Current Issue

School closings

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

Sarah Karp

February 03, 2012

If ever there was a superstar principal, it’s Angel Turner.

When Turner took over Morton Elementary School as an Academy for Urban School Leadership turnaround principal, it was one of the worst schools in the district. Now, three years later, it is in the middle of the pack: The percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards has increased by more than 30 points.

January 25, 2012

A youth advocacy group is calling on Chicago aldermen to pass a student safety act similar to one in New York City that forces the school district to reveal the number of arrests, suspensions and expulsions per school every quarter.

January 13, 2012

State legislative task force members Thursday night accused CPS leaders of “playing games” and being disingenuous in engaging parents and community members as they move to close and turnaround schools.

 Especially upsetting to members was the fact that throngs of people were paid and bused into community hearings last week to speak in favor of closings, and that the principal of a school slated for closing tried to force students to transfer over Christmas break.

December 20, 2011

One of the justifications given for phasing out the West Side’s Crane High School is that most students in the attendance boundary are “voting with their feet” to go elsewhere. Only 17 percent of the students living in the neighborhood this year attend Crane, notes Chief Portfolio Officer Oliver Sicat.

But Crane’s situation is far from unique. In just the last five years, the percentage of students attending their neighborhood high school fell by 10 percent, from nearly half in 2006-2007 to about 37 percent in 2010-2011, according to a Catalyst Chicago analysis of CPS data.  

December 15, 2011

As part of preparing a new $659 school construction and capital spending plan, officials used a new formula to determine school utilization. In the process, they determined that the district has 130,000 empty seats--a quarter of the seats available in schools throughout the city.

That figure, a result of the district’s declining enrollment, shows the extent of building under-utilization throughout CPS. Yet when deciding how to invest their capital improvement dollars, Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley said Thursday that officials steered away from buildings that might be shut down in the next five to 10 years.

December 14, 2011

Just as CEO Jean-Claude Brizard took to the podium to start a presentation at the December School Board meeting, in a booming voice, activist Adourthus McDowell tore into the proposed closure and turnaround of 14 schools, ending with the chant of “those are our children, not corporate products.”

December 12, 2011

CEO Jean-Claude Brizard has said that charter schools will not escape tough scrutiny of their performance--including the threat of closure--and that School Board members would consider taking action against one or two charters at the December board meeting.

December 07, 2011

Chicago Public Schools students did not make significant improvement over the past two years in reading and continued to lag behind other large cities in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

December 02, 2011

Though they are still in negotiations over the details, Chicago Public Schools officials are set to sign on to a national initiative that encourages stronger cooperation between charter schools and traditional schools, as well as providing equitable district funding for charters.