Posts by Katy Yeiser

Two Kelvyn Park students talk about how they use their cell phones. Credit: Geoff Dougherty

But he didn’t raise the issue in his classroom the next school day. Instead, he took to his class blog.

Brennan, a teacher at Kelvyn Park High School, asked what the dust-up meant for the state of affairs between Iraq and the United States. Students responded with their thoughts, albeit at times expressed in informal language and with casual punctuation. Read more...

The mayor's office still has no word on any candidates or the progress of the search to replace Michael Scott as school board president more than two months after his death.

When reached late Wednesday, Mayor Richard M. Daley's press secretary Lance Lewis had no comment on any possible candidates or the progress of the search.

But education advocates across the city are chiming in on what type of person should lead the Chicago Board of Education.

The Chicago Teachers Union already asked that an educator replace Scott, who committed suicide in early November. And other education groups are asking that not only for an education-focused board president, but a new direction for the overall board.

The groups--the Caucus of Rank and File Teachers, Black Star Project and Parents United for Responsible Education--say that the school board needs to shift its focus from business to education. They are also pushing for a board that's more independent from the mayor.

"I'd love to wipe them clean and it be an elected school board that reflects the wants of the community," says Jackson Potter, the co-chair of the Caucus of Rank and File Teachers.

In order for the new board president to be able to have a real agenda to improve education for students, he or she needs to be independent of the mayor, says Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education.

"But that's unlikely to happen," Woestehoff says in an e-mail. Read more...

City and Chicago Public Schools officials yesterday announced changes aimed at giving students more access to better career and technical training programs. 

The changes consolidate 250 CPS programs in topics like culinary arts, business and cosmetology into 80 college and career academies.

Parents, students and community members of a South Side neighborhood brought their demands for a new school and library to Mayor Richard M. Daley's doorstep this morning.

Without it, they say, students no longer have a place to access the Internet, do homework and prepare for college-preparatory exams. Read more...

South Side community members say they will ask the mayor this morning to help them get Internet access at their flood-damaged library and to hear their concerns for a new neighborhood school.

At an 11 a.m. news conference at City Hall, the group will also ask for a meeting with the mayor to go over their proposal for a new neighborhood high school, so students don't have to attend Fenger High School, where a student was beaten to death, according to a news release.

A state representative owes more than $350,000 in rent and leasehold taxes for a Chicago Public Schools-owned property she has used as her office rent free for several years, the school district's inspector general said.

Davis, who is a former school administrator, says she met several times with school board members and officials to try and get a lease, so both the school district and state could sign off on it before paying rent. She would have had the state reimburse her for the costs of occupying the building, but never got a lease to do so, Davis says. Read more...

Some of Chicago's select high schools are racking up national awards and recognition as 2009 winds down.

The Chicago Board of Education yesterday approved a new admissions policy for the city's top schools, despite concerns from some critics that the move will make those campuses less diverse.

The new policy, which was changed slightly in recent weeks after heavy criticism, bases admission decisions for the city's magnet and selective enrollment schools on socioeconomic factors instead of race. 

The policy was met with passionate criticism at yesterday's school board meeting. Read more...

Dozens of angry parents and students vented their frustration this afternoon over increasingly violent schools in the Altgeld Gardens community and presented the Chicago Board of Education with plans for a new neighborhood school.

Speakers at the board's monthly meeting said their children aren't safe at some schools in the area, including Fenger High School, where a student was beaten to death in September.

Student Deontea Jones, who is in the process of transferring out of Fenger High School, said he worries about violence every day. Read more...

A new admissions policy for Chicago's magnet and selective enrollment schools should get flack from at least one group at Wednesday's school board meeting.

Parents, advocacy groups and community members who make up the Committee for Fairness in Magnet and Selective Enrollment School Admissions plan on fighting against a new proposal, which they believe will further segregate Chicago Public Schools.

The new admissions policy developed in the fall will use socioeconomic factors as opposed to race to fill seats at the city's coveted schools. The changes were developed over the past two years as school officials anticipated a federal court ruling that freed the district from oversight on school segregation.

The Black Star Project, which is part of the committee fighting the changes, points to a recent study by the Chicago Tribune that showed the new policy would decrease the opportunity for students outside of the magnet and selective schools to enroll. The new policy would restrict opportunities for black students to attend the schools due to new rules that apply to those who live in neighborhoods or already have children in the magnet schools, The Black Star Project Executive Director Phillip Jackson says.

For example, all siblings of existing students at magnet schools will be admitted if there are spots in enrollment available, and the rest of the slots will be prioritized for students living near the schools, according to the new policy.

The problem is that there are so few black students in the magnet schools already, the new policy would deplete the number of seats available to minorities given that the areas in the magnet schools are predominantly white and the enrollment demographics similar, Jackson says.

Jackson believes the policy will revert the school district back several decades and so do some aldermen.

"Black children will have dramatically less access to the best schools in the city of Chicago," Jackson says. "Chicago is a hyper-segregated city. That's why you can't simply depend upon the goodness of a school to say we're really going to take care of these kids."

Jackson and other members of the committee met with school officials to discuss the issue Monday. He expects CPS to stick by its proposal.

"Our intention is to stop them from putting this in front of the board," Jackson says.

The committee wants the school district to scrap its policy, develop a new one with more involvement from parents and community members and commit to improving all schools and not just the magnet or selective enrollment ones, Jackson said.

"We're not upset about the few slots that are up in the magnet schools. We're upset that the rest of the schools are so bad that they force us to compete frantically for the few spots available," Jackson says. "We're saying we want both conversations simultaneously. Keep magnet schools good and get other schools better."

Committee members also want race to be involved in any new policy, because Chicago can't afford to continue placing black students in the city's worst schools, Jackson says.

"Nothing CPS has done is encouraging diversity," Jackson said. "Now you're telling us that the few black children going to the best schools, you're going to dramatically reduce those numbers? We can't have that." Read more...

The Chicago Teachers Union has one request for the mayor as he begins the process to appoint a new school board president: Appoint an educator.

In the past, the board presidents have had a business, rather than educational, expertise. The best way to truly address the issues of a school district is simple, union spokeswoman Rosemaria Genova says. Have an educator run the school board just as a surgeon would run an operating table. Read more...

Chicago fourth and eighth graders improved their math scores this year, according to scores from a national assessment program released yesterday.

Illinois school leaders will spend the next month and a half developing a plan to reform parts of the state's educational system in hopes of receiving up to $400 million in federal funding. 

The money is available through the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program set up through the federal stimulus package.

The deadline for the state's application is Jan. 19, and Illinois will have to turn in a strong application to contend for any money in the competitive program, Illinois State Board of Education spokesperson Mary Fergus says.

State leaders say they're hoping previous efforts to develop a system for tracking student performance will help set the Illinois application apart.

Gov. Pat Quinn also named a 25-member council of government officials, school leaders, parents and others this week to help chase the federal grant money. Read more...

I'm looking to talk with parents whose children are applying to one of the city's selective enrollment or magnet schools?

The Chicago Public Schools has proposed a new policy governing applications to those schools, and I'd like to get a sense from parents of how it might work in real life. 

The new policy comes in the wake of a federal court decision freeing the district from oversight on school segregation. Read more...

A group of more than 20 black ministers are joining a growing coalition of parents and community members concerned over the slashing of an after-school tutoring program.