Category: Education
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Chicago State Missing $3.8M in Equipment
Chicago State University has been unable to locate $3.8 million worth of equipment, including 950 computers that could contain confidential information, according to a state audit. via Chicago Tribune. Doh! The story reflects that most of the equipment was actually purchased, and pilfered, during the Daley administration. I hope that this was discovered as a result…
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Eric Holder 1995: We Must Brainwash People on Guns
[In] 1995 … then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder announc[ed] a public campaign to “really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” Holder was addressing the Woman’s National Democratic Club. In his remarks, broadcast by CSPAN 2, he explained that he intended to use anti-smoking campaigns as his model to “change the hearts…
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Emanuel vs. Lewis
Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teacher’s Union President, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have a testy relationship at best. … The two leaders met privately last year ahead of Emanuel’s inauguration. They went for dinner and to attend a dance — both are fans of the art form — and to develop a working relationship. ……
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Chicago Teachers Asking for 30% Raises
The Chicago Teachers Union is asking for raises amounting to 30 percent over the next two years, the opening salvo in heated contract negotiations with school officials who are implementing a longer school day across Chicago Public Schools next school year. Documents obtained by the Tribune show that in the face of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s…
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Team Crane Unveil Turnaround Plan
Crane is not a school; it’s voluntary daytime detainment for youth. It can’t die soon enough. If only parents had a real choice of schools they would never send their children to Crane. But some refuse to let it die. A coalition of Crane teachers, students, parents and Near West Side community activists unveiled a plan Friday…
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Church Groups Getting Public Money
Here’s something: Faith-based groups that have become the face of community support for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s controversial plans to lengthen the school day and close failing schools also receive millions of dollars in grants from his administration. … One of the key players touting grass-roots support for Emanuel’s agenda is the Rev. Roosevelt Watkins, a…
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Illinois Unemployment vs. The Media
Good News!! CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Unemployment dropped to 9.8 percent in Illinois in December, state officials said Friday, a second straight monthly decrease that capped a year in which the jobless rate fell almost a full percentage point from 2010. via Chicago Tribune. Or, maybe not: The unemployment rate in the Chicago area rose…
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Worst Schools Ever
Six of every 10 Illinois public schools failed to meet federal test targets this year and risk federal sanctions as a result, according to information released Thursday by the Illinois State Board of Education. High schools fared the worst. Statewide, 656 of the 666 public high schools fell short of the proficiency standard on math…
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CPS racial disparity grew under Daley
A study by two University of Illinois at Chicago professors Thursday dumped on the idea of a Chicago Public Schools “miracle’’ under Mayor Daley and pushed for an elected — rather than appointed — school board to move city schools forward. The disparities between black and white students, and between Latino and white students, have…
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How to Really Save Education
The cool indy magazine Fast Company has a huge spread on education called, plainly enough, How to Spend $100 Million to Really Save Education. Naturally not all of the ideas are fully baked. It is Fast Company after all; it’s meant to be an article on the fringe, and on the fringe it is. But…