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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

Thursday, July 15, 2010 - 7:20am

In the News: Six-figure teacher pay; school reform a major voting issue

By: Cassandra West

A Tribune analysis of public school teachers' salaries finds that the Chicago region has the heaviest concentration of six-figure teachers in Illinois, particularly in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties. Statewide, only 4 percent of teachers earn at least $100,000. Almost half the teachers in Township High School District 113 made six-figures — the highest in the state.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010 - 7:16am

In the News: Summer school is for getting ahead; teacher pay disparities

By: Cassandra West

Once a last resort for failing students needing remedial support, summer schools in the Chicago area now draw high school students with college-prep courses that offer them an academic edge, the Tribune's Tara Malone reports. One factor is that Illinois high schoolers must take more courses to graduate since the state ramped up requirements in 2005.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 7:27am

In the News: School taxation inequities challenged; public education's 'quiet revolution'

By: Cassandra West

The Chicago advocacy organization, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, is reopening the legal issue of school taxation inequities in a lawsuit filed this spring in Sangamon County Circuit Court in Springfield. The lawsuit notes that the tax rate paid by a property owner in New Trier Township High School District 203 in 2006 was almost 2.5 times less than the rate paid by plaintiff Paul Carr to his Homewood-Flossmoor District 233. Yet Homewood-Flossmoor had less money to spend on each student's schooling. (Pioneer Local)

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Monday, July 12, 2010 - 11:05am

Life after high school: Boot camp at Cook County Jail

By: Sarah Karp
Tags: Reaching Black Boys

Last year, Kenny Rainey was saying goodbye to high school. He had too few credits to graduate and was nervous about his future, but he had a summer job lined up and plans to enroll in an alternative school to earn his diploma.   But now, Kenny is in Cook County Jail’s boot camp, where he was sentenced for possessing an illegal firearm. Two days before he was shipped to the camp, he appeared much thinner than he had been a year ago, and looked pale in the fluorescent light of a jail visiting room.   Kenny’s story is in our In Focus section.

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Monday, July 12, 2010 - 5:41am

In the News: Picking CPS' new chief education officer; the high cost of early resignations

By: Cassandra West

City Hall sources tell the Sun-Times that Mayor Daley is meeting some resistance to his effort to make Mary Ellen Caron, the founder and former principal of his daughter's Catholic elementary school, the new chief education officer for CPS. If Caron becomes chief education officer, she would be the first white and non-CPS educator to assume that post since Daley won control of the city's public schools in 1995.

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Friday, July 9, 2010 - 7:28am

In the News: TIF funding for CPS; the year of the education documentary

By: Cassandra West

WBEZ's Hunter Clauss reports this morning on the growing number of teachers and parents who are pressuring Mayor Richard Daley and CPS CEO Ron Huberman to direct TIF funding to schools. TIFs are the city's tax increment financing districts that collect $500 million in property taxes a year. Daley has the final say in how the money is spent. But the Chicago Teacher's Union and a group of mostly North Side parents say TIFs are siphoning millions of dollars from Chicago Public Schools — money that would help balance the books.

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