The Illinois Network of Charter Schools blog spotlights Schools Chief Ron Huberman’s comments at the year’s first District 299 charter school get together.

Mr. Huberman spent much of his time reviewing the “report card” that CPS will release in the next 4 -6 months which will provide parents reliable information about how every public school is performing. And school leaders agreed to the need for clarity and accountability while offering several refinements to the process.

* It's official, reports Sarah Karp. After exactly 29 years a federal judge has ended the desegregation consent decree for Chicago Public Schools that helped create magnet schools. WBEZ's Linda Lutton also has coverage, including a link to the full court document.

* Speaking of WBEZ, they will be offering an abridged version of Board of Education meetings each month, along with unfiltered audio.

* Highly speculative alert: Mike Klonsky hears that Barbara Eason-Watkins may be on her way out; following Josh Edelman’s firing last week. Klonsky says CPS insiders are telling him that Huberman is in house cleaning mode and is even monitoring teachers and staff with hidden video cameras.

* Matt Farmer on Huffington Post asks if CPS principals should disclose any serious violations of the district’s student code of conduct.

* Police arrested a 15-year-old boy after he allegedly fired shots outside Fenger High yesterday.

* The Tribune features a 19-year CPS veteran who has released a new gospel album.

* Huberman will be on PFLAG TV, Channel 21 (CAN-TV), tonight at 6:30.

* Chicago Blackhawks visited Nettelhorst Elementary yesterday to celebrate the opening of new fitness center they funded.

Across Illinois

* Ed Week notices a few lines tucked away in the latest GAO report on stimulus spending, and it could spell trouble for Illinois, DC, Puerto Rico and three other states.

It's apparently a good thing that the Education Department is closely monitoring Illinois and California, because GAO already found cash-management problems with those two states. (Fast forward to page 65 of the PDF document.) Illinois, for example, is apparently sending State Fiscal Stabilization Fund money to local school districts before they're prepared to spend the funds, which is a red flag for auditors.  

* The Tribune reports that Chicago State, having posted lowly graduation and retention rates, may be at risk of losing its accreditation.

* Gov. Quinn will be joining students at Northern Illinois University today in a show of support for restoring MAP grant funding. Advance Illinois’ newsletter also points out a calendar for similar Save Illinois Map Grants events across the state.

* A local blogger has more on Peoria’s efforts to attract US Sec. of Education Arne Duncan’s attention on school reform efforts.

Across the country

* USA Today’s Greg Toppo says Duncan planned to call for sweeping reforms in the reauthorization of federal education legislation at yesterday’s “stakeholders’ forum”—invoking, in the speech, Rev. Martin Luther King’s efforts to integrate schools and communities.

The "stakeholders' forum," which has met monthly since last summer, represents 162 groups with wide-ranging interests. They include the USA 's two biggest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, as well the NAACP, National Governors' Association, United Way of America , the Children's Defense Fund and the Business Roundtable, among others.

Duncan says he wants NCLB reauthorized by early 2010, according to the AP. Of course, you can always read the USDE’s press release.

* The AP reports that seven charters in North Carolina have filed a lawsuit seeking funding on par with traditional schools, especially for buildings and transportation services. This is a long running debate and it’s difficult to calculate just how much less money—or more, in some cases—charters get. While recognizing that Chicago charters struggle with facility funding, Catalyst has found evidence that CPS prioritizes renovation projects for buildings that house Renaissance 2010 schools.

* The Wall Street Journal takes an affirmative look at Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby’s latest research on charter schools in New York. Hoxby has penned several positive reports on school choice efforts. But her latest report deserves special attention, as it utilized results from charter school lotteries to more effectively deal with the ‘creaming’ problem that plagues most school choice research.

According to the study, the most comprehensive of its kind to date, New York charter applicants are more likely than the average New York family to be black, poor and living in homes with adults who possess fewer education credentials. But positive results already begin to emerge by the third grade: The average charter student is scoring 5.8 points higher than his lotteried-out peers in math and 5.3 points higher in English. In grades four through eight, the charter student jumps ahead by 5 more points each year in math and 3.6 points each year in English.

* I missed this on Wednesday, but Advance Illinois didn’t. Ed Week’s Michele McNeil says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be offering Race to the Top funding and technical help to any state that meets eight education criteria. The foundation had originally handpicked 15 states, leaving Illinois out in the cold.

* Of course, the media is abuzz over Chicago’s Olympics bid, and Lynn Sweet reports that Duncan will be traveling with first lady Michelle Obama—and perhaps the president himself—to Denmark to press Chicago’s case.

* The Wall Street Journal takes a look at online learning and worries about social isolation.

"For online high schools, the biggest obstacle is addressing the social interaction for the students," said Raymond Ravaglia, deputy director of Stanford's Educational Program for Gifted Youth, which Ms. Ray attended. "At that age, people really crave social interaction."

Roughly 100,000 of the 12 million high-school-age students in the U.S. attend 438 online schools full-time, up from 30,000 five years ago, according to the International Association for K-12 Learning Online, a Washington nonprofit representing online schools. Many more students take some classes online, while attending traditional schools. The National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education, says 1.5 million K-12 students were home-schooled in 2007, a figure that includes some who attended online schools. That is a 36% increase from the 1.1 million in 2003.

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