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Chicago Teachers Union
Quick Hit
by Ellyn Fortino
2:16pm
Fri Jun 14

CPS' Per-Student Budgets Will Exacerbate School Inequality, Education Experts Say

The Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) new per-student budgeting system spells big cuts for some schools, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and local school officials are learning.

CPS released next year’s individual school budgets to principals last week and, according to the CTU, schools across the city are seeing 10 percent to 25 percent cuts in funding. The union and education experts predict these cuts will lead to eliminated positions and more split-level classes, among other negative outcomes.

So far, a handful of schools have reported to seeing their budgets slashed by more than one million dollars.

“What we’re going to see is a degradation of education in neighborhood public schools, which is likely to result in even a widening of the inequalities that we already have in CPS,” said Pauline Lipman, professor of educational policy studies and director of the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Quick Hit
by Ashlee Rezin
5:42pm
Wed Jun 5

Taxpayers Protest TIF Funding Of DePaul's New Basketball Arena (VIDEO)

The allocation of $55 million of Chicago’s tax increment financing (TIF) dollars for the building of a new DePaul University basketball arena at McCormick Place is “unjust,” according to a group of approximately 20 protesters who took their message to the university’s student center Wednesday.

“A private university can fund their own stadium,” said Adenia Linker, 45, a member of the education advocacy group, Raise Your Hand, and participant in Wednesday’s protest. “I understand the need for tourism dollars and the need to bring people to the lake, but we also need the infrastructure of education for the next generation.”

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Quick Hit
by Ellyn Fortino
1:58pm
Fri May 31

West Side Education Activists Plan New Strategy To Fight School Closings

West Side education activists say they have a new tactic to stop school closings in Chicago. The plan involves filing stacks of parent complaints with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

The strategy is centered around the adverse affects the school closings will have on disabled and African-American students, said Elce Redmond with the South Austin Community Coalition.

The plan aims to mobilize the community and further expose how closing 50 neighborhood schools, concentrated on the South and West Sides, will impact children. Redmond said the goal is to send busloads of people to deliver the complaints to the civil rights office in Chicago and possibly have people go to Washington.

"We want to go to the Department of Education and say, 'Listen, based on these complaints, we have a very serious crisis here,'" Redmond said at a West Side community meeting Thursday night. "And a serious crisis that as a federal government, who is supposedly in charge of protecting young people, you have to step in and do something." Read more »

Quick Hit
by Ashlee Rezin
4:38pm
Thu May 30
1 comment

CPS' Push For Privatized Charter Schools Promotes Inequality, Education Panelists Say (VIDEO)

The ongoing push for charter schools across the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) district may infringe upon the fundamental human right to equal opportunity for education, according to a group of panelists who discussed privatization and education at the University of Chicago Wednesday night.

“Leaving people out of education is unacceptable ... Not having access to good public schools is a human rights issue,” said Jesse Sharkey, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), who sat on the panel with David Moberg, senior editor of In These Times and Susan Gzesh, executive director of the University of Chicago’s Human Rights Program.

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PI Original
by Ashlee Rezin
3:04pm
Wed May 29
3 comments

As A Result Of School Closures, CPS Parents Consider Homeschooling

Education

Progress Illinois takes a closer look at how some parents are seeing homeschooling as an alternative to Chicago public schools in the wake of the district's controversial plan to close, consolidate and turnaround more than 50 schools.