I am a CPS teacher who interviewed at Team Engelwood in my earlier days and am actually appalled at what Mr. Brizard would deem "strong leadership". When I interviewed at Engelwood, this principal referred to the children as "honey", held their hands and actually had the students conduct the interview for the job......for 20 minutes. Throw in the hand-holding and constant mollycoddling, and I am at a total loss for the vision of leadership expressed by Mr. Brizard.

40% High School drop-out rate?...UNACCEPTABLE! I came up with this concept 25 years ago...It's really simple. #1, you have to be 18 years old to drive. #2, you have to have a High School Diploma (to drive). #3, you must present your Voters registration card (to drive). You have to 18 years old to join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, etc...but only 16 years old to operate a 2,000 (or more) lbs. (potentially) lethal wepon. To drive is a "PRIVILEGE", to VOTE...is your "DUTY", and to drive AFTER you graduate from High School...may save you from getting a DUI in the next three years (because you just got a JOB). How many High School drop-outs are driving today...that cannot read, write, or even calculate (how many miles per gallon they can get)? ANSWER: Too many. Listen up children...You want to drive? EARN IT...Go to school, learn to Vote, and then you can get a JOB to help pay for your own Auto Insurance. WOW! That 40% drop-out rate just went to less than 5% in the wink of an eye. "WHAT A COUNTRY" !! Professor Johnson (MAS)

I really would have liked to find something new besides the fact Brizard has a good eye for ties that almost rivals Phil's.

I am a grad student with Illinois teacher certification not yet employed to teach. I am disgusted and appalled by the dropout rate and nothing would please me more than to have a chance to help change some young lives in the classroom. I, myself, had dropped out of college two times before and have made mistakes in the past. Few things frustrate me more than to see other students drop out of school which is so vitally important to every individual's quality of life.

Yet to see the mayor and his CEO of CPS take every opportunity to scapegoat the very teachers who are the best chance these students have of succeeding in school is, to me, unconcionable. When I dropped out twice, I would have never thought of blaming my teachers: It was me--I just couldn't keep up with the studies until it became overwhelming. Then the grades dropped, and then I dropped out. I can just imagine how difficult it is for students who may have home issues or have other factors that interfere with them placing all their attention to their studies. There are any number of a variety of factors that can cause a student to drop out.

I believe that the scapegoating of teachers will lead to increased problems. I am glad that WTTW is committed to investigating this issue and will see where the real problems lie starting with this confrontational scapegoating of teachers. The problem, in my opinion, is that there is a whole systemic failure of support for children's welfare, beginning with a lack of support at home for whatever reason, be it a struggling family, lack of job, lack of access to food, transient family situation, drugs, gangs, unsafe streets, and so on. You name it, there are a wide variety of factors that play into dropping out.

I don't see the mayor or Brizard helping this matter. Rather, they appear to be exaserbating relations between teachers and trying to sow discord by their illegal use of bribing schools to adopt their agenda. This politicization of the issues facing Chicago's students is one of the lowest endeavors I have seen a person stoop to. This is a very important crisis faced by a vulnerable sector of society, and it is being treated as some strategic game. No wonder Lewis's comment before she went to City Hall to compromise with these parties was that she wanted to be "the adult in the room."

Instead of bringing in Brizard into the studios who only repeatedly sound out the mayor's policies, why not bring in other voices such as Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader for news balance? I'm sure he can bring an opposing perspective to the Brizard line which continually blames the teachers who are the best advocates the students have. Anyone who is comfortable with the phrase "bad teacher" and allows it to easily roll off their tongue should really be excluded from the conversation.

it's all part of rahm's union busting strategy. I love when he "suggests" the city has a 600 million dollar deficit and the media repeats it as fact. what we need is to fact check. this play the liars game has to stop.

This "kick-off segment" started well with a focus on dropouts and youth who have dropped out and have become re-engaged in their education and a better future. I hope that this focus is maintained as part of the NECESSARY BALANCE of exposure and information on this issue which tonight moved on to "prevention" and seemed to stay there.

The move to prevention points in the K-12 system was all right, but,
Mr Ponce did not folow-up on the YCCS piece with any tie-backs or questions, nor was there anyone to address the dropout portion with Mr Brizzard live after the filmed segments. Mr Brizzard did not acknowledge that YCCS is part of the CPS system because CPS is the authorizer that awards contracts all charters in Chicago.YCCS is the only charter of its kind in Chicago or in IIllinois. It is drawing attention on a national level, and educators from other states have come to visit and learn - they left impressed and with useful information. People who have expertise with "in-school" populations do not have the same level of expertise or priority with dropouts. When a student drops out of a neighborhood CPS high school school and walks down the street to a YCCS campus, he/she is the same young person. One system could not, for whatever reason, meet his/her needs successfully, the othercan and doesin large part. The systems and their approaches are different. The professional parity cannot be denied and deserves that level of respect in this coverage.In his commendably intense focus on what CPS is doing to address the dropout/graduation issue tonight, Mr Brizzard lost an opportunity to include/acknowledge YCCS publicly as a vital and necessary component in his portfolio/arsenal of solutions when he spoke about exploring a variety of model/pathways to engage students in meaningful and rigorous education - and in working to address "remediation" " and excellerating the path for students wanting to complete high school with a diploma before they "age out" - instead of "retaking" courses to get there. YCCS has been working through these challenges for over 13 years! The students YCCS serves have been out of a formal learning environment for from 5 months to 3+ years, and their average stay is 15 months. CPS and UIC are not focusing on these students and do not have the tenure of experience with them, but they could learn from YCCS' successes - and work with YCCS to enhance those successes further. The "preventables" and "off-trackers" ARE still in CPS' charge%

This "kick-off segment" started well with a focus on dropouts and youth who have dropped out and have become re-engaged in their education and a better future. I hope that this focus is maintained as part of the NECESSARY BALANCE of exposure and information on this issue which tonight moved on to "prevention" and seemed to stay there.

The move to prevention points in the K-12 system was fine, but,
Mr Ponce did not folow-up on theYouth Connection Charter School (YCCS) piece with any tie-backs or questions, nor was there anyone to address the dropout aspects of the issue with Mr Brizzard live after the filmed segments. Mr Brizzard did not acknowledge that YCCS is part of the CPS system because CPS is the authorizer that awards contracts all charters in Chicago. YCCS is the only charter of its kind in Chicago or in IIllinois. It is drawing attention on a national level, and educators from other states have come to visit and learn - they left impressed and with useful information.YCCS is a "point of pride" for Chicago.

Professionals who have expertise in making "in-school" populations their priority do not have the same level of expertise or priority with dropouts - somewhat understndable because dropouts, by definition and assignment, are not "Job-1" with them. When a student drops out of a neighborhood CPS high school school and later walks down the street to one of YCCS' 23 strategically-located neighborhood campuses, he/she is the same young person. One system could not, for whatever reason, meet his/her needs successfully, the other can and does, in large part. The systems and their approaches and priorities are different. Professional parity of all providers cannot be denied and deserves that level of respect in this coverage. In his commendably intense focus on what CPS is doing to address the dropout/graduation issue tonight, Mr Brizzard overlooked an opportunity to include/acknowledge YCCS publicly as a vital and necessary component in his portfolio/arsenal of solutions when he spoke about exploring a variety of model/pathways to engage students in meaningful and rigorous education -and in working to address "remediation" " and excellerating a skills-rich path for students wanting to complete high school with a diploma before they "age out" - instead of "retaking" courses or accruing credits with a "skills-gap" to get there. YCCS has been working through these challenges for over 13 years! The students YCCS serves have been out of a formal learning environment for from 5 months to 3+ years, and their average stay is 15 months. CPS and UIC are not focusing on these students and do not have the tenure of experience with them, but they could learn from YCCS' successes - and work with YCCS to enhance those successes further and to better-inform their solutions to the Breaking points for students becoming off-track and vulnerable to dropping out. The "preventables" and "off-trackers" ARE still in CPS' charge, but YCCS has focused exclusively on DROPOUTS and youth at risk who are outside of that charge for over 13 years with good results. The people working with principals at UIC and Mr Brizarrd's CPS team would LOSE NOTHING and gain SO MUCH in their efforts to address prevention by including those who have a strong record of success with dropout youth AFTER they have left CPS neighborhood schools and recognizing them as experts with this population who have valuable contributions to add to the work UIC and CPS are doing. Chicago needs a "full court press." (No pun intended, WTTW!!)

When listing the things that can be done in Chicago, Mr Brizzard never revisited and Mr Ponce never followed up with the extremely effective work YCCS has done with existing dropouts (70/day,12,000/yr, accruing to 50,000 pooling in disenfranchised neighborhoods of the city) who have few real options and a small window of opportunity without a second chance to re-engage in education. Both Mr Brizzard and Ms Barron would LOSE NOTHING and gain SO MUCH by looking at what Youth Connection Charter School(YCCS) has discovered about this population over its 13+ years of applying limited resources to address a tough "dropout paradigm" frought with very challenging issues. Unlike the "off-tracks" and "preventables" still in CPS, these dropouts who enroll in YCCS are "genies who are already out of the bottle" (not likely to return to the traditional schools within the CPS system), and they are EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT as those on the prevention side of the BALANCE that is essential for truly responsible coverage of this issue or of the public policy necessary to affect needed change. PLEASE KEEP THEM IN BALANCE THROUGHOUT THIS COVERAGE!!Second chance should not mean "second tier."

Too much stress cannot be placed on how important the BALANCE of these experts and this population is to the moral, ethical, and educational value of how WTTW is rolling out and through this series and of how policy-makers and CPS professionals act on the problems and needs it called to light. Young people who have left school and those who have served them successfully on limited resources need to remain in this coverge. The "in-school" prevention population, and the off-track/recoverable high schoolers who will graduate with their high school freshmen peers are important, but informing the public anout their issues should not happen at the expense of the focus on the needs of actual and existing DROPOUTS. Granted, they are harder and more expensive to serve effectively, but they are VALUABLE, and they, too, have dreams and many positive contributions to make going forward.

Again, good start (could have been stronger by mantaining the BALANCE)! I will be watching with anticipation.

A smile to you,

Maggie Steinz