For nearly ten years the teachers at Haugan elementary begged schools officials to add new classrooms to their overcrowded building. “We said, ‘Just give us an addition and we’ll be happy,’” says Mary Orr, a kindergarten teacher at Haugan.
Haugan is actually a Chicago Public Schools success story. It’s a neighborhood school, so it takes all comers. It can’t restrict enrollment to students who have high test scores or whose parents have the drive to fill out application forms and then keep pushing to get their kids enrolled, as parents who want their kids to go to the city’s charter and magnet schools have to do. Over 90 percent of its students come from low-income families, and 38 percent come from homes where English isn’t spoken. Yet in 2004, 58 percent of the students had scores on standardized math and reading tests that were average or above average, which is unusual for a school with so many low-income kids. Last year the board even gave Haugan an award for having such good test scores.
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In January Duncan awarded control of the school to Aspira. “It was a very tough decision–both sides had community support and good proposals,” says board spokesman Peter Cunningham. “But in the end we just felt Aspira had the better proposal.”
In the past few years Duncan and Daley have become big promoters of charter schools. They’ve already shut down around 20 regular schools and created 33 charters. Three more charters, including the one near Haugan, are scheduled to open in the fall, and the board wants to create several more next year.
The teachers at Haugan aren’t convinced. They worry that when their upper grades are moved to the new school Haugan will have so many fewer students it could be designated underutilized. That would give the board a pretext to close it down and convert it to one or two charter schools, which could replace the old teachers with new ones, though the old teachers could apply for jobs elsewhere in the system. “I think there’s a pattern here–get them cheap and move them on,” says Orr. “They treat teachers like they’re replaceable parts.”
