R.I.P. Bill Campbell

This was in the news last Thursday the passing of longtime ABC 7 Chicago/WLS-TV personality Bill Campbell. Campbell was an alumni of both Harlan High School and Bennett Elementary School. He was 70, back in 2017 it was noted in the press then that he had suffered a stroke and there was a GoFundMe established to support his convalescence at the time.

He is noted as an alum of Bennett School even in the comments section to this post by Robert Feder and in some fb groups for Bennett-Shedd.

Bill Campbell, who served as director of editorials and community services over a 32-year career at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7, was best known for his long run as host and producer of the weekly public affairs show “Chicagoing.”

The longtime Evanston resident died Wednesday at a Symphony Care Network nursing home in Chicago after a long illness, according to his family. He was 70.

Friends generated a GoFundMe page to help defray medical costs after Campbell suffered a stroke in 2017.

Born on Chicago’s South Side, Campbell was the son of a chemist father and visual artist mother. After graduating from John Marshall Harlan High School and Carleton College in Minnesota, he worked as a staff assistant to the administrative assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and director of communications for the Chicago Urban League.

He joined ABC 7 in 1978 and spent his first 10 years at the station writing and delivering on-air editorials — expressing the views of station management on critical issues of the day — which he taped on location.

Sun-Times: Take the deal, CPS teachers. You’ve won

An editorial from the Sun-Times on Wednesday. I wonder what the results of that strike vote from CTU will be?

They should accept the latest contract offer from the Board of Education, a sweet deal that most Chicagoans would just love to get.

They should vote against authorizing a strike. Given our city’s dire financial condition, taxpayers wouldn’t rally around them.

And let’s not forget the 296,752 schoolchildren who’d be sitting at home learning nothing if the teachers walk out.

That’s a locked-in raise every year of 3% to 3.5%, more than what most workers are getting — if they’re getting raises at all.What employee, in any job, would turn down a 16% raise over five years?

Then add in the pay hikes to which teachers would be entitled based on seniority and level of education. With those “step” and “lane” raises, the average teacher would pull in almost $100,000 a year — up from about $79,000 now — by the end of the five-year contract.

But don’t stop there. Consider, as well, how little more teachers will be asked to contribute to their health care. Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s negotiating team is asking CTU members to pay a modest 0.75% more over the entire five years.

Is home economics still taught in school?

I've been sitting on this article for quite awhile and also one of the articles that seemed to have been well read on this blog involved home economics. When I was in high school - GO FALCONS - in lieu of such a class I had to do a unit on "consumer education" to be taught for example in a social  studies class like psychology. And with due respect to my teacher at the time I had little clue about what we're supposed to be learning in such a unit, especially if it's one we needed to graduate.

Either way I heard from my division teacher at the time that home economics was considered obsolete and it's funny that this article from last year talks about it. We need it now more than ever:

Every semester I have a week of "math lab" in my college reporting class. The words strike fear in my students. Their eyes roll back in their heads, they foam at the mouth, they sputter the words, "But I'm a liberal arts major."

It's not that bad, really. We cover things like what property tax changes mean for their rent, how interest rates affect their car or credit card payments, and how a 5 percent raise affects their paychecks.

We seldom get past property taxes before they start realizing that if they own property, they will pay property taxes forever. And it always surprises me that they don't already know this.

It's a failing of our educational system that students don't leave high school with this basic understanding, among other things.

That's why we need to bring back the old home economics class. Call it "Skills for Life" and make it mandatory in high schools. Teach basic economics along with budgeting, comparison shopping, basic cooking skills and time management. Give them a better start in real life than they get now.

How cool would it be if our kids knew how to shop for groceries and stay within a budget? Wouldn't parents feel a sense of relief if their kids understood how interest accrues on their credit cards? And shouldn't everyone have one great go-to meal they could cook if guests pop in?

These are the skills we learned in high school home economics, the skills all kids should have, whether they are college bound or heading straight into the workforce.

Opinion: Let’s quit brainwashing kids that it’s a college degree or nothing

I found this article on fb on Sunday and it leads me to some conclusions about what I should've done once I finally graduated from high school. And perhaps how I fared in the work world.

Why is it college or bust not only for some educators, but parents as well?

Back when I began teaching, I seldom saw the students who were uninterested in the academic journey for a four-year degree. For they were the ones who had acquired internships, started apprenticeships, or took jobs in industry and manufacturing, as the culmination of vocational education programs in high school.

But these days I’m seeing more students with William’s dilemma, who are funneled to my classroom for lack of better options.

They are told by their high school counselors that they will not get a decent job without a college degree. And that high school qualifies them only for a low-wage job in the fast food industry.

Parents have been even more sensitive to the counselors’ warnings. So even when students found they enjoyed working in the building trades, or had a knack, say, for auto repair, their parents saw vocational education as a dumping ground for below average children: Not my child!

When I graduated from high school I never held a job. Sometimes I wonder where I'd be if I had learned a skill - especially a business skill such as accounting or bookkeeping - so that I could be employable even if college was my journey. I feel as if my career would've been better off without the thinking that college would make everything better for me.

In some respect I was like William. While I think my grades at Harlan was such a fluke that quite a few in my family expected me to to do well in college well it took me some time to finally get my degree. But either way, even if college was my path what if I had some other things going even as I continue to study. I still wonder about that now.

Let's continue:

In Chicago schools, vocational classes have been severely reduced, and schools and programs entirely dismantled over the past two decades. This is bad news for students like William, and bad news for the city as it competes for Amazon’s new headquarters, which comes with 50,000 jobs, many requiring not college degrees, but vocational education.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68 percent of high school graduates go to college. This means that absent vocational training, 32 percent of our young people are unqualified for a job with which they can lift themselves out of poverty.

Of those who do go to college, 40 percent never finish, including William, who dropped before the end of the semester.

How to solve this problem?

We need to debunk the inference made by parents that vocational and technical jobs are inferior. Such a notion has led many of them to steer youngsters unwilling or unsuited for academic study into frustration, failure and depression.

College isn't for everyone, and tuition around the country has gone up. That means many students and their families are scrambling to pay for it. That means student loans you must pay off once you're out of school, and many of these students once they start working will have a hard time paying those loans off. This means perhaps we need to have an honest discussion with our young people about what they want to do once they graduate from high school and push them from there.

Decline of Black Chicago

I shared a Sun-Times editorial about the decline in the Black population of Chicago Monday morning over at The Sixth Ward.

Decline of Black Chicago https://t.co/Nk2Xoewhlq

— The Sixth Ward (@TheSixthWard) July 30, 2018

Tribune editorial: US Senators give Emanuel a pass on CPS scandal

Found this editorial on the sex assault scandal within CPS via Newsalert:

Days after the Chicago Tribune began publishing stories of alarming and unreported sexual abuse and assault within Chicago Public Schools, Illinois’ two U.S. senators fired off letters demanding accountability and transparency.

But something — or rather someone — was missing from their missives. No mention of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Must have been an oversight.

Instead of directing their concern at the person who actually oversees CPS, U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth sent letters to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Illinois schools Superintendent Tony Smith expressing their alarm and requesting more data collection at federal and state levels. By threading the needle carefully, they honed in on narrow aspects of the Tribune’s investigation that touched on state and federal data collection and transparency, not CPS’ failures.

Interesting.

Interesting indeed! Read the whole thing.

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Crain's: Why so many young Chicago men pull the trigger

Go Falcons!

One attempt to get a handle on the issue of gun violence in Chicago's crime ridden neighborhoods. At one point in time this blog strived to avoid issues of crime even though I recognize it as a reality in our fair city.

Regardless the fact that a shooting and the volume of them is news not just locally but nationally also is problematic. We all hope for a solution to save our young people. No easy answers, but something has to be done about the violence.

Also for this, there will be three parts to this series. I hope to be able to share the other ones as they're published.

There should be an elected school board

http://www.cpsboe.org/

It took me a while to come to this conclusion but I've finally decided that there should be an elected school board in Chicago. Not saying that this is the best solution for our schools in Chicago, but it's an idea that should be considered.

The only caveat that I've considered is that there must be a hybrid board where the people can elect members and the mayor can appoint members. This has always been my thought however the Chicago Sun-Times solidified this much further in an editorial.

This Tribune editorial makes further points about the various points of school boards whether hybrid, elected or totally appointed. To be sure, I have little problem with the Mayor of Chicago having some form of direct influence on the Chicago Public Schools. This is one reason I support a hybrid board.

I also believe that the most important interest group - the parents need representation to influence the decisions of the Chicago Public Schools. I propose that a majority of the members can be elected to the board of which there are currently seven members. Therefore four members should be elected and three should be appointed. In addition those four elected should be from districts divided up at least four ways throughout the city. The mayor can appoint the people he wants on the school board with their expertise and the people can elect who they want on the board of ed.

Furthermore I recognize how at time public education can be very politicized. Unfortunately the public schools have borne a lot of negative press over the years and this may cause more politicization. I hope that future members of the board of ed can recognize that the most important thing they have to do is ensure that the youth of the city of Chicago are educated and ready for the world.

Brizard: Chicago schools need radical change

Jean-Claude Brizard

Jean-Claude Brizard wrote this editorial recently. Brizard had been the former CPS Chief Executive Office for 17 months before he had resigned earlier this month. He made some good points here:

I believe that with bold change, we can create a system that provides the competitive, world-class education that our students deserve.

In 2011, fewer than 24 percent of Chicago Public Schools graduates were prepared to attend a four-year college, and only 1 in 7 African-American students tested college-ready. While we made tremendous progress in less than two years, resulting in some historic gains, transformational change will require a radical redefinition of the district.

The bureaucracy of CPS, like most urban districts, has great inertia toward the comfortable. The fact is the public school district is an outdated model that is not flexible or responsive enough to serve the needs of all students. We must abandon the notion that a central administration can do it all and instead flip the pyramid, entrusting and empowering our principals and teachers to create great schools.

In order to break up the bureaucracy that often paralyzes, confuses or distracts schools, the central office must shift from a top-down division that dictates quality and practice for schools to a team that acknowledges that quality and effective practices lie within our schools. Central office's primary role must be to set high standards, and then codify and disseminate effective practices found within schools.

He is right to say, "Education is the great equalizer". I couldn't agree more!

Hat-tip District 299 blog!

Children are pawns in CPS plans to increase class size

Sun-Times:

The decision by Mayor Daley and Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman to close their budget gap on the backs of Chicago's schoolchildren is a travesty that Daley should pay for in his upcoming re-election campaign.

Chicago Public Schools staff know, and Huberman himself knows, that there were many other places he could have cut other than making our children suffer, literally suffer, through a year (who knows how many more) of their precious education.

[The Chicago Board of Education on Tuesday voted to give school officials the authority to raise class size up to 35 and lay off teachers if necessary to balance the CPS budget.]

Let's look at my school, Gage Park High School, a neglected high-poverty neighborhood high school that has already been set up for failure by past policies.

As a non-magnet, non-selective enrollment, neighborhood high school, we are unfortunately a school of last resort. The highest-achieving students with good parental support don't come here, leaving us with very few top students who could be role models. We must take everyone else. And we do. We also must take students expelled from our neighborhood charter schools, private schools and jail schools.

We are overcrowded, have one social worker for 1,700 students, have four board-funded security guards to control those 1700 students and -- no surprise -- are on probation. But according to CPS, the media and the business community, we are the problem, and CPS continues to close schools like ours and be lauded for it.

Read the whole thing!