Current Issue

School closings

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

Rebecca Harris

February 04, 2013

In an effort to expose more students to college-level work, CPS has in recent years pushed more students to participate in Advanced Placement classes.

The district has included AP enrollment in its school achievement formula, grading principals on the number of students who take AP classes and pass AP tests. In some ways, the policy has worked: Since 2000, CPS has quadrupled the percentage of students taking AP classes citywide, with participation increasing by an average of 13 percent every year.

February 04, 2013

Selective schools and military high schools (which also have selective admissions criteria) have some of the highest pass rates for students of color on Advanced Placement tests. One of those schools is Rickover Naval Academy, housed in the Senn High campus in Edgewater.

In spring 2011, 52 percent of the Latino students at Rickover who took AP classes passed at least one test. In spring 2012, the rate fell to just 35 percent for Latinos, but half the school’s 12 African-American AP students passed an AP exam.

January 28, 2013

A local Early Head Start program that operates in Englewood and Schaumburg is one of 122 around the country that must compete for Head Start or Early Head Start funds once its current grant runs out.

January 23, 2013

CPS officials approved several new charter and alternative schools at Wednesday’s board meeting, and also announced new plans to engage with Community Action Councils.

But the charter schools that were approved might face an uncertain future. Both Foundations College Prep, which will open in Roseland, and Orange Charter, which has not picked a neighborhood yet, were pulled from the December meeting agenda, had their openings delayed by a year, and were given additional conditions they must meet before they are given final approval to open.

January 18, 2013

STEM Magnet Academy parent Christine Bay-Spiric complains that her children, who are English language learners, have met obstacles in school: Unclear homework instructions that she is expected to explain to them. Missing assignments because they couldn’t make up work from days they missed due to a religious holiday.

She and other parents are pinning their hopes for change on a law that State Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez (24th District) plans to introduce in the next month.

January 17, 2013

Starting this spring, CPS will launch new principal evaluations that are based half on a school’s progress-- including students’ improvement on test scores--and half on observations by district administrators.

January 08, 2013

A report released Tuesday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation suggests that Chicago’s new teacher evaluation system may be on the right track in helping to determine which teachers are most effective.

January 04, 2013

The U.S. Department of Education recently announced that a nearly $15 million Investing in Innovation grant will bring extra resources to the New Teacher Center’s mentoring programs for Chicago’s new teachers.

It’s not yet clear how many newcomers will be served, though. Throughout its time in Chicago, politics and leadership changes have gotten in the way of the program scaling up.

December 21, 2012

Starting in fall 2013, Head Start and Early Head Start lead teachers in community agencies around the city will have to have bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education. The city expects that 14 percent won’t meet the requirement, and could potentially lose their jobs or be demoted.

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