Results tagged “education”

As was indicated last week, the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Illinois has gone on strike after negotiations with the school broke down. The two sides were at odds over free tuition for graduate and teaching assistants. An agreement was apparently reached over the weekend, but the school claims the union made additional demands after that agreement was reached.

In less than a week, graduate teaching and research assistants at the University of Illinois may go on strike for the first time ever. According to The News-Gazette, on Monday, the Graduate Employees' Organization voted overwhelmingly in favor to authorize a strike against the UI Board of Trustees if an agreement can't be met. The GEO has been negotiating with UI administrators for over six months, seeking a contract "that would set the minimum salary for a 50 percent nine-month appointment at the UI's estimate of a living wage for a graduate student, as well as protect tuition waivers for TAs and GAs."

We've all heard about the Clout List in the admissions office at University of Illinois. But it's never been clear where the students came from. The Trib's database project, the first that we've seen from Olde Chicago Journalism lately, lets you check out your metro-area high school's clout statistics - while encouraging tutt-tutting and tsk-tsking from, well, everyone else.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined Pat Quinn in visiting Andrew Jackson Elementary School on Chicago's West side Tuesday. Duncan discussed the $3 billion in funding that the state would get as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. $2 billion of those funds will go to the state's Fiscal Stabilization Fund, which Quinn wants to use to make general aid payments to the state's school districts. The remaining $1 billion in funding will go to support programs and operations in public schools around Illinois. "These funds allow Illinois to pay its bills to schools quickly, which keeps our teachers teaching and protects our children," Quinn said.

After the Sun-Times exposed some of the highest-paid school superintendent salaries, lawmakers are saying they want school systems to fully disclose the salaries and “hidden benefits” extended to school officials. The Sun-Times called out former Supt. Neil Codell was bringing home $411,500 for the last school year; he oversaw two schools in Niles Township High School District 219. It’s interesting to know that G-Rod’s base pay was $177,412.

Wilmette Public School District 39 approved earlier this morning a 5-year contract with the teacher’s union. The new contract increases salaries 5 percent in the first two years, and 5.5 percent in each of the remaining three. 20 minutes have also been added to the day for kindergarten through fourth grade.

Would a public school that caters to gay and lesbian teens be a welcome addition to CPS? That was the question at hand during a meeting of about 200 people yesterday at the Center on Halsted who discussed The Social Justice High School – Pride Campus with leaders of the Gay Liberation Network. The idea for this new school, born of a push from Greater Lawndale Little Village High School for Social Justice, is that it would provide a safe learning environment for LGBT teens who are frequently victims of torment.

Ah, high school, home of arbitrary rules and acting silly. Because there's nothing teenagers respond better to than things they deem unfair. Some suburban schools are considering a ban on letting students paint their chests at sporting events, saying it's a distraction, that students with painted chests tend to be too rowdy, and that it's hard to decide what dress codes should apply to male students and what should apply to female students—if it's OK for guys to go shirtless, is it OK for the girls to wear bikini tops? A handful of Illinois schools are in the throes of this debate right now, what with high school football season gearing up. [Trib]

CPS unveiled a pilot program today that would give freshman and sophomores at 20 schools a cash incentive to earn good grades: As are worth $50, Bs $35, and Cs $20. Students are graded every five weeks in math, English, social sciences, science and physical education, and they get half the money up front and half upon graduation. Wait, you can get $20 for getting a C in gym?

The Chicago Tribune launched its high school–focused paper The Mash yesterday, distributing 100,000 copies to Chicago Public School students. The print and online edition are mostly written by high school students, who are paid between $10 and $25 for articles, with guidance and oversight by Trib staff. [CBS 2, Editor and Publisher]

State Senator Reverend James Meeks called for the end of the CPS student boycott last night after two days, instead of the planned four days, of protests.

A program at the Art Institute uses art to help nursing students strengthen their observational and visual perception skills. "The Discerning Eye: Visual Observation Skills from the Art Museum to Patient Diagnosis" is a 90-minute presentation meant to be incorporated into the patient-analysis section of the nurse residency program at the University of Chicago. The program aims to increase students’ awareness and ability to filter visual stimuli, while helping to challenge the perception that art has no tangible value in the real world.

State Senator Reverend Jame Meeks's controversial school boycott is underway today, with should-be CPS students bussed to New Trier Township High School and Sunset Ridge School. Protest organizers were hoping to have 3,000 students participate in the boycott, intended to highlight the funding disparities between CPS students and their wealthy suburban counterparts. According to WBBM, the actual turnout is more in the hundreds than the thousands.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals bought 65 shares of Chicago-based DeVry University last week, part of a plan to escalate its campaign against the technical school's veterinary program. PETA plans to show up at DeVry's November 13 shareholders meeting to stage a protest and appeal to the board. According to the animal welfare organization, the St. Kitts-based Ross University veterinary school requires their students to operate on healthy animals. PETA charges that "healthy dogs have their stomachs, intestines and urinary bladders needlessly cut open. Sheep have tissue removed and suffer from infected wounds because skin flaps are improperly sutured. Donkeys have the nerves in their toes severed, their ligaments cut, plastic tubes inserted through their noses to their stomachs, their abdomens punctured, their tracheas (windpipes) cut, and fluid removed from their joints – after which they are killed so that students can practise amputating animals’ bones and drilling into their skulls."

In-school screening typically only check how well kids see, not for astigmatism (holla atcha, Margaret's left eye), a lazy eye, glaucoma, or around 20 other indicators of how healthy your peepers are. Schools are allowed but not required to withhold report cards for students who haven't had an exam. [Beacon News, Trib, remember that guy who liked a woman's toes during an eye exam and claimed to be "checking her sugars"?, photo by ninjapoodles]

Rev. Al Sharpton joined the call for CPS students to boycott the first day of school. State Senator Rev. James Meeks suggested the boycott, which includes taking CPS students to schools in the suburbs to highlight the funding disparity, at the end of July.

A new school has opened in Chicago’s Medical District. The Easter Seals Therapeutic School and Center for Autism Research, a $32 million project, is specifically designed to meet the special needs of students with autism, emotional behavior disorders and severe learning disabilities.

The Sun-Times interviewed hundreds of first-through-eighth graders and found that "half of all fifth- through eighth-graders said their 'greatest fear' was gun- or shooting-related." According to the report, "nearly three-quarters" of fifth-through-eighth graders said they heard gun shots in their neighborhood, and nearly two-thirds of fifth-graders "specifically listed guns or a shooting as their biggest fear."

A special education teacher in Naperville is suing the school district because she says administrators let a violent child stay in school despite repeated dangerous behaviour. Paula Jackson alleges in her suit that the student eventually seriously injured her.

Princeton Review released its college rankings yesterday, and some Illinois schools have a lot to be happy about. Others....not so much. The results are from student surveys, so you have no one to blame but the kids at your alma mater.

Trib says four, Sun-Times says three people were taken to area hospitals when when a car driven by an elderly woman plowed into a West Rogers Park Starbucks. There is no evidence the driver of the car was intoxicated, or hyped up on cafinated beverages. [S-T, Trib]

Citing the poor economy, Daley announced yesterday that the city wouldn't raise property taxes to fund education, in spite of his threats to the contrary. "Does this plan mean that we are able to expand all the programs we'd like to next year? No. Like every student and parent, I had hoped we'd be able to do more next year," Daley said. "But Chicago taxpayers have been generous and supported our school improvements, and they deserve a break."

Chicago Public Schools gave a car to a 12-year-old for perfect attendance over a three-month period.

Mayor Daley delivered his much-talked-about commencement address at Northwestern this weekend, and....thud. Students said the speech was generic, which it kind of is.

Today Northwestern University will announce its new accelerated law degree program in which students will be bar exam-ready in two years instead of the usual three. At the heels of the University of Dayton and Southwestern Law School, NU is the third school in the nation to attempt this, but the first that is considered top-tier. The program also breaks from tradition by incorporating practical skills such as leadership, teamwork, project management, and accounting into its curriculum alongside the typical law school focus of reasoning and analysis.

Chicago schools are out for the summer, but education reporting gets no such vaycay. A new study shows the revamped SATs don't do a better job of predicting college grades than the old SATs. The new test, which includes a writing portion, is, like the older test, a better predictor for women than men and for whites than minorities. What the study fails to mention is that the new SATs have also created an uncrossable divide between people who took the old test and people who took the one--those new scores don't make sense at all. How are siblings supposed to compete now, we ask. How will classic Saved By The Bell episodes make sense to new generations?

...forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.

Continue reading "Oprah Gives Solid, Unsurprising Stanford Commencement Address"

A report from the Brookings Institute today examines "metropolitan areas' progress toward achieving productive, inclusive, and sustainable growth that drives national prosperity." How's Chicago doing?

The Chicago Tribune is teaming up with CPS to form a weekly high school newspaper and website, written for and mostly by high school students. The Mash, as the new paper is tentatively titled, should eclipse the Red Eye in terms of quality and worthwhileness almost immediately.