Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.
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There's some good writing going on in other blogs:
Cancel my subscription Chicago Teacher Man
Even though
every once in a while a killing does happen outside a school or maybe
on a bus after school, they're not happening IN the schools. So why
does the press insist on connecting the killings to the schools? Why
not say it's a city problem? Or, if you want to be more precise, a poor inner-city problem? What do the schools have to do with it?
School's out Clout City
The gripes and grilling came during a meeting of the City Council's education committee--seemingly an appropriate venue for aldermen to have a public exchange with top school leaders.
It's also a relatively unused one. Over the last year, by my count...the education committee has met three times. In other words, once before this week.
It's Just So... Public Chicago Moms
I
never thought I'd send my children to public school. I grew up in the
public school system and did just fine- benefiting from advanced
programs and classes- but when I became a parent, it just seemed the
right thing...
Gun control
Chicago-area
legislators try every year to approve gun control measures. They
narrowly rejected two this afternoon, and they could get another chance
to vote on another measure Thursday. The effort highlights the striking
fact that 20 Chicago Public School students have been killed by gun
violence this year.
Arne: "No we Aren't" PURE
Arne Duncan’s defensive, dishonest response to my Sun-Times editorial last week on school violence is a perfect example of the arrogant, irresponsible attitude that has become a wholly-owned trademark of the Mayor’s school leadership teams.
Please let me know if you know anyone else who writes about their school experiences -- teachers, students, administrators, counselors.

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Hmmm . .
"PURE helps insure (should be ensure) that the majority of us parents still have power within the schools where are (should be our) children attend. "- does that ensure that children are better off? I wouldn't want my kid anywhere near a school where you had power!
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I would agree GS, if pure was not so corrupt--and they are really not that smart. They are too uch about undermining instead of uplifting.
If they are so great, why do LSCs call CPS, begging CPS to help the LSCs get pure out of their school? Happens all the time.
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PURE's done more to help kids than Arne Duncan ever will. Facts of history, not spin. Simply by defending the LSCs, PURE helps insure that the majority of us parents still have power within the schools where are children attend. (I have one who graduated from Whitney Young last year; one at Thorp; and one heading into pre-k, so I'm making my observations here as a parent, as well as wearing my other hats).
Repeating CPS talking points bashing PURE (and others) has gotten more and more silly, especially now that more and more of the corruption of the Duncan administration is becoming public. It's sort of like watching roaches and rats run out of a building that's on fire. The next two years watching the collapse of the Daley and Duncan Big Lies will be that much fun.
Spend some time looking at what's really going on in Chicago, instead of repeating nonsense, and you'd be saying "Thank You" to PURE and a few others who held out during the darkest years of the dictatorship.
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I wish that PURE was interested in helping kids! They are smart people. It is too bad that they are not supportive of programs that are helping kids. It is OK to side with CPS sometimes. They are ALWAYS anti-CPS. The fact that they are always contrarians weakens their case.