catalyst-chicago.org

One of the original authors of the LSC concept says Chicago Public Schools obstructed their own efforts to promote LSC elections by taking more than a week to make the names of Local School Council candidates available to the press or public.

That's a new low for CPS, says Don Moore, executive director of Designs for Change and one of the authors of the 1988 legislation that created LSCs. (Center Square Journal)

The Chicago Teachers Union Tuesday afternoon applauded the mayor’s shift in his longer school day stance — cutting back his demand from 7.5 to 7 hours for elementary schools — but asserted the mayor has far to go on compromising. (Sun-Times)

Listen to WBEZ education reporter Linda Lutton talk with host Melba Lara about the new proposal for a seven-hour school day.

The Oak Park and River Forest High School board is calling a special community meeting to discuss recent layoffs of non-tenured teachers following outcry from students who believe the dismissals are unfair. The campaign has drawn more than 1,400 signers of an online petition backing the teachers on the website saveoprf.org. A Facebook page drew more than 1,900 members before it was turned into a private "closed group." (Tribune)

IN THE NATION
A group of urban public school teachers from across the country has launched Assessment Advisor: Reviews Powered by Teachers, an online review site similar to Yelp or TripAdvisor, but focused on classroom assessments. The teachers, all affiliated with the national non-profit organization Teach Plus, developed the project to address the absence of teacher voice in the selection of academic assessments. The site is designed to provide policy makers with teacher perspectives on the effectiveness of various testing products on a number of measure. (New Release)

The crisis in American education is a myth, writes Randy Turner, an English teacher in the Joplin, Missouri, public schools. (Huffington Post)

Membership in the National PTA has dropped steadily over the past 10 years, from about 6 million to less than 5 million. (Education Week)

Enrollment in state-funded preschool programs has more than doubled over the last decade—ticking upward even through the recession years—but an accompanying slide in per-child spending in many states is threatening the quality of early-childhood programs designed to serve poor children, according to a new national report. (Education Week)

New York State lawmakers say they are open to the idea of changing state law to allow parents to see the evaluations of their own children’s teachers but to block the general public from having access to those reports. (NYT)

Twenty years after Maryland became the first state to require volunteer hours to earn a diploma, the scramble has become a rite of spring. (Washington Post)