What do you think about a 41st Ward Intraschool Council?

Readers,

So much media attention has been paid to the Mayor, the Chicago Public School System and the Chicago Teachers Union lately, that I think parents, students and communities have been left out of many of the important public education conversations.

We have strong, active Local School Councils (LSC) and Parent Student Teacher Associations (PSTA) within the 41st Ward, and I remember attending a few of the recent aldermanic debates sponsored by LSCs.  The LSCs advocated for and promoted education reform & academic excellence for their schools;  they made it clear they wanted to work with the new alderman to improve and enhance public education for children attending their schools.

During one of the aldermanic forums, I remember an idea, I believe came from Alderman O'Connor, that appealed to many of the parents and community members in the audience.  She proposed bringing together LSC and PSTA representatives from all of the schools in the 41st Ward to work on specific issues related to education reform in the 41st Ward.   The purpose was to specifically advocate for a fair share of resources for schools in the 41st Ward that have been short changed in the past.  And by working collaboratively, local schools would have a greater/stronger voice with the school board and the mayor.

I remember sitting in the audience listening to this idea, thinking that genuine, effective education reform should begin with and be sustained by the community.  Leaving such a task to small LSCs seems overwhelming and not as effective as a community approach.   I thought this was an awesome idea and my hope is that there can be serious discussion about bringing all the local schools in the 41st Ward together to work on community based education reform, and that a strong community voice can convince the Chicago Public School Board that we are serious about receiving our fair share of services, support, and resources from CPS.

There was a CPS budget hearing held on the north side about a month ago. No one from specific communities testified about the disproportionate appropriation of CPS resources to north side/northwest side schools (especially related to Taft High School).   It was very disappointing to hear nothing from taxpayers who pay some of the highest taxes in the city, and in return receive overcrowded schools, little if any technology and in some cases,  poor to average report cards from places like University of Chicago Consortium on Education Research. 

Send comments and thoughts...