Successful city schools seek to branch out

This sounds good to me. Once upon a time there were fields trips to Disney and for whatever reason and this was when I was still in elementary school, I never had a chance to go. Who knows what could have happened if I had.

Anyway here's the article...

Walt Disney Magnet, the city's first magnet school, and Burroughs Elementary, a successful neighborhood school, would be turned into "franchises" with multiple campuses under a proposal to be unveiled today by Chicago Public School officials.

Disney's heavy arts and technology emphasis, including its animation lab, and Burroughs' classes for parents and kids that run as late as 8:30 p.m. would be among several features replicated under the new CPS "Performance Pipeline Project.''

Multiple campuses of charter schools have sprung up in Chicago and nationally, but the Pipeline Project is believed to be the first time a U.S. school district is franchising its own, traditional public schools, said Phyllis Lockett, CEO of Renaissance Schools Fund, a project funder.

If successful, Disney, now in Uptown, and Burroughs, now in Brighton Park, could spin off two or three campuses.

Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan is expected to propose 19 new schools today, including the two franchise campuses. All are part of Mayor Daley's Renaissance 2010 effort to create 100 new schools by 2010. About 55 have opened so far.

Disney-2 and Burroughs-2 would be located in existing buildings in areas with low-performing schools in an attempt to transplant success into struggling neighborhoods. At least three-quarters of the students now at Disney and Burroughs are from low-income homes, yet students at both schools have been passing at least 75 percent of their state tests.

"We don't know if the new school will be north or south,'' said Disney Principal Kathleen Hagstrom. "It doesn't matter. We think we'll be successful.''