District Administration - October 2006 - (Page 50)

COVER STORY times as many kids as we would NOBLE STREET CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL have, Botana adds. And while that Noble Street Charter High School in the West Town neighborhood was one amounts to only 20,000 of the of Chicago's first charters and literally a mom-and-pop operation first 60,000 eligible for such tutoring, envisioned by William Olsen and his wife when they both taught high school most educators and observers here agree that's a critical mass and a in the city. We always said, `If only we were the principals,' recalls Olsen. boon to school improvement efforts. Fortunately CPS was very interested in having charter schools. It has defi nitely helped morale, The school, which opened in says Marilyn Stewart, president of 1999, looks like a brick-faced the Chicago Teachers Union. townhouse from the outside But Stewart sounds less apprecia- and inside fills a new multi floor t ive when it comes to the district's addition to a local social services policy since 2002 of closing under- agency. And students here say per for m i ng or undersubscribed they are sold on the school's neighborhood schools and often more rigorous approach to aca- replacing them with charter schools. demics. I would have gone to They're siphoning off the best and not-so-good of a high school, brightest students. The traditional union schools have to take everyone and my mom was worried about that comes through our doors, Stew- it, says one 11th-grader. Noble a r t says. changed my life. I was very unor- ganized, and now I have all this Communit y Support structure. Some people don't like W hen we initially close a school, it, but afterwards they see this is there's often community anger, and the way it should be. people worry we're going to sell The large majority of Noble the building for condos, Duncan Street's 480 students are aim- concedes. But now I go out to neigh- ing for college 80 percent go borhoods where we closed schools on to higher education, accord- several years ago, and it's like you're ing to Olsen a path paved by a hero. We've delivered. We've cre- ated great new schools that are dra- teachers, administrators, and the ACADEMICS Students at Noble Street mat ica lly better. To see the caliber Charter High School in Chicago's West Town prominent location of Alumni follow a rigorous course offering. of leadership and the caliber of tal- Hall, a well-lit corridor in which ent going into these neighborhoods the walls chronicle the post-graduate success of Noble Street students. A makes me convinced that we can large map pinpoints where they have attended college, and a colorful array alter the life chances of children in of college pennants includes such destinations as Amherst, Pomona, and these neighborhoods. the University of Maine. A nd the families that were most The school's small size and Olsen's freedom to govern make positive upset at losing what they thought differences, he says. One of the big advantages we have is that we can they had are so unbelievably thank- control our budget. We can schedule smaller classes, for example, a choice f u l. Those families have become made possible, he explains, by offering a college counseling course rather our biggest supporters and are than employing a full time counselor. It's a far more efficient way of doing out there working with us in other neighborhoods. It's a pretty emo- counseling, he says. t iona l experience. Duncan says that Recently Olsen has had to change his title from principal to superinten- there's something even larger riding dent because the school is adding six similarly sized satellite campuses with on the outcome of Chicago's school their own principals CPS's way of circumnavigating the state's current 30- improvement efforts, especially in a school limit . The first two opened this fall and have helped reduce Noble district where 85 percent of its stu- Street's 1000-pupil waiting list, although the new schools now boast wait- dent s are from low-income families. ing lists of their own. I think education today is really the civil rights issue of our genera- 50 October 2006 District Administration chicagoREV.indd 50 9/15/06 1:37:01 PM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - October 2006

Table of Contents
Editor's Letter
Snapshots
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
Administration Profile
District Profile
Disaster Recovery
Tech Trends
COVER STORY: The Chicago Team
Out Is In
Algebra's At-Risk Solution
Rural Quality
Struggling Readers
The Online Edge
Speaking Out
Principal Opinion
Problem/Solution
Research Corner
Leadership Books
New Products
By the Numbers

District Administration - October 2006

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