The Shadow Behind CPS

In recent weeks we have been blasted by a whirlwind of Arne Duncan. President-Elect Obama's pick for Secretary of Education has gotten, overall, fairly positive feedback from media and pundits, alike. Duncan, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), certainly deserves many accolades. His involvement with Renaissance 2010, firmness with school closures, and ability to please a vast, variegated group of constituents, has given him great credentials for a national role that will require innovative ideas, boldness, and the ability to assuage and cajole.

And even though Chicago's public schools have vastly improved over the past decade, recent findings continue to reinforce a sense of urgency and direness.

One such finding is from the Consortium on Chicago School Research, an educational research institute at the University of Chicago. Released this past Spring, the document, titled "Making the Transition: How CICS-West Belden Eigth grade Graduates are Doing in CPS High Schools," by Nicholas Montgomery, is a longitudinal analysis of students from West-Belden, a Chicago International Charter School that provides K-8 education. In essence, the study tracks the West-Belden alumni as they immerse themselves within Chicago's public high schools.

Most pertinent to our conversation, however, are the numbers relating to CPS as a whole.

They are startling.

Of the 28,449 students tracked between 2002 and 2006, only 12,505 graduated within the four-year span, an abysmal rate of 43.95 percent. In contradistinction to this are the number of students that either dropped out or left CPS altogether (for another public school district, private school, home-school, or correctional facility), with percentages of 21.25 and 22.99, respectively, and for a combined total of 44.24--a percentage that exceeds the graduation rate.

Well, perhaps, then, the students simply needed an extra year? When including data from a fifth year, the 2006-2007 school year, the graduation rate increased by only 3 percent! Certainly, having nearly another 900 CPS students graduate high school is inherently good--for the students, schools, and city--but the nasty reality remains: less than half of all CPS students graduate in five years.

So what does this all mean? Unfortunately, not anything good. Though Mr. Duncan has fulfilled his role as CEO of Chicago Public Schools with vigor and passion, there is a shadow lurking behind the improvements CPS has made. If now, after years of reform and additional dollars injected, CPS still cannot graduate more than half of its students in five years, something else needs to occur.

George Santayana's famous and regurgitated phrase--"those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"-- comes to mind and takes an interesting twist in relation to Chicago's education system: Chicagoans remember the past, have studied the past, and understand the past thoroughly, yet continue to allow educational mediocrity. It seems like Chicago is condemning itself.

Perhaps, then, we should try something new.

Perhaps each student should have the means to decide which school is best for his/her needs.

Perhaps we need more school choice.