Current Issue

School closings

As CPS prepares to close a record number of schools, the fate of students and communities is in question.

early childhood education

May 18, 2011

Chicago Public Schools has updated this spring’s Kindergarten Readiness  Tool, an assessment that aims to make the transition to kindergarten  smoother for preschoolers by giving parents and kindergarten teachers  information on what children have learned.

May 12, 2011

Preliminary results from an evaluation of Illinois’ state-funded  Preschool for All program show that children who participate make significant gains in language and social  skills by the time they enter kindergarten.

May 06, 2011

Last week, a state work group unveiled recommendations for an assessment that all Illinois kindergarten teachers would likely have to use with their students.

April 26, 2011

Illinois’ state preschool program lost 8 percent of its enrollment last year, according to an annual report released today by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

April 13, 2011

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offered a sort of apology to early childhood advocates, many of whom have felt slighted by his department’s lack of attention to birth-to-5 education.

March 28, 2011

Data from observations of 700 Chicago pre-kindergarten classrooms shows  that just 17 percent of the classrooms were rated as highly effective for  supporting student growth.

February 17, 2011

Illinois children have been dealt a heavy blow during the Great  Recession in terms of reduced state support for their education and  health needs and their general well-being, according to the group  Voices for Illinois Children.

February 07, 2011

Azeb Tsegay credits Early Head Start with helping her 5-year-old  daughter, Sara, get admitted into a gifted kindergarten. She wanted her youngest son, Nathaniel, to have the same opportunity and enrolled him in the program as well.

December 13, 2010

Chicago Public Schools has released results from the district’s first  Kindergarten Readiness Tool assessment, administered to 17,000 students as  they were leaving CPS-run preschool programs last May.

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