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: School budgets don't make everything clear
By: Cassandra West / July 09, 2012
CPS has launched an website that may give residents an inside look at school budgets, but some line items remain a mystery, according to the Sun-Times.
Chicago school officials released a budget plan Friday for the coming year that relies on the school system’s most drastic raid on its reserve funds in 17 years and includes 2 percent raises for everyone from teachers to central office workers. (Sun-Times)
CPS unveiled a $5.162 billion proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2013, which it says "protects investments in students and programs that support student achievement even as the District faces a $665 million deficit."
CPS leadership is proposing a budget that does not include massive layoffs, but that doesn’t mean that some schools aren’t losing teachers and other staff. (Catalyst)
WBEZ's Linda Lutton offers the wrenching story of a CPS principal's reflections on the last 13 months: 27 current or former students shot, 8 dead.
IN THE NATION
The Republican Party of Texas, in its 2012 platform, has come out strongly against the teaching of "critical thinking." Here's what they say: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." The platform also opposes mandatory pre-school and kindergarten.
From the American Thinker: More thoughts on conservative columnist George Will's acknowledgement that teacher unions' members are "not all wrong."
USAToday reports that dozens of public schools nationwide are being targeted by the American Civil Liberties Union in a struggle over whether single-sex learning should be continued. The single-sex movement is widespread, though, with states like South Carolina having more than 100 schools that offer some form of a single-gender program.
Thousands of laid-off Michigan public school teachers don't know if they will have jobs waiting for them when classes resume this fall in their state-run districts. (The Detroit News)
Nearly 11 percent of Native American students in the Rapid City Area Schools district dropped out of school last year, compared to 2.4 percent of their peers. (Rapid City Journal)
CPS diverted $70 million to city police to avoid paying teachers
contractual 4% raise last year, then lied to public
CHICAGO – A newly-acquired secret agreement obtained in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) confirms that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) diverted about $70 million, largely from teacher salaries and unemployment benefits, to avoid paying teachers a promised 4 percent contractual raise last school year. The money was instead given to the Chicago Police Department (CPD), mostly as payment for services previously rendered under prior agreements. CPS then falsely told the media that these payments were “owed” to CPD, and that CPS “had no choice” but to make these payments.
Records obtained from the FOIA lawsuit show that CPS has been paying about $8 million per year to CPD since 2002 for two police officers to be stationed at approximately 100 high schools to process arrests of juvenile offenders. The officers are supervised exclusively by CPD personnel. CPS provides, at its own expense, computer terminals connected to CPD for the officers’ use. CPS approved this continuing arrangement on February 24, 2010 (10-0224-PR16), authorizing the $8 million annual payments from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2012, for a total cost of $32.8 million.
information?
where did you get this?? when did it come out?
School budgets don't make everything clear
CPS doesn’t show how the formulas used to allocate funding are applied at each school. Federal school meals program eligibility counts and poverty indices for each school have been omitted. How does the public know whether Title 1 NCLB monies or Supplemental General State Aid have been distributed fairly? Also missing from the proposed budget documents are the enrollment projections for bilingual students and students with disabilities.
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