Ah, the smell of chalk dust and the clap of erasers. The mad scramble for the right bus line and the hollow clanging of hundreds of locker doors.
The first day of school seems timeless and unchanged year after year, from one generation to the next. But as kids headed back to school in Chicago yesterday, administrators were banking on the rest of the year to be different.
It’s “hump year” for Mayor Richard Daley’s School Reform Board of Trustees and the management team he appointed two years ago with a four-year timetable for improving the city’s overwhelmingly substandard school system. Now, with the reform plan in place, it’s fair to start looking for results.
So far, the reforms have been impressive. A long-term contract with the teacher’s union allowed schools to open on time the last two years, and this year kids even went back before Labor Day for the first time ever. What’s more, almost 50,000 of them returned after spending part of the summer attending remedial classes because they didn’t score well enough on standardized tests to be promoted.
In theory, that means a lot more students will be better prepared to tackle their lessons, and standardized test scores should improve as a result. Kids who still couldn’t make the grade will be given special tutoring this year to help them catch up.
Some 141 schools with a history of poor performance are starting the year under varying degrees of scrutiny by the school board. Seven of those–all high schools–have been completely “reconstituted,” meaning teachers, staff and administrators have been evaluated and in many cases replaced.
From mandatory summer school to reconstitution, the intended message to students and teachers has been clear: Get serious about education or face the consequences. Assessing whether that message is being properly conveyed, and whether it is being heeded, takes time.
This school year, the time has come. The academic achievement of the thousands of students who clambered into classrooms in Chicago Thursday will serve as more than a reflection of individual accomplishments. It will be a measure of the success of a bold attempt to return an urban school system to the job of providing a good education to the city’s children.
