Current Issue

Special Education

Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.

charter schools

May 17, 2012

Chicago Public Schools plans to add 60 more charter schools over five years, part of a larger proposal for 100 new schools over the same five years that is laid out in an application seeking $20 million for charter schools from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Tribune reports.

May 10, 2012

SPRINGFIELD -- The Chicago Teachers Union and other charter critics spoke out strongly in opposition to a proposal that would increase the funding that school districts must provide for charter schools, squaring off against supporters who want equal funding with traditional public schools.

May 09, 2012

SPRINGFIELD - The Illinois House Executive Committee voted 10-1 Wednesday afternoon to approve a bill that would significantly increase the amount of funding that school districts have to provide for charter schools.

The vote came despite a furious campaign against the bill by the Chicago Teachers Union and others who fear the bill will divert millions of dollars away from neighborhood public schools.

May 07, 2012

A new report by the National Education Policy Center that focuses on charter schools' financial performance concludes that many well-known charter school networks spend more money than comparable, regular public schools.

April 11, 2012

High school students from the University of Chicago Charter School in Woodlawn marched from their campus to 63rd Street and University Avenue Wednesday morning for an assembly in remembrance of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen who was shot and killed by a self-described neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida. (Photo story)

April 04, 2012
April 04, 2012
April 04, 2012
April 04, 2012

Charter school operators have long complained that the district undercuts them when it comes to funding for special education students and are pushing CPS for more equitable funding.

Illinois Network for Charter Schools President Andrew Broy says that the issue is one of the last remaining negotiation points for a charter-district compact now in the works. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is pushing these compacts nationally, to encourage cooperation and collaboration between charter and traditional schools.

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