Two months into the school year, Chicago Board of Education officials Tuesday were already estimating next school year’s deficit at $700 million.

Chicago Board of Education officials Tuesday were already estimating next school year’s deficit at $700 million.

During the meeting, officials revealed the state still owes CPS $164 million from last school year and has been late on an additional $206 million so far this school year.

(Full story here.)

CPS is not only broke, but broken.  It’s time to look at all of the options available to fix, not just the politically expedient ones.

We should be looking at what I call the “Clean Sheet of Paper” solution.  If you put 25 educators in a room what kind of system would they build.  We should also be looking at the “Grey Paper” solution, how can we take what we have and make it better.  These are not mutually exclusive; they can be done in a parallel path.