As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.
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In the News: Changes in store for CPS students; teachers leading schools
By: Cassandra West / September 07, 2010
As students return to class at Chicago Public Schools today, the Sun-Times reports on the changes they can expect. Among them are: A slightly higher district enrollment of 1,400 students. Bus rides will be an average of 10 minutes longer after 200 buses have been cut to help save $10 million. Year-round schools will now total 200.
As students return to class at Chicago Public Schools today, the Sun-Times reports on the changes they can expect. Among them are:
- A slightly higher district enrollment of 1,400 students.
- Bus rides will be an average of 10 minutes longer after 200 buses have been cut to help save $10 million.
- Year-round schools will now total 200.
- 15 schools will add 90 minutes of mandatory online learning.
More than a dozen "community watchers'' will line the street leading to Corliss High School for a mile today as a new Safe Passage program sweeps across the city's public high schools. (Sun-Times)
CPS opens its 100th Renaissance 2010 charter school, known as Larry Hawkins, in Chicago's Altgeld Gardens housing project, today. WBEZ also offers a list of all Renaissance 2010 schools.
A grass-roots group of North Shore activists, United We Learn, ask affluent neighbors for help with school funding gaps, using a documentary, "The Education They Deserve," to bring the message home. The public can view the half-hour documentary, underwritten by the Sally Mead Hands Foundation, Thursday, Sept. 16 in the McCormick Tribune Center at Northwestern University. A trailer is available online. (Tribune)
In the nation
The New York Times reports on Newark, N.J., teachers who are part of a growing experiment around the country to allow teachers to lead efforts to turn around struggling urban school systems. Teacher-led schools have opened in Boston, Denver, Detroit and Los Angeles.
Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson writes about the "meager progress" of school reform. State Race to the Top proposals, he writes, show that "few subjects inspire more intellectual dishonesty and political puffery than 'school reform.' "
Several blogs, including Schools Matter, have posted an open letter from Ira Socol to President Obama titled "Why Does KIPP Not Look Like Sidwell?"
In the News: Changes in store for CPS students; teachers leading
Linda Lutton's story on the Larry Hawkins Charter School is well done (like most of her work). It goes deeper than the CPS press releases that form the basis for much of the stories reported by the Big Two newspapers.
Good luck to the faculty and staff at Larry Hawkins.
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