Pros
I was a teacher in Chicago this year. The summer went fairly well although it was very difficult, It was much more organized than the school year. Good path to fast track your license They are no longer in Chicago so no other students and teachers have to suffer
Cons
Over the summer I almost got kicked out because I was not submitting my completed lesson plans. This is because the person that made the unit made it unrealistic to be taught in the amount of time we had with them. They also did not make a sumative assessment that matched what was being taught. I had a lot of adjusting to do in my lesson plans. Coming from a background of being an Special Education Assistant, it was hard to sit through a lot of the seminars knowing that a lot of the pedagogy would not work for the students that I had taught before. They don't seem to understand what real special education teaching is. The school year was chaotic. I was placed in a great school with plenty of help from other staff members, but Chicago teaching fellows was terrible. They would tell me the opposite of what my principle would tell me as suggestion. My principle gave me great observation ratings. however I somehow recieved the worst principle rating possible on my sumative rating making the score of CTF's observations even worse. My principle can not recall ever being asked to rate my teaching by Chicago Teaching Fellows. I will likely be left without a license since the evidence needed for the appeal will not be available until the start of the next school year. My job was more difficult than the average first year teachers. My coach came to my classroom a total of 2 times and had little feedback fro video lessons. She was barely there and even gave advice that was incorrect. All the teachers in my school think that CTF staff members are idiots, which happens to be one of the highest performing CPS schools. All the staff wish I could stay. The teachers in my school that were trained in the past said what I went through is nothing like what they had 4 years ago. The program has diteriorated