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Current Issue

Adolescent Literacy

A raft of past programs have failed to substantially improve the reading skills of middle grade and high school students. CPS is trying once again, as part of a federal project that aims to help teens learn how to analyze complex non-fiction.

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Catalyst Notebook

Friday, June 7, 2013 - 2:39pm

Report sheds light on out-of-school science learning

By: Sarah Karp
Tags: expanded learning time

As leaders push Chicago schools to focus more on STEM programs--science, technology, engineering and math--a new study finds that more than 88,000 students are exposed to these disciplines outside of school and more than half of them are girls.

But Latino children, in particular, are left out of these programs. And few programs are offered during the summer.

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Friday, June 7, 2013 - 8:41am

In the News: Displaced students get less than promised

By: Cassandra West
Tags: Barbara Bryd-Bennett, school closings

CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett promised that each child whose school disappeared would be guaranteed new science or arts programs in 19 of the schools taking in those displaced children and investments in all the receiving schools: air conditioning, libraries and iPads. But after the dust settles, and many school boundaries are redrawn, not all children living in the shadow of a closing school will reap these benefits, according to the Sun-Times.

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Thursday, June 6, 2013 - 4:18pm

Proposed school ratings: Scrap ISAT, close achievement gap

By: Sarah Karp
Tags: ISAT, performance

Chicago Public Schools is floating a new performance policy that would abandon the ISAT, grade schools on their progress in closing the achievement gap and create a five-tier rating system rather than the three-level system currently in place.

It also would make schools accountable for having 95 percent of students tested as a way to make sure the data is accurate.

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Thursday, June 6, 2013 - 9:07am

In the News: CPS eyes tax hike, bigger classes

By: Cassandra West
Tags: CPS budget

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday defended his failed attempt to ease pension payments bearing down on the Chicago Public Schools and did not rule out increases in property taxes or class sizes, according to the Sun-Times.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - 5:31pm

Budgets given to principals, CPS taps 'reserves'

By: Sarah Karp
Tags: CPS budget, finance and budgets

Last summer in the midst of teacher contract negotiations and as they prepared to undertake massive school closings, CPS leaders said they were using one-time reserves to fill a budget deficit and were completely out of money.

But on Wednesday, district officials said they will once again use one-time reserves to fill a budget deficit projected to be close to $1 billion. District officials made this announcement as they were releasing school budgets to principals.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - 7:58am

In the News: Parents cite chaos in CPS registrations

By: Cassandra West
Tags: charter schools, school closings

As Chicago Public Schools scrambles to get students at closing schools enrolled in new schools as soon as possible, about a dozen parents protesting outside Lafayette Elementary Monday deemed the enrollment push a “devastating registration mess” and lambasted CPS for giving parents just over one week after the vote to pick a new school, WBEZ's Becky Vevea reports.

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