EXACERBATING INEQUALITY: CPS released next year’s individual school budgets to principals last week and, according to the CTU, schools across the city are seeing 10 percent to 25 percent cuts in funding. The union and education experts predict these cuts will lead to eliminated positions and more split-level classes, among other negative outcomes. “What we’re going to see is a degradation of education in neighborhood public schools, which is likely to result in even a widening of the inequalities that we already have in CPS,” said Pauline Lipman, professor of educational policy studies and director of the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Progress Illinois)

IN THE NATION
INDUSTRY OF MEDIOCRITY: The U.S. teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running classrooms and are quickly overwhelmed by the job, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The review found "an industry of mediocrity," with the vast majority of programs earning fewer than three stars on a four-star rating scale - and many earning no stars at all. (Reuters)

CUT TO THE BONE: Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, many who play supporting roles — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will be gone  by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band.

Touting their progress so far, Jadine Chou, CPS officer of safety and security, said parents at 42 of the schools receiving children from closed schools have seen their proposed “safe passage” routes and given their feedback. (Sun-Times)

SPENDING AND CUTTING: As Mayor Emanuel took another bold step toward spending $55 million for a DePaul basketball arena and a hotel, public school principals throughout the system were telling their staff what to expect in next year's budgets. As in—cuts, cuts, and more cuts, writes Ben Joravsky in the Chicago Reader.

IT'S HISTORY NOW: Peabody Elementary School, one of nearly 50 Chicago Public Schools slated for closure, commemorated 118 years of education before its doors close for good this summer. (ABC7 News)

IN THE NATION
ANOTHER EARLY CHILDHOOD INITIATIVE: Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation are partnering with Next Generation, a non-partisan strategic policy and communications organization, to launch “Too Small To Fail,” a new initiative to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five. Too Small to Fail will promote scientific research about early childhood development with the goal of reaching as many American parents and business leaders as possible and motivating them to act.  Click here to watch the Too Small To Fail video.  (Press release)

A CONTRACT, FINALLY: After five years of bitter bargaining, Oakland teachers and district officials have ratified a one-year agreement that gives teachers an immediate 1.5 percent raise and a one-time bonus. That raise will grow to 2 percent if, as expected, the governor signs the new state budget that has an extra $7 million for Oakland schools. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Still more such teacher layoffs as a result of school actions are likely going to happen in about a month.

In May, the Board of Education approved the closing of 49 elementary schools and one tiny high school, and the turnaround of five schools.

According to CPS, 1,005 teachers worked in the closing schools. Of those, 420 were laid off on Friday.  The 420 were either probationary teachers or teachers with satisfactory or unsatisfactory performance reviews.

Teachers with excellent or superior reviews are eligible to follow their students if the “welcoming” schools have  positions for them. These teachers will learn in mid-July whether there are available positions.

Many welcoming school principals say they will be able to work small groups of new students into existing classes without exceeding  CPS class-size limits.  and, therefore, won’t need additional teachers. For example, Principal Minnie Watson at DePriest Elementary expects to get 135 students from Emmet School’s closing but will need only three of their four teachers.

One way she will limit the number of new teachers is by letting her small primary-grade classes grow a bit. For example, DePriest  now has 18 students in 2nd grade. Next year, it will have 24.

“It is still below average,” she notes. “I believe in smaller class sizes. I use my discretionary money for it.”

Teachers who do not follow their students, as well as others  who got pink slips today, will have two choices. They can work as substitute teachers for up to a year, receiving their previous pay and benefits for the first five months. Or, they can resign and receive three months’ salary.

The 124 teachers and 67 clerks, bus aides and paraprofessionals being laid off at turnaround schools can reapply for their jobs. According to the teacher’s contract, the teachers will be allowed to go into the reassigned teacher pool.  

Also on Friday, CPS reported on what city agencies are doing to prepare for the transition of more than 13,000 students to new schools next year. Among other things, city departments are doing massive cleanups along routes that students are expected to walk. This is what they said they have done: towed more than 200 abandoned vehicles, removed 1,100 graffiti posts; trimmed 1,300 trees; mowed 1,400 lots; repaired 101 broken alley lights; fixed 722 street lights; completed more than 2,100 rodent abatements;  identified 478 vacant buildings and "addressed" more than half of those vacant buildings.

READING WOES: A raft of past programs in CPS have failed to substantially improve the reading skills of middle grade and high school students. The evidence: Only 10 high schools, all of them selective, have average reading scores for freshmen that are at a level that predicts college readiness, and 4 in 10 CPS high school graduates who go on to Illinois 4-year colleges end up in remedial courses. The summer 2013 issue of Catalyst In Depth reports on the problem of adolescent literacy and how CPS is trying once again to tackle it as part of a new federal project.

PARTNERING FOR SAFETY: Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett announced that CPS and its faith-based community partners will the expand Safe Haven program from some 60 to 100 locations across the city this summer. The program, started in 2009, is meant to keep Chicago students off the streets and engaged in educational activities during the winter, spring and summer breaks.  The program runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday starting July 1 and ending on Aug. 13. Each location will provide students free breakfast and lunch through CPS’s partnership with Catholic Charities. Throughout the day, the program will also engage students in workshops that focus on positive conflict resolutions, anger management, anti-bullying and anti-violence. (Press release)

IN THE NATION
THE NEW MAJORITY: Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in Texas public schools, surpassing non-Hispanic whites in Lone Star State enrollment for the first time in history. (Huffington Post)

SUCCESS AND FAILURE: Denver’s charter high schools are doing a better job than traditional public schools at retaining students, but are doing only slightly better than the traditional schools at graduating their students in four years. (EdNews Colorado)

COLLEGE GRADS SURGE: The number of Americans graduating from college has surged in recent years, sending the share with a college degree to a new high, federal data shows. Despite the recent improvement, higher education experts emphasized that college completion rates were still distressingly low, with only about half of first-time college freshmen who enrolled in 2006 having graduated by 2012, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. (The New York Times)

TAX OPTION: Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn't ruling out seeking a way to raise Chicago Public Schools' property tax cap to help close the $1 billion deficit the district faces. CPS is allowed to raise its property taxes annually by either the rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is less. Should the district want to raise its taxes by more than that, it could ask voters through a referendum, something suburban school districts have been doing for years. The district also could try an end-around through legislation in Springfield. (Tribune)

LEGAL OPENING: For now, Chicago Public Schools has legally left the door open to the possibility of halting 10 of its 50 historic school closings. Until a new judge can be assigned to a lawsuit filed by the Chicago Teachers Union and parents from 10 elementary schools, CPS attorneys agreed the district wouldn’t take any permanent actions at the schools in question. (Sun-Times)

PUSHBACK ON CHARTER PUSHOUTS: On Tuesday, student activists in the organization Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), many of whom had been pushed out of charter schools, held a press conference to protest the expulsions, fines and other push-out tactics used by charter schools to pick and choose which students are retained in these schools. The students called on legislators to demand accountability for all publicly funded schools. (http://charterpushout.tumblr.com/)

Students from George Washington High School won an honorable mention for best presentation in the “Cooking up Change” Healthy Cooking National Finals held recently at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington D.C. The students competed against seven other teams from across the county in the preparation of healthy, tasty and creative school lunches that meet the nutritional standards and cost structure of CPS school food service staff. (Press release)

IN THE NATION

ANOTHER RECONSTITUTION: D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson called it a “fresh start” and a “momentum-shifter” for Cardozo Senior High last month when administrators removed nearly half the staff at the school. Henderson had used her power to “reconstitute” the struggling school, requiring the entire staff to reapply for their positions. But the district’s efforts to remake schools this way have largely failed to produce improved test scores, suggesting that replacing staff is not by itself a reliable route to addressing the challenges of high-poverty inner-city schools. (The Washington Post)

TRUANCY COMPLAINT: Advocacy groups have filed a civil rights complaint with the Justice Department on behalf of seven students in Texas. The move was to protest policies under which students are referred to truancy court. (The New York Times)

PRINCIPALS' PURSES: Chicago Public Schools is in the process of briefing principals on how much money they’ll have to work with as the district continues the switch to a more rigorous curriculum and implements full-day kindergarten across the city. (WBEZ)

MURAL REMOVAL: Parents and teachers at Trumbull Elementary in Andersonville, one of 49 schools being closed by Chicago Public Schools, were dismayed when word spread this week that crews would be removing two century-old murals depicting Christopher Columbus. But district officials said Thursday afternoon that the murals won't come down before school lets out for the year. (Tribune)

IN THE NATION

STRIPPED TO THE BONE: Philadelphia's School Reform Commission adopted a stripped-down "Doomsday" budget last week that its own members called unconstitutional and inadequate. The $2.39 billion operating budget eliminates nearly everything from schools except a principal and a minimal number of classroom teachers, including counselors, librarians, sports, secretaries, support staff, music and art. (The Notebook)

SUPPORT FOR BANNED TEACHER: More than 100 supporters of a Seattle high school teacher insisted Seattle Public Schools board members reinstate him along with his now-banned frank discussion method of teaching about racial issues. Jon Greenberg’s racial- and social-justice-issues lessons stirred up controversy earlier this year when the family of a senior in his class filed a complaint that the class created an intimidating educational environment. Exactly what offended the student has not been released by the district, and other students in Greenberg’s class said they didn’t know what it was. (Seattle Times)

“So far we have received nothing but a rushed registration that has caused chaos,” said Rousemary Vega, whose children attend Lafayette. CPS spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said Friday that parents can still register students throughout the summer. 

A VOW TO FIGHT ON: The fight against school closures is not over, according to Chicago Public Schools parents who strategized Monday morning at Jean D. Lafayette Elementary on Chicago’s West Side. “CPS gave us this mess and a rushed enrollment process and we will not stand for it,” said Rousemary Vega, 32, an organizer of Monday’s meeting and Lafayette Elementary parent. “We’ve been fighting individually, but it has to stop. We need to get moms together and get moms involved to save our schools.” (Progress Illinois)

Here's more of what Vega had to say in this video by Progress Illinois.

FIRINGS FEARED: As Chicago Public Schools prepares to issue budgets for individual schools to principals, the Chicago Teachers Union is predicting that hundreds of its members could be laid off because of the district's ongoing budget woes. CPS last week failed to persuade state legislators to extend a pension holiday that has allowed the district to contribute less than required payments since 2010. Now the district faces an additional $412 million in pension payments in the coming year and that, along with the plan to close 49 elementary schools and a new per-pupil-based budgeting system, has led to fears of major layoffs. Meanwhile, CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said cuts will be kept "as far away from the classroom as possible" and that class sizes will not be increased. (Tribune)

CHARTER BOAST: Officials from a neighborhood charter school are boasting an expected graduation rate this year that's 29 percent higher than the rest of Chicago Public Schools. Chicago Math and Science Academy Principal Aydin Kara  projected 92 percent graduation rate. (DNAInfo)

RACE AND ARRESTS IN CPS: Last year, 75 percent of the students arrested in Chicago’s public schools were black, according to new research conducted by Loyola University and Project NIA, adding to the growing evidence that the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline” — a phenomenon in which students are funneled into the criminal justice system for mere disciplinary violations — can have disproportionate racial impacts. (Think Progress)

IN THE NATION
TEACHER ENTREPRENEURS: Seven years ago, Paul Edelman, a former  New York City teacher, created TeachersPayTeachers (TpT), an open marketplace where teachers could buy--and sell--materials that they created. It's boomed: The site has more than 1.93 million registered users. Teachers have collectively published more than a half million resources on TpT and earned nearly $30 million. A Georgia kindergarten teacher Deanna Jump, made headlines when her personal earnings from TpT crossed the $1 million mark. (EdSurge)

"Everybody's eyes are on Chicago now," said Muhammad Khalifa, an assistant professor of educational administration at Michigan State University in East Lansing, who co-authored a paper for the research journal Urban Education on parents' responses to school closings. "Parents in the resistance movements and administrators will be watching to see what happens next," he said.

EDUCATION DATA MAPPING: At the immigration hackathon Migrahack this past weekend, a team made up of programmer Norbert Winklareth, Gate editor and WBEZ fellow Adriana Cardona-Maguigad, Catalyst reporter Rebecca Harris, and data analysts Heather Gerberich and Carlos McReynolds created maps of early childhood education needs around Chicago, as well as the percentage of bilingual students in the city’s neighborhoods.

PENSION CONTENTION: After Illinois lawmakers rejected a plan for Chicago Public Schools to delay pension payments, the District’s budget problems may have gone from bad to worse. Three years ago, the Illinois state legislature gave Chicago Public Schools what critics called a ‘pension holiday,’ where the district could reduce payments owed to its retirement system. That’s set to expire at the end of June, meaning Chicago’s schools will have to make room for an extra $400 million in its budget to pay for teachers’ pensions. (WBEZ)

IN THE NATION
SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL TREND: Community colleges "are in great danger of becoming indelibly separate and unequal institutions in the higher-education landscape," a Century Foundation task force warns in a report that was released last month. To deal with what it calls "the increasing economic and racial isolation of students" at community colleges, the group also calls for major changes in how two-year colleges are financed and operated. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

MENTOR GRADUATION: On Tuesday morning, 500 parent mentors, principals and members of community-based organizations will gather for the first annual statewide Parent Mentor graduation. The ceremony, at Darwin Elementary School, will celebrate the statewide expansion of the Parent Mentor program this past year and restoration of $1 million in state funding. In the past six months, the Parent Mentor Program has grown to a total of 59 schools--42 neighborhood schools in Chicago Public Schools and 16 schools outside 5 communities outside Chicago (Aurora, Bolingbrook, Chicago Ridge, the Quad Cities and Skokie), as well as Colorado, Michigan, and Maryland. The growth came from pilot Illinois State Board of Education funding administered by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the Parent Engagement Institute at Logan Square Neighborhood Association and the Southwest Organizing Project. (Press release)

IN THE NATION
SUSPENSION CONTENTION: California students were suspended more than 700,000 times over the 2011-2012 school year. One school district decided it was getting ridiculous. In May, the board for the Los Angeles Unified School District to ban the use of suspensions to punish students for "willful defiance." (NPR)

PAST THE IMPASSE: The New York State education commissioner broke a long and acrimonious impasse on Saturday by imposing a new evaluation system that would rate New York City teachers in part on their students’ test scores and streamline the disciplinary process. (The New York Times)

SEEKING ANOTHER OPTION: Parents from three schools slated for closure are demanding their children be allowed to attend a Wicker Park magnet school. Meanwhile, Chicago Public Schools announced Thursday that nearly 50 percent of students attending welcoming schools next year have already enrolled for fall. (FOX 32)

MIXED RESULTS: CPS announced on Thursday that half of the students from closing schools have enrolled in new schools and, so far, the vast majority—some 86 percent—are going to the designated receiving schools. But a breakdown of enrollment numbers by school shows wide variation among parents declaring where they will send their children in the fall. (Catalyst)

DIGITAL MEDIA STRIDES: A learning center for teens at the Harold Washington Library demonstrates both the challenges and opportunities of the efforts to exploit technology and digital media, a new report from the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research finds. YOUmedia Chicago attempts to capitalize on teens’ interest in technology to motivate them to create, innovate and become active learners by providing them access to digital media, a safe, inviting space and staff members who serve as mentors. Currently there are 30 learning centers across the country being modeled on YOUmedia Chicago and funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. (Press release)

But a breakdown of enrollment numbers by school shows wide variation among parents declaring where they will send their children in the fall. At King on the West Side and Parkman and Bontemps on the South Side, fewer than 10 percent of parents enrolled their children in new schools. At Stockton on the North Side, where the building is not closing but Courtenay’s staff is taking over Stockton's building, nearly everyone enrolled, according to CPS data.  

CPS officials had said they wanted all parents to fill out forms indicating where they will go by Friday, 10 days after the historic vote to shutter 50 schools. However, district officials acknowledge that some parents might still be deciding where to send their children.

“Parents who remain undecided can also register their child throughout the summer leading up to the start of the school year on August 26,” a press release states.

CPS says some 11,800 students attend closing schools and that almost 5,800 have enrolled. These numbers include special education students who have been “placed” by CPS in separate programs that are moving.

Just because a parent turns in enrollment forms doesn’t mean that students will show up in September. Parents can and do change their mind.

However, CPS leaders would like to get a handle on where parents intend on taking their children as enrollment is the main factor driving school budgets, which have yet to be given to principals. “Early enrollment is key to a successful transition for students,” CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said in the release.

CPS spokeswoman Molly Poppe said students whose schools are relocating, but not closing, can enroll in a new schools if they want, but they are not included in these figures.

While parents of closed schools are guaranteed a spot in a designated receiving school, they have been told that they can choose to send their children to other neighborhood schools, if seats exist.

Wendy Katten, president of the parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand, said she has heard from parents who are unclear what they can or need to do if they are interested in other schools. She notes that many of the designated receiving schools have been proven to not be much better than the closing school.

“To me one of the biggest issues is the lack of time,” she said. “It is not clear to parents whether they are able to go on a tour or how to get clear information. There is an assumption that the education of their children is not important to parents.”

One big question is whether schools with excess capacity under CPS guidelines, but with waiting lists for special magnet or selective programs, have to take students. This was tested on Thursday by a group of parents organized by the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization.

Education organizer Jitu Brown took mothers and grandmothers from South Side schools--Overton, Williams and Parkman—to Pritzker Elementary School in Wicker Park. The receiving schools for Overton and Williams are the poorest-rated in the district, while the receiving school for Parkman has a mid-level rating.

All of the parents with Brown said they were refusing to enroll their students in the designated receiving school and were still fighting to keep their schools open.

“We will remain open,” said Irene Robertson, who has children at Overton. “We are not going to allow you to take our schools.”

Pritzker, which houses a gifted program, a magnet program and is a neighborhood school, has a Level 1 rating, the highest rating CPS gives. According to CPS’ utilization formula, the school could house 750 students. At the moment, its population is around 670.

Brown said the school has about 75 open seats and his parents would like them.

At about 9 a.m., the parents walked into Pritzker. Principal Joenile Stevente Albert-Reese met them at the desk in the office. Albert-Reese showed the group Pritzker's waiting list for next year. It went on for pages and had hundreds of names.

“We will be happy to add your name to the list,” she said.

Brown told her he thought the waiting list should be waived, considering the children are being displaced against their will.

Albert-Reese said that is an issue that must be taken up with central office.

She said she thinks the school utilization formula for her school is wrong because it doesn’t take into account the parent room, the Spanish room, an art room and a science lab. And this year she might lose some of these rooms as more neighborhood families are enrolling their children. Pritzker must accept those living in the attendance boundary.

A few parents put their names on the waiting list and Brown told Albert-Reese that he has nothing against Pritzker. “I just want our babies to have the same opportunities as your babies,” he said.

Brown said throughout the summer he plans to take parents to highly-rated schools with space and try to get them to enroll students from closed schools.

Excel file with school-by-school enrollment information is attached.

ANOTHER LAWSUIT: The Chicago Teachers Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday that seeks to keep 10 schools from being closed down, the third such action aimed at reversing the Board of Education’s approval last week to close 49 elementary schools and a high school program.The lawsuit contends that CPS ignored the recommendations of independent hearing officers who opposed the closings on the grounds that the district did not follow state law or its own guidelines for shutting down schools. (Tribune)

TRUANCY TASK FORCE: State Sen. Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago) is calling for a task force to study the truancy and absenteeism crisis in Chicago Public Schools. The Senate adopted a resolution creating the group and instructing it to hold public hearings and report its findings to the General Assembly by the end of this year. In 2012, a Chicago Tribune investigation found that nearly 1 in 8 CPS students in grades K-8 missed four or more weeks of class during the 2010-11 school year. Nine percent of kindergarteners were classified as chronically truant. More than one-fifth of black elementary school students and 42 percent of students with special needs were absent four or more weeks during the same time period. (Press release)

YOUTH ARRESTS: Project NIA released a new report titled “Policing Chicago Public Schools 2: School-Based Arrests 2011 and 2012.” The report relies on data from the Chicago Police Department to show the types of offenses and the demographics of the youth arrested on CPS properties in calendar years 2011 and 2012.  One of the key data points in the report showed that overall youth school-based arrests have been decreasing. In 2010, more than 5,500 arrests of young people under 18 years old took place on CPS properties. In 2011, the number of youth school-based arrests (18 & under) was 4,959 and in 2012, it was 4,287. Also, black youth are still disproportionately targeted by these arrests. While they represent about 42 percent of CPS students, black youth accounted for 75.5 percent of school-based arrests in 2012, mirroring the general trend of disproportionate minority contact within the juvenile legal system.

AVOIDING CONFLICTS: The United Neighborhood Organization needs to adopt “robust conflict-of-interest” policies in the wake of a scandal that’s jeopardized tens of millions of dollars of state funding for UNO’s network of charter schools in Chicago, a retired federal judge hired by the politically influential group urged Thursday. Former Judge Wayne Andersen also recommended that UNO — which relies largely on funding from the Chicago Public Schools for its charter operation — require sealed, competitive bidding for contracts for its schools. (Sun-Times)

IN THE NATION
MATH VS. READING: Schools that work with low-income students are consistently finding that problems with math are more easily addressed than problems with reading. (The New York Times)

IMPROVED BY EVALUATION: A report shows that 49 Pittsburgh principals surveyed believe the district's evaluation system is helping teachers to improve rather than just being punitive.

PROTEST PICNIC: Dozens of CPS students and their families gathered on Memorial Day for a picnic at Millennium Park to protest school closings. The event was organized by parents, community members, and several local education activist organizations, including Raise Your Hand, Parents4Teachers and Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools. It featured a temporary art installation, letter-writing and paper-flower making to be delivered to elected officials this week. Letters from the event will urge Illinois legislators and Gov. Quinn to support the passage of the School Closing Moratorium bills HB3283 and SB1571 before the end of the legislative session on May 31. (ABC7News/press release)

ALSO: According to Raise Your Hand, a recent Freedom of Information Act request showed that, in making the decision to close schools, the BOE used no information about classrooms used for special education or other specialized programs and no information about grade-level enrollment at closing and receiving schools. They had no itemized analysis about operational or capital savings that they claimed would come from the closings. Independent estimates of savings itemized by school were less than half of CPS’s claimed estimates. (Press release)

INSTANT FAME: Asean Johnson, the 9-year-old third-grader who shot to celebrity last week when a video of him speaking at an anti-school closing rally went viral on YouTube, was profiled in Sunday's Tribune.

IN THE NATION
MORE AND BETTER LEARNING TIME:  A dearth of good programs and district budget cuts are hurdles to providing quality extended-day programs for children, but charter schools and some traditional schools are still finding innovative ways to provide more and better learning time in Philadelphia Public Schools. Community schools are also part of the mix. Catalyst Chicago’s sister publication, the Philadelphia Notebook, devoted its new summer edition to the topic.  It’s part of a multi-city reporting project on expanded learning time that includes Philadelphia, Catalyst Chicago, EdNews Colorado, Gotham Schools (New York City) and EdSource (California). Major funding was provided by the Ford Foundation.

SCHOOL NEWSPAPERS FADE AWAY: Fewer than one in eight of New York City’s public high schools reported having a newspaper or print journalism class in an informal survey this month by city education officials, who do not officially track the information. Many of these newspapers have been reduced to publishing a few times a year because of shrinking staffs, budget cuts and a new focus on core academic subjects. Some no longer come out in print at all, existing only as online papers or as scaled-down news blogs. (The New York Times)

The union announced that it’s hosting the first in a series of training sessions Thursday for volunteers to register 100,000 new voters.

After the vote, Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not hold any news conferences Wednesday, instead issuing a brief statement on the board vote through his aides. Spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said the mayor ­— who was criticized for being on a ski trip to Utah when the school-closings list came out in March — spent Wednesday working in his office at City Hall. (Sun-Times)

REPORTING ON THE VOTE: Now that the much anticipated vote on Chicago Schools closing has taken place, here's how local and national media covered the school board's action:

Sun-Times: CPS makes history, closing scores of schools in less time than it takes to boil an egg

Tribune: School closings disappoint many aldermen

Tribune: Photos show raw emotions at school board meeting

Tribune: Decision to spare 4 schools delights some parents

Associated Press: The Chicago Board of Education voted Wednesday to close 50 schools and programs, an ambitious plan that has sparked protests and lawsuits and could help define, for better or worse, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's term in office.

Crains: Chicago Public Schools OKs closing 50 schools

A CHANGED MIND: Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown says that Wednesday's vote moved him to switch his position about Chicago's need for an elected school board. "I changed my mind while watching Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s six appointees to the Board of Education vote unanimously to close 50 schools next year despite thoughtful and impassioned pleas from community members begging them to reconsider."

SOCIAL MEDIA REACTION: Lots of tweeting about CPS closings. Here a few pulled from my timeline:

@rickyburton: With all the school closings in #chicago it will no longer be a right to go to school but a privilege just to get to one. #cpsclosings

@soit_goes: Ballons with names of all 54 schools being closed being released in front of Manierre Elementary. #CPSclosings pic.twitter.com/yT6N2SYJls

@From_Nothing: Anybody wanna guess how many of the schools that were closed will reopen eventually as charter schools? #cpsclosings

IN THE NATION:
MOOCS BACKLASH: Professors across the U.S. are criticizing a rush to offer free online college courses, challenging a movement designed to spread knowledge and reduce higher-education costs. Amherst College faculty voted last month against joining an initiative led by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The provost at American University issued a moratorium in January on such massive open online courses, or MOOCs. At San Jose State University, the philosophy department refused to use a free Web course from a Harvard professor. (Bloomberg)

CPS named “welcoming schools” for each of those that will close in the massive shakeup this fall. But in a district that offers an increasing number of school choices for parents, officials want to get a handle on just where students will end up on Aug. 26, the first day of school. In the past, only about half of displaced students attended the school CPS officials designated as welcoming.

About 46,000 students are affected by the actions approved at Wednesday's raucous meeting, marking the biggest restructuring in the district's history and the most schools ever closed at a single time in the nation. Weeks of protests by the Chicago Teachers Union, parents and community activists failed to sway the board or the district, beyond the last-minute decision to remove a handful of schools from the target list. Dozens of attendees were escorted out of board chambers for disrupting the meeting.

With these actions, the number of neighborhood elementary schools will fall to 344, down from nearly 400 a decade ago.

Getting a handle on where students will be in school this fall is of the upmost importance. School budgets are based on enrollment projections and, if fewer students show up than projected, the school will lose teachers. Conversely, if more students show up, classes can left without permanent teachers for weeks.

CPS officials appear to be waiting to get a handle on how enrollment will shake out under the school actions before giving schools their budgets, which are usually given to schools earlier in the spring. 

Darlene Williams, who has two children and a niece and nephew at Paderewski, said she thinks that fewer than 15 percent of students from that school will go to the two designated welcoming schools. The receiving schools are mostly Latino, but Paderewski is mostly black and many of its students might end up at Crown, which is also predominantly African American.

With the votes cast, Brennemann Principal Sarah Abedelal said she and her staff will be at Stewart Elementary on Thursday afternoon handing out flyers to try to get students to enroll in her school. She is hoping that 170, or about 70 percent, of Stewart’s students enroll in Brennemann.

“If we don’t get the students, it will be a budget nightmare,” she said.

Abedelal said she didn’t want to do any overt selling of her school until after the votes were cast.

Some last-minute maneuvering did occur.  Before the vote, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett recommended that board members vote no on four closures--Manierre, Mahalia Jackson, Garvey and Ericson--and one school, Barton from the turnaround list. 

On the remaining 50 schools, only one vote was not unanimous, with board members Carlos Azcoitia and Jesse Ruiz opposing the closure of Von Humboldt.

Taking pains to explain their actions, board members said they made a point of having at least one member visit each targeted school. Board President David Vitale said he and other members walked past vacant lots, saw floors devoid of students and classrooms used as storage.

“We have tried to understand school by school what this would mean,” he said.

In the end, board members said they voted in favor of the closings because they believed the rationale, often repeated by the district, that closing under-used buildings would allow them to focus limited resources on a smaller number of schools. As part of the action, 17 of the welcoming schools will become speciality schools, offering International Baccalaureate, STEM--science, technology, engineering and math--or fine arts programs. The welcoming schools will also get extra resources such as iPads, as well as upgraded facilities--air conditioning, science labs and libraries.  

Azcoitia said the extra resources were the reason he voted for the actions; otherwise he would have voted no.

"If resources are not abundant, then this is what we need to do," he said.

Board member Henry Bienen said that people who question whether closing schools will save money don’t understand economics. District officials have lowered their initial savings estimates.

“There are short-term costs of relocation, but fairly immediately we will see savings in not heating schools, not turning on the lights,” he said.

Bryd -Bennett also took time to defend her position. She reiterated that CPS has lost significant enrollment over the past decade and that has left some schools without many students and "tens of thousands trapped in under-utilized schools and under-resourced schools," sometimes in split-grade classes and without access to current technology. 

She said the blame rests with CPS for not making hard decisions previously, "Like it or not, our schools do have to change," she said.

As she talked, attendees disrupted the board meeting saying "Children will die because of CPS lies." 

A Chicago police officer told board members that the department looked at things like lights along the way, the condition of buildings and other issues. He said Chicago police see the closings as an opportunity to bring together communities that have not previously gotten along.

"They will learn and play together," he said.

But at least 100 parents and activists came to the board meeting to let members know how much they disliked the proposals.

As Erika Clark recited the entire long list of schools proposed for closure and declared that they were “my school,” the microphone shut off, signaling that she had exhausted her two minutes of allotted speech time.

Clark then sat down near the podium and was carried out by white-coated CPS security men. Clark staged one of several actions at the meeting and was one of the dozens of people forcefully removed while chanting or yelling.  

The meeting started with a parade of aldermen asking board members to protect their schools. Ald. Latasha Thomas said she came to ask  board members to step back and listen to what parents are asking for.

"Make sure you are not using a saw when you should be using a scaffold," Thomas said.

Ald. Walter Burnett reminded the board that the city has a high homicide rate, and said it is disingenuous for the board to say a school is underutilized while opening new charter schools. LEARN Charter School is across from Calhoun, which will close. Rather than open charter schools, Burnett suggested schools be rebranded.

The public participation part of the meeting ended with a parent from Overton saying the fight won’t be over. "On the first day of school next year, we will be there," she said.

The last speaker led the group in a prayer. “There is a right, there is a wrong, there is a just and an injustice,” said the woman who was there to oppose the closing of Morgan.