Current Issue

School closings

As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.

Cassandra West

May 10, 2013

After lagging behind other Americans in education for generations, Latinos have significantly narrowed the gap, and last year they passed a milestone, with new Hispanic high school graduates more likely than their white counterparts to go directly to college, according to a new study. (The New York Times)

May 09, 2013

In their relentless pursuit of prestige and revenue, American private and public four-year colleges and universities are increasingly using financial aid to attract the best and most affluent students rather than to help low-income and working-class families pay for college, according to a new report released Wednesday by the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program.

May 08, 2013

In statehouses and cities across the country, battles are raging over the direction of education policy—from the standards that will shape what students learn to how test results will be used to judge a teacher's performance. Not since the battles over school desegregation has the debate about public education been so intense and polarized, observers say. (Education Week)

May 07, 2013

According to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality, the vast majority of teachers in the nation’s largest school districts took a pay cut or saw their pay frozen at least one year between 2008 and 2012. (The New York Times)

May 06, 2013

The Consortium on Chicago School Research surveyed 700 principals and assistant principals and 900 teachers in December about CPS' new teacher evaluation process and will do so again in May. CPS, however, would not authorize the organization to release preliminary findings. A district spokesman said the data are "too preliminary to be of any value."

May 02, 2013

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is amping up support for a Chicago casino by vowing that all revenue would go to city schools. Emanuel released a video Wednesday showing footage of students and teachers and ending with a promise that 100 percent of revenue would go to education. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

May 01, 2013

Construction stopped Tuesday on a new, state-funded charter high school being built on the Southwest Side for the state’s largest charter-school operator, the politically influential United Neighborhood Organization, after the project’s general contractor said UNO has fallen behind in its payments for the work, according to the Sun-Times.

April 30, 2013

Parents United for Responsible Education are asking the state Executive Inspector General to broaden its investigation into the use of state funds by the United Neighborhood Organization Charter Network, according to a news release.

April 29, 2013

Catherine Sugrue, the sister of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader, Ald. Pat O'Connor, has been hired by the Chicago Public Schools to help with the controversial closures of dozens of schools, according to the Sun-Times.