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

January 07, 2013

Former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is coming under some withering criticism of late. In addition to her coming memoir getting panned, PBS' "Frontline" raises questions about test-score tampering under her administration.

January 04, 2013

Ray Salazar, a CPS English teacher who writes "The White Rhino" blog, describes in rather heart-warming detail how teachers and students at his school got through a day in an unheated building on the Southwest Side.

January 03, 2013

Teachers at a Chicago charter school are now subject to private-sector labor laws, rather than state laws governing public workers. The ruling, made by the National Labor Relations Board last month, said the Chicago Math and Science Academy is a “private entity” and therefore covered under the federal law governing the private sector, according to WBEZ.

January 02, 2013

A Sun-Times editorial takes up the role of poverty in academic achievement, citing a speech by CTU President Karen Lewis to the City Club of Chicago in which she said,  “We cannot fix what’s wrong with our schools until we are prepared to have honest conversations about poverty and race.”

December 31, 2012

Chicago Public Schools said Friday it has saved $23 million on purchasing contracts since April, when it hired an aggressive new head of the department that handles big buys. Chief Procurement Officer Sébastien de Longeaux said he’s tried some private-sector tactics to negotiate better deals for the district. (Sun-Times)

December 28, 2012

Founders of a new Chicago charter school hope to increase diversity in the legal profession. The formula at Legal Prep Charter Academies in the city's West Garfield Park neighborhood includes a principal with a law degree, field trips to law firms and a biology class is inspired by the science of crime scene investigations. (WBEZ)

December 27, 2012

Three Chicago Public Schools teachers who lost their jobs this year have filed a lawsuit saying that the district's process for "turnaround" schools is racially discriminatory because it targets West and South side campuses with a higher percentage of African-American teachers and staff, the Tribune reports.

December 26, 2012

John Barker, chief of staff in Memphis City Schools, has been named chief of accountability in Chicago Public Schools. Barker, 45, will oversee all testing, research and accountability issues for the district and will report to CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and serve in her cabinet. He will start in early January. (The Commerical Appeal)

December 21, 2012

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday brushed aside suggestions that a memo written last fall outlining a strategy for closing more than 100 under-capacity Chicago Public Schools damages his credibility, according to the Sun-Times.