School Reform

School Reform Efforts Show Mixed Results in Study
Thu, 02/09/2012
Chicago elementary schools that underwent various reform efforts since 1997 improved during the first four years of intervention, but still lagged behind the district on state exams, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research said in a report released Wednesday. The long-awaited report also found that high schools that implemented...

Race to the Top Results 'Baffling' to Illinois Education Advocates
Thu, 12/29/2011
Illinois finally crossed the finish line first in the latest “Race to the Top” competition for federal education grants, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s reform agenda. After coming up empty-handed three times in a row, the state was awarded $42.8 million from the United States Department of Education last week in a fourth round of Race...

Assessments of Schools Are Flawed, Report Says
Fri, 09/30/2011
In 20 years of near-constant reform efforts, Chicago’s elementary school students have made few gains, high school students have advanced, and the achievement gap between poor and rich areas has widened, a major University of Chicago study found, contradicting impressions created by years of Chicago Public Schools testing data. The report examined...

Tough Task Ahead for CPS’ New Education Chief
Wed, 07/13/2011
On a sunny morning late last month, Noemi Donoso, Chicago Public Schools’ new chief education officer, organized a three-inch-thick binder stuffed with paperwork and district data at a table in her office. It was one of more than 20 such binders from CPS area offices Donoso has been studying since Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed her to oversee...

Money Missing From Education Reform Bill
Tue, 07/12/2011
The state budget Gov. Pat Quinn signed June 30 is missing a key component for education advocates: money. Lawmakers stripped more than $500,000 from Quinn’s proposed budget that would have helped implement Senate Bill 7, a sweeping education reform bill lauded as a national model, partly because it eases the process of dumping poorly rated...

Charter Schools Trail in State Test Results
Thu, 06/30/2011
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and new leaders of Chicago Public Schools have been pushing for a longer school day and year to raise student performance. But last week’s state test results show that charter schools–which typically have more instructional time–actually have a lower percentage of students exceeding state standards. Overall, state scores on the...

The Public School Probation Maze
Fri, 04/22/2011
Austin Polytechnical Academy, a school established in 2007 to help broaden the West Side community’s academic opportunities and retool perceptions of vocational education, is facing harsh realities as it prepares to graduate its first senior class: lagging test scores, diminishing attendance and dismal reading levels. Last October, Polytech joined...