, we started a joke where I would call on a student to answer a question and they wouldn’t be there 鈥� kind of a ghost in the call. And the kids would comment in the chat, 鈥淕hostbuster! Ms. Lee caught him.”

Marguerite Roza: The hardest part was when it looked like there was no reopening school. This was November of 2020. The governor had established these metrics by which you could open schools, and as far out as the modelers had modeled, it was never going to reopen. My then-high school daughter [a cross-country runner] was getting more and more discouraged. You could just see it was really not healthy for her, just to be home all alone every day. And you, as a parent, start to feel desperate. I used to listen to press conferences constantly. You could see that there wasn’t going to be any movement. I was very worried about her. The sports season had come and gone. School was online. I think that was probably the darkest time, which coincides in Seattle with it being really dark, [at] like 3:45. 

Mariela Garcia: Hundreds and thousands of people were dying because of COVID, and I was scared. I remember I had no interactions with the outside world for 鈥� I kid you not 鈥� at least three months straight. My family just did not want to leave our home. At the time, we had to adjust to online school. I had no Wi-Fi or laptop at the time, so it was hard to be in class and even submit assignments from my phone. It was definitely a very hard time, especially when family members started to get COVID.

Toni Baker: I had two kids at the table with computers doing virtual learning and I had no idea what that meant. They told us to sign on to some Zoom that I’ve never heard of before. I’m in love with my kids, but my kids were on my last nerves during the pandemic. Those four walls just weren’t enough.

Couch sitting, watching 鈥楩riends鈥�

The monotony of being stuck at home sparked new coping strategies: Cooking, at-home workouts, walking the dog 鈥� and of course . Some took long couch breaks. Others became entrepreneurs. Mariela Garcia started baking and ran a business from a local farmer鈥檚 market.

Mariela Garcia: My family actually bought the DVD set of 鈥淔riends鈥� and we just watched 鈥淔riends鈥� over and over and over. We’ve already seen each episode at least 10 times. We just keep it playing throughout the whole day because we don’t have any Wi-Fi or anything at home. I would not have started my business if it wasn’t for being in quarantine. I had so much more free time. I hate being that person, but the first time I ever tried my empanadas, they came out great, and I have not changed anything. 

Susan Enfield: A group of female superintendents from around the country 鈥� we refer to ourselves as 鈥渟ister supes鈥� 鈥� had a standing Sunday afternoon Zoom where we would just check in and get together. In the early months, that proved to be incredibly helpful, just remembering that we weren’t alone. Going for walks with my husband and also, frankly, allowing myself to feel pain and to grieve. I think as leaders we do need to inspire hope and let people know it’s going to be OK and be strong, but we also have to balance that strength and courage with vulnerability. There were weekends where I didn’t get off the couch. I’ve been pretty honest about that in conversations with others. I said to someone once, 鈥淚f one more person says, 鈥榊ou got this,鈥� I’m gonna smack 鈥榚m.鈥� A year and a half ago, I didn’t 鈥済ot this,鈥� and people were just lying. I’m sorry, they were just lying. I don’t think we do ourselves or our colleagues or anyone any service by faking it.

Beth Lehr, assistant principal, Sahuarita High School, Sahuarita, Arizona: I do not check my email at all on the weekends.

Toni Baker: I had a support system. They gave us vouchers for food. They gave my kids free computers. They gave us Wi-Fi. They had these teachers 鈥� I don’t even know where they found these beautiful teachers with these loving hearts for these kids. There was a teacher who had a grandma鈥檚 touch and a mom’s heart, and she was just so warm. This is through a computer. I’ve never met this woman to this day in real life. I had the community of Oakland REACH behind me. I wouldn’t have made it without them.

David Brown: When we were in person, I had 鈥渓unch bunches鈥� where I would eat lunch with the kids. So I went back to eating lunch virtually with the kids, and I found that really gave me a lot of positive energy. You find that you are equally, if not more, excited to see them in this virtual world than they are to see you. So it’s the, 鈥淗ey, Mr. Brown.鈥� It’s the big smile. It’s the camera coming on. It’s the home environment. It’s the parents waving in the background. I think all of that does a good amount to lift your spirits.

鈥楾he system itself is not changing鈥�

Confusing guidance and vitriolic debate left many parents feeling lost. They watched helplessly as their children disengaged from learning, but also worried that their kids would get sick if they returned to school. School leaders were caught in what felt like a non-stop, high-volume war of words with unions, parents and state officials. 

Pedro Martinez, CEO, Chicago Public Schools; former superintendent, San Antonio Independent School District: Texas did not prioritize teachers [for vaccines] in the first round, but they were pushing hard and threatening districts about keeping schools open. Meanwhile, the positivity rate, I remember in San Antonio, was over 21 percent. The death rate was five times higher in my district than it was in the more affluent parts of the county. I just remember the frustration. You want these things, but yet you’re not providing vaccines to my staff, who actually want to keep the schools open. 

Michael Mulgrew: The city doctors are telling us it’s going to be nothing but a cold and the schools could remain open. The kids are going to be fine. They’re not going to get it, and we’ll create herd immunity, and we’ll be safer faster than everybody else. Literally, that’s the conversation I was having with the mayor and his doctors. Our doctors are telling us the absolute opposite. They鈥檙e saying, 鈥淟isten, children might not be getting this at this point in time, but this is a serious virus and people are going to die.鈥� The big conflict was that first one. 

Marguerite Roza: I’m a data person. I really study the numbers, and I didn’t understand how a lot of people were driven by fear and couldn’t recognize what I was seeing. [They鈥檙e saying], 鈥淵our child could die,鈥� and I was like, 鈥淲ell, not really. The numbers here say, really, your child isn鈥檛 going to die. I promise you, driving to Grandma鈥檚 is more dangerous for your kid than this thing.鈥� You’re having two different conversations if you’re talking about numbers and you’re talking about fear. The fear was so dominant that the numbers people probably felt, out of respect, we should step back and be quiet. I don’t want to tell somebody who’s having a panic attack, 鈥淵ou’re overreacting.鈥� Looking back on it, I think that I probably kept my real views about the data quieter than I should have. I thought people were going to bounce out of it.

Mariela Garcia: We were able to pick whether to go back in person or stay online. I definitely wanted to go back. I missed my friends. I missed having class with a teacher right in front of me. My parents thought it was not a good idea. I was conflicted in making a decision, but for the good of my family, I decided to stay online for my whole senior year. That also meant no sports. I was so heartbroken because sports meant everything to me. I was unable to play my senior year. I had already claimed the captain position in my previous year playing, and I was looking forward to a great season. 

Parent power

The pandemic has dramatically changed parents鈥� relationships with their public schools, prompting some to seek new options and others to demand more from the schools their children attend. 鈥淚 think the pandemic has created some sort of awakening in parents that we’ve not seen before,鈥� Roza said. 鈥淚 don’t think there’s any putting that genie back in the bottle.鈥� 

Wendy Neal, executive director of My Child My Voice, a Houston-based advocacy group: I’m not saying the teachers are bad, I’m just saying that the parents were finding creative ways of being more of a teacher to their own child. Some parents were like, 鈥淲ell, if you’re not going to help my child, I’m pulling my kid out of your school. Either I’m going to homeschool, go to an education pod or go to a private school.鈥� Some of these parents really didn’t believe in charter schools either, and then all of a sudden, they’re putting their kid in a virtual charter school.

Marguerite Roza: In March of 2021, [my daughter’s school] finally got around to having their cross-country season outside, and they banned all parents from coming. They run three miles. They’re outside. It just got to the point where it was eye roll upon eye roll. A lot of parents showed up anyway, ’cause how are you going to keep parents off of a three-mile course, right? And we’re popping out of the bushes waving at each other. [It had been] a year, and we knew better. I should have marched out and said, “The evidence suggests we’re fine here,” but they were going to ban you and ban your team if you weren’t cooperating.

Sonya Thomas, executive director, Nashville PROPEL, a parent advocacy group: You would think that a pandemic would bring about a sense of urgency. We鈥檙e talking about decades of educational inequities, and what I’m seeing is that the system itself is not changing. It has actually grown richer in money. It has grown more savvy in messaging. And it’s hurtful. I鈥檝e got tears coming down my face now. I just had a friend who died this weekend. He couldn’t read. And I have to ask myself, 鈥淲hat has changed?鈥� 

Toni Baker: When this school year came around, the COVID was just everywhere. The previous year, they did the COVID tests, they did the sanitizer, they did the masks, they did all these precautions. And when school started back the next semester, all of that went out the window. I let it slide the first two days of school, but by the third day, I’m like, 鈥淲hat’s going on? Where are the masks? Where is this? Where is that? We’re still in this stuff, and it’s worse now.鈥� I had to make an executive decision as a parent. My kid鈥檚 class got exposed and I didn’t like the safety of it. I was worrying, like I had knots in my stomach. I had to remove my children from there. [My son鈥檚] class went on quarantine for a week and then I just never took them back.

Beth Lehr: I have one teacher. This is her ninth year. She has already resigned for next year. She said, 鈥淚 can’t do this anymore. I dread coming to work every day.鈥� She goes, 鈥淵ou know, I love the day-to-day of being in front of our kids. The second I have to open my email or grade their assignments is when I realize why I resigned.鈥� The emails. The constant onslaught of the very vocal unhappy parents. We have some amazing families, but we don’t hear the 鈥淭hank yous鈥� as often as we hear the 鈥淵ou sucks.鈥�

Lost learning

Educators love jargon. It鈥檚 not surprising, then, that lockdown introduced new terms like “COVID slide鈥� and 鈥減andemic learning loss鈥� to describe the academic fallout students experienced from months of remote learning. In June 2020, researchers at nonprofit assessment group NWEA were among the first to predict the extent of the chaos. The return to in-person learning helped. But as recently as December, from McKinsey & Co. showed that academic recovery has been uneven and gaps between Black and white students have widened. Educators also report challenges with student behavior, which many to the lack of socialization during remote learning.

Beth Lehr: The learning loss is going to be there. There’s going to be a new norm, but trying to jam more and more and more down their throats is not helping. Continuing to create these high-stakes environments and making kids feel less than because of something that was totally out of their control is not helping. Meeting kids where they are is. Why do they have to learn all these things, right? They have to learn it to be successful in the future. Great, what does that success look like? How are we redefining success, because honestly, right now, for some of these kids, success is getting out of bed and showing up.

Mariela Garcia: I’ve always struggled in math, and since it was online I feel like I wasn’t really learning as much as I could. When I got to college, I took trigonometry, and it was difficult. I had to get a tutor or stay after school. I had to study more on my own time. I had to take a test in person for the first time in two years. I struggled the first couple weeks, but once I got help and once I started studying, it’s just like riding a bike.

Ricardo Martinez: Seems like we’ve already stopped talking about it. A lot of people refuse to acknowledge it. They’re trying to change the conversation to CRT [critical race theory], anti-CRT. Let’s not worry about what’s not really happening and worry about what’s actually happening. Kids are getting more aggressive. They’ve lost social skills. We’ve lost a lot of learning, and I don’t think that the parents have been able to help because we barely know how to do what they’re asking us to do. I hope that we’re talking about learning loss until we catch back up, which should be in a few years.

Beth Lehr: [Students are experiencing an] emotional stuntedness, for lack of a better term. Freshmen are notoriously immature, but what we’re used to seeing as freshman behavior isn鈥檛 even freshman behavior. The 鈥�devious licks鈥� stuff [a TikTok challenge that included school property damage] 鈥� that was 100 percent only freshman. Oh my God, the soap dispensers were destroyed over and over and over again. We had to replace sinks. We had to replace toilets 鈥� not because they were stolen, but because they were destroyed. The older students were super-annoyed by the freshman because then we ended up having to lock our bathrooms during lunch. We’ve also had an increase in sexual infractions 鈥� not necessarily assaults. It’s consensual, but it鈥檚 much more frequent on our campus this year. This is my seventh year as assistant principal, and this year, hands down, we have had more issues with kids getting caught in positions that high schoolers should not be in.

Hosea Born, art and robotics teacher at Hope Academy of Public Service, Hope, Arkansas: We will be talking about it as long as there is the overwhelming reliance on standardized testing. The pandemic has shown us that adaptability is key, yet we are still measuring our students on how well they can take a test. Teaching a non-tested subject has allowed me to see the flexibility and amazing ways that students learn when there isn鈥檛 a looming requirement hanging over their heads. Some of my students haven鈥檛 had an art class since the start of the pandemic, but it is key for students to be able to create, and when given the opportunity, they have jumped right back in, and to me, are exceeding all expectations. 

Pedro Martinez: Last year, our district had 100,000 students who were disengaged, including seniors who would have dropped out. We got the majority of seniors to graduate. Same thing happened in San Antonio. What I heard from teachers directly was, 鈥淭hese kids are coming every day. These are the same students who we couldn’t get to engage in remote. They’re coming every single day.鈥� I saw the first-quarter grades. There are still gaps, but significant improvements over the remote year, and specifically with our kids of poverty and kids of color. That gives me a lot of hope. When we have the children in our schools, they actually do perform better.

Robin Lake: I think we will grapple with [learning loss] for as long as the COVID generation is alive. We鈥檒l be looking at the immediate impacts for probably a decade, but there are sure to be lasting effects on individuals and on the economy for many decades unless we can change the trajectory of our response. The question is how we鈥檒l be talking about it. Will the story be that we failed this generation of children, or will it be that we pulled together and found solutions for this generation, and designed a better education system for future generations?

A 鈥榝ive-alarm crisis鈥� for teachers

As they looked back, some recalled moments of doubt about perservering. According to from the National Education Association, the nation鈥檚 largest teachers union, more than half of teachers intend to leave the profession sooner than they originally planned. While some are dubious about 鈥�the Big Quit,鈥� NEA President Becky Pringle called teacher burnout and staff shortages a 鈥渇ive-alarm crisis.鈥�

Michael Mulgrew: I think most people in this profession thought of quitting throughout this thing. There were some really really tough times. The only way out of this is to go through it.

Susan Enfield: I don’t think I ever thought of quitting. There were moments where I thought I don’t know if I can do this, but that’s different than quitting. I never just was like, 鈥淚’m out of here,鈥� and my was not a response to the pandemic. I’m ready for a fresh challenge and Highline is ready for a fresh leader.

Beth Lehr: I’m so torn. I’ve applied for a principal position within the district, but at the same time I’m like, 鈥淲hy? Why did I just do that? What am I thinking?鈥� I haven’t yet gotten to the point where the stuff that I dislike about my job has outweighed the stuff that I like about it, but it鈥檚 hit or miss on a daily basis. 

鈥業 don鈥檛 use the term normal anymore鈥�

Like a sequel to a bad horror movie, the Omicron variant arrived just as educators and families thought they鈥檇 made it through the worst of the crisis. The sparked a spike in cases, resulting in further school closures and quarantines. But now, with increasing vaccination rates and a recent decline in positive cases, some states are lifting mask mandates. The nation鈥檚 three largest districts aren鈥檛 ready to let masks go, but some are starting to use a word they haven鈥檛 uttered in a while: hope.

Pedro Martinez: We’re now at a point where cases have been very steadily declining. Our city is now close to an over-70 percent vaccination rate. There are still gaps within my district, but I’m seeing good momentum, especially with 5- to 11-year-olds. We’re close to maybe half of our district that should be fully vaccinated within the next couple weeks. Over 90 percent of my staff are fully vaccinated. So it really gives me hope that we’re on the other side of this. There’s a chance that by springtime we could be talking about not wearing masks.

Susan Enfield: I am hopeful that in the coming weeks and months we are going to collectively adapt to a way of living, a way of working, that will feel more familiar to what we knew prior to the pandemic. I don’t use the term 鈥渘ormal鈥� anymore. I think entering that phase gives me hope.

Michael Mulgrew: The buildings built after the last pandemic have these really big windows. They actually were built that way so that you could open them to keep ventilation in case there was another pandemic. That literally became part of the code for schools after the pandemic of 1918. For a period of time last year, the teachers kept opening up the windows the whole way, and it’s like 7 degrees out. So, we had to produce this video for all the teachers about how you only have to open like half the windows about 3 inches each and you’ll be fine. One of the first cold days when we got back last month, I was in a school, and one of the teachers had windows open all the way. And I’m looking at the windows, and she touched my arm and she goes, 鈥淚 know I don’t have to open it that much, but my team teacher for 20 years died of COVID a year ago.鈥� I said, 鈥淵ou keep that window open any way you want.鈥�

Shawnie Bennett: I don’t think I will ever take off my mask.

Mariela Garcia: I’ve always been the type of person to talk to anybody, but it was different seeing people that I’ve never met before [at the University of Houston]. People have been socially awkward, and it’s hard to start a conversation. With my personality, I’m a happy person and I talk to anyone. So I鈥檓 going up to someone [last fall] like, 鈥淗i, nice to meet you,鈥� and they’re just like, 鈥淲hoa, 6 feet apart.鈥�

Beth Lehr: It’s so hard to see the end, and it鈥檚 so overwhelming. What I’ve heard more this year from my teachers than anything is, 鈥淲e thought that last year was hard. This year is 10 times harder.鈥� We鈥檝e had very, very low turnover. I do not foresee that being the case next year. There are kind of two camps. There’s the one camp of 鈥淭his too shall pass,鈥� and then there’s the other camp of 鈥淵eah, it’s going to pass, but I don’t know if I want to wait for it to.鈥�

鈥楢 true hunger for doing things differently鈥�

Two years of scrambling and false starts has offered ample opportunity to think about what has 鈥� and perhaps more to the point, what hasn鈥檛 鈥� worked for schools. If there鈥檚 another pandemic 鈥� and scientists say there undoubtedly , and soon 鈥� will anything change?

Christopher Nellum, executive director, Education Trust West: I think we now appreciate mental health in a different way. The past two years have been traumatic. We have been scared, sick, overworked, unemployed. We have missed vital human connection and even lost loved ones. We have witnessed a surge in racially motivated hate crimes and a national reckoning over police brutality toward Black and brown Americans. It鈥檚 OK to be struggling to feel OK in the face of all of that. It鈥檚 OK to talk about it. And we all deserve access to the resources we need to address it. 

Sonya Thomas: Parent engagement is not what we want. When you engage us, what you’re doing is bringing your own agenda and you’re saying, 鈥淭his is what we’re going to do, so get with the program.鈥� That’s what engagement means, right? 鈥淚’m bringing something to you, this is what you’re gonna get and you gotta just walk in line with it.鈥� I think what they’re learning is that we’re not going anywhere and we want parent partnership. We don’t want to be engaged. Throw that in the trash. That has never gotten anything for our children. What we want is true partnership. We want school districts to partner with us, intentionally take our feedback and use it. That builds trust. It鈥檚 not a talking point or a PR move. 

Dale Chu: If anything, we鈥檝e learned what doesn鈥檛 work. For example, asynchronous learning [without live teaching ] 鈥� homework, study hall 鈥� stunk. We also learned that huge doses of it left millions of students isolated from their peers, the toll from which we鈥檙e just starting to come to grips with.

Robin Lake: I hear a true hunger for doing things differently. People are saying, 鈥淵ou know, the way we ask teachers to teach alone in a classroom, trying to be expert in all things and serve vastly different needs, is crazy.鈥� I believe there is a powerful confluence of parents, educators and civic leaders who know things have to change and are determined to make that happen.

Michael Mulgrew: We never said [remote learning] was going to be the be-all-and-end-all. It was always a way for us to keep in contact, to keep our students engaged. Through the end of that [2019-20] school year, it really was more of a lifeline between teachers and students and their families. We thought it should have been more of a centralized process, but [the department] figured it’s better off to just let every teacher do their own thing. The majority of students really do regress in a remote setting. There was a small percentage of students who actually thrived in remote, so that says there’s something there we have to look at. If there’s a subset of children who were not doing well when they were going to school 鈥� and there’s all sorts of different reasons for that 鈥� who all of a sudden did really well in a remote setting, we have to look at this going into the future.

Marguerite Roza: We have seen districts jump in and be nimble in a way that we never thought districts could be nimble before. People always say, 鈥淵ou know, turning a district around is like turning an aircraft carrier.鈥� I’m like, an aircraft carrier turns around in a day. Why is everybody using that as something that’s slow? I was in the military. [From 1988 to 1992, Roza served at the Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando.] Aircraft carriers are pretty maneuverable. There are thousands and thousands of people on an aircraft carrier, and that thing could spin around and change direction with the wind. I do think that we had thought districts couldn’t adjust, and many of them did.

Beth Lehr: I’ve had a lot of teachers really rethink their philosophies 鈥� some of my most dyed-in-the-wool [teachers]. This has truly opened their eyes when they’ve seen the disparities. Not everybody’s home looks the same. When we first started doing all of the remote, we had a lot of really serious conversations about requiring cameras to be on or not. A lot of our teachers were like, well, 鈥淲hy wouldn’t the camera be on?鈥� They never took into account that there might be 10 people in a two-bedroom house. There might be somebody being slapped, hit, cut, whatever while they’re there. They might be embarrassed because they’re doing your class from their car in the McDonald’s parking lot.

鈥楽o long and so short鈥�

Seven hundred days have flown by for some and painfully dragged on for others. For many, it鈥檚 been a bit of both. 

Michael Mulgrew: It feels like 7,000 days.

Laurie Corizzo, counselor, Ridge Ranch School, Paramus, New Jersey: This whole pandemic, the virus, the water cooler conversations are never-ending. If someone isn’t discussing a vaccine, a booster, the virus, who has it, who had it, who passed, it seems that conversations are stagnant. My point is, it encompasses every single aspect of our lives. It is as if there were some sort of imaginary force field that prevents any semblance of any other conversation to happen anywhere on the planet. In a word, it is quite exhausting.

Christopher Nellum: I hope that 700 days in, we are seeing our education systems for what they are and what they have been for a long, long time: profoundly inequitable.

Susan Enfield: I didn’t know that 700 days could both seem so long and so short simultaneously. I think the last couple of years have felt like a lifetime in and of themselves, and yet, at the same time, it feels like it’s gone by in a flash.

Marguerite Roza: I mean, wow 鈥� what a seismic interruption to education unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Normally, we would say a 1 percent change in enrollment from one year to the next is earth-shattering to finance. We鈥檙e seeing 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 percent enrollment shifts in some districts. And some of those are large districts. Those kinds of things are going to change the structure of education forever.

Lead Image: Rippowam Middle School principal Matthew Laskowski looks on from a socially distanced cafeteria in September 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. (John Moore / Getty Images)

But the Chicago Teachers Union walked away from its four-day 鈥渨ork stoppage鈥� without much of what it was hoping to achieve, including district-wide triggers for closing schools and a mandatory student testing program that required parents to opt-out. One official lamented that workers gave up four days鈥� wages in exchange for concessions like increasing the supply of masks to schools.

鈥淲e sacrificed pay for face masks,鈥� Stacy Davis Gates, political and legislative director for the union, told reporters.

The plan, which won鈥檛 be released until the union鈥檚 full membership votes this week, also includes efforts to reduce staff shortages by adding pay incentives to increase the substitute pool when teachers are out, and stipends for employees who help register families for testing and vaccination appointments. Staff members will also be trained to conduct contact tracing.

鈥淲e understand that our relationship to our families is a critical part of engaging in this testing program,鈥� added Jennifer Johnson, CTU鈥檚 chief of staff. The goal, she said, is to sign up 100 percent of families by Feb. 1.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who faces reelection next year, also promised to consider the perspectives of parents should there be another management-labor breakdown. 鈥淲e will never, never not have you at the table,鈥� she said. While some parents expressed deep concerns over safety in keeping their children home after the holiday break, others argued that remote learning was detrimental for their children and wanted to see better cooperation between the mayor and the union. Some also agreed with the city that making decisions about closures on a school-by-school basis makes more sense at this point in the pandemic because vaccinations are available and Omicron is less likely to cause serious illness.

But observers said the conflict didn鈥檛 leave either side in a good place.

鈥淣o one wins in this scenario. Parents and students lost with five days of disruption to their schooling routine,鈥� said Bradley Marianno, an assistant education professor of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, adding that the district and teachers union 鈥渇urther solidified鈥� a relationship in which they 鈥渙nly operate in crisis versus collaboration.鈥�

The agreement, he said, will likely make schools 鈥渕arginally safer,鈥� but strikes and threats of strikes every time the district and the union negotiate are bound to wear on parents and educators.

The conflict also drew attention to the low vaccination rate among Chicago students. Less than a third of the district鈥檚 340,000 students are fully vaccinated and rates at schools across the district.听

As cases spiked in December, 鈥淲e began to have an increasable sense of foreboding,鈥� CTU President Jesse Sharkey said during the union鈥檚 press conference.听

While almost two thirds of the union鈥檚 delegates approved the agreement, Sharkey suggested the rank and file members might not be satisfied.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 try to sell people on the benefits of the agreement that are not there,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur members are grown ups, and we understand sometimes you don鈥檛 have a guarantee in advance.鈥�