Rebecca Harris | catalyst-chicago.org

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School closings

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

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Rebecca Harris

Karen Lewis wins second term as CTU president May 17, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis has announced that she won a second term in Friday's election, garnering 80 percent of the votes in preliminary results. The election was a referendum on how well Lewis' leadership and the Caucus of Rank and File Educators handled the fall's teacher strike and contract negotiations. The opposition caucus, Coalition to Save Our Union, charged that Lewis put style and big-picture promises over substance and results. Read More \| (32) Comments	Union election: Karen Lewis vs. challenger, strike gains vs. contract losses May 17, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris Almost buried in the whirlwind of news on school closings is the Chicago Teachers Union election, in which challenger Tanya Saunders-Wolffe is seeking to oust current President Karen Lewis. Read More \| (8) Comments
Early childhood teachers adapt to Common Core May 06, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris Dumas Elementary teacher Nadjea Butler-Wilson leads her 3rd-grade students in a lesson on reading a persuasive paragraph. The author believes his town needs a new library. Butler-Wilson wants her students to analyze his argument. “The reason he’s giving you is that the library is too small. How can you prove that? What is some fact about the library that will show it’s too small?” she prompts the class. “Some people think it’s too small,” one boy says. Read More \| (5) Comments	Arbitrator counting union votes at UNO Charter May 01, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris UPDATED: Teachers at UNO charter schools have voted 87 percent in favor of joining a union, an Illinois Federation of Teachers spokeswoman said. The announcement comes just days after scandal prompted the state to cut off capital funding to UNO charter schools, and it means the city's charter teachers union will roughly double in size. According to the Illinois Federation of Teachers, more than 20 percent of charter teachers in Chicago will now be union members. Read More \| (3) Comments
Testing headed for scrutiny amid protest, boycott April 25, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris Amid an escalating battle over standardized testing that included a “play-in” protest at CPS headquarters last week and a student boycott of the Prairie State Achievement Exam on Wednesday, CPS officials are undertaking a broad review of testing in the Read More \| (7) Comments	Delays in special ed preschool placements spark more state monitoring April 17, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris CPS faces more intensive state monitoring following a ruling that the district isn’t doing a good enough job helping students transition from Early Intervention services into preschool special education. Read More \| (7) Comments
Early education shakeup: Programs to lose teachers, students April 10, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris As the city shifts preschool seats to better programs in needier areas, at least nine community agencies that are losing their funding say they will likely be forced to replace their state-certified preschool teachers with child care staff who hold lesser credentials--associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees without teaching licenses, or no degrees at all. Read More \| (0) Comments	Ready to Learn shifts preschool funds April 05, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris STORY CORRECTED TO REFLECT UPDATED INFORMATION--More than 40 community-based preschool providers around the city will lose preschool funding under the city’s “Ready to Learn” preschool competition, an effort to shift preschool seats to high-quality programs in neighborhoods where they are needed. Read More \| (6) Comments
Overhaul for preschool applications April 03, 2013 By: Rebecca Harris CPS hasn’t announced yet which schools will be able to keep offering preschool programs in the fall. But the announcement is likely coming soon, because the district has launched a new centralized enrollment process that will ask families who want their children to attend preschool programs in CPS schools to apply by May 3. Read More \| (4) Comments

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