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Jermaine Kelly’s elementary school experience was chaotic. Every time he turned around, a fight was “jumping off,” he says, smiling sheepishly and adding, “We had wars inside that school, and I was in the middle of it.”

The response of the principal was swift and always the same. Jermaine says he was suspended so many times, it felt like going through a revolving door. “I would get there, and two days later I would be back home,” Jermaine recalls.  In 7th grade, he was suspended multiple times for eight to 10 days.

Since approving a tough student promotion policy in 1996, the School Board has constantly adjusted it, allowing more students to be promoted from one grade to the next.

1996

The federal government has spent millions of dollars to help local universities prepare teacher candidates for Chicago Public Schools.

But this year’s budget crisis has meant that far fewer new graduates ended up in Chicago’s neediest neighborhood schools. “The significant budget cuts this last year deeply impacted our graduates’ capacity to find work,” notes Kavita Kapadia Matsko, director of the University of Chicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program, which includes a year of education coursework plus a year-long paid residency in a school.