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Chicago Teachers Union will hold a news conference this morning to discuss "the growing angst among thousands of  teachers and paraprofessionals due to schools’ CEO Jean-Claude Brizard’s and the Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s troubling education agenda that will have an adverse impact on students," according to a press release issued Wednesday afternoon.

“As a classroom teacher with over two decades of experience I empathize with those who feel as if this City has declared war on its teachers who’ve dedicate their lives to teaching children and are now left wondering what they have done to be treated like this,” Karen GJ Lewis, union president said. The news conference takes place at 11 a.m. at the union's headquarters in the Merchandise Mart.

While the Tribune gives CPS a solid B+ with an A for effort on its new teacher evaluation system, it also urges CPS to count student growth as half of a teacher's evaluation, not 25 percent as the new evaluation has sanctioned.

The Chicago Teachers Union says internal polling shows there is support for a strike if contract talks with Chicago Public Schools break down, the Tribune reports.

HB 5826 introduced by Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora removes a requirement for school districts with fewer than 50,000 students (all but CPS) to submit a plan each fall for how they will use supplementary General State Act funds, so-called poverty grant, to improve academic achievements of disadvantaged students.

School districts—from Mokena's Summit Hill School District 161 to districts in Naperville and Wilmette—are grappling with adding hours to their kindergarten programs, part of a growing movement to strengthen the early years as the foundation for lifelong learning, the Tribune reports.

IN THE STATE
State pension director Dick Ingram says the Illinois Teachers Retirement System could be insolvent by 2029.

IN THE NATION
Detroit Public Schools is creating a hybrid system within the district by converting 10 high schools into "self-governing" buildings with a five-member board controlling the budget, operations and hiring.

The Houston Independent School District was named Wednesday by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation as one of four urban school districts in the country as a finalist for the 2012 Broad Prize. The other finalists this year are: Corona-Norco Unified School District in Riverside County, Calif., Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and The School District of Palm Beach County, Fla. The winner of the 2012 Broad Prize will be announced Oct. 23. Houston's district's African-American graduation rate improved faster than in other urban districts nationally, according a Broad Foundation press release.

Los Angeles City Council members suggested Wednesday they would consider changes but not a wholesale redrawing of proposed new election-district maps for the Los Angeles Board of Education. (Los Angeles Times)

Joel I. Klein and Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellors in New York and Washington, have formed a statewide political group in New York with an eye toward being a counterweight to the powerful teachers’ union in the 2013 mayoral election. On the board are some of the most well-known and polarizing figures in public education, including Ms. Rhee; Mr. Klein, now a News Corporation executive; and Eva S. Moskowitz, the former councilwoman who now runs a chain of charter schools. Also on the board are former Mayor Edward I. Koch; Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone organization, a network of charter schools; and a number of venture capitalists and hedge fund managers, who have served as the movement’s financial backers.  (The New York Times)