Seize this moment: 5 ways to improve teacher quality
I’ve spent most of my adult life working as an education reporter, including 11 years at the Chicago Tribune. I visited hundreds of classrooms and learned valuable lessons about inequities...
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CPS success? Yes.
As a new school year gets into full swing, the media coverage of Chicago Public Schools continues to paint a bleak portrait: $500 million budget deficit, crushing pension obligations, superintendent...
Parents go through great lengths to enroll kids in city’s top elementary schools
Before Rebecca Labowitz even had children, neighbors in her gentrifying North Side community exhorted her to start researching where she'd send them to school. Labowitz scoffed, comfortable with the notion...
Parents go through great lengths to enroll kids in city’s top elementary schools
Before Rebecca Labowitz even had children, neighbors in her gentrifying North Side community exhorted her to start researching where she'd send them to school. Labowitz scoffed, comfortable with the notion...
Illinois school consolidation billed as cost-cutter, but data say otherwise
As schools statewide get pinched financially, the idea of merging small districts — once so poisonous it touched off battles across the state — is cropping up again. Gov. Pat...
How VIPs lobbied schools
While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help through a shadowy appeals system created in recent years under...
Schools are more anxious than usual this year
As officials in Morton High School District 201 try to balance their budget, they've touched off angry school board meetings, student protests and utter confusion. Students, parents and teachers in...
Illinois could get $500 million in federal education money
Illinois has been named a finalist for $500 million in federal funding meant to transform how teachers are evaluated, students are tested and failing schools are fixed, the U.S. Secretary...
Illinois schools chiefs’ growing salaries
The state's school superintendents are cutting costs in a gruesome budget cycle, but they can take some consolation: Their own paychecks are growing comfortably. The average salary and benefits of...
Illinois schools chiefs’ growing salaries
The state's school superintendents are cutting costs in a gruesome budget cycle, but they can take some consolation: Their own paychecks are growing comfortably. The average salary and benefits of...