One classroom, many classes

On a warm September morning last fall, three 8-year-old girls, each toting a knapsack and a nervous smile, joined a swarm of kids piling into the new University of Chicago Charter School on the gentrifying Mid-South Side.

For the next 10 months, they would share a teacher and a rigorous third-grade curriculum.

But as they headed to Room 206 for their first day, they shared little else.

Amare Jones just moved from middle-class Aurora to Kenwood. Her mom rents a condo at the edge of Kenwood's grand mansions -- with hardwood floors and gated parking. A librarian, she earns between $45,000 and $60,000 a year.

Makela Howard, a charmer with melt-your-heart brown eyes, lives near the school in a garden apartment without a working phone. Her mom makes $7,200 a year at an upscale wine shop, and uses loans and grants to pay for her own schooling. She's getting a teaching degree.

Then there's Empress Howard, a brainy, tough-as-nails daughter of a recovering drug addict. They live across from the school, in a cluttered public housing row house with permanently stained floors and windows splattered with dirt.

They live off her mom's disability checks, worth about $6,600 a year, and occasional help from relatives.

In urban America, kids mostly mingle within their economic class; not so at the U. of C.'s new Donoghue School.

In a high-stakes social experiment, Donoghue wanted kids from different backgrounds together, in the same public school classrooms. It hopes to produce results for everyone.

As third grade starts in Room 206, Amare, Makela and Empress, along with 22 other kids from the projects, as well as middle-class neighborhoods across the South Side, are the guinea pigs.

It's perfect weather for new beginnings. It's 70 degrees and sunny on opening morning, just beautiful enough to make the drab, two-story school building at 37th and Cottage Grove inviting.

One after another, 200 kindergartners through third-graders file in, to be joined in October by 40 preschoolers. They wear black socks, khaki bottoms and, most important to parents, maroon polos bearing University of Chicago logos.

That's why they've come: The U. of C. is a sure bet, parents convinced themselves.

The university is one of 10 groups to start public schools this year through Renaissance 2010, Chicago's reform plan to replace its most troubled schools with 100 new ones.

Donoghue is the U. of C.'s second campus; plans call for three more by 2010, including one in 2006.

Each will be a college prep, a teacher training site and a public charter school that can shape its own curriculum, budget and schedule. Donoghue, with an extended day and year, will grow by one grade each year.

The U. of C.'s Center for Urban School Improvement also will help another 15 South Side schools open.

The center wants to take on "one of our greatest domestic challenges -- improving urban schools," says its director, Timothy Knowles, a charismatic talker who helped lead the Boston public schools before coming to Chicago three years ago.

One grim reality is the concentration of poor kids. As the middle class has fled the city schools, well-off kids have clustered at a handful of schools, while the majority serve poor kids.

Desegregation offered hope for mixing kids, but that's fading as the white urban school population has dwindled. Instead, mixing economic classes is starting to capture the public imagination --both to ensure diversity and to draw back the middle class.

If the U. of C. can successfully reach kids from different social classes, Chicago and the nation will take notice.

Holding on to that elusive middle class will be one of the greatest challenges.

"If it doesn't work, the upper-income families will vote with their feet," said Lo Patrick, Donoghue's social worker.

The old Donoghue School, where nearly every student was poor, closed in 2003 because of low enrollment. The staff, mission and most kids at the U. of C.'s Donoghue School are new.

When parents signed up, most didn't know mixing classes was part of the deal. But they likely suspected it from the school's location in Oakland.

Donoghue sits between the old Chicago Housing Authority reality and its new vision.

On opening day, a slab of public housing row houses stands across the street, forlornly awaiting demolition. Behind Donoghue, elegant brick three-story rental buildings are rising. By design, renters include public housing families, working-class families and the middle class.

"So I'll ask you to be open to new ideas, to new people and new kinds of families," teacher Natalie Brady tells her students, including Makela, Empress and Amare. They are gathered for the first "morning meeting" of the year.

"It's fun to know people just like you," Brady says after explaining class differences in the simplest of terms. "But it's also fun to meet people different than you."

Their parents mostly agree, but several had reservations, particularly the better-off ones.

"I like the mix, but I have worried it would be all ghetto, with parents that don't care," said Joslyn Jones, Amare's mother, during an orientation in August.

Warm and chatty, Jones isn't afraid to speak her mind: "This is a big experiment."

Jones, the circulation manager at the Oak Park Public Library, grew up in Aurora and likes the sameness of suburban, middle-class life.

But because of the U. of C., she's willing to be a pioneer.

She moved Amare, her only child, to Chicago last summer. Amare wasthe only black girl in her Aurora class, something Jones lived through as a child and didn't like. She also wanted a shorter work commute and to move near Amare's dad in North Kenwood. Jones and Amare's father are separated.

Orientation placated her some. After meeting parents "that seem like me" and touring the unfurnished but freshly painted school, Jones felt better.

"Do you have expectations? Does your child behave?" said Jones, a college grad. "If so, I don't care where you are from."

But doubts nagged.

"This is scary, though, because usually the 'bad' rubs off," she said.

Even on opening day, the risk factors are obvious.

Reading skills range from kindergarten to third-grade, based on testing in August. Two kids misspell their own names, while others write elaborate essays about summer vacation.

Bad behavior isn't an issue. Even Brady, a 10-year teaching veteran, is impressed. And more parents turn out on the first day than she has ever had before.

But she knows bad behavior rarely rears its head on the first day.

As the morning winds down, Brady, a slim 35-year-oldwith wire-rim glasses and sandy-brown hair,surveys her new class and says knowingly: "Everyone wants to make a good first impression."

It's only 9:30 a.m., and the day is already a disaster.

"I'm going to have to start treating you differently, some of you," an exasperated Brady tells her kids, who gather in a circle before her in the bright, oversize classroom.

Spread across the front half of the room are fivehexagon-shaped tables, a white board for instruction, multiplication tables and posters of butterflies and sunflowers. The back half features four new Macs, a rug with a map of the United States and a half-moon table for individual instruction.

In the first hour, several kids talk nonstop through a journal exercise. One girl refuses to stop humming. Brady reduces 30 minutes of silent reading to 10.

To control them, Brady holds up a peace sign and rings a cowbell. If she yells, Brady knows they'll likely respond, but she wants them to learn to control themselves.

Throughout, Amare, a shy girl with a round baby face and a slight lisp, barely makes a peep.

Empress, a lanky kid with a head full of green and white plastic barrettes, digs in to her work. She has been a model of good behavior.

Makela is already known for picking on kids and flipping them the finger.

Makela and Empress are among four kids from Doolittle School, two blocks north of Donoghue. All four live in some type of public housing.

To get this mix of kids, Donoghue crafted its attendance boundary to include the Ida B. Wells Homes public housing project. It also covers Oakwood Shores, the new mixed-income community that is slowly replacing Wells. Half of its preschool slots are reserved for low-income Head Start students.

This year, most kids live outside the neighborhood. They got seats through a lottery.

But the mix is there. Room 206 parents include a Soldier Field bathroom attendant and a mother who sells candy under a city bridge. There's also a police officer, former teacher and social worker. One family said they earned $68,000 a year. Eleven kids transferred from parochial or private schools.

In Room 206, 17 kids, or 68 percent, qualify for free lunch, though income information is self-reported and parents know the salary cutoff for a free meal. Schoolwide, it's 70 percent.

The rest get a reduced lunch ticket or pay -- that means they report earning at least $36,000 a year for a family of four.

The low end of middle class is nearly $39,000 for a family of four, or twice the poverty rate, social scientists say. A white-collar job and a college degree are also middle-class markers, said Mary Pattillo, a Northwestern sociologist.

In 2004, just 17.6 percent of blacks had a bachelor's degree. For whites, it's 30.6 percent.

The material differences among Donoghue parents aren't huge -- no one is rich -- but they are notable.

Amare's mother owned their home in Aurora. Empress has always lived in public housing. Aleigha Mayo, the daughter of the police officer, goes to gymnastics lessons and visited an African film festival last summer.

Class is the divider in Room 206; all of the students are black.

Research shows income and academic performance are often linked, and as Day 10 wears on, evidence of a disparity in skills mounts.

Brady asks the kids to write words beginning with "sp."

Aleigha, who transferred from a gifted program, easily spits out 25, while Empress jots down 12. Amare manages 10, while Makela, who is eager to learn but lacks basic skills, lists only five.

Some low-income kids perform at the top, but so far, class is one predictor of skills, particularly at the top and bottom.

A range of skills is common at third grade, reading experts say, but the Room 206 spread is unique.

Typically, kids are clustered in the middle, with a few high and low outliers. But in Brady's room, the 25 kids are evenly distributed across the spectrum, with about five kids at each level between high kindergarten and third grade.

Most schools aim reading instruction for the middle. At Donoghue, they've promised individualized instruction, primarily through an approach called "guided reading."

That means Brady will divide kids by ability into five groups and meet with each group several times a week for reading instruction. She plans to begin in mid-October.

The rest are to work independently for nearly 1-1/2 hours at three "literacy centers" around the room.

Guided reading is new for Brady and most kids -- and only works if the class behaves.

Natalie Brady, the only white face in Room 206, grew up middle to upper-middle class in La Grange Park, but she has sought out the neediest kids for most of her 10-year teaching career.

With a background in theater, she connects easily with an audience, especially a young one. Nothing she offers is ho-hum. Math is taught through story problems and brought alive with fake coins, dice and other props, while stories are read aloud with flourish.

She believes in the promise of a mixed classroom.

She taught for three years at the National Teachers Academy, a public school near Chinatown. Most students came from the CHA projects and were dirt poor. Last year, just 18 percent read at grade level.

She broke up fights daily; independent study or small group work wasn't an option.

"You just lower the expectations when everyone is below grade level," said Brady, who arrives at school by 7:30 a.m. and rarely leaves before 5 p.m.

That's a key reason Makela's mother, Nicole Brooks, moved her daughter to Donoghue.

"Some come to school not fed, not in a good mood, and that causes arguments. ... There was a lot of chaos," Brooks said of Doolittle. "The standards weren't very high."

Brooks, a single mom, is tall and soft-spoken. At 30, she's working toward an elementary education degree. Scholarships and financial aid cover tuition, and she lives off loans and earnings from her part-time job. Her parents and fiance, a machine operator, also help.

She sees no risks in a mixed-income school.

"Mixing is a good idea because the poorer schools don't get the attention," Brooks said while sitting on the couch in her sparsely furnished apartment, rented with help from a government voucher. When it's cold, her kids flip open the oven for extra heat. Brooks has a computer but little space for the kids to work quietly.

Ma

Many Doolittle kids came from the nearby projects -- Wells and Madden Park, which also is coming down.

Empress' mother, Equator Howard, has lived most her life at Wells, a ramshackle assembly of low-rise brick row houses and mid-rises. Swaths of dirt stand in for grassy fields, and apartments are infested with roaches and mold.

"Where are the metal detectors?" was one of the first questions she asked the Donoghue staff.

When school started, Howard, a tall woman with a gentle smile, looked older than her 44 years. Ten years of drug use, followed by another 10 years fighting to stay clean, have aged her.

She has nine children but lost custody of all but Empress, her youngest, to their grandparents in 1997.

But she stays with three of her kids at her mother's place, allowing her to care for her kids, grandkids and her 92-year-old mother. In addition to her disability check -- she has congestive heart failure -- she gets some help from her older children, who are in their 20s.

She as Doolittle teachers for taking a tough assignment but says she wanted something better for Empress, who has always been a strong student.

"At Doolittle, parents have problems with drugs, domestic violence," Howard said on a 90-degree September day while sitting on the front stoop of her row house. "That crosses over into middle class, but we were so isolated over there."

As the area changes and Donoghue starts up again, Howard and Brooks are grateful to get in on the action.

"I'm glad they didn't just close the door on us and say, 'We don't want old news, and we don't want you,'" Howard said.

They are convinced Donoghue will be better.

Brady hopes they are right.

"This job is harder in some ways [than at the National Teachers Academy]," Brady said. "There are high expectations" for the top students "and expectations that we'll perform miracles on the low end."

Room 206 is in boot camp.

Brady hopes to begin guided reading in a week. She's trying out the centers first. At one, kids read along with a book on tape. Another group draws maps of their bedrooms. A third reads silently.

While several kids get to work, others are told repeatedly to stop wandering the room. Room 206 hums with activity briefly but then quickly dissolves into chaos as chatting, sniping and goofing off take over.

Even Empress, who is strong-willed and fiercely independent, has started picking on weak classmates.

She isn't interrupting instruction much, but she's injecting a tough, street-smart attitude into the classroom, Brady says.

Brady wants to send Empress to a weekly "girl power" group run by the social worker. It's designed to turn powerful girls like Empress into leaders.

Adding to her troubles, Brady has four new students, three of whom are below grade level.

"Back to your tables!" Brady yells as she gives up on the centers. "On Monday, I'll be reading stories with small groups. That means people at the math center can't be bossy. Tt means people at the listening center need to listen to a story, not the radio."

Many kids have no idea how to work independently, Brady says.

Room 206 and Donoghue's other third-grade room are shaping up to be the school's toughest.

The kids act out significantly more than their younger classmates. They're also the furthest behind. Just 14 percent read at grade level when they were tested in August. In Room 206, four of 25 kids are at level.

But it's a new school, and everyone -- poor and middle class -- needs time to adapt, Brady says.

Increasingly, however, it looks as if some middle-class parents may not be willing to wait.

In the first six weeks of school, Leigha Groves, whose daughter is one of Brady's top students, asks for a syllabus repeatedly and meets with Brady several times. Early on, she only saw math homework coming home and dismissed it as simple.

"When you hear the University of Chicago, you know they want the best, but it's not a gifted program," says Groves, a 39-year-old police officer and college grad. "I wondered where the challenge would come from."

Her daughter, Aleigha, transferred from a gifted program at South Loop elementary. Groves also wanted her daughter with more black students.

Nicole Miller says she thinks her son is changing, for the worse.

Also a college grad, she works for a social service agency. She pulled her son, Justyn Stanford, out of a high-performing magnet school on the strength of U. of C.'s reputation.

At his old school, Justyn, a curious and energetic 8-year-old, talked too much, but Miller insists it never went beyond that.

In his first month at Donoghue, he emerged as one of Brady's most disruptive. Though a top student academically, he hit another student and flew into a rage several times in frustration. Kids are hitting and insulting Justyn, Miller says, and he's reacting.

She says she thinks his new environment might be to blame.

"Because there are kids coming from the projects, they see a whole different culture," says Miller, a 36-year-old former teacher. "Sometimes that can rub off."

Like Miller, most middle-class parents in Room 206 cling to the lowest rung of middle class. They'll do whatever it takes to hang on and to push their kids even higher.

It's up to Donoghue to give them a reason to stay.

kgrossman@suntimes.com