Chicago’s Power House School creates a spark

The Chicago Teachers Union called Chicago’s newest charter school, Henry Ford Academy: Power House High, the latest example of the “Wal-Marting” of public education.

The school’s site is the former Sears, Roebuck and Co. world headquarters on S. Homan in the city’s North Lawndale neighborhood. It is scheduled to open in August of 2008.

The Homan Square Power House that gives the school its unique name provided electricity to the large Sears complex for nearly 100 years before it was decommissioned in 2004. It is on the National Register for Historic Places and was one of 25 historic places competing for funds in the Partners in Preservation initiative, which was the subject of a previous story on this site.

When it opens, Henry Ford Power House Charter High School will be one of nearly 30 charter schools in Chicago that are part of Mayor Daley’s Renaissance 2010 program to transform 100 under performing public schools.

“We’re not against charter schools,” said Rosemaria Genova, a spokesperson for the Chicago Teachers Union. She said when the charter school concept developed in the mid-1990’s, it was supposed to be a method of creating and identifying classroom innovations before introducing them into “traditional public schools.”

But Chicago Public Schools “hijacked the concept,” Genova said, and made the schools non-union while duplicating them in a cookie-cutter style.

Power House High will hire seven non-union teachers for its freshman class of 126 students next fall. The school will eventually employ 20 teachers for an estimated 460 students in grades 9 through 12.

“When you lower prices, you lower standards,” Genova said, comparing charter schools to Wal-Mart.

“We do not lower standards for any Chicago Public School,” said CPS spokesman Mike Vaughn.  If a charter school fails to make the grade, “the charter is not renewed,” he said.

Like the name, Power House High has some mega-watt business power behind it, from the Ford Motor Co. and Bill Gates of Microsoft.

This month, Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. and great-grandson of Henry Ford, announced that Power House High would be the first of at least five community-based public schools built across the country. Ford pledged $8.5 million and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $3 million for the national charter school initiative.

Power House High School will be modeled after The Henry Ford Academy in Dearborn, Mich., which opened in 1997. The school will receive $1.25 million from Ford and $400,000 from the Gates Foundation. A capital fund drive is underway to raise the $30 million for the renovations to the former Sears powerhouse.

The school’s principal is Sabrena Davis. She grew up in the Chicago’s Rockwell housing project and is currently working on her doctorate at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“It’s exhilarating,” to be the principal, Davis said. She outlined the school’s curriculum as she stood in the building’s shell while a crew stood by, ready to resume work. Classes will be a mix of college preparatory and career training, she said, with an emphasis on “green” studies, such as renewable energy technologies and alternative fuels.

Students will get hands-on training in the Charles Shaw Technology and Learning Center, which will share space with Power House High. The school will also have a community center for the neighborhood.

“It’s not about textbooks,” Davis said. “It’s about team work, hands-on learning and learning about one another.”

Ford said “incorporating the community” was an important part of the Ford Academy concept.

North Lawndale resident Brenda Jernigan said she was glad to see a new school because “most kids prefer to go to schools in the neighborhood.”

Power House High is open to all Chicago Public School students, but under terms of the Illinois Charter School law, preference can be given to children in the North Lawndale neighborhood.

If demand exceeds enrollment, school officials would use a lottery system to pick names. In such circumstances, other schools have put names on pieces of paper and picked them from a drum. Davis expects to have 126 freshmen in the school’s first class.

Chicago School Board President Rufus Williams called the new school “wonderful” and “enlightening.” Williams grew up nearby and remembers selling Cub Scout tickets as a child when it was the Sears headquarters.

Cy Fields, a pastor and teacher in North Lawndale, said he’s glad to see that something “functional is planned for the landmark building. “It’s a good thing. I just hope it’s a positive educational opportunity.”