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Brandon Beech

Attendance Bill, Petitions for Elected Board
September 10, 2008
By: Brandon Beech

ATTENDANCE BILL    State Sen. James Meeks has proposed legislation that would allow public school students across Illinois to enroll in the school district of their choice, without paying tuition. Meeks’ proposal is in line with his campaign to have Chicago Public Schools students boycott the first day of classes on Sept. 2 and instead, board buses to head to top-spending suburban Winnetka to enroll there. The boycott is geared to highlight disparities in school spending across the state.

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Focusing on the assets
September 10, 2008
By: Brandon Beech

Ray Thompson knows what it’s like to grow up in a poor, single-parent home, facing the same struggles that low-income people face today—including the struggle to get a good education.

What set him on the road to success, he recalls, was help and positive reinforcement from the community outside his school—a strategy he relies on now in his job as director of community relations for Perspectives Charter Schools.

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Claude Robinson, Jr., Uhlich Children's Advantage Network
August 21, 2008
By: Brandon Beech

Adults get a failing grade for preventing violence in the Teen Gun Survey and Report Card, an annual national survey conducted by the Uhlich Children’s Advantage Network (UCAN), a social service agency for youth and families. Teens gave adults the worst grades ever in the most recent survey, more than half said America would be better off without handguns, and 44 percent said more violence-prevention programs are needed in schools, says Claude Robinson Jr., executive vice-president for youth development and diversity at UCAN.

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Comings and Goings
July 18, 2008
By: Brandon Beech

TRANSFORMING HIGH SCHOOLS   Allan Alson, who resigned as executive director of the CPS Office of High School Transformation, is the new director of the leadership development program at the Consortium for Educational Change. The consortium, which is based in Lombard, works with a network of suburban and Downstate school districts to improve curricula and spur systemic change.

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