Honk your horn for support in teacher’s strike!
Longer school days mean more time for mathematics and science!
Parents have a right to a choice!
These are some of the numerous arguments and protests that have emerged ever since the beginning of school strike that occurred during the second week of school this year. The Chicago teacher’s strike itself also has raised issues concerning the school system in Chicago and Illinois in general. Chicago Public Schools make up the third largest school district in the nation, a significant group of students within the state of Illinois. Despite the many teacher’s strikes, across the state, students are putting in more hours to produce more post secondary efforts, higher test scores, and parents are wondering why their child is coming home from school so late. We have had to adapt to many changes in Chicago Public School administration since Arne Duncan left the system, including the leaving of another CEO Jean Claude Brizard. Towards the goal of better schooling, many people are making sacrifices to make education become a tool for success in the real world.
We want for students to have the best quality education that can be physically possible, we have not achieved this goal in Illinois. One major flaw of our society is how we have not yet collectively determined what kind of education would best benefit our students. School policy has made our education systems function exclusively within the framework of standardized testing and evaluations, and CPS has really joined in the trend. In an article “School achievement score little changed”, (Rado, and Nix 2012) gives insight into how there has been little progress in ISAT and ACT test scores for students this past year. Only 80% passed the ISAT this year and 51.3% of high school juniors passed the ACT. We have even gotten to the point where students are earning cash incentives just for making significant gains on test scores. Evergreen Park High school has taken this to the next level by providing students with days off, parking spaces and graduation tickets if they score significantly well in standardized tests.
Quantity has made evaluating school progress a negative effect for judging the quality of learning of the student.
The teachers strike sparked an awareness in the flaws in our education system.The teacher’s strike was not only a significant event in history, it also causes Chicago and the nation to reflect on the role education has have and will have in our lives. This is especially with the product of Chicago as Commander in Chief in the White House, President Obama, who has a platform for increasing math and science programs as well as strengthening community colleges. In order to ensure a more empowering curriculum of youth, parents, teachers, community leaders, administrators and students must come together to devise a plan of collegiate action!
Reporter Joshua Conner
