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Beginning this summer, Mason School in North Lawndale will begin a new high school program modeled on the Spry Community Links High School in Pilsen. At Spry, the goal is to foster better connections between the school and outside institutions that can have a positive impact on student achievement. Spry high school students attend school for three years and three summers, have classes that start later in the day to accommodate teenagers’ body clocks, and participate in internships and college bridge programs to encourage post-secondary education.

John Q. Easton, executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, will be nominated by President Barack Obama to head the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. The Institute was created in 2002 to provide rigorous research and evaluation on education programs and policies and to report a wide variety of data, including data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Easton will oversee four national research centers. Easton's successor at the Consortium has not been named.

Greg Darnieder, the longtime head of the CPS Office of College and Careers, left the district this week to become special assistant on college access to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. While at CPS, Darnieder was credited with establishing a relationship with the National Student Clearinghouse that provided the district with specific information on college enrollment for CPS graduates. He also implemented a pilot program that put college coaches into high schools, with the sole job of boosting college enrollment.