catalyst-chicago.org

Schools Chief Ron Huberman met with top aides last night to review the district’s school closing proposals. Still no word which schools—if any—will be removed from the list. (Tribune)

* A student-led urban teacher program at Illinois State University—called Urban Needs in Teacher Education or UNITE—aims for savvier Chicago teachers. (Tribune)

* Ald. Pat Dowell calls community meeting on proposed turnaround at Phillips High. (Substance)

* Former head of Triumphant Charter found guilty of embezzlement. (Sun-Times)

* Prison documentary says 'stay in school'. (Columbia Chronicle)

* Art for the People lecture series tells the story of WPA murals in Chicago schools. (NewsOK)

Schools Chief Ron Huberman met with top aides last night to review the district’s school closing proposals. Still no word which schools—if any—will be removed from the list. (Tribune)

* A student-led urban teacher program at Illinois State University—called Urban Needs in Teacher Education or UNITE—aims for savvier Chicago teachers. (Tribune)

The group's most recent effort was Project 43, a 43-hour marathon event for about 40 budding educators focused on how make their instruction relevant to students, excite the desire to learn and help them go on to college...The weekend featured workshops and seminars on professional development, social justice and school improvement; meetings with Chicago Public Schools teachers; and speakers who addressed issues related to the dropout problem. The 2008 cohort dropout rate — which calculates the percentage of freshman who graduate within five years — was nearly 43 percent, according to CPS.

* Ald. Pat Dowell calls community meeting on proposed turnaround at Phillips High. (Substance)

* Former head of Triumphant Charter found guilty of embezzlement. (Sun-Times)

* Prison documentary says 'stay in school'. (Columbia Chronicle)

* Art for the People lecture series tells the story of WPA murals in Chicago schools. (NewsOK)

Across Illinois

* State owes K12 schools more than $650 million. Universities are looking for cash, too. (ABC7/WBEZ)

For Chicago Public Schools, the state has delayed payments totaling more than $172 million...A CPS spokesperson says the state's status as a deadbeat has administrators considering cutting all bilingual programs, sports and after school activities.

Meanwhile, some 3,000 will rally for a balanced budget in Springfield today. (WBEZ)

* Springfield official proposes $5.3 million in cuts. (SJR)

* New Trier readies another facilities plan after public rejects $174 million high school project. (Pioneer)

* Naperville officials are considering overcrowding relief with transfers. (Daily Herald)

* In gear up for the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, schools tell parents how they can help. (Suburban Journals)

* State Rep. Monique Davis proposes limits on sugary foods in school lunchrooms, but downstate Republican Roger Eddy worries about adding another unfunded mandate to schools’ plates. (Statehouse News)

Across the country

* One in five elementary and middle schools in Georgia submitted highly abnormal answer sheets on standardized tests last year, suggesting schools may have manipulated scores to avoid federal sanctions. (LA Times)

* Low support among unions and districts could hurt California’s Race to the Top bid. (LA Times)

[A] majority of California school districts and about three-quarters of its teachers unions, as well as some charter schools and other education agencies, have declined to sign agreements that require them to abide by those changes.

* African American enrollment in New York’s elite high schools has dropped; a similar trend that Catalyst recently spied in Chicago. (Daily News)

* Charter advocates are building momentum to change Rhode Island’s cap on charter schools and enrollment. (Providence Journal)

* USDE has assembled a technical group to lay groundwork for a K16 data sharing system. (Inside Higher Ed)

The development of such a stitched-together network has itself seemed almost inevitable since Congressional Republicans, formally and otherwise, put the kibosh on the Bush administration's vision of creating a truly federal "unit record" database as part of its existing Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

A coalition of major foundations (Lumina and Gates), higher education research groups like the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, and, now, the Obama administration have, with a series of advocacy reports and many millions of dollars, embraced as an alternative the development of statewide data systems that could be linked, and work has been proceeding on a variety of fronts in the last few years.

* Texas officials, who did not file an R2T application for political reasons, have proposed $135.5 million in cutbacks. (Star Telegram)