Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 10:08 AMBy: New Renaissance schools Friday Morning News http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1211873,CST-NWS-sside09.article

October 9, 2008

15 new Renaissance 2010 high schools announced Wednesday:

-- Alcott High School for the Humanities, to open fall 2009. High school campus of existing Alcott Elementary in Lincoln Park. Site to be determined.

-- Odgen High School, to open fall 2009. Tied to Ogden Elementary in Gold Coast. Site to be determined. -- Urban Prep Academy for Young Men-East Garfield Park, to open fall 2009. Based on the all-boys Urban Prep Charter Academy. Site to be determined.

-- Career Academy for Advanced Technology, to open fall 2009. Would prepare students for information technology careers. Site to be determined.

-- Chicago Talent Development High School, to open fall 2009. Based on high school model developed by Johns Hopkins University. Planned by Service Employees International Union Local 73 and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Site to be determined, probably in West Garfield Park.

-- Chicago Hope Academy, to open fall 2009. Secular conversion of non-denominational private high school now at 2189 W. Bowler.

-- Expeditionary Path to Innovative Change (EPIC) Academy, to open fall 2009. High School featuring expeditionary learning. Site to be determined, probably in South Chicago.

-- Noble Street Charter School-Bulls Campus, to open fall 2009. College prep high school under Noble Street charter; enjoys financial support from Chicago Bulls. Site to be determined.

-- Noble Street Charter School- Muchin Campus, to open fall 2009. College prep high school under Noble Street charter. Located in old Carson Pirie Scott building, 1 N. State.

-- Social Justice High School-Pride Campus, to open in 2010. "Gay-friendly'' version of Social Justice High School in Little Village that would be open to all students. Site to be determined.

-- Urban Prep Academy for Young Men-South Shore, to open 2010. Expansion of all-boys Urban Prep Charter Academy High School. Site to be determined.

-- Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy, to open in 2010. High school focused on careers in health sciences. Site to be determined.

-- Noble Street Charter School-Osborn Campus, to open 2010. College prep high school under Noble Street charter. Site to be determined.

-- United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) Charter School-Charter Academy, to open 2010. High school being constructed by UNO in Gage Park.

--Transportation Academy of Chicago, to open 2010. Career academy high school focused on transportation industry, in partnership with Chicago Transit Authority. Site to be determined.

5 new Renaissance 2010 elementary schools announced Wednesday:

-- Garfield Park Preparatory Academy, to open 2009. A K-8 school proposed by Chicago School for Professional Psychology, using approach developed by Columbia University. Site to be determined.

-- South Loop of South Shore, to open 2009. A K-8 school based on South Loop Elementary. Site to be determined.

-- Noble Street Charter School Bain-NUSH Campus, to open 2009. Nobel Street's first K-8 school, in partnership with Bain & Co. and Northwestern University Settlement House. Site to be determined.

-- Chicago International Charter School-Altgeld Gardens, to open 2009. Another K-8 school in the CIC network. It will be at 13300 S. Langley.

-- UNO Charter School-Gage Park Elementary, to open 2009. A K-8 school under the UNO charter. To open in Gage Park buildling being constructed by UNO.

--- Compiled by Rosalind Rossi.

Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 8:46 PMBy: Ford Charter Friday Morning News Didn't the Ford Charter school open THIS year on the West Side?

Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 11:30 PMBy: Danny Friday Morning News School funding initiatives are going nowhere in this economic climate.

And since raising taxes is about the worst thing you can do in a recession, schools will have to make cuts. At least until this most recent "crisis" is over.

Rod Estvan hopes that Ford will stick with its commitment to a charter school in Chicago next year. I would be much suprised if this wasn't Ford Foundation, rather than the auto maker. The Ford Foundation had $13.7 billion in assets in 2007, according to its Wikipedia article.

Granted, those assets are probably less this year than last, but the tax rules on foundations require that at least 5% of total assets be spent toward charity each year. That should be plenty to fund the charter school.

Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 12:43 AMBy: George N. Schmidt Friday Morning News On the stock picks of the week Rod notes that he is pulling for Ford to be around next year (while General Motors may well be in bankruptcy, as was noted yesterday in The Wall Street Journal and more importantly by Moodys).

Remember the Lehman Brothers rule: When it is time for you to deny you're considering bankruptcy, the lawyers are probably already halfway through the paperwork.

Whether anyone can get shares in Ford before major brokers refuse to add it to a portfolio because in the eyes of many it is now a "penny stock" is an interesting question.

Some outfits consider a stock that's gone below five dollars a share a "penny stock", although that will probably change quickly -- or when General Electric gets below five bucks a share because they (a) outsourced all of their industrial production to China (which is why your light bulbs only last about a quarter of the hours they did when you could get them from GE manufactured in the USA) and (b) the largest part of their business was banking ("GE Capital", which was basically a bank of the worst kind).

Wild rides, Clydes. In one thing I agree with the Republicans. Keep George W. Bush out of sight (as they did at their convention and have pretty much done since). At this point in history, any day he opens his mouth is going to cost the world's remaining stock based wealth another half trillion dollars. Of course, it's also possible that the real inverse correlation of Republican value to stock markets is the height of Sarah Palin's high heels, but this is a family blog so I won't go there...

Back to reality, and Chicago, where the (stealth) Republicans have run the fifth floors at City Hall and the Board of Education for more than a decade.

The real capitalist "Survivor" show in Chicago is going to be the Tribune versus the Sun-Times.

As everyone knows, you can't purchase Tribune stock any longer because Sam Zell took the Tribune "private" (actually as an S-Type corporation, which basically ensures he won't lose no matter what the loses; ask your lawyer and accountant for details). That was based on "leverage" (meaning, in the real world divorced from the Orwellian lexicon of capital today) of more than $10 billion. Just when the debt bomb went off.

Then, to add insult to the "Survivor" injury, Zell did a "Makeover" of the Tribune so that regular readers (the vast majority of those million of us who try and read the Tribune daily and Sunday) couldn't find the Business Section just when every person on earth was reading the business pages first. Designed by a former Rock and Roll DJ (you couldn't make this stuff up), Tribune's current incomprehensibility and light show glitz has reduced it information content by about 50 percent, while trying to wrap advertising around every last bit of what used to be called "content."

Bet: Tribune goes out of business within 18 months, leaving behind...

The Chicago Sun-Times, who stock was "delisted" when it went below $1 a share a year ago, and which is now trading at about 20 cents a share (that's down from about $16 a share when it was "Hollinger International" and owned by that crook Conrad Black (and run by a Board of Directors that included James Thompson, Henry Kissinger, and Margaret Thatcher).

So why not buy the Sun-Times, because when this "Survivor" show is over, the Sun-Times will be returning to its (last) Depression roots (when, as the Chicago Times, it was the first Chicago tabloid to support FDR and the New Deal; forget that silly history that gives all the credit to the Field family -- the collest parts of the history of the Sun-Times are in the "Times" half, not in the "Sun").

Good day to ye, shipmates.

Let me know if you are interested in becoming a significant shareholder in Chicago's sole surviving daily newspaper.

Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 2:14 PMBy: To Tangent Friday Morning News I thought it was just me. What a rag. This is improvement? The people they want to target don't read newspapers, so why couldn't they have left it alone for old fogeys like me??? Oh well. Hope my pension continues to be well-funded.

Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 6:43 AMBy: Retired Principal Friday Morning News 12 ARRESTED IN FIGHTS AT LINCOLN PARK H.S.: Twelve students from Lincoln Park High School-one girl and 11 boys-were arrested after several fights broke out at the school Friday, Chicago Police said. Eight arrests followed a fist fight that erupted outside the school around 8:30 am, police said. One male student suffered a spilt lip and had some teeth knocked out, a school spokesman said. A second fight erupted aroung 10 am, leading to three arrests, and a fight an hour later resulted in one arrest. (Sun-Times staff reports) P.S.- Does anyone know anything about this?

Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 12:59 PMBy: Rod Estvan on Ford supported charter Friday Morning News I think the Power House charter will do just fine now. I bought Ford Friday at $2.04 and sold it today at $2.49. I am sure it may go higher, but I took the money and ran.

Just for the interest of charter school folks, and other school based staff who spend time attempting to secure grants. The NY Times ran an article of interest, since Access Living is funded largely through grants we are also directly impacted. It is attached below:

September 30, 2008 New York Times
Economy Expected to Take a Toll on Charitable Giving
By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
To the list of big losers in the turmoil on Wall Street, add these: some big foundations.

Several prominent foundations in the New York area have been particularly damaged by the recent collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and the difficulties of the American International Group. The biggest among them is the Starr Foundation, which held 15.5 million shares of A.I.G. in May. Its assets have fallen by at least $1 billion since the end of 2006, or by nearly one-third of its total value at that time. The 2006 figures are the most recent data available.

Some personal foundations of Bear Stearns executives have been hurt as well, because they held Bear stock. In addition, Bear’s corporate culture, where each year 1,000 senior managing directors gave away 4 percent of their compensation to charity, has disappeared.

The Lehman Brothers Foundation has $28 million in assets, and a spokesman said the foundation’s holdings were diversified. Still, there is no certainty that the foundation will get any new contributions. Some of Lehman’s operations have been acquired by Barclays Capital. Generally when companies merge, the foundations also merge.

Some of Lehman top executives, too, had foundations that played a role in New York philanthropy. A foundation set up by Richard S. Fuld Jr., Lehman’s chairman and chief executive — the Kathy and Richard S. Fuld Jr. Family Foundation — gave away about $5 million in 2006. The Fulds are still on the philanthropy scene, and are among the co-chairmen at the New York Public Library’s annual gala on Nov. 3. But it is too early to forecast their future role, given the changing economic environment.

What this all means to the recipients of those foundations’ largess is still largely unknown. Foundations are required by law to give away at least 5 percent of their assets a year. But when their assets shrink, their donations tend to shrink as well. Gathering enough money to return to their previous level is often hard.
At the same time, individual and corporate gifts to foundations and other charities generally slow during hard times. According to research prepared by Giving USA, donations did not keep pace with inflation for three consecutive years around two economic slumps, in 1973 and 2001.

“The long and the short of it is that most foundations pay out what they have to, and if the 5 percent is a percentage of a lower amount, they will pay less,” said Joel L. Fleishman, author of “The Foundation: A Great American Secret” (Public Affairs, 2007). “To be sure, some foundations would rather dip into capital than cut back on commitments. They rarely do that. But in terms of new commitments, that is where the brunt of the problem will be felt.”
Florence A. Davis, president of the Starr Foundation, said she expected that the foundation would “be making smaller grants going forward.” She added: “At least for the time being, some of the initiatives will be put on the back burner. That is unfortunate because more than half of our giving over our 53 years has been in the city of New York: well over $1 billion.”

She was quick to add that the foundation was still large and “we have a lot of cash,” and that it would honor all its existing commitments.

The charities are clearly nervous. “We are getting a lot of calls from institutions,” said one foundation director, who asked for anonymity because the calls were private. “They are polite, but they are clearly worried.”

Phyllis Fisher, a spokeswoman for the Hospital for Special Surgery, said the institution received money from both the Starr Foundation and the Lehman Brothers Foundation. “We got a $1 million grant last year from Lehman Brothers when we honored Richard Fuld,” she said. “We got $400,000 so far. We don’t know what will happen.”

Randolph Peers, executive director at Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, which helps disadvantaged youths and adults learn skills to get jobs, got $75,000 a year from the Starr Foundation for five years but will not get money this year. “We were told that the foundation was focusing on other priorities,” he said. Mr. Peers said he was grateful for the help, but “it hurts to lose $75,000.”
He predicts that the fallout from Wall Street “will impact us all.” As a result, he said, “We have to tighten out budgets. We won’t see such generous philanthropy coming our way, and people in my field are going to have a harder time finding jobs for disadvantaged adults when the job market is tightening.”

To be sure, foundations generally try to make sure that gifts do not drop precipitously. Starr appears to be planning to give away more than 5 percent of its assets this year, and it says it is completing its planned gifts. The foundation has pledged $7.5 million over five years beginning in 2006 to the New York Public Library, for example, and a library spokesman said it was on track to meet its pledges.

Starr remains one of the largest foundations in the country. It gave away $198 million in 2006, much of it in New York. The donations ranged from a three-year commitment totaling $50 million to a stem cell research project involving Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Rockefeller University to a $600,000 grant to train New York state teachers who work with the visually impaired.

Among the things that will be shelved for the future are efforts to fight childhood obesity and teacher training for math and science, Ms. Davis said.

The Starr Foundation is named for Cornelius Vander Starr, who founded A.I.G. in 1919 and later hired Maurice R. Greenberg, who would one day succeed him as chief executive and build the company into an insurance colossus. Mr. Greenberg, who was pushed out of A.I.G. in an accounting scandal in 2005, remains chairman of the foundation and is still embattled in lawsuits surrounding his role at the company.

His role at the foundation, too, has been an issue. There have long been questions about whether Mr. Greenberg used the foundation to further his own goals.

While the real sting of the Wall Street fallout has yet to be felt, some charities are at least trying to tighten their belts. Last spring, a breakfast honoring the veteran hedge fund manager John M. Angelo of Angelo, Gordon & Company raised a record $2 million for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

But the foundation’s executive director, Lorraine W. Egan, said, “Many people have lost a lot of their wealth.” Among the donors to the breakfast was Lehman Brothers, she said, “which gave us $25,000.” She added: “I think all charities are inevitably going to be hit. We have built up an endowment over 60 years, so we can dip into it. But the bad economy will definitely take a toll.”
Ms. Egan said she decided against hiring more staff at the foundation in an effort to control costs.

Some charities are already instituting new programs to raise larger amounts from existing donors who may have adequate financial resources.

“I think there is clearly an impact on philanthropy,” said Paul M. Cane, a senior vice president at UJA-Federation New York. “At UJA, for those who can’t make a gift now because of their jobs, we have asked the big givers to do more to offset those who can’t give. We are creating a challenge pool for the leadership that will match a percentage of any new gift as well as any increase in this year’s giving from existing donors.”

Even those who are still working are likely to watch their wallets in such uncertain times. “The wild swings create uneasiness in terms of what the future holds for individuals,” said Douglas Rothermich, vice president for estate planning and trust consulting at TIAA-CREF. “It is going to cause them to slow down in giving.”
Laurance R. Hoagland Jr., chief investment officer of the $8.5 billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, noted that foundations must pay out 5 percent. Accounting for inflation, he said, “You need an 8 percent nominal return to maintain your giving power.” But, he said, “Most foundations will have a negative return, so that is the decline in giving power. If it goes on for several years, that is a real dent in the giving power of the sector.”