Renaissance 2010: P&P Looks at Efforts to Improve Chicago Schools
The Chicago Public School (CPS) system, consisting of 409,279 students, is one of the largest in the country. It has also been one of the lowest performing public school systems in Illinois and the United States, with test scores and graduation rates far below those of the rest of the state and nation. Outside of the classroom, the CPS system has trouble with a variety of issues, including student safety, both overcrowding and under-enrollment, and a tumultuous relationship between the city of Chicago and the teachers union.
There have, however, been a number of attempts to turn around the CPS system. As this In-Depth report will explore, the most notable recent attempt was Renaissance 2010, which started in 2004 with the stated goal “To create 100 high performing public schools in designated communities of need by 2010”. Renaissance 2010 poured over $50 million of private capital into building new schools and revamping older ones; additionally, the schools had more autonomy over operation than traditional CPS schools. The hope was that the extra funding and freedom would allow for these schools to innovate, outperform, and provide models for other schools in the district.
At Renaissance 2010’s conclusion SRI International, a California-based independent research institute, issued a report finding the results of the program to be underwhelming. The overall average of the Renaissance 2010 schools met the mean average of the CPS, with some schools outperforming the average and others severely underperforming; some schools were eventually closed due to poor performance[i]. In this report, the focus, data, and analysis dealt with high schools under CPS and Renaissance 2010, rather than the entire public education system; the results found by Politics and Policy and presented here corroborate and seek to explain SRI International’s findings. Below, two Renaissance schools on opposite ends of the spectrum are further detailed, some possible reasons for the Renaissance program’s lack of success is explored, and suggestions for the future made.
The first case study of Renaissance 2010 was Robert Lindblom Math and Science Academy. Lindblom was a revamp school, meaning that the money was used to renovate and remake the school. This project was very successful, Lindblom is currently ranked 20th in the state in terms of academic performance[ii]. This type of exceptional success is not hard to explain, however. Lindblom is a selective enrollment school, meaning that students had to apply for competitive acceptance based on test scores and other factors[iii]. In this way, Lindblom essentially skimmed the best students from surrounding schools and from all around the community. It’s not surprising that Lindblom outperforms CPS on test scores and graduation rates, since it is composed of students who were already academically advanced compared to their peers. This poses a clear problem of replicable models: schools like Lindblom that received funds from Renaissance 2010 did not constitute a good investment or a good model for school reform, as the results this school generated were unique to Lindblom and its already gifted students, and, if anything, decreased performance in other schools.
The second case study is the Little Village Cluster in South Lawndale. In 2001 fourteen residents of the Little Village community staged a nineteen-day hunger strike to protest the dearth of access to education in their community. In response, the Renaissance 2010 program constructed a cluster of four schools—the first of which was built in 2005. The four schools were Infinity: Math, Science, and Technology High School; Multicultural Arts High School; Social Justice High School; and World Language High School. Despite the creation of this new multi-faceted high school cluster, the development generally underperformed its subregion, the district, and the state, providing an example opposite to Lindblom’s success. Clearly, access via new schools was not enough to raise educational achievement.
Successful schools like Lindblom and unsuccessful schools like those of the Little Village Cluster effectively canceled each other out across the Renaissance 2010 program. And so, despite the scale of the initiative and the drive behind it, Renaissance 2010 failed to have any positive net effect. Instead of improving public schools on the neighborhood level, the program often leaned towards selective enrollment, charter, military, or magnet schools which were not replicable models for the main student body and therefore could not significantly raise the district mean or help the average student. In addition, although building or remaking schools (especially 100, as Renaissance 2010 did) is a defensible and politically popular goal, new facilities don’t necessarily help the students within them.
The graph below demonstrates the failure of Renaissance 2010 and the skewing effect of school models that were not replicable. Included in the not replicable group are Lindblom, Noble Street Charter School, Chicago Virtual Charter School, Chicago International Charter School, Chicago Math and Science Academy, Rickover Naval Academy, and Marine Military Academy High School. These schools were outlying high performers deemed not replicable for the following reasons. Many of these outlier schools were charters. There are pervasive questions about the scalability of charter school networks in general, but these schools provide especially big questions. The Chicago International Charter School, for example, makes big strides in part by having teachers work long hours, which seems to be an impossibility for the CPS system after the teacher’s union recently went on strike for only slightly longer hours[iv]. The Chicago Virtual Charter School is a “unique blend on online learning and traditional, brick-and-mortar schooling”[v]. Meeting only once per week, this program uses a private operator to provide online educational services—thus, it is unlikely to translate well across Chicago for a number of reasons, ranging from trepidation about online programs to skepticism about only having school once a week. The Chicago Math and Science Academy is a smaller school, and Noble touches on a number of issues that many teachers find objectionable—such as increased accountability and reverence for business principles like entrepreneurialism[vi]. As such, these schools are not particularly well suited politically or practically to translate across Chicago. In addition, Lindblom is a selective enrollment school that focuses on high achievers, and Rickover Naval and Marine Military are, obviously, military academies and therefore not good models for general school reform. The graph measures the success of this group and the group of normal Renaissance 2010 schools by a performance index normalized to Illinois State averages, shown by a horizontal line.
Roll cursor over points to view index details.
To calculate the index, which illustrates the performance level of evaluated schools, ACT scores and graduation rates as reported by the Illinois State Report Card were combined. This data is public and is freely available from the Illinois State Board of Education’s website[vii]. Acknowledging that both ACT scores and graduation rates are vital measures of educational outcomes, both were used in the index for evaluation.
Like schools across the United States, schools in Illinois are showing some signs of improvement over the past decade. To take this time-variant improvement into account, the graph includes a comparison line composed of the mean ACT and graduation scores across Illinois. This allows the measurement of how CPS and the non-replicable high-performing schools changed relative to a baseline average over time. Illinois schools were used as the baseline as a way to bring the most internal and external validity. Illinois schools form a better comparison than a national average because they better take into account Illinois’ idiosyncrasies or policy variations than a national measure would. For example, every student in Illinois is supposed to take the ACT but in other parts of the country only some students take it, causing bias in national ACT averages. Also, Illinois’ average was used rather than the CPS’ average in order to minimize the greater endogeneity that would result from measuring and comparing CPS and Renaissance 2010-involved schools at the same time.
It seems likely that Chicago Public Schools have been inflating their graduation rates through statistical loopholes, as detailed by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research[viii]. Nonetheless, given that this bias is present in the figures presented for all Renaissance 2010 schools, it does not affect the trajectory of any of the lines. Instead, the reader should understand that the disparity between normal Renaissance 2010 schools, not replicable Renaissance 2010 schools, and the state of Illinois is likely even greater than appears from this data.
Lastly, the median of the “normal” Renaissance 2010 schools and the median of the high-performing Renaissance 2010 schools are compared with the mean of all Illinois schools because of the relatively small sample size for the two Renaissance 2010 groups. Because of the power of outliers of means in sample groups this small, median was used for these sample groups in order to maximize precision. Therefore, the comparison of median to mean was important to avoid the confounding effects of extreme values.
The calculations came as follows: to take preexisting trends into account each year was normalized with the “Illinois average” line. This line was computed by adding Illinois’ mean ACT score divided by the mean ACT score and then adding this with the mean graduation rate divided by the mean graduation rate—for all years, this sums to 2, which forms the baseline for the index. For the high-performing Renaissance 2010 schools, as well as the rest of the Renaissance 2010 high schools, their median ACT scores and graduation rates were divided by the mean Illinois ACT scores and graduation rate, respectively. Thus, a year in which Renaissance 2010 schools performed exactly identically to the rest of Illinois would lead to a score of 2. This allows a gauge of how educational outcomes of Renaissance 2010’s “normal” and “high-performing” schools are changing over time. From here, it’s clear to see how a small subset of non-replicable schools heavily out performed the generally underperforming Renaissance 2010 program.
There are two direct policy implications from this research.
First, it is of utmost importance that future education reform movements focus on making replicable school models. As shown in the above report, seven schools were very successful, but the majority of the Renaissance 2010 program underperformed, leading to no positive net gain in success. Future programs should be tailored to be replicable to the main student body so as to create a positive net benefit. Education reform needs to focus on interventions that can raise average achievement of students rather than high performance in a few cases without improvement in the rest.
Second, Chicago may want to rethink the level on which it is operating. Given the above research, and the apparent failure of Renaissance 2010, Chicago may be best served by looking instead at a micro-level intervention, by going into the classroom and changing the way that teachers and students interact or by altering the classrooms and the teaching styles themselves. Although they are probably the most politically easy option, macro-level interventions such as Renaissance 2010 may have a limited level of effectiveness.
Analysis of Renaissance 2010 is critical. Chicago is starting a new program entitled New Schools for Chicago that expands on some of the ideas developed from Renaissance 2010. The research from this in depth may shed some light on the likely effects of such a program[ix]. New Schools for Chicago seeks to invest in new schools and new models, much like Renaissance 2010, though it is focusing in particular on charter schools. Given national difficulty with the scalability of charter school models and the results of our research on macro-reforms in the Chicago Public School system, this program undoubtedly deserves some additional scrutiny.
Note: Any data in the report is available in the online Illinois State Board of Education’s eReport Card unless otherwise cited.
[i] Cassidy, Lauren, Daniel Humphrey, Marjorie Wechsler, and Viki Young. "High School Reform in Chicago Public Schools: Renaissance 2010." SRI International. (2009): n. page. Web. 19 Jun.
[ii] US News. U.S.News & World Report, n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinois/districts/chicago-public-schools/lindblom-math--science-academy-6635>.
[iii] "Lindblom Math and Science Academy." Lindblom Math and Science Academy. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://lindblomeagles.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=107689>.
[iv] "About Us." Chicago International Charter Schools. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.chicagointl.org/about.html>.
"The Associated Press: 90 Percent of Chicago Teachers Authorize Strike." Google News. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jTreOdRf4LAUOkD6zxIfeDEeZSMg>.
[v] "Chicago Virtual Charter School's Program Overview | Chicago Virtual Charter School." Chicago Virtual Charter School's Program Overview | Chicago Virtual Charter School. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.k12.com/cvcs/how-it-works>.
[vi] “Why Us? Concept Schools | Chicago Math and Science Academy (CMSA) Is a 6-12 College Prep Charter Schools Managed by Concept Schools." Why Us? Concept Schools. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.cmsaonline.net/about-our-school/why-us/>.
"Noble's Approach." Noble Efforts Change Lives. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.noblenetwork.org/about-noble/noble-difference>.
[vii] "GetSearchCriteria." GetSearchCriteria. Illinois State Board of Education, n.d. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://webprod.isbe.net/ereportcard/publicsite/getsearchcriteria.aspx>.
[viii] Olszewski, Lori. "City Graduation Rate Disputed." Chicago Tribune. N.p., 03 Feb. 2005. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-02-03/news/0502030252_1_graduation-rates-chicago-public-schools-dropout>.
[ix] "New Schools for Chicago." New Schools for Chicago. N.p., 2011. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.newschoolsnow.org/about-us/next-phase/>.