It’s ironic that Chicago Teachers Union President Deborah Lynch, who complains regularly that teachers need a greater voice in education, now is angling for her union to take over a handful of poorly performing schools and run them using a curriculum so scripted that most teachers would have almost no say over what gets taught day to day.
But if Lynch is willing to find schools and faculties to join in the experiment she has proposed, then the rest of us should step aside and encourage her, and her union, to give it a try.
The curriculum program Lynch favors, Success for All, was developed in 1987 by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The program now is used in 1,600 schools across 48 states. It has shown success for many, but generally only in schools that overwhelmingly embrace the idea. In Chicago, for example, five schools use Success for All, with mixed results.
The program is choreographed with the precision of a chicken cacciatore recipe. Day 111: “Discuss short story.” “Write `Realistic Fiction’ on the chalkboard.” “Invite students to determine point of view of the story.”
Lynch argues that even within this paint-by-numbers approach, teachers are forced to be imaginative. Maybe so. In schools around the country that have used Success for All, though, that regimentation remains the overriding complaint driving many teachers–particularly the most seasoned ones–to seek more imaginative and spontaneous pastures.
That said, Success for All may be just the kind of program that could work in inner city schools with relatively inexperienced staffs. Identifying likely schools on Chicago’s probation list is like shooting fish in a barrel: In too many troubled buildings, half or more of the teachers are substitutes or uncertified instructors.
There are other promising aspects of Success for All. Students read for 90 minutes a day. One-to-one tutoring is provided to those with reading difficulties. Class sizes are kept small, 20 students to every teacher. The school day is extended by 40 minutes. The program isn’t cheap. Depending on how it’s designed, it can add as much as $1 million to a school’s annual costs to cover materials, extra support and personnel.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan said Tuesday that he is happy to start the experiment in two schools this fall by providing three options to Lynch. He could free some “external partner” funds to help defray costs of the expensive program and allow local school councils to devote some of their discretionary money to it. Or the union could run the schools either as charter or contract schools.
That is a good compromise. Lynch is trying to offer Success for All as an alternative to the three school closures Duncan announced last month. It is not. Those schools had devolved into such a culture of failure that children’s interests are served only by closing shop and starting anew, as Duncan plans to do.
In the meantime, Lynch has homework to do. She needs to better study why Success for All has worked in two Chicago schools, but not in three others. And she needs to proselytize to enough teachers, principals and Local School Councils so that at least two more school communities end up loving the idea as much as she does.
