Current Issue

School closings

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

News Briefs

August 24, 2011

Feb. 4: Free lunches CPS has lost as much as $3.5 million a year by handing out free meals to students who were not eligible, or had not been certified, for the federal free lunch program. The latest annual report from CPS Inspector General James Sullivan shows that one school failed to collect as much as $18,000 in lunch money in October and November 2005. Some students who got the free lunches qualified, but never filled out the paperwork, so CPS cannot be reimbursed for the cost.

August 24, 2011

April: Principal hirings IILSCs at the remaining half of schools sign principals to four-year contracts.

June: Reform Act AdjustmentThe Legislature fixes LSC election procedures, giving five votes each to parents and community members. Technically, voting by faculties and students becomes advisory, with the School Board appointing the winners to local school councils.

August 24, 2011

January: Kimbrough appointmentThe Interim Board taps Ted D. Kimbrough, superintendent in Compton, Calif., for superintendent.

August 24, 2011

March: Byrd contract extentionThe Chicago Board of Education reluctantly extends Supt. Manford Byrd Jr.'s contract for a year; Byrd generally opposed decentralization.

May: Board appointmentsA seven-member Interim Board of Education, appointed by Richard M. Daley, takes office. Chicago Urban League President James W. Compton becomes board president.

August 24, 2011

March: Summit PlanA majority of the Education Summit adopts a plan calling for local control of schools and more resources, e.g., parent and teacher training centers, expanded early childhood programs, higher teacher salaries.

August 24, 2011

Education Summit: Chicago United releases a report showing that the most important management reforms it had recommended to the School Board in 1981 had been either ignored or "were buried in classic obfuscation."

Chicago United goes on to join Designs for Change and the Chicago Panel in pushing for school system decentralization.

August 24, 2011

January:CPS chooses school provider finalists.

August 24, 2011

October: Education SummitMayor Harold Washington creates an Education Summit, tapping 35 school, civic, business and university leaders to draft "contracts" outlining actions to improve the education and employment of young Chicagoans.

August 24, 2011

January: Designs studyDesigns for Change releases a study showing that 53 percent of Chicago's public school students fail to graduate from high school and that among those who do, two-thirds read below the 12th-grade level.

April: Drop-out reportThe Chicago Panel on Public School Policy releases a study showing that in some schools, the dropout rate for the Class of '84 hit 67 percent.

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