DR. PIERRE: EMPOWER CPS PARENTS TO FIX EDUCATION

October 4, 2024- Summary of Public Affairs’ Jeff Berkowitz’s conversation with
Dr. Michelle Pierre, CPS 1 st District Board Candidate

Dr. Michelle Pierre brings 26 years of educational experience to the CPS board
from the 1 st District . She has been a teacher, principal, Chief Academic Officer and
Chief of Schools. Michelle has held these positions in Chicago and in a variety of
other states. So that is wonderful experience for this position. She has two master’s
degrees, a bachelor's degree and a Ph. D in Education (from U Penn), In her
current position, Dr. Pierre coaches School Superintendents how to approach their job.

Further, Dr. Pierre has worked extensively with Charter School networks, so
she knows a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of charter schools, which is
especially helpful to being on the CPS Board. CPS has worked closely- and will
surely continue to do so- with charter schools if and when Mayor’s Johnson’s
influence on CPS is lessened. So understanding the pluses and minuses of charter
schools would be a great benefit of having Dr. Pierre on the CPS Board.
As Dr. Pierre emphasized, a major issue confronting the CPS Board is the $10
billion CPS Budget. Are the taxpayers getting a good Return on Investment from
that spending? Are the performance indicators at CPS good enough to justify the
exceptionally large taxpayer expenditures on CPS?

Since over at least the last two decades and maybe the last four, no more than
10% to 20 % of the CPS Black and Brown students and no more than 50% of the
CPS White students have read at grade level. So Dr. Pierre has drawn the obvious
conclusion that CPS’ performance measures are unacceptable and that view would
spread to a majority of the CPS board if it were composed eventually of
independent thinkers.

Dr. Pierre laments the fact that discussion of Key Performance Indicators
(“KPIs”) is not a part of the governance model at CPS, so that there is virtually no
public discussion by the CPS Board and administrators- including the current Supt,
Pedro Martinez of the terribly low percentages of students reading and doing math
at grade level, especially among Black and Brown students at CPS at traditional
neighborhood schools.

These depressing KPIs are why Dr. Pierre is such a strong proponent of school
choice. The performance numbers are much better at the alternatives to traditional
neighborhood schools than at traditional neighborhood schools-- so how could
anyone like Mayors Johnson and Lightfoot- or the current Board Members justify
their refusal to allow CPS parents to exit the failing CPS schools by empowering
CPS parents to take their CPS money and transfer it to the schools of their choice,
that is, implement school vouchers.

Show host Berkowitz and 1 st District CPS Board Candidate Dr. Michelle Pierre
discussed the fact that 34% of CPS traditional schools are half-empty or worse, as
reported in a Wirepoints slide. Surprisingly, Dr. Pierre said she would not shut
down, for example, one of those schools- Douglass High School, which has an
actual enrollment of 35 students, even though the school capacity is for more than
900 students. Zero per cent of the students at Douglass were proficient in reading.
Dr. Pierre said she would first discuss the situation with the parents, administrators
and teachers.

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