Working for Chicago Public Schools-raising kids in the city (Rochester: 2013, house)

[Fstopblues79]

I'm sure this question has been asked on this forum before but I haven't seen a solid answer for this. I'm a school guidance counselor and my girlfriend is an elementary teacher; we currently live in Rochester and are thinking about moving to Chicago or Denver. One of my big concerns with Chicago is I've heard the school system is a disaster (to work for and to send kids to). Is the school system as bad to work for as people say, any teachers or counselors out there who can give me advice?

[chet everett]

First -- the difficulty of getting hired in CPS are not just the stuff of legends, it is really a nightmare. Lately folks are saying that if you are not licenses as a ESL specialist you probably will get ZERO calls -- there are enough teachers from shutdown schools looking for work that they get all the calls.

Second -- the well documented budget disaster of Chicago and Illinois mean more hard times ahead for anyone that depends on the government for a paycheck.

Third -- the requirement of CPS that you need to live in the city makes it especially difficult for those with kids of their own: either you use lots of your meager salary to send your own kids to private schools (which seems kind of insane but is actually shockingly common among CPS teachers...) OR use nearly all your salary to pay for a house in the rare parts of Chicago that have excellent local schools but cost of fortune...

Additional factors: in CPS there are really pretty few traditional "guidance counselors" as most schools have much more need for "social workers" -- the handful of really successful magnet schools tend to have guidance counselors that generally have some kind of insider line on what is kind of neat job -- you can sort of "showcase" kids that went to Payton or Northside to the kind of elite schools that nearly no other CPS facility gets many kinds into.
In general CPS has an abundance of old fashioned k-8 schools, one year you might get cute little first graders and the next you are staring down 15 year old eighth graders, trying to figure out how so many failed basic reading and math, and way behind on classes that kids in more modern middle schools take for granted like technology oriented courses...

From an "priority on education" standpoint Colorado is literally years of Illinois -- https://www.americanprogress.org/iss...s-in-colorado/

[kidcharlemagne]

I just went through this, and ending up going in a different direction from teaching. I have been subbing and have heard it is tremendously hard to get a job -- especially if you don't know someone in the system -- but I think it is possible if you are persistent. But think of landing something in terms of years, not months. You have to cut your teeth on subbing and spending time understanding how you, with your qualifications can break through. But it is possible because I have talked to many teachers who kept sending resumes and subbing and following up and they got something. But it took many of them YEARS to accomplish. And some people are still looking for a job after three plus years. I think coming from another state makes it even harder than someone who goes to school here and student teaches in a school. It gives those people a huge advantage.

I have kids in a regular CPS school -- not one in the top three or four -- and my kids are getting a great education. They are exposed to so much more than they would in suburban setting. There are a lot of options in chicago. You can send your kids to a charter school, magnet, etc. I think a lot of people get hung up on sending their kids to the tow or three high ranked schools, but there are so many great schools out there. Some of the "elite" public schools aren't all they are cracked up to be, and some are truly great, some of the lower ranks schools are amazing, and some are rough. You just have to to go to a school, talk to people, find your niche. But CPS schools in general are filled with great kids and great teachers.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by kidcharlemagne

I just went through this, and ending up going in a different direction from teaching. I have been subbing and have heard it is tremendously hard to get a job -- especially if you don't know someone in the system -- but I think it is possible if you are persistent. But think of landing something in terms of years, not months. You have to cut your teeth on subbing and spending time understanding how you, with your qualifications can break through. But it is possible because I have talked to many teachers who kept sending resumes and subbing and following up and they got something. But it took many of them YEARS to accomplish. And some people are still looking for a job after three plus years. I think coming from another state makes it even harder than someone who goes to school here and student teaches in a school. It gives those people a huge advantage.

I have kids in a regular CPS school -- not one in the top three or four -- and my kids are getting a great education. They are exposed to so much more than they would in suburban setting. There are a lot of options in chicago. You can send your kids to a charter school, magnet, etc. I think a lot of people get hung up on sending their kids to the tow or three high ranked schools, but there are so many great schools out there. Some of the "elite" public schools aren't all they are cracked up to be, and some are truly great, some of the lower ranks schools are amazing, and some are rough. You just have to to go to a school, talk to people, find your niche. But CPS schools in general are filled with great kids and great teachers.

Easy to agree that persistence is necessary to land a job but given the full-court that you put on and failed to find any acceptable employment in CPS find it hard to fathom why you'd encourage anyone to put up with years of such effort...

Not sure at all why you would assume your kids are "exposed to so much more than they would in a suburban setting" -- fact is there are many areas in the region but outside the City of Chicago that have an even wider range of challenges than CPS when it comes to both positive and negative influences. The range of options inside CPS is quite varied but the various hoops one has to jump through regarding magnet schools is an awful lot to expect of any parent, if that parent also works for CPS in an entirely different kind of school / far away part of the city that makes th challenges even harder. Further the limitations that charter schools place on teachers and the strain they put on the finances of the whole CPS system cause most thoughtful teachers / thinkers about urban education to really question if they are not more harm than good.


Finally it is not all realistic to falsely gloss over the many problems of CPS, the extreme disparity in the very most basic issues such as safety / lack of violence let alone performance. The top performing magnet schools in CPS do have stellar test results but even th most enthusiastic supporter of such schools will both acknowledge these serve just a tiny fraction of kids in Chicago / are staffed by an even more hard-to-crack cadre of the most highly screened teachers in the system. The reality is the resources lavished on these schools would cause any fair minded person to be appalled at the decrepitude of the majority of CPS facilities, the horrendous lack of qualified teachers, to say nothing of shocking levels of non-performance in not just core academics but even more glaring lack of anything resembling a traditional kind of extracuricluars due to a host of problems like violence / lack of funds / inadequate building space / no qualified staff...

The top schools in CPS are so different than even the "acceptable" tier in nicer areas that folks who've seen both rightly get upset with anyone glossing over those differences and when it comes to the worst of the worst in terrible areas it is wholly irresponsible to do other than be angry that such dispicble inequity exists in a single system...