Editorial: CPS doubles down on ‘sustainable community schools.' Where are the results?
So we took notice when Mayor Brandon Johnson announced late last week that the city would be nearly doubling the number of so-called sustainable community schools in the city.
What is a sustainable community school? It's a model — widely supported by teachers' unions — which turns public schools into community hubs offering services such as housing and food assistance, medical and dental care, mental health support and classes, including parenting or English for non-native speakers.
Right now, Chicago Public Schools has 20 of these schools, but the number is going up to 36 — with more to come after that. Each of these schools costs an extra $500,000 annually, so adding 16 will cost an additional $8 million next year.
You may be asking yourself why, when the district has a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars it needs to sort out by the end of the month, that Johnson is announcing this. Well, it's simple: The new Chicago Teachers Union contract requires an additional 50 sustainable community schools by the end of its four-year term. To some degree, the district's hands are tied.
We should say here that we don't think the idea of sustainable community schools is meritless. It makes sense that low-income and disadvantaged kids may need more to succeed than just the three Rs.
But is the sustainable community school model the way? Let's look at the track record of these schools in Chicago.
Chalkbeat reported that since 2018, enrollment at the 20 schools in the program has dropped by 15%, with six of them losing more than a quarter of their students — a far steeper decline than the district as a whole. And many of these schools are among the city's worst-performing academically.
We'll allow that numbers don't tell the entire story when it comes to a program such as this one, but they're not meaningless either. And so far they're downright discouraging.
Johnson, the former CTU organizer who has spent his mayoralty attempting to make his former employer's demands reality no matter how unaffordable or questionable, doesn't think we should be considering metrics at all.
He dismisses using test scores or graduation rates to gauge success, defining the effort's worthiness instead as 'when every child has everything they need.'
Perhaps that's because the data don't support this investment. Even the most ardent public school advocate should never say something like that. Just like any other program, sustainable community schools need to justify their investment, and they do so at least in part by demonstrating measurable success.
Here's the reality. The situation with Chicago's low-income kids warrants urgent attention. Among low-income CPS students, just 22% are proficient in reading, 12% in math, and nearly half miss 10% or more school days. Those numbers cry out for meaningful solutions.
Improving this woeful reality is challenging, and schools aren't well-positioned to be everything to everyone.
The best thing schools can do is help foster stability. An environment of reassuring routines, predictable interactions and secure relationships helps children feel safe and ready to learn.
Here are some extra school services that seem to work.
One-on-one or small-group tutoring, especially in the early grades, provide some of the strongest evidence for boosting achievement. In Mississippi, intensive early-literacy tutoring, among other reforms, helped raise fourth-grade reading scores to above the national average. CPS has made strides with its Tutor Corps program and Tutoring Chicago help, but more is needed.
Before- and after-school programs, summer learning and extracurriculars boost attendance, engagement and outcomes. And pairing students with consistent adult mentors (through Big Brothers Big Sisters, for example) improves graduation rates and reduces disciplinary incidents.
These add-on services boost learning — but only with a solid academic foundation; without it, they risk distraction over results.
Based on the CTU contract, CPS doesn't have a choice — it has to move forward with these sustainable community schools. If CPS' own data showed these schools were moving the needle academically, this investment could be justified — but so far, that hasn't happened. We're not convinced spending more and expanding on this model is the answer Chicago kids need.
Schools can connect families to outside help, but they cannot become the housing authority, the health department and the social services office without sacrificing their core mission: teaching children to read, write and think critically. When schools try to be everything to everyone, they risk doing nothing well.
So the jury is out on sustainable community schools. Supporters of the concept, including the mayor, should focus on delivering results for students rather than defining success in terms of how many new CTU members are employed.
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The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
100 days of Pope Leo XIV: a calm papacy that avoids polemics is coming into focus
VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Leo XIV surprised tens of thousands of young people at a recent Holy Year celebration with an impromptu popemobile romp around St. Peter's Square, it almost seemed as if some of the informal spontaneity that characterized Pope Francis' 12-year papacy had returned to the Vatican. But the message Leo delivered that night was all his own: In seamless English, Spanish and Italian, Leo told the young people that they were the 'salt of the Earth, the light of the world.' He urged them to spread their hope, faith in Christ and their cries of peace wherever they go. As Robert Prevost marks his 100th day as Pope Leo this weekend, the contours of his pontificate have begun to come into relief, primarily where he shows continuity with Francis and where he signals change. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that after 12 sometimes turbulent years under Francis, a certain calm and reserve have returned to the papacy. Leo seems eager above all to avoid polemics or making the papacy about himself, and wants instead to focus on Christ and peace. That seems exactly what many Catholic faithful want, and may respond to what today's church needs. 'He's been very direct and forthright … but he's not doing spontaneous press hits,' said Kevin Hughes, chair of theology and religious studies at Leo's alma mater, Villanova University. Leo has a different style than Francis, and that has brought relief to many, Hughes said in a telephone interview. 'Even those who really loved Pope Francis always kind of held their breath a little bit: You didn't know what was going to come out next or what he was going to do,' Hughes said. An effort to avoid polemics Leo has certainly gone out of his way in his first 100 days to try to heal divisions that deepened during Francis' pontificate, offering messages of unity and avoiding controversy at almost every turn. Even his signature issue — confronting the promise and peril posed by artificial intelligence — is something that conservatives and progressives alike agree is important. Francis' emphasis on caring for the environment and migrants often alienated conservatives. Closer to home, Leo offered the Holy See bureaucracy a reassuring, conciliatory message after Francis' occasionally authoritarian style rubbed some in the Vatican the wrong way. 'Popes come and go, but the Curia remains,' Leo told Vatican officials soon after his May 8 election. Continuity with Francis is still undeniable Leo, though, has cemented Francis' environmental legacy by celebrating the first-ever ecologically inspired Mass. He has furthered that legacy by giving the go-ahead for the Vatican to turn a 430-hectare (1,000-acre) field north of Rome into a vast solar farm that should generate enough electricity to meet Vatican City's needs and turn it into the world's first carbon-neutral state. He has fine-tuned financial transparency regulations that Francis initiated, tweaked some other decrees to give them consistency and logic, and confirmed Francis in deciding to declare one of the 19th century's most influential saints, John Henry Newman, a 'doctor' of the church. But he hasn't granted any sit-down, tell-all interviews or made headline-grabbing, off-the-cuff comments like his predecessor did. He hasn't made any major appointments, including to fill his old job, or taken any big trips. In marking the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki last week, he had a chance to match Francis' novel declaration that the mere possession of nuclear weapons was 'immoral.' But he didn't. Compared to President Donald Trump, the other American world leader who took office in 2025 with a flurry of Sharpie-penned executive decrees, Leo has eased into his new job slowly, deliberately and quietly, almost trying not to draw attention to himself. At 69, he seems to know that he has time on his side, and that after Francis' revolutionary papacy, the church might need a bit of a breather. One Vatican official who knows Leo said he expects his papacy will have the effect of a 'calming rain' on the church. Maria Isabel Ibarcena Cuarite, a Peruvian member of a Catholic charismatic group, said it was precisely Leo's quiet emphasis on church traditions, its sacraments and love of Christ, that drew her and upward of 1 million young people to Rome for a special Jubilee week this month. Ibarcena said Francis had confused young people like herself with his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and approval of blessings for same-sex couples. Such gestures went beyond what a pope was supposed to do and what the church taught, she thought. Leo, she said, has emphasized that marriage is a sacrament between men and woman. 'Francis was ambiguous, but he is firm,' she said. An Augustinian pope From his very first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, Leo has insisted he is first and foremost a 'son of St. Augustine. ' It was a reference to the fifth century theological and devotional giant of early Christianity, St. Augustine of Hippo, who inspired the 13th century religious Augustinian order as a community of 'mendicant' friars. Like the other big mendicant orders of the early church — the Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites — the Augustinians spread across Christian Europe over the centuries. Today, Augustinian spirituality is rooted in a deep interior life of prayer, living in community, and journeying together in search of truth in God. In nearly every speech or homily since his May 8 election, Leo has cited Augustine in one way or another. 'I see a kind of Augustinian flavor in the way that he's presenting all these things,' said Hughes, the theology professor who is an Augustine scholar. Leo joined the Augustinians after graduating from Augustinian-run Villanova, outside Philadelphia, and was twice elected its prior general. He has visited the Augustinian headquarters outside St. Peter's a few times since his election, and some wonder if he will invite some brothers to live with him in the Apostolic Palace to recreate the spirit of Augustinian community life there. A missionary pope in the image of Francis Leo is also very much a product of the Francis papacy. Francis named Prevost bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014 and then moved him to head one of the most important Vatican jobs in 2023 — vetting bishop nominations. In retrospect, it seems Francis had his eye on Prevost as a possible successor. Given Francis' stump speech before the 2013 conclave that elected him pope, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio essentially described Prevost in identifying the church's mission today: He said the church was 'called to go outside of itself and go to the peripheries, not just geographic but also the existential peripheries.' Prevost, who hails from Chicago, spent his adult life as a missionary in Peru, eventually becoming bishop of Chiclayo. 'He is the incarnation of the 'unity of difference,' because he comes from the center, but he lives in the peripheries,' said Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Cuda said during a recent conference hosted by Georgetown University that Leo encapsulated in 'word and gesture' the type of missionary church Francis promoted. That said, for all Leo owes to Bergoglio, the two didn't necessarily get along. Prevost has recounted that at one point when he was the Augustinian superior, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires expressed interest in assigning an Augustinian priest to a specific job in his archdiocese. 'And I, as prior general, said 'I understand, Your Eminence, but he's got to do something else' and so I transferred him somewhere else,' Prevost told parishioners in his home state of Illinois in 2024. Prevost said he 'naively' thought the Francis wouldn't remember him after his 2013 election, and that regardless 'he'll never appoint me bishop' due to the disagreement. Bergoglio not only made him bishop, he laid the groundwork for Prevost to succeed him as pope, the first North American pope following the first South American.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
100 days of Pope Leo XIV: a calm papacy that avoids polemics is coming into focus
VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Leo XIV surprised tens of thousands of young people at a recent Holy Year celebration with an impromptu popemobile romp around St. Peter's Square, it almost seemed as if some of the informal spontaneity that characterized Pope Francis' 12-year papacy had returned to the Vatican. But the message Leo delivered that night was all his own: In seamless English, Spanish and Italian, Leo told the young people that they were the 'salt of the Earth, the light of the world.' He urged them to spread their hope, faith in Christ and their cries of peace wherever they go. As Robert Prevost marks his 100th day as Pope Leo this weekend, the contours of his pontificate have begun to come into relief, primarily where he shows continuity with Francis and where he signals change. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that after 12 sometimes turbulent years under Francis, a certain calm and reserve have returned to the papacy. Leo seems eager above all to avoid polemics or making the papacy about himself, and wants instead to focus on Christ and peace. That seems exactly what many Catholic faithful want, and may respond to what today's church needs. 'He's been very direct and forthright … but he's not doing spontaneous press hits,' said Kevin Hughes, chair of theology and religious studies at Leo's alma mater, Villanova University. Leo has a different style than Francis, and that has brought relief to many, Hughes said in a telephone interview. 'Even those who really loved Pope Francis always kind of held their breath a little bit: You didn't know what was going to come out next or what he was going to do,' Hughes said. An effort to avoid polemics Leo has certainly gone out of his way in his first 100 days to try to heal divisions that deepened during Francis' pontificate, offering messages of unity and avoiding controversy at almost every turn. Even his signature issue — confronting the promise and peril posed by artificial intelligence — is something that conservatives and progressives alike agree is important. Francis' emphasis on caring for the environment and migrants often alienated conservatives. Closer to home, Leo offered the Holy See bureaucracy a reassuring, conciliatory message after Francis' occasionally authoritarian style rubbed some in the Vatican the wrong way. 'Popes come and go, but the Curia remains,' Leo told Vatican officials soon after his May 8 election. Continuity with Francis is still undeniable Leo, though, has cemented Francis' environmental legacy by celebrating the first-ever ecologically inspired Mass. He has furthered that legacy by giving the go-ahead for the Vatican to turn a 430-hectare (1,000-acre) field north of Rome into a vast solar farm that should generate enough electricity to meet Vatican City's needs and turn it into the world's first carbon-neutral state. He has fine-tuned financial transparency regulations that Francis initiated, tweaked some other decrees to give them consistency and logic, and confirmed Francis in deciding to declare one of the 19th century's most influential saints, John Henry Newman, a 'doctor' of the church. But he hasn't granted any sit-down, tell-all interviews or made headline-grabbing, off-the-cuff comments like his predecessor did. He hasn't made any major appointments, including to fill his old job, or taken any big trips. In marking the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki last week, he had a chance to match Francis' novel declaration that the mere possession of nuclear weapons was 'immoral.' But he didn't. Compared to President Donald Trump, the other American world leader who took office in 2025 with a flurry of Sharpie-penned executive decrees, Leo has eased into his new job slowly, deliberately and quietly, almost trying not to draw attention to himself. At 69, he seems to know that he has time on his side, and that after Francis' revolutionary papacy, the church might need a bit of a breather. One Vatican official who knows Leo said he expects his papacy will have the effect of a 'calming rain' on the church. Maria Isabel Ibarcena Cuarite, a Peruvian member of a Catholic charismatic group, said it was precisely Leo's quiet emphasis on church traditions, its sacraments and love of Christ, that drew her and upward of 1 million young people to Rome for a special Jubilee week this month. Ibarcena said Francis had confused young people like herself with his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and approval of blessings for same-sex couples. Such gestures went beyond what a pope was supposed to do and what the church taught, she thought. Leo, she said, has emphasized that marriage is a sacrament between men and woman. 'Francis was ambiguous, but he is firm,' she said. An Augustinian pope From his very first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, Leo has insisted he is first and foremost a 'son of St. Augustine. ' It was a reference to the fifth century theological and devotional giant of early Christianity, St. Augustine of Hippo, who inspired the 13th century religious Augustinian order as a community of 'mendicant' friars. Like the other big mendicant orders of the early church — the Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites — the Augustinians spread across Christian Europe over the centuries. Today, Augustinian spirituality is rooted in a deep interior life of prayer, living in community, and journeying together in search of truth in God. In nearly every speech or homily since his May 8 election, Leo has cited Augustine in one way or another. 'I see a kind of Augustinian flavor in the way that he's presenting all these things,' said Hughes, the theology professor who is an Augustine scholar. Leo joined the Augustinians after graduating from Augustinian-run Villanova, outside Philadelphia, and was twice elected its prior general. He has visited the Augustinian headquarters outside St. Peter's a few times since his election, and some wonder if he will invite some brothers to live with him in the Apostolic Palace to recreate the spirit of Augustinian community life there. A missionary pope in the image of Francis Leo is also very much a product of the Francis papacy. Francis named Prevost bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014 and then moved him to head one of the most important Vatican jobs in 2023 — vetting bishop nominations. In retrospect, it seems Francis had his eye on Prevost as a possible successor. Given Francis' stump speech before the 2013 conclave that elected him pope, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio essentially described Prevost in identifying the church's mission today: He said the church was "called to go outside of itself and go to the peripheries, not just geographic but also the existential peripheries.' Prevost, who hails from Chicago, spent his adult life as a missionary in Peru, eventually becoming bishop of Chiclayo. 'He is the incarnation of the 'unity of difference,' because he comes from the center, but he lives in the peripheries,' said Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Cuda said during a recent conference hosted by Georgetown University that Leo encapsulated in 'word and gesture' the type of missionary church Francis promoted. That said, for all Leo owes to Bergoglio, the two didn't necessarily get along. Prevost has recounted that at one point when he was the Augustinian superior, the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires expressed interest in assigning an Augustinian priest to a specific job in his archdiocese. 'And I, as prior general, said 'I understand, Your Eminence, but he's got to do something else' and so I transferred him somewhere else,' Prevost told parishioners in his home state of Illinois in 2024. Prevost said he 'naively' thought the Francis wouldn't remember him after his 2013 election, and that regardless 'he'll never appoint me bishop' due to the disagreement. Bergoglio not only made him bishop, he laid the groundwork for Prevost to succeed him as pope, the first North American pope following the first South American.
Chicago Tribune
9 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
ICE grabs 7-year-old NYC public school student amid Trump immigration crackdown
Federal immigration authorities have seized a 7-year-old New York City public school student, the youngest-known local school kid to be detained during the second Trump administration. Dayra, an Ecuadorian student at P.S. 89 The Jose Peralta School of Dreamers in Queens, and her mom were separated from her 19-year-old brother during an immigration check-in on Tuesday at 26 Federal Plaza, according to the family and their advocates. Her last name is being withheld as a minor. 'We were all very scared,' Patricio, Dayra's mom's boyfriend who lives with the family, said in Spanish. 'Because we knew they were going to arrest them.' Dayra and her mom, Martha, were shipped off to a detention center in Texas, advocates said. The U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement locator showed Martha as of Friday afternoon at South Texas Family Residential Center, one of the largest immigration facilities in the country. The center was reopened this year after the Biden administration shuttered it. (The locator does not provide information for detainees under 18.) 'She called me yesterday, she told me she was fine. But she is very afraid of returning to Ecuador,' Patricio said of Martha, who fled domestic violence in the country. An immigration judge had previously denied her asylum bid and ordered the family deported, according to court records, but they continued to report to their check-ins as required by law. Dayra's brother, Manuel, 19, was being held at 26 Federal Plaza, before being moved to a detention center in Newark, New Jersey, according to the locator. He recently graduated high school on Long Island and was supposed to start college this year, Patricio said. The Department of Homeland Security, the agency that houses ICE, did not immediately comment. 'We are hearing extremely concerning reports about an immigrant family, including a 7-year-old local public school student and her 19-year-old brother, detained by ICE,' Councilman Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) said in a statement. 'My office is working actively to obtain all the details. We are in contact with the local school, DOE officials, and federal offices to learn more and fight to make sure the family can be reunited.' 'Family separation is horrific, and ICE must stop these cruel tactics.' In the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens, P.S. 89 hosts a Spanish dual-language program and is in the process of launching a similar program in Bengali, according to school data and social media. More than half of students are learning English as a new language. 'The abuses of the federal government and neglect from City Hall have created an environment of terror for families in the streets of New York,' said Naveed Hasan, an advocate for the city's immigrant students. '7-year-old Dayra is among the youngest children taken by ICE, and if she's not immediately released, our own government will illegally deprive her of her right to learn and thrive with her loving PS 89Q community.' Dayra and Manuel are the latest in a slew of New York students to be swept up in President Trump's deportation agenda, including two young men, Dylan and Mouctar, who attend the city's alternative high schools for students behind on credits. On Thursday, local lawmakers and advocated rallied for their release ahead of the school year, which begins on Sept. 4. The Patchogue-Medford School District, where advocates say Manuel attended high school, did not return a request for comment Friday. Nicole Brownstein, the press secretary for the city's public schools, said the agency has helped connect families with their permission to legal support and other resources. 'New York City Public Schools stands with all of our students, and we are committed to supporting every child and family in our system,' she said.
