Saturday, February 18, 2012

Piccolo Protest


Piccolo Elementary -- in the news today for the parents who occupied the school overnight.

Since last summer, Chicago Commons has been involved at Piccolo when a good new principal was hired by CPS. We started parent classes and after-school activities at Piccolo this Fall.

In December, CPS announced a proposal for Piccolo to be “turned around”, which means replacing all staff with new staff including the principal. The Board of Education votes on this proposal next week.

Here is our perspective on the protest: Piccolo has been struggling for years, but when CPS fired the previous principal and hired a new principal last summer, they created positive energy among parents. That is why we are even at the school. If it weren’t for CPS hiring the new principal, it is unlikely the parents would have even organized this type of protest. So, in a way, the protest itself is a product of CPS’ own successful effort to improve the school last year.

Chicago Commons supports a community council counter proposal to delay turnaround at Piccolo for one or two years… monitor the outcomes (i.e. test score data) and then do a turnaround (with parent/community support) if no real progress is showing at that point. So far the Mayor and CPS leadership have not responded to this idea. We shall see what happens next week.

Regardless of outcome, Chicago Commons is committed to supporting improvement at Piccolo however we can.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Beyond This Blog




You need to check out the Chicago Commons RISE Tumblr Site!

Ok, I've been posting on this blog for a couple years.

It's a nice archive of thoughts along the way.

But this blog is such a narrow window onto Chicago Commons.

I am really excited about the potential for using tools like Tumblr. Instead of having to read a lot of text, you can just scan the "stream" of posts. You can literally see how the year is progressing just through the chain of images and short posts. Ok -- End of advertisement for Tumblr.

Just go check out RISE site at Richards, this is what the future looks like.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Another lens on Hull House Closing


What would Jane Addams think of Hull House closing?

One of our Associate Board Members, Ivan Medina, answered this question publicly in The Chronicle of Philanthropy last week. Link is for subsription only, so here's quick version:

Ivan thinks Jane Addams would not have recognized Hull House today. Her Hull House was not supported much by government. Today's Hull House had become a patchwork collection of government funded programs to a large degree.

“Jane Addams was about social change. She challenged government. She organized strikes,” Ivan says. “If you become an arm of government, you can’t protest government, its bad policies and unequal services. You can’t take the stands you need to take.”

Ivan thinks she might be most upset by how employees were treated at the end -- one week’s notice, no extended health insurance or severance pay. “She would be organizing them for protests.”