Macon County Shared Vision

Open Letter From Dan Caulkins on West Main Street

2/29/2008

Dear Friends:

There is a lot of public discussion regarding the West Main Street project and Millikin University. I want to make sure you understand my position and the reasons for it. I'm confident that my efforts will result in saving you, the taxpayers, several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Chicago Schools Try New Turnaround Approach in Failing Schools

An article in the Christian Science Monitor discusses one approach being tried in Chicago Public Schools. Several of Decatur's public schools are not making adequate yearly progress and are deemed "failing" for the low academic acheivement. Best practices for school reform can benefit from looking to others and their experience. A brief excerpt from the article:

"Harvard [Elementary School] is one of several public schools here to get a top-to-bottom housecleaning in recent years – including replacing the principal and most teachers – in a bid to lift student achievement out of the nation's academic basement. The drastic approach is known as "turnaround," and Chicago is embracing it more than any US city, though it's unproven and is controversial among teachers, many parents, and students."

Teacher Training & Retention Matters

The Chicago defender features an article of a $10 million grant to Chicago Public Schools to imporve results in public education. The full article is below. From the article:

“Since taking on the challenge of raising the performance of our schools, we have definitely seen progress across the city and have become a national model for urban school reform,” Daley said Thursday at a press conference at the Sherman School of Excellence on the South Side. “But as I’ve said many times, there are still too many schools that consistently under-perform. The Academy for Urban School Leadership has shown promising results in schools under its management and this expanded partnership will enable more CPS students to receive the education they deserve.”

One of the key elements of the Academy for Urban School Leadership is teacher training and retention. The founder of AUSL said "Our mantra is attract, train [and] retain..."