CPS Parents' proposal to Recruit Great Teachers; costs the city nothing!

A Call To Keep The Best Teachers In the Chicago Public School System:

Much focus has been placed lately on "Parent Involvement" in the Chicago Public School System. For parents who raise our children in the city instead of the suburbs, dedicating ourselves to bettering our schools is nothing new. All over the city, parents are raising money, recruiting principals and teachers to make our public schools better. We know that finding ways to recruit and motivate the individuals educating our children is essential to keeping our schools competitive. Nothing matters more than this.

One of the most effective ways of doing this existed in the past at CPS, but only as part of a “principal discretion” system that left room for abuse, and only inconsistently served as a teacher and principal recruitment tool. We propose instead a policy that would strictly allow principals, teachers, and staff to enroll their children in the school in which they work. The principal discretion rule would be replaced with this clear-cut, clear-purposed policy that would be transparent, leave no room for abuse and take up very few slots. This "Teacher-Parent" policy could cover teacher and principal hires going forward, and also those hired before the 2009-2010 school year when the discretion policy was changed for elementary magnet schools. This would allow CPS to honor the policy for those teachers/staff/principals who already committed to working at a magnet school, based on the understanding that their own children could attend their school.
This is an effective tool for recruiting the best teachers and keeping them fully invested in their schools. Importantly, at a time when funding is low, it is a tool that costs the city nothing.

Chicago parents are more than willing to do our part in bettering our schools. We need the support of CPS, to keep the tools that work and allow us to hire the best.