Can you imagine thinking you are going to walk away from a grueling and according to my source, (a current d65 teacher and Create graduate-thankfully from NLU), a HELLACIOUS and AWFUL program with a degree from NU or NLU but end up with one from Chicago State? Wow. I don’t even know what to say. I suppose free is free, but what a bait and switch. NLU wanted to continue to work with d65 on this. It was the Horton Administration that gave them the middle finger. The fish stinks from the head. And it will continue to do so until every last vestige of the Horton Era is gone from the JEH Building and from the Board of Ed. Wake up, people. Tell your friends and neighbors to get involved. Every article here gets worse and worse. I really want the Hayden Jazz Charter School or a good voucher program. To be honest, on paper, the Create program sounds really good to me. I’d love it especially if it attracted more men to the classroom, I don’t care what color they are. I’d hate to think that we end up like AZ where any old fool can walk up and apply to teach and be hired. It’s good to incentivize quality training. But like most things Horton and his groupies on the Board are involved with, it’s done with little care or thought, it’s done with self-promotion at the forefront, and it’s done especially if your buds can make money from it. How politician-like of him. He should run for office.
I have lots of thoughts about this, but my main takeaway is that the District ended up actually harming the professional prospects of aspiring educators of color by expecting them to accept the terms of a poorly conceived, designed and executed program.
Mismanagement of two university partnerships to the point that the district required residents earning what amounts to $15.00/hr to travel 28 miles (up to two hours by transit and an hour by car) for classes perfectly encapsulates the contempt Horton and the Board actually hold for the people they claim to be championing.
Their results rarely actually support equitable outcomes. In this case, they actually royally screwed up the professional growth for black and brown educators. The hypocrisy is almost too glaring to fully appreciate.
Many, if not all, of the CREATE65 residents truly wanted to work for D65 and were willing to sacrifice to attend CSU to do so. I know at least one resident who was disappointed at the switch of partner colleges but rationalized it as being ok since at least there was a guaranteed job at the end and there was no reason to worry about interviewing in a competitive market, as the CREATE65 interview process was already a difficult one. Unfortunately it seems that the school board and administration has completely forgotten about the hard work put in by these people who want to improve the district.
Likely because the higher ups only care about improving their resumes so they can go elsewhere.
As a teacher working during the Covid years, it really burned me up when I was told that I needed to buy my own Kleenex for the classroom using my student activities fees or parent donations. All that Covid relief money and I was responsible for supplying my own students with Kleenex? Absurd.
From what I heard yesterday, only 2 jobs have been offered to the cohort 2&3 residents, and one of those was offered at a contract rate below the lowest salary on the union chart available on the website for a first year non-masters degree. Maybe D65 was just using a few years old contract but every step of the way for these dedicated people seems to be an insult by uncaring admins
I’m convinced that there’s a bonfire behind JEH where the D65 administration and school board burn taxpayer money. They are probably enjoying some s’mores there right now.
I have a friend who was a tutor for the program that Sergio touted in the quote at the end of your article. My friend, a former teacher and administrator (not at D65), said the "high-impact tutoring" consisted of four days a week of the kids staring at their screens during the tutoring sessions and one day of actual interaction between the kids and the tutors. My friend asked the director at the school (who did not have any education degrees) if they could brainstorm ways to bring more engagement to the sessions but was completely shut down. My friend couldn't take just sitting there watching the kids looking at their screens all day and quit. I'm not sure if that's how the program was run across the district or just at that one school, but what a waste of offered expertise.
It’s hard to understand how D65 and the Board love talking up equity, patting themselves on the back, and taking victory laps without achieving any desired equitable outcomes. It’s also hard to understand why this program has an activist component. The continuing focus/obsession with equity and activism does nothing to improve the schools. The whole thing is shameful and we keep running into the same lack of accountability for all of these failures.
Here’s a novel idea. Focus on rigorous education you know the basics like reading, math, social studies, science music, art and P E. If you build it ( a truly excellent school district) they will come. The Black, Brown ,White and Asian teachers will come. We used to be a lighthouse district. I think the light has gone out
– 79% of Black Parents want a curriculum that prioritizes STEAM
– 72% of Black Parents want a curriculum that includes black history (but only 26% of Black Parents think the District is doing a good job at that)
– 37% of Black Parents think that the District is prioritizing their kids
This survey shows that all parents regardless of creed want the same thing - fundamentally strong and safe schools that prioritize the things that kids need to survive in the 21st century.
Ok, Tom, what do you know about this new principal at Orrington? Doctor Angel said in the email to parents: "Similarly to me, Dr. Schoeffmann values transparency. It was important to both of us to proactively address criticism she faced in her previous roles from very small but vocal groups who opposed her beliefs in expanding access to rigorous learning opportunities and keeping a wide variety of books in libraries. A non-mainstream news article and several blogs stated Dr. Schoeffmann was fired or asked to resign. "
When you google Alison Schoeffmann you get nothing. So where are those "several blogs"? It turns out that after 20 years she decided to start using her married name this year. Who knows what happened when Doctor Schoeffmann nee Hawley resigned her position in River Forest.
But this attempt to re-invent herself by changing her name doesn't seem to be a good sign. But at least the good Doctor `values transparency'!
It’s amazing how just about every hire has some mystery or baggage following them although when I see that they are referencing the “West Cook News”, I am dubious about the reporting.
I will say that we live in a hyper political / partisan time - I think it's probably difficult to find someone who is in a position of power (like a principal) that doesn't have some enemies on one side or the other.
I agree with you about our contemporary time. But, come on, Principals are localized folks and there have been plenty of well-liked principals in D65 over the years. During the Horton era well-liked principals at Dewey and Washington left.
In this case, the name change is really weird. Why would Doctor Schoeffmann nee Hawley start using her husband's name after being married for nearly a decade?
The other thing that is strange is that she is moving from a senior role in school district administration to being a principal. That seems like a downgrade in position--particularly given that she has been in district administration for over a decade. She has also never been a principal before--I'm not too worried about that, but it makes you wonder what the candidate pool looked like.
The new Nichols principal also came from a district administration job, so maybe that is a thing in education? To me it sounds like going from being a VP to a Division manager in a corporation-- a downgrade.
Also, the Orrington principal search still merits lots of questions. Josh Seldess, the interim (who has a stellar reputation and years of pre-Horton experience in the District) apparently applied for and was offered the permanent job and then he decided to leave the district?!?! Ok that happens, I guess. But it is strange and it is too bad that we are losing a good leader.
I would argue that Seldess wasn't good. He had zero interaction with students or parents, especially compared to the amazing Dr. Plaza who he replaced. Same experience with him when he was at Nichols. Not a single student we knew there (our kid too) knew who he was or even could pick him out in a lineup. I attended district 65 schools as a kid along with Doctor Schoeffmann and think she will be a great hire. I take this as a very positive step.
In terms of Nichols leadership - maybe this is a "hold my beer" thing to say but I think any one will be better then the last crew. Wright was so in over his head and had no idea what his job actually was.
That's good to know. I don't have kids at Orrington. I just looked back about the original issue with his hiring and noted there was a controversy related to his association with PEG. So I probably had it wrong.
My general opinion of ED degrees is low. (I've looked at several dissertations from the "Doctors" running the district over the last few years and they are total jokes. The 'data' they collect is usually from a focus group or interviews consisting of a dozen people or so. They sound more like shooting the $hit sessions in the teachers lounge. Current superintendent "Dr." Turner didn't even have to write a dissertation!)
Leaving the BS nature of Ed degrees aside, how was this program any different than a normal MEd? The district already has a tuition reimbursement for teachers. Why not expand that as a recruiting tool?
It is obvious from the emails from NLU that the District was having trouble finding recruits which means the program wasn't very attractive.
The program is actually pretty different from standard masters degrees. Those are usually one year courses, then you do a semester of student teaching, and you aren't earning a salary for any of this time. From teachers I've talked to who went this path, the expectation is you just take out large student loans to live on while student teaching, even if you did the masters in the evening while working 9-5.
Due to that, there were over a hundred applicants for each Cohort that went through a multi stage interview process to be accepted into the program - the 30-40k salary wasn't much but it was still better than $0.
I don't believe the issue was in finding recruits, it was in helping them through administrative barriers/hurdles which were constantly being created.
To your point, Dr. Horton's dissertation was basically him talking to his friends about being principals in turnaround schools. I wouldn't say it was super rigorous and contains some elements that are borderline plagiarism, but I've definitely seen worse.
Someone needs to write a book about the Education-Credentialing complex. Interview subjects help their aspiring Doctors put together thin gruel dissertations. They get the Doc degree and payback their friends with consultancy contracts, etc…
To be fair to education folks, you should see the business PhDs that get awarded these days. Bigger problem than just EdD - general weakening of rigor and inflation of grades
Interesting...How would one go about finding these dissertations? I would be curious to see what type of research they did and their data collection methods.
Yes. At least the one I know is still teaching. The funny thing was that the district originally told them they had to do more training (despite having the Masters and teaching cert) and did not give them a job. Then they gave them a long term sub job at sub pay. Then they gave them a job when a teacher walked out. Did it matter that they were not qualified to teach that grade? No- of course not! Just get in there- suddenly you don’t need more training- you will be fine! The teacher said if it weren’t for the team of other teachers that grade, they would have quit and walked away from teaching altogether. They already had wanted to quit Create every single day. Their counselor at NLU in the Create program kept them together enough to get through- barely. They had an incident where they whistle blew during student teaching on abusive or at least highly inappropriate practices in the classroom and the district gave them no support. That was one reason NLU was unhappy. They still work in the district and love their coworkers and students. It’s the admin (and parents- those that are completely disengaged in their kid’s academic lives and whose kids are in the gap, and the parents who think their children are the greatest gift to the district and are overly-involved) that make the teachers roll their eyes. They know it’s going to get ugly financially and there is a contract coming up soon.
Can you imagine thinking you are going to walk away from a grueling and according to my source, (a current d65 teacher and Create graduate-thankfully from NLU), a HELLACIOUS and AWFUL program with a degree from NU or NLU but end up with one from Chicago State? Wow. I don’t even know what to say. I suppose free is free, but what a bait and switch. NLU wanted to continue to work with d65 on this. It was the Horton Administration that gave them the middle finger. The fish stinks from the head. And it will continue to do so until every last vestige of the Horton Era is gone from the JEH Building and from the Board of Ed. Wake up, people. Tell your friends and neighbors to get involved. Every article here gets worse and worse. I really want the Hayden Jazz Charter School or a good voucher program. To be honest, on paper, the Create program sounds really good to me. I’d love it especially if it attracted more men to the classroom, I don’t care what color they are. I’d hate to think that we end up like AZ where any old fool can walk up and apply to teach and be hired. It’s good to incentivize quality training. But like most things Horton and his groupies on the Board are involved with, it’s done with little care or thought, it’s done with self-promotion at the forefront, and it’s done especially if your buds can make money from it. How politician-like of him. He should run for office.
I have lots of thoughts about this, but my main takeaway is that the District ended up actually harming the professional prospects of aspiring educators of color by expecting them to accept the terms of a poorly conceived, designed and executed program.
Mismanagement of two university partnerships to the point that the district required residents earning what amounts to $15.00/hr to travel 28 miles (up to two hours by transit and an hour by car) for classes perfectly encapsulates the contempt Horton and the Board actually hold for the people they claim to be championing.
Their results rarely actually support equitable outcomes. In this case, they actually royally screwed up the professional growth for black and brown educators. The hypocrisy is almost too glaring to fully appreciate.
Many, if not all, of the CREATE65 residents truly wanted to work for D65 and were willing to sacrifice to attend CSU to do so. I know at least one resident who was disappointed at the switch of partner colleges but rationalized it as being ok since at least there was a guaranteed job at the end and there was no reason to worry about interviewing in a competitive market, as the CREATE65 interview process was already a difficult one. Unfortunately it seems that the school board and administration has completely forgotten about the hard work put in by these people who want to improve the district.
Likely because the higher ups only care about improving their resumes so they can go elsewhere.
As a teacher working during the Covid years, it really burned me up when I was told that I needed to buy my own Kleenex for the classroom using my student activities fees or parent donations. All that Covid relief money and I was responsible for supplying my own students with Kleenex? Absurd.
All the while the district was spending over $100k on free lunches for administrators!
From what I heard yesterday, only 2 jobs have been offered to the cohort 2&3 residents, and one of those was offered at a contract rate below the lowest salary on the union chart available on the website for a first year non-masters degree. Maybe D65 was just using a few years old contract but every step of the way for these dedicated people seems to be an insult by uncaring admins
Admins with absolutely no accountability from the Board
I’m convinced that there’s a bonfire behind JEH where the D65 administration and school board burn taxpayer money. They are probably enjoying some s’mores there right now.
At least the kids could enjoy that!!
I have a friend who was a tutor for the program that Sergio touted in the quote at the end of your article. My friend, a former teacher and administrator (not at D65), said the "high-impact tutoring" consisted of four days a week of the kids staring at their screens during the tutoring sessions and one day of actual interaction between the kids and the tutors. My friend asked the director at the school (who did not have any education degrees) if they could brainstorm ways to bring more engagement to the sessions but was completely shut down. My friend couldn't take just sitting there watching the kids looking at their screens all day and quit. I'm not sure if that's how the program was run across the district or just at that one school, but what a waste of offered expertise.
Devin Horton—the gift that keeps on giving.
It’s hard to understand how D65 and the Board love talking up equity, patting themselves on the back, and taking victory laps without achieving any desired equitable outcomes. It’s also hard to understand why this program has an activist component. The continuing focus/obsession with equity and activism does nothing to improve the schools. The whole thing is shameful and we keep running into the same lack of accountability for all of these failures.
Here’s a novel idea. Focus on rigorous education you know the basics like reading, math, social studies, science music, art and P E. If you build it ( a truly excellent school district) they will come. The Black, Brown ,White and Asian teachers will come. We used to be a lighthouse district. I think the light has gone out
You can read the survey of black parents yourself:
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2023/03/14/survey-most-black-residents-still-distrust-local-school-districts/
– 79% of Black Parents want a curriculum that prioritizes STEAM
– 72% of Black Parents want a curriculum that includes black history (but only 26% of Black Parents think the District is doing a good job at that)
– 37% of Black Parents think that the District is prioritizing their kids
This survey shows that all parents regardless of creed want the same thing - fundamentally strong and safe schools that prioritize the things that kids need to survive in the 21st century.
Ok, Tom, what do you know about this new principal at Orrington? Doctor Angel said in the email to parents: "Similarly to me, Dr. Schoeffmann values transparency. It was important to both of us to proactively address criticism she faced in her previous roles from very small but vocal groups who opposed her beliefs in expanding access to rigorous learning opportunities and keeping a wide variety of books in libraries. A non-mainstream news article and several blogs stated Dr. Schoeffmann was fired or asked to resign. "
When you google Alison Schoeffmann you get nothing. So where are those "several blogs"? It turns out that after 20 years she decided to start using her married name this year. Who knows what happened when Doctor Schoeffmann nee Hawley resigned her position in River Forest.
But this attempt to re-invent herself by changing her name doesn't seem to be a good sign. But at least the good Doctor `values transparency'!
https://orrington.district65.net/post-details/~board/orrington-elementary-news/post/meet-dr-alison-schoeffmann
Stay tuned.
It’s amazing how just about every hire has some mystery or baggage following them although when I see that they are referencing the “West Cook News”, I am dubious about the reporting.
I will say that we live in a hyper political / partisan time - I think it's probably difficult to find someone who is in a position of power (like a principal) that doesn't have some enemies on one side or the other.
I agree with you about our contemporary time. But, come on, Principals are localized folks and there have been plenty of well-liked principals in D65 over the years. During the Horton era well-liked principals at Dewey and Washington left.
In this case, the name change is really weird. Why would Doctor Schoeffmann nee Hawley start using her husband's name after being married for nearly a decade?
The other thing that is strange is that she is moving from a senior role in school district administration to being a principal. That seems like a downgrade in position--particularly given that she has been in district administration for over a decade. She has also never been a principal before--I'm not too worried about that, but it makes you wonder what the candidate pool looked like.
The new Nichols principal also came from a district administration job, so maybe that is a thing in education? To me it sounds like going from being a VP to a Division manager in a corporation-- a downgrade.
Also, the Orrington principal search still merits lots of questions. Josh Seldess, the interim (who has a stellar reputation and years of pre-Horton experience in the District) apparently applied for and was offered the permanent job and then he decided to leave the district?!?! Ok that happens, I guess. But it is strange and it is too bad that we are losing a good leader.
I would argue that Seldess wasn't good. He had zero interaction with students or parents, especially compared to the amazing Dr. Plaza who he replaced. Same experience with him when he was at Nichols. Not a single student we knew there (our kid too) knew who he was or even could pick him out in a lineup. I attended district 65 schools as a kid along with Doctor Schoeffmann and think she will be a great hire. I take this as a very positive step.
In terms of Nichols leadership - maybe this is a "hold my beer" thing to say but I think any one will be better then the last crew. Wright was so in over his head and had no idea what his job actually was.
That's good to know. I don't have kids at Orrington. I just looked back about the original issue with his hiring and noted there was a controversy related to his association with PEG. So I probably had it wrong.
My general opinion of ED degrees is low. (I've looked at several dissertations from the "Doctors" running the district over the last few years and they are total jokes. The 'data' they collect is usually from a focus group or interviews consisting of a dozen people or so. They sound more like shooting the $hit sessions in the teachers lounge. Current superintendent "Dr." Turner didn't even have to write a dissertation!)
Leaving the BS nature of Ed degrees aside, how was this program any different than a normal MEd? The district already has a tuition reimbursement for teachers. Why not expand that as a recruiting tool?
It is obvious from the emails from NLU that the District was having trouble finding recruits which means the program wasn't very attractive.
The program is actually pretty different from standard masters degrees. Those are usually one year courses, then you do a semester of student teaching, and you aren't earning a salary for any of this time. From teachers I've talked to who went this path, the expectation is you just take out large student loans to live on while student teaching, even if you did the masters in the evening while working 9-5.
Due to that, there were over a hundred applicants for each Cohort that went through a multi stage interview process to be accepted into the program - the 30-40k salary wasn't much but it was still better than $0.
I don't believe the issue was in finding recruits, it was in helping them through administrative barriers/hurdles which were constantly being created.
To your point, Dr. Horton's dissertation was basically him talking to his friends about being principals in turnaround schools. I wouldn't say it was super rigorous and contains some elements that are borderline plagiarism, but I've definitely seen worse.
Someone needs to write a book about the Education-Credentialing complex. Interview subjects help their aspiring Doctors put together thin gruel dissertations. They get the Doc degree and payback their friends with consultancy contracts, etc…
To be fair to education folks, you should see the business PhDs that get awarded these days. Bigger problem than just EdD - general weakening of rigor and inflation of grades
Interesting...How would one go about finding these dissertations? I would be curious to see what type of research they did and their data collection methods.
You can email me: tom@foiagras.com - they’re copyrighted so I can’t publish
Okay, thanks!
Did any of the people who completed the program survive the RIFs the Board approved a month ago?
Yes. At least the one I know is still teaching. The funny thing was that the district originally told them they had to do more training (despite having the Masters and teaching cert) and did not give them a job. Then they gave them a long term sub job at sub pay. Then they gave them a job when a teacher walked out. Did it matter that they were not qualified to teach that grade? No- of course not! Just get in there- suddenly you don’t need more training- you will be fine! The teacher said if it weren’t for the team of other teachers that grade, they would have quit and walked away from teaching altogether. They already had wanted to quit Create every single day. Their counselor at NLU in the Create program kept them together enough to get through- barely. They had an incident where they whistle blew during student teaching on abusive or at least highly inappropriate practices in the classroom and the district gave them no support. That was one reason NLU was unhappy. They still work in the district and love their coworkers and students. It’s the admin (and parents- those that are completely disengaged in their kid’s academic lives and whose kids are in the gap, and the parents who think their children are the greatest gift to the district and are overly-involved) that make the teachers roll their eyes. They know it’s going to get ugly financially and there is a contract coming up soon.
This could have been a great tool to bring in sorely needed bilingual educators. But like everything else at D65 it's black v everyone else.