Chicago Public Schools
Professional Development & School Support
The Steering Committee shared a common belief
that, in order to significantly impact the quality of instruction….and
bring reform to a new level in Chicago, professional development needed
to become a major priority and all resources available needed to be aligned
in service of improving instruction and children's learning. This project
represents a true partnership and mobilization of resources and expertise
on behalf of improving children's achievement throughout Chicago Public
Schools.
— Chicago
Professional Development Steering Committee
Project Goals & Approach:
In 2001-2002, ERS helped Chicago Public Schools Superintendent
Arne Duncan and Chief Academic Officer Barbara Eason Watkins organize a
more focused, measurable professional development system aimed at improving
literacy instruction. To identify the resources for the redesign,
the Chicago Public Education Fund, along with the foundation community,
partnered with ERS to support a comprehensive analysis of all of the central
office district spending.
Outcomes:
ERS’s helped CPSS strengthen its professional development
program by:
- identifying a total of nearly $70 million dollars of professional development funds
- consolidating the professional development resources under one district leader, Al Bertani
- supporting a dramatic reorganization of teaching and learning, redirecting funding from previously scattered professional development efforts
- establishing standards for professional development
- creating rubrics for assessing district and school professional development efforts against these standards
School Funding Systems
Project Goals & Approach:
The Chicago Public Schools system is redesigning its high schools
and moving toward a portfolio system of schools with varying levels of
autonomy and accountability. Through funding from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and the Chicago Public Education Fund, CPS engaged ERS
to help articulate a strategy for the equitable, flexible allocation of
resources to schools and students across the system. ERS’s
work has involved an analysis of resources to determine:
- The current funding levels for each type of school and student
- The key drivers of differences in per pupil spending
- The existence of additional resources that could be used more flexibly at the school level
- Strategies for developing a more flexible, equitable, need-based resource allocation system
Findings
ERS’s analysis of Chicago’s spending, compared to 10 other large, urban districts, highlighted that:
- CPS spends less per pupil resulting in larger class sizes
- Although CPS spends a higher percentage of its operating budget on instruction, low overall funding results in less per pupil on instruction relative to comparison districts
- CPS students receive significantly fewer instructional hours per year than the national average and the average of the10 districts compared
Preliminary Recommendations
Based on CPS’s lower comparable funding, recommendations focus on lobbying for additional funding that would allow CPS to:
- Increase instructional time during the school day/year
- Increase allocations to schools to support specific student populations, such as students with limited English proficiency
- Provide incentives for schools to adopt research-based reform initiatives such as collaborative planning time, expert content coaching, or comprehensive school reform design models.
- Invest in professional development for teachers
Outcomes & Next Steps
CPS has refined its funding strategy for small schools, raising minimum size for in-district schools and standardized new small school start up support. ERS has conducted training to promote systemic review and support of organizational and budget plans. The district is committed to Weighted School Funding in order to better distribute funds based on individual student and school needs.Project Goals and Approach:
ERS is providing support to CPS’s high school redesign as
the system opens a number of small high schools that attempt to organize
time, people, and money in ways that have potential to generate higher
student performance. In addition to helping to determine the right
level of funding for these new schools in relation to existing schools, ERS’s
work has included:
- Reporting the way schools use their existing resources, compared against research-based ways of using resources to improve student performance
- Providing technical assistance to principals of 18 new small schools in organizing resources for high performance within the newly defined district allocation
- Conducting three strategic leadership workshops to help additional principals reorganize their resources in accordance with research
- Working with the district and high school leadership teams to address design and flexibility challenges that have implications for the overall high school redesign strategy and for the whole CPS system
- Outlining a plan for how best to support the principals of these redesigned schools
- Creating accountability for aligning budgeting and improvement processes.
Findings/Preliminary Recommendations
Opportunities exist for CPS to maximize the use of its limited resources through
- Common Planning Time: At least 90- minute sessions of weekly collaborative planning time with expert support in literacy and math.
- Formative assessments that are aligned to state standards and the specific school curriculum, especially in literacy
- Investment in expert instructional support with additional school-based Lead Literacy Teachers and Math Coaches
- A clearly defined strategy for grouping students and teachers in the middle grades
- A more strategic use of teaching staff to create individual attention and common planning time through homeroom teachers at the K-8 level
Key Findings Regarding CPS’s Readiness to Shift Use of Resources
In the context of decentralized control of resources, effective school-level resource use requires flexibility, support, and accountability, with clear central expectations regarding how resources should be used to improve student performance.
- Flexibility - CPS has improved flexibility around use of school-level resources. Strengths include 77% of funds now reported at the school level, a conversion to student, not staffed-based, funding, and increased principal control over hiring and staffing with no contract-based bumping by senior teachers
- Support – To use resources effectively, CPS principals need additional training, tools, sample schedules, and support, through Area Instructional Officers, to understand fundamental cost tradeoffs, know which policies are likely to improve student performance, and allocate resources strategically
- Accountability – CPS needs clearer system-wide standards, regularly reported metrics (eg. teacher loads and use of time), more AIO authority over practices, and more principal accountability for effective resource use. Ongoing work to integrate the School Improvement Planning and budgeting processes is still at relatively early stages.