Hi all,
Raise Your Hand for IL Public Education is collaborating with several other organizations around the city to hold a public forum on school ratings, Mon Feb 12th, 7-9pm at Kenwood Academy HS (5015 South Blackstone Ave).

What Makes a School Great? (And do level ratings measure it?)

Chicago schools live and die by their level ratings. Ratings drive enrollment and resources and are used to justify closings. What if communities created a rating system to help schools, students and families? What would a rating system designed to decrease sorting, segregation, and inequity look like? Come to this forum to learn about existing rating systems, like the CPS level system, hear what happened when one community in Massachusetts decided to do things differently and help us brainstorm about how things could change here in Chicago.

RSVP here or on Facebook. Questions? email [email protected]

The guest speaker Jack Schneider had a book out last fall, Beyond Test Scores: A Better Way to Measure School Quality, on why rating schools on test scores is bad policy. (Good summary here.) And he’s also part of a project in Massachusetts where he worked with the community in the school district where his children attend to develop an alternative way to rate schools, and now there’s eight other districts including Boston using it, and the state has even appropriated funding to them to expand it.

I have a question about the ratings. Is it one rating for the entire school or do schools like Bell and Coonley (with option programs) have ratings for each program? I feel like if it is one rating for the entire school then the ratings may be skewed. Also, it should be expected a RGC or Classical school have high scores. The kids already started a grade or two above school age.

Also, is there a listing of which schools that aren’t RGC or Classical Schools that offer gifted tracks? I heard Hayt and Thorpe have accelerated programs. Is this something that all schools have?