Attention: The Longbranch Coffeehouse Café Society meeting will take place Thursday, February 2nd at 7:30p for this week only.

Guest Speakers:

• Tuesday, 7:30 pm, Intelligentsia, RENA CITRIN, Library Media Specialist, Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School
  
• Wednesday, 7 pm, Pause, DEBBIE POPE, Teacher, Gage Park High School
  
• Thurs, 7 pm, Caffe de Luca, SUSAN STAHL, Teacher, North Lawndale College Prep High School
  

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires that all teachers be “highly qualified” by the end of the 2006 school year. These requirements are forcing the Illinois Board of Education to make changes in how they evaluate teachers.

As the Chicago Sun-Times stated, “Illinois officials in 2003 estimated 2.1 percent of classes are not being taught by ‘highly qualified’ teachers, and in high- poverty schools, 5.4 percent…The state board also estimated up to 25,000 Illinois teachers and substitutes could be out of a job if they didn’t meet the new federal/state guidelines.”

We hold students accountable to high standards. They are rigorously evaluated with quizzes, exams, papers and standardized tests, but how are their teachers judged?

What is the best way to evaluate teachers’ abilities to meet the needs of students, parents, schools and their communities? Should their raises be tied to their performance? Will new standards dissuade individuals from entering a profession already suffering from declining numbers? Join us at Café Society and tell us how you think teachers should be tested?

This Week’s Articles

• Statehouse reporter uncovers need to re-evaluate teacher evaluations
  
• Accountability and Testing
  
• Houston to tie teachers’ pay to test scores
  
• Pay for Performance: What Are the Issues?
  

More on Guest Speakers:

• For the past eight years, RENA CITRIN has been the Library Media Specialist at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, an independent school located in the Lakeview neighborhood. She has worked in elementary and high school for over twenty years. Her work experience is directly informed by her private role as the mother of four children.
  
• DEBBY POPE is currently a history and ESL teacher at Gage Park High School. For three years she worked for the Chicago Teachers’ Union under the leadership of Debbie Lynch. She was the newspaper editor and then the Director of Education and Labor Relations. In that role she was very involved with several groups of reform organizations who were working on assessment policy proposals.
  
• SUSAN (Sooz) STAHL is an independent filmmaker, and was also a freelance journalist before she switched to teaching. She received teacher training through the Golden Apple Foundation’s GATE program, and has been teaching in Chicago Public Schools since 2000. She has been awarded several grants for student- created video projects, and her 7th grade students’ video about gangs in Little Village received an award from Chicago Future Filmmakers and was featured at last year’s Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. In 2005 she was nominated by fellow teachers for a D.R.I.V.E. Award. She currently teaches at North Lawndale College Prep High School, and is working on her National Board Certification.
  

For more informaiton, please contact Kristin Millikan at 312.422.5580.