catalyst-chicago.org

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.  

A decade ago this spring, then-CEO Arne Duncan introduced the first Renaissance schools and coined the phrase "turnarounds" to describe a process of firing a school's staff and hiring new people to, hopefully, improve the school.

Since then, the announcement of school actions—turnarounds, closings and reconfigurements—has become an annual occurrence.

Last week, CEO Jean-Claude Brizard continued the tradition, saying that he wants to turnaround 10 schools, close two, phase-out two and officially shutter a few other schools whose phase-outs started years ago.

The Center for American Progress released a report recently, “Teacher Diversity Matters,” detailing the “teacher diversity gap” state-by-state.

The findings paint a sobering picture of minority under-representation, statewide, in the teaching profession: Just 54 percent of Illinois students are white, but 89 percent of teachers are.