Thomas Day – District 4

After the murder of George Floyd, I spent considerable time reflecting on the four centuries of American systemic and compounding racism and how the legacy of slavery lives with us today. I read every book I could find on the subject, including those by writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ijeoma Oluo, Isabel Wilkerson, and Chicago’s Eve Ewing. My own education will continue as long as I live. (I blogged about this topic in December 2020)

How have I put anti-racism into action? Admittedly, with a small child at home and a career, I have been limited in my activities. But I would point to several accomplishments as perhaps moving the ball forward, if only very, very slightly:

• I have had the pleasure of substitute teaching for Tubman Elementary School, a school that serves a majority-minority student body. If my own work serving our CPS teachers has helped even one young person of color at Tubman grow and thrive, I would be immensely thankful.
• I have taught a class at the Harris School of Public Policy at UChicago for the past six years in regional economic growth. After the murder of George Floyd, I reflected on how I could build into my class inquiries on how cities can build regional race-conscious economic policies, certainly a deficiency in the course before 2020. I have included discussions on geographic inequity and the notable racial disparities in venture financing activities, among other concepts. I hope that has served to drive downstream activities among my students after they graduated.
• Of course, I hope my campaign serves the cause of racial equity, even as I strong disagreements with Ms. Ewing and others on the topic of consolidating disenrolled schools.

I fundamentally believe that all CPS students should attend modern, integrated, and fully enrolled schools. Modern. Integrated. Fully enrolled. On all three fronts, we have a lot of work to do. CPS schools are on average 84 years old, more than three decades older than public schools nationwide. More than half of Black CPS students attend schools where 90 percent or more of students are also Black. CPS maintains 161 schools that are less than half utilized, including 12 high schools that are less than 20 percent utilized — and among the 12 most disenrolled high schools, only one served even one white student in the previous academic year. Test scores at our most disenrolled schools are horrific.

And so I have stood up for what I thought was a definition of “progressivism” that we should all agree on. I am convinced we need to consolidate disenrolled schools, but in a way that gains feedback from the local community, requires that a building be repurposed before a closure, and builds new facilities that integrates communities. That may require a bond issuance north of $1 billion, coupled with bold action to balance our budgets and assure bond agencies that we are serious about tacking long-term drivers of our debt.

I will be laser-focused on engaging local school councils, community organizations, and CPS parents and teachers. That will mean facilitating monthly open forums — in person and virtual — where community members and stakeholders can share concerns. I do need to be clear on this point, however: I will not let the loudest voices in the room take on a disproportionate amount of influence, particularly when the views of activists are so clearly in opposition to the majority views of community members. I will do my best to make certain that dialogue remains civil.

As representative of the 4th District, there may be future conflicts between what’s best for schools in my area and policies that are best for the entire CPS District. Lucky for me, at the moment, there is one concern that all Chicagoans share: Balancing a CPS budget that has a structural deficit of more than $500 million. Here are a few more common challenges: CPS facilities face $3 billion in urgent capital repairs. CPS students are a year behind pre-COVID test scores and chronic absenteeism is at 40 percent. These are challenges that representatives of all ten districts need to confront together.

I have made clear that in this questionnaire and others, as well as in public forums, that we need to consolidate disenrolled schools. We do need an audit of Chicago Public Schools. We also need lawmakers in Springfield to put in front of voters a constitutional amendment that would allow for a graduated income tax and public sector pension reform, the so-called “grand bargain.”

Since the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the 2013 pension reform bill — a bill that rightly earned support from the Democratic Party leadership — we have continued to devote obscene volumes of public dollars to extraordinarily generous public sector pensions. While we cannot even entertain the discussion of social programs like universal pre-K in Illinois, retired University of Illinois faculty members are earning defined benefit pensions of more than a half-million dollars every single year. Retired bureaucrats and elected officials are receiving multiple overlapping pensions. This is not my idea of progressive, and I’m no MAGA Republican for pointing out the need to reform this system.

We should return to student-based budgeting and consolidate disenrolled schools. This will allow for each school to have equitable funding and the necessary support that we should expect at every school. I agree with Stacy Davis Gates that every school should have a librarian, but we cannot provide that necessary support for each CPS student so as long as we are confronting a $505 million deficit and maintaining schools that are as much as 96 percent empty.

My focus is on supporting students and families before addressing concerns about school buildings. School buildings will not be entering a workforce where fields of technology like artificial intelligence and quantum computing will redefine everything we know about the job market. Students will, however.

There is significant overlap between schools that do not have an “exemplary” or “commendable” performance designation and where enrollment has sharply decreased. I believe we can and we should solve two problems at once: Consolidate schools, build new facilities, and provide equitable resources to all students.

I am not insensitive to the trauma that many Black families suffered during the 2013 closures. I understand that future closures may also introduce concerns. However, what must also be understood is that our disenrolled schools are often completing school years without any students testing at grade level in reading or math. We cannot and should not double down on supporting segregated, empty, and underperforming schools.

I will be an enthusiastic supporter of this committee and contribute in any way I can to its success. Perhaps I can be helpful in identifying and engaging colleagues at the Harris School of Public Policy at UChicago who might participate or advise the committee. I’m certainly happy to so do.

I strongly believe we need to maintain our current school choice system. I will oppose any effort to squeeze funding for selective enrollment schools or close them altogether. Any school that produced Michelle Obama (a Whitney Young graduate) should be defended! If we undermine or close our selective enrollment schools, we risk a bunch of families leaving CPS system and the City of Chicago altogether.

Let me also be clear that I understand and agree with concerns that our selective enrollment schools could better support greater diversity and would look forward to understanding ways of increasing diversity at our best-performing schools. One idea: Make certain the city is supporting busing from our South and West Side communities into selective enrollment schools like Walter Payton and Lane Tech.

I believe charter schools have a place in the Chicago Public Schools system, but that they should be required to play by the rules. There are some good charter schools and some bad ones. They need to be transparent about student performance, discipline and outcomes so we can assess which ones are best supporting students so that we can weed out the ones that aren’t. As representative of the 4th District, I will be rigorous in enforcing transparency.

As a substitute teacher, I have seen the challenges of teaching migrant students firsthand. Teachers are being asked to give instructions twice — once in English and another time in Spanish, with the latter often requiring Google Translate. More frequently, teachers need to just separate migrant kids from the other students and keep them busy; what else can they do? This is an unsustainable situation for CPS teachers and it needs to be dealt with.

To respond to this challenge, I’ll fight for tuition support for teachers to gain bilingual certifications. I’ll also fight to hire full-time migrant coordinators for each CPS school enrolling migrant students. I’ll also advocate for measures in Springfield to increase funding for schools most impacted by the influx of migrant students.

Finally, if concerns surrounding migrant students continue, we may need to look at relaxing certification standards to allow for more Spanish-fluent teachers to work in CPS classrooms.

I understand and appreciate that we need to do better in supporting our special needs kids. About 52,000 CPS students, or 15% of CPS students, have individualized education plans (IEPs). To meet this demand, CPS has hired a record number of special education teachers. Yet more needs to be done. I will make certain that no school expels a special education student purely out of convenience. I will also make certain to be responsive to families who have been denied services.

Yes, but I am concerned about one critical point I do not see discussed in the CPS Whole School Safety Framework. We need to ban cell phones from all Chicago Public Schools during school hours and educate kids, parents, and guardians about the dangers of social media. We have seen a massive spike in mental health challenges dating back to 2007. What happened in 2007 that drives this increase? There’s only one logical explanation: The introduction of social media and smartphones.

I recognize that it is outside of the bounds of CPS Board, but I do want to mention that I think we should be implementing a statewide ban on social media for all kids under 14 and a ban on kids under 16 without parental consent. They are doing the same in Florida, and though I don’t agree with Governor Ron DeSantis on nearly anything, I agree with him on this measure.

Clearly we have developed some habits during the COVID-19 pandemic that we need to reverse. To sharply decrease absenteeism, we need more detailed data on chronic absenteeism to better inform mitigation strategies.

We also need to work with community stakeholders — churches, community organizations, law enforcement, sports organizations — to identify students who are missing school and understand and respond to the causes. We also need to address some real concerns about teacher absenteeism. If the teachers aren’t coming to school, the students won’t either. In a recent published report by Chalkbeat, we found that 43 percent of teachers were also chronically absent during the past academic year. I love our CPS teachers. I love working with them as a CPS sub. But we cannot afford another year where CPS teachers do not show up for school at this rate.

It is difficult to provide dual credit opportunities for all students so as long as we are so stretched in maintaining more than 160 schools that are half empty. With school consolidation will come more available budget space to support dual credit programs, certainly in coordination with the City Colleges of Chicago.

Another topic that Stacy Davis Gates and I agree on is the need for more career and technical education (CTE) opportunities. I think we should pull in folks like World Business Chicago and P33 to understand future labor demands in Chicago, and how we can best support programs that train Chicago students to compete for positions Chicago employers will be hiring for in 10-15 years.

I believe that, given the regular turnover of school principals and faculty from year to year, it’s important to have a common baseline curriculum across CPS. However, I understand that what may be effective in a neighborhood like Lincoln Park might not be in Roseland or Austin. I think that teachers and principals should have the flexibility to customize curriculums to best meet the needs of their students with appropriate CPS Board oversight. I also believe that CPS should exercise caution before adding more curriculum requirements.

Upon my election, I will establish a regular process for engaging with the LSCs and support monthly forums — in person and online — to hear concerns from the LSCs, CPS families, CPS teachers, and all community stakeholders.

I will make certain to maintain regular engagement with District 4 principals and help to provide them the maximum degree of autonomy possible, while ensuring proper CPS Board oversight.

I believe that CPS should retain the ability to hire and retain principals and those decision cannot be left to the Local School Councils.

When I speak of consolidating disenrolled schools, let me be clear: I’m not for “ripping the band-aid off” again. What I propose is that we take a page from the U.S. Congress in deciding what military installations close — Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) — and repurpose it for our CPS facilities. Under my plan, the CPS Board will empanel a commission — composed of CPS families, teachers, community leaders, business leaders, economists, and education scholars — to provide a list of schools to consolidate and a process for doing so. The commission would be required to provide a plan for repurposing facilities before closing. Once completed, the CPS Board would vote up or down on the plan, without the ability to strike a school from the closure list. If the plan is defeated, an automatic process for consolidating schools with less than a 30 percent utilization rate would be triggered.

We need to understand that the conversation around consolidating disenrolled schools is not going to go away. The demographic trends are too clear. Chicago is losing people — about 200,000 people since the COVID-19 outbreak. Families nationwide are having fewer children. CPS has lost 80,000 students in the last ten years and elementary school enrollment has dropped 23 percent since 2015, suggesting larger drops in enrollment at the high school level in future years. In my judgement, it is deeply, deeply irresponsible to demand that CPS maintain schools that are massively disenrolled in the face of such overwhelming trends.

I will defend the right of the Chicago Teachers Union to sit at the bargaining table, but with that right comes responsibility. We cannot afford a 9 percent compounding pay increase and we cannot do another work stoppage. Mark my words: With yet another work stoppage, there will be calls for state lawmakers to do what they have done in 37 other states (including many blue states) and prohibit teacher strikes.

We are Chicago. If public education fails in Chicago, the world will take notice and the public education movement will be undermined. It is on everyone, including Ms. Davis Gates, to make certain we have a sustainable budget to lead us into the future.

No response was received.