education
Teachers, parents, activists march on to save Chicago schools on chopping block
It’s part of three-day walk to bring awareness to the slated closures. Marchers, who walked miles Saturday between schools on the South and West Sides slated for closure, will conclude their walk Monday with a rally at 4:30 p.m. in Daley Plaza.
SPECIAL REPORT: Kohn students would pass many vacant homes on path to Lavizzo
Part 3 of 3: If the school board votes Wednesday to close Kohn Elementary School, some of its students will be sent farther south in Roseland to Lavizzo Elementary. Longtime Kohn volunteer Nancy Thomas counts the vacant properties along the way.
Police lead school-closing opponents out of City Hall, 25 get tickets
Chicago Police led away protesters Monday who blocked elevators in the lobby of City Hall after they vowed to “cause chaos in this city” to stop a sweeping school-closing plan. Also Monday, Chicago Public Schools officials released reports providing additional details of how nine schools that are absorbing student bodies from shuttered schools plan to address student safety and the accommodations of special needs students.
SPECIAL REPORT: If Marconi closes, students will have to walk past drug dealers on way to Tilton
PART 2 OF 3: If Marconi Community Academy is approved Wednesday to be closed, its students will be sent to Tilton Elementary School, just half a mile away but across one of West Garfield Park’s open-air drug markets.
CTU files civil-rights lawsuits over school closings
Attorneys backed by the Chicago Teachers Union filed two federal class action lawsuits Wednesday charging that the closing of 53 public schools in September will violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Illinois Civil Rights Act. The suits, filed on behalf of parents with children in schools designated to be shuttered, seeks an injunction to delay or stop the closings.
UNO charter-school scandal has Wall Street worried
THE WATCHDOGS: Now under investigation by two state agencies, the United Neighborhood Organization is also facing tough questions on Wall Street from the investors who lent tens of millions of dollars to help pay for the rapid expansion of UNO’s charter-school network. The questions were prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports on state grant money paid to companies owned by two brothers of Miguel d’Escoto, a top executive of the politically well-connected group.
River Forest student dead in crash on way home from Indiana University
A college student from River Forest was killed in a car crash Saturday as he and three friends headed home from Indiana University, and less than an hour later a Valparaiso, Ind., woman died when the car she was in lost control as it approached backed-up traffic near the first crash scene.
Mayor isn’t promising to follow hearing officers’ school-closing recommendations
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he appreciates the work done by hearing officers who want to keep open 13 of 54 Chicago Public Schools targeted for closing but made no promises to follow their recommendations.
Hearing officers oppose 10 planned CPS closures, have reservations about others
Hearing officers appointed to review the school district’s plan to close underutilized schools across the city are opposing 10 of the slated school closures at the end of this school year and have reservations about several others, according to reports released by CPS. CPS said hearing officers either misinterpreted the requirements of state law or exceeded the scope of their authority in issuing their findings.
Work is stopped on UNO high school after state halts funding
Construction was halted Tuesday on a new, state-funded charter high school being built on the Southwest Side for the state’s largest charter-school operator, the politically influential United Neighborhood Organization, after the project’s general contractor said UNO has fallen behind in its payments for the work. The move came five days after Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration suspended funding to UNO following Chicago Sun-Times reports on insider deals.
Parent: Some Payton players want beleaguered coach out
The captain of Walter Payton College Prep’s baseball team and another top player told the team’s beleaguered coach Thursday they no longer want to play for him, the captain’s father has told the Chicago Sun-Times.
UNO charter teachers vote to unionize
Teachers at one of Chicago’s largest charter-school networks — run by the United Neighborhood Organization — have voted to organize into a union.
Scientist Toshio Narahashi, expert on pufferfish toxin
It isn’t every scientist who would cite James Bond’s poisoning by pufferfish toxin in a research paper. But Toshio Narahashi was a scholar with a sense of humor, and both feet in the real world, where “From Russia with Love” is a classic book and film. He described one of the best Bond battles —with Russian spy Rosa Klebb — in a 1967 paper he co-authored, titled “Tetrodotoxin’s Highly Selective Blockage of an Ionic Channel.”
Payton coach returns to the dugout after controversial cancellation of baseball game
The coach of Payton College Prep’s baseball team remained in his post Tuesday night while school officials tried to sort out a controversial situation that arose this week when the North Side coach said he was forced to cancel a game on the South Side because parents feared for their children’s safety.
Quinn surprises Englewood teacher with Golden Apple
Freshman English teacher Katherine Dube encourages her students to yell insults at each other during class. Those would be Shakespearean insults.
Brooks coach puts Payton on his do-not-play list
Bryan Street, Brooks College Prep’s baseball coach, said Sunday he doesn’t want to play Payton College Prep ever again after a group of Payton parents refused to send their kids to the Far South Side school for a night non-conference game, citing safety concerns.
