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Last year, Kenny Rainey was saying goodbye to high school. He had too
few credits to graduate and was nervous about his future, but he had a
summer job lined up and plans to enroll in an alternative school to
earn his diploma. But now, Kenny is in Cook County Jail’s boot camp, where he was
sentenced for possessing an illegal firearm. Two days before he was
shipped to the camp, he appeared much thinner than he had been a year
ago, and looked pale in the fluorescent light of a jail visiting room.
Mayor Richard M. Daley has vowed to continue with his Renaissance 2010 strategy. Yet six years after it was launched, nearly 3 out of 4 Chicago schoolchildren still attend low-performing schools. Top officials acknowledge that new schools are not the main spark for systemwide improvement.
Charter schools had to replace an average of more than half of their
teachers between 2008 and 2010, a turnover rate on par with some of the
most troubled district-run schools. Experts say that high teacher turnover is associated with a school in
turmoil and that instability often hampers student performance.
Chicago communities and social service agencies are making a pitch for part of $10 million in federal planning grants for Promise Neighborhoods, the Obama Administration’s initiative to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone. The 20 planning grant winners will be announced in September. Chicago could conceivably have multiple winners, says department spokeswoman Elizabeth Utrup, since there is no limit on the number of planning grants for each city.
This month, Chicago Public Schools will find out whether the district has been selected for a federal grant to launch a new initiative on merit pay that would radically restructure teacher compensation at participating schools. The new initiative would replace Chicago TAP, the local version of the national Teacher Advancement Program, which will end in CPS when federal funding runs out in spring 2011.
This installment of Catalyst's series on the record of Secretary of Education nominee Arne Duncan examines his efforts to raise the bar for principals, and what's still lacking for special education.
On Thursday, Nov. 20, officials at Perspectives Charter Schools received a letter alleging that special education students at one of its campuses are not receiving adequate services, and that another letter was on its way to the Illinois State Board of Education. The same day, one of the five teachers who signed off on that letter says she was fired and escorted out of the school.
In recent years, Chicago Public Schools has rolled out bonus pay for administrators and teachers. Now, the district is considering merit pay for principals; specifically, tying a portion of their salaries to student test scores, attendance and, for high schools, freshman on-track rates. Also on the table is a proposal to scrap principals’ graduated pay scale.
More than 90 percent of black children live in high-poverty school districts that rely heavily on state funding and generate less money from local property taxes, according to a new analysis.