Busy, Busy, Busy,
But let’s start with Zorn
First, Patrick Murphy, Cook County Public Guardian is sticking around for a while. He has long been a rather tireless advocate for kids and his relaxation is the public’s gain.
Second, a report on the Ford Heights Four case by the US Attorney’s Office determines there was no criminal conduct in their prosecution….Hmmmm…I remember talking with some folks who were connected with the pro bono appeal work and this seems relatively consistent with what they thought.
Dick Devine chimes in, "It is a case study of how law enforcement can go wrong even when the sole intention is to find the right person for a terrible crime"
The challenge for honest prosecutors and police is to admit they can be wrong. Devine seems to be coming around on these issues and worked for the video taping provision in death penalty reform.
Steve Wolk argues that the real problem in urban education is poverty. He is correct on that point and Wolk is progressive on charter schools compared to most education professors and realistic about their ultimate effects. However, the Chicago Public Schools receive a lot of money per student. While Vallas and now Duncan have introduced a series of reforms and cost cutting measures, too much money is still spent outside of instructional costs. If resources aren’t making it to the schools, then there needs to be a focus on how to get them there.
While public school education in high poverty areas will never be as strong as in low poverty areas as measured by achievement tests, the ultimate crime is being poor stewards of resources and not using every available resource to instruction. Poor students have extra challenges and that is why support service overspending is so wrong.
And for the first time ever, I think I can comfortably say that St. Louis may actually be the model for this. While the experiment is only beginning, there are signs of hope that the Saint Louis Public Schools will dramatically shift resources from support to instruction.
Now the challenge is how to figure out how to recruit and retain high quality teachers. There simply are not enough quality teachers who can handle an urban classroom. If we reorganize schools under Chicago’s plan or No Child Left Behind, we are only rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic without increasing the supply of high quality teachers. To make matters worse, currently good teachers, such as the above mentioned State’s Attorney’s older son, have every incentive to go to magnet schools because if they stay in the most challenged schools, they risk
their teaching careers.
And he links here–the link whore in me thanks him.