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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.

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City Colleges to offer summer courses to help incoming CPS graduates June 06, 2011 By: Cassandra West This summer, City Colleges is launching a new summer program aimed at preparing incoming Chicago Public Schools graduates for college-level work. Level Up will offer five weeks of classes and tutoring in reading, writing and math for up to 200 CPS grads whose placement test scores for City Colleges show they need remedial coursework. Nearly 90 percent of incoming students—a majority of whom are from CPS—need remedial work in one or more subjects, according to City Colleges. Read More \| (0) Comments	Q&A with Stand for Children grassroots organizers January 04, 2011 By: Rebecca Harris Many in Illinois know Stand for Children as the group behind a recent attempt to restrict teachers unions’ strike and bargaining rights. The Chicago Teachers Union and others have blasted the group as a “billionaire gang” out to gut public education. Read More \| (14) Comments
Q&A with National Council on Teacher Quality November 15, 2010 By: Rebecca Harris In a controversial report released last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality slammed the majority of Illinois’ schools of education for what it sees as weak program design. Read More \| (0) Comments	Q&A with Blondean Davis, CEO of Southland Prep Charter September 17, 2010 By: Cassandra West Blondean Davis, a top deputy under former Schools CEO Paul Vallas, left Chicago Public Schools in 2002 to become superintendent of south suburban Matteson Elementary School District 162. The predominantly black, high-poverty district defied conventional education wisdom with soaring test scores and a national award under Davis. Recently, Davis helped spearhead the launch of the first charter in south suburban Chicago: Southland College Prep, which will serve graduating 8th-graders from District 162. The charter fought a successful battle against Rich Township High School District 227, a relatively low-performing district that tried to block the school and argued that it would drain resources and students. Read More \| (7) Comments
Q&A with Diane Ravitch, author, New York University professor May 28, 2010 By: Catalyst Staff A Catalyst Conversation with Diane Ravitch from Catalyst Chicago on Vimeo. Earlier this spring, Catalyst hosted a conversation for its members with Diane Ravitch, a prominent education scholar who made big waves when she reversed ground and came out against such controversial measures as charters and high-stakes testing and accountability. The title of her new book is “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” This is an edited transcript of remarks during the Catalyst Conversation. Read More \| (10) Comments	Q&A with Richard Kahlenberg, consultant on magnet school admissions November 17, 2009 By: Rebecca Harris Anticipating the district’s release from its long-standing desegregation consent decree, CPS officials brought in Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, in 2008 to begin crafting a new plan for admitting students to magnet and selective schools. Kahlenberg is a longtime advocate of socioeconomic integration and has written extensively on education and civil rights, including the book All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice. Read More \| (2) Comments
Q&A with Byron Garrett, CEO, National Parent Teacher Association November 10, 2009 The National PTA is searching for new models to make the organization more relevant and effective in urban communities and with younger parents, says Byron Garrett, the group’s first male chief executive officer. Two examples: Virtual PTA’s, in which members stay in touch through Facebook or YouTube, and community-based models such as the one in Queens, New York, in which schools come together with local organizations to create a PTA. Garrett has a wealth of experience as an education leader and advocate, including a stint as an Arizona charter school principal and director of community and youth development for former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. Garrett, who is raising his two nephews, talked with writer Maren Handorf about parenting today and strategies for engaging parents. How has your role as a non-biological parent informed your role at PTA? My two nephews moved in with me when one was in middle school and the other in high school. I went to parent/teacher conferences, I checked their homework. So I really get it from that perspective. But what folks should understand about PTA is that there is a role and an opportunity for everyone. Whether you have children or not, or whether your children have already left home and you’re an empty-nester, there is still an opportunity for you to be engaged if you care about education in the future of this country. Read More \| (15) Comments	Q&A with Gary Cuneen, Seven Generations Ahead April 28, 2009 By: Elizabeth Blass Children in Chicago, especially those living in poor neighborhoods, are more likely to be overweight than children elsewhere in Illinois and across the nation, according to research compiled by the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children, a prevention program based at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Fresh from the Farm teaches children in CPS schools about the importance of good nutrition—an essential component in preventing obesity—as well as where and how fresh fruits and vegetables are grown. The program is an offshoot of the nonprofit organization Seven Generations Ahead, founded by Gary Cuneen in 2001 to help communities incorporate green, sustainable practices into their day-to-day lives. The organization spreads the word by speaking to teachers and principals about the program, and has begun training teachers in its curriculum. Cuneen spoke with writer Elizabeth Blass about the program’s successes and challenges. Read More \| (3) Comments

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