Press release – February 13th, 2012
Parents, Students: Noble Street Profiting from Predatory Discipline Code
Practices spread as Mayor Emanuel promotes a hidden education tax on Chicago’s Black and Latino families
FEBRUARY 13—With Mayor Emanuel expanding the Noble Street Charter Network as a model for public education throughout Chicago, community groups today released original data on the profits that the growing charter network is making from disciplinary fines imposed on low-income families.
Hundreds of students, parents and supporters from Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), and Advancement Project marched from Chicago Public Schools to City Hall to demand an end to these and other appalling discipline policies at Chicago’s neighborhood and charter schools, calling Noble a prime example of what’s wrong with school discipline in Chicago.
Noble’s discipline system charges students $5 for minor behavior such as chewing gum, missing a button on their school uniform, or not making eye contact with their teacher, and up to $280 for required behavior classes. 90% of Noble students are low-income, yet if they can’t pay all fines, they are made to repeat the entire school year or prevented from graduating. No waivers are offered, giving many families no option but to leave the school. The groups pointed to a recent Illinois State Board of Education report showing that 473 students, or 13% of the previous year’s student body, transferred out of Noble over the summer of 2010.
“Noble is forcing low-income parents to choose between paying the rent and keeping their child in school,” said Donna Moore, parent of a student at a Noble school. “This is a hidden tax on Chicago’s Black and Latino families, and it’s wrong.”
The original research released by the groups today showed that Noble has collected $386,745 from detention fines and behavior classes over the past three years. As the charter network has expanded, its annual revenue from these fines has grown – last school year, Noble made $188,647 from its discipline code.
Since August, students and parents have pressed Chicago Public Schools to write a smarter, safer discipline code that would end the use of extreme and ineffective disciplinary policies at all publicly funded Chicago schools. However, not only has CPS refused to make any policy changes that would keep more students in school and off the streets, but Mayor Emanuel has in fact endorsed the expansion of disciplinary codes like Noble’s, touting them as having the “secret sauce” to a quality education. In addition to the four-school expansion of the Noble network approved in December by the Board of Education, other schools are beginning to replicate Noble’s approach.
“Our school modeled its discipline code after Noble and only made our school culture worse,” added Johnny West, a student at Perspectives Leadership Academy. “Who’s next?”
With CPS re-writing the Student Code of Conduct this year, students and parents are calling for an end to the growing use of overly harsh disciplinary policies at all publicly funded Chicago schools.
“Noble gets its test results from forcing poor families out of its schools,” said Jasmine Sarmiento, a student at Kelvyn Park High School. “Does Mayor Emanuel really want more families in debt and more youth in the street? That’s not a model that Chicago should be following.”
I strongly support Noble’s disciplinary guidelines. By imposing those guidelines, they’re indirectly involving the children’s parents in disciplinary action.
If a kid comes up to a parent asking for $5, the parent then should enforce the discipline right then and there by telling their kid not to do it, because it’s not only wrong but it’s costing the family. It is teaching them, at an early age, that they’re actions have consequences.
My nephew is a junior at Noble and I remember the first time he got his first fine. My sister made him do more shores around the house to pay back the fine. And now he knows not to mess with his education.
Discipline is a very subjective issue, especially for parents. PURE’s work on this issue is not about individual parents’ rights to put their children in any kind of school they like.
It’s about the law and how public education is supposed to work for all
students. And we see three main problems with the Noble system.
1) Many parents do not have options for a good neighborhood high school.
They end up at Noble and even though they don’t like the discipline,
they don’t know what else to do. I believe that this is because CPS has
not given their traditional high schools the resources they need to
succeed. That’s just wrong,
2) While some of Noble’s “misconduct” criteria are reasonable, many of
them are not. Do your children really still need to be taught to tie
their shoes and button their buttons? Should they really get a demerit
for “not tracking the teacher” if they are looking down taking notes?
Does it really make sense to give a student a detention when he falls asleep
in a three-hour late Friday afternoon detention?
3) Noble is being held up as the model for all other schools. You may
agree. We think that if more people knew what really goes on at Noble,
it would be seen as an embarrassment and not a model
i have a son who is repeating 9th grade at noble first yr he messed up thought everything was a joke him and his friends today he is PROUD TO BE NOBLE student his friends that did all there detention and fail are now in a local school and are gangbangers he has no regrets about repeating all i have to say is it starts at home and noble teaches are here to teach and they care where are kids end up.
[...] Parents, Students: Noble Street Profiting from Predatory Discipline Code With Mayor Emanuel expanding the Noble Street Charter Network as a model for public education throughout Chicago, community groups today released original data on the profits that the growing charter network is making from disciplinary fines imposed on low-income families. … Noble’s discipline system charges students $5 for minor behavior such as chewing gum, missing a button on their school uniform, or not making eye contact with their teacher, and up to $280 for required behavior classes. 90% of Noble students are low-income, yet if they can’t pay all fines, they are made to repeat the entire school year or prevented from graduating. … Noble has collected $386,745 from detention fines and behavior classes over the past three years. As the charter network has expanded, its annual revenue from these fines has grown – last school year, Noble made $188,647 from its discipline code. [...]