Lawsuits, Advanced Placement, suburban struggles with ELLs. The Mayor still won't talk about the city sticker scandal. That's today's education news. Common Core PD on Saturday, and no school on Monday. (No class on three of the next four Mondays, actually.)
Tempers flare, insults fly over Chicago public school closings Sun Times: Opposing sides on the school closing issue faced off in the lobby of Chicago Board of Education headquarters Thursday, with one local school council member calling a group of ministers pushing for school closings “a bunch of liars” and a minister firing back, “See the results when you don’t educate people properly.”
LSC members sue Chicago school board to stop school closings WBEZ: The 10 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who serve on local school councils at nine different Chicago Public Schools, claim the district has violated Illinois school code by failing to give the local school councils, or LSCs, resources and specific action plans to fix their failing schools before...
Councils file lawsuit to stop school closings, turnarounds Catalyst: A coalition of local school council members filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop CPS from moving forward with its proposed school closings, phase-outs and turnarounds.
Chicago Teachers Union, community members ask court to stop school closings and turnarounds Tribune: With an assist from the Chicago Teachers Union, local school council members from nine city schools are asking a Cook County judge to block Chicago Public Schools from closing or "turning around" 17 underperforming schools this year. Union attorneys,...
Record number of Illinois students take Advance Placement exams Sun Times: A record number of Illinois high school students took Advanced Placement, or AP, exams last year. And the increase was especially notable among Latino students, as the number of Latinos taking AP classes has quadrupled in the past decade, the Illinois State Board of Education says.
Suburban Schools Lag as Bilingual Needs Grow CNC: Compliance problems included bilingual courses taught by teachers who lacked required language or subject-matter certification, classes with substandard content, and failure to make yearly assessments of how well students are learning English.
Educators say funding key to reducing dropouts Tribune: Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing state lawmakers to raise the age students can legally drop out of school from 17 to 18, a move aimed at improving graduation rates but one that local educators say won't accomplish much unless the state also provides the money to...
Emanuel refuses to weigh in on city sticker flap, protest settlement Clout St: Mayor Rahm Emanuel skirted a pair of hot button issues today, declining to weigh in on the city’s $6.2 million settlement with anti-war protesters and the flap over the design of the new city stickers.
Filed under: Daily News Roundup
All concerned citizens must come together to stop the school actions that will be presented and approved on Wenesday, February 22, 2012 at the Chicago Board of Education meeting! Thanking you in advance.
The quote from CPS Chief Education Officer Noemi Donoso that limited progress is better than "flat-lining," was very disturbing to me. The reason I found it to be disturbing was because the turnaround process as Ms. Karp's article points out is not cheap, and the CPS has a responsibility to the tax payers and citizens of Chicago to operate in a cost effective manner. Since we are operating currently in an economic situation of a state which is in deep crisis CPS has to assess the turnaround process not just in terms of small test score gains, but also based on a cost benefit analysis on a district level.
I agree with you on this. If there are two schools that teach to the same level of proficiency under the same circumstances and conditions, the school that operates at the lower overall budget is the one that should be modeled. We hear a lot about the research, but I am hard pressed to see it in action at CPS. If the research is that compelling, why isn't it implemented to fidelity? It seems that CPS, or maybe public education in general, follows fad leadership, pretty much ignoring all the teachings of prior work.
Its not just Chicago, organized rallies to stop school closings are happening in NYC: More than one thousand students, parents, teachers and Occupy Wall Street protesters rallied in New York City on Thursday at a vote over the closing of two dozen public schools. The protesters, under the umbrella group Occupy the DOE, tried to stop the vote from happening. Using the human microphone, the protesters disrupted the meeting at times but were unsuccessful in stopping the closing of 23 schools. New York public school teacher Brian Jones and high school student Tafador Saurov helped organize the protests (Democracy Now!)
School closings protests are also happening in NYC: More than one thousand students, parents, teachers and Occupy Wall Street protesters rallied in New York City on Thursday at a vote over the closing of two dozen public schools. The protesters, under the umbrella group Occupy the DOE, tried to stop the vote from happening. Using the human microphone, the protesters disrupted the meeting at times but were unsuccessful in stopping the closing of 23 schools. New York public school teacher Brian Jones and high school student Tafador Saurov helped organize the protests (Democracy Now!)
Don't let "common core" ra,ra, ra parade let us forget the gross lack of basic resources, starting from school libraries in over a hundred schools, librarians, trade books, reading-rti coaches, and other support professionals that CEO Brizard and his merry Network Chiefs will help you forget about! Interesting how some networks send teachers to model public schools with state of the art libraries and libraries but NO DARN MONEY for the schools from which those teachers who are visiting to improve their situation. What kind of BS is that. CPS should have libraries and librarians in all schools!
The lack of resources in neighborhood schools in terms of support specialists and even something like trade books is criminal! The CPS Board president says that these poorest of the poor neighborhood schools are not getting additional support is beyhond the pale! Rahm's rule of CPS is a joke.
Crane High School in Chicago, Known for Basketball, Fights Closing - NYTimes.com http://ow.ly/918L7
Catalyst Publisher Linda Lenz: Questions about Consortium turnaround report, independence from CPS http://ow.ly/91typ
Mayor Emanuel is making school safety a BIG part of his speed camera campaign - Grid Chicago http://ow.ly/91tJw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk
Friday Crime Lab event featured some education aspects -- were you there? was it any good? UChicago News http://ow.ly/91tOG @uchicagouei
3 charged with sexual abuse at Lincoln Park High School - chicagotribune.com http://ow.ly/91MyS
I remember back in the day that "THE LOTTO" was going to be used to help fund schools. What happened to those funds? What is the monies collected, used for? Yes, I am talking about the Illinois State Lottery. We have winners and they pay taxes, where do these taxes go? Property taxes keep going up to finance schools, where do the monies go? Property values decrease, but taxes increase so they can fund schools. I don't have kids in school so why am I funding something that clearly isn't receiving it's monies. No, I have no problem contributing. I just don't like the fact that we keep paying higher taxes yet the City of Chicago is closing schools. How about our Alderman, and the Mayor take a cut in salaries to fund the schools.