Aspiring to set the pace for other big-city school districts, Chicago leaders announced last week that they have undertaken a major rethinking of their high schools that will yield a strategic plan touching the entire 430,000-student school system.
Announced by Mayor Richard M. Daley, the strategic-planning process is being paid for with a $2.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of its push to ratchet up graduation rates and college readiness nationwide. Last week, the Seattle-based foundation also announced five other grants to help create new small high schools in Chicago and develop leaders for them.
Expected to take 10 years to roll out, the city鈥檚 planned overhaul of its high schools will go well beyond its Renaissance 2010 plan, officials said. That controversial initiative, launched last year, aims to replace 60 low-performing schools with 100 new, smaller ones by the decade鈥檚 end.
鈥淭his is a huge deal for us,鈥� Arne Duncan, the district鈥檚 chief executive officer, said in an interview last week, referring to the strategic plan. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not looking for incremental change, we鈥檙e looking for transformation.鈥�
A chief element of the plan will map ways for the district to support restructuring and instructional improvements at the school level, officials said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e operating on the assumption that the school is the unit of change, but we need a system that will support change,鈥� said Laurence B. Stanton, the district鈥檚 chief officer for planning and development.
Although the district just went public with the initiative last week, it has been under way since January under the direction of a steering committee. To date, it has involved meetings with groups of teachers, principals, students, and others.
鈥淲e鈥檙e really trying to unite the entire city behind this work,鈥� Mr. Duncan said.
National Model?
To help chart its course, the district is working with the Boston Consulting Group, a Boston-based management-consulting firm, and the American Institutes for Research, a prominent education research organization based in Washington.
The strategic plan is expected to be unveiled sometime this summer. The district intends to look for additional philanthropic support to carry it out.
While school leaders cited figures showing that barely half the city鈥檚 high school students graduate in four years, Mayor Daley contended in a May 19 statement that 鈥淐hicago鈥檚 no worse off than other large urban districts.鈥�
Still, he pledged that the city would break ground by being 鈥渢he first in the nation to change those statistics.鈥�
鈥淥ne district has to find a way to ensure that students are prepared for success after high school,鈥� said Mr. Daley, who has had direct control of the city鈥檚 schools for a decade. 鈥淭hat district will be Chicago.鈥�
For its part, the Gates Foundation is billing the Chicago effort as a milestone in its drive to make big-city school systems more hospitable to the kinds of smaller, more rigorous, personalized high schools that it has spent roughly $1 billion promoting for the past five years.
The foundation has committed large sums to help set up new high schools and to restructure existing ones in many cities, through grants to a wide range of local and national organizations.
In selected districts, it has also indirectly supported strategic efforts to rethink policies affecting high schools. Those district-directed grants have been rare, but foundation officials expect to make more as they expand their efforts to influence policy at the district, state, and national levels. (鈥淪ummit Fuels Push to Improve High Schools,鈥� March 9, 2005.)
鈥淐hicago is an example of how we hope to work with districts in the future,鈥� Tom Vander Ark, the foundation鈥檚 executive director for education, said in an interview last week. 鈥淪o while it might be unusual historically, it will be typical going forward.鈥�
Mr. Vander Ark said the foundation is not insisting that the district鈥檚 plan involve making all high schools small, even though it feels 鈥渘o less strongly about the importance of personalization鈥� than ever. 鈥淭he only thing that we鈥檙e firm about is that they have high academic goals for all students, and all kids in Chicago should have really good options,鈥� he said.
In addition to the district鈥檚 planning grant, the foundation announced a five-year, $6 million grant to the University of Chicago鈥檚 Center for Urban School Improvement both to replicate a charter school it runs and to help start up seven other new charter high schools in the city.
Two high-performing charter schools in the city also got grants for replication. The design of the 460-student Noble Street Charter High School, a 5-year-old school that last year posted the highest composite score on state tests of all charter schools in the city, will be copied at two new schools under a $1.4 million grant. And Perspectives Charter School, a 280-student school for grades 6-12, is receiving $550,000 to build its capacity to replicate and to set up one additional school.
Other grants include $786,000 to New Leaders for New Schools to support the New York City-based nonprofit group鈥檚 training for principals for Chicago public schools.
