African Americans

Government officials using anti-discrimination law to perpetuate educational disadvantages

By Bryant Jackson-Green
09/09/2013
The Department of Justice is seeking a federal court order to halt Louisiana’s school voucher program. The order would apply to school districts still under federal desegregation supervision. Arguing that the implementation of the voucher system has caused “school wide racial demographics to stray further from district-wide percentages,” the DOJ seeks to put the program on hold...

Brady proposes voucher plan for displaced CPS students

08/20/2013
The parents of the 30,000 displaced Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, students’ who will be attending new schools this fall are worried about their children’s futures. These fears are reasonable – what parent wouldn’t we be concerned about having their child walk to school along a Safe Passage route that was recently the scene of...

How Detroit’s collapse hurt Detroit Public Schools – a lesson for Chicago

08/13/2013
In the wake of the Detroit bankruptcy, the media have paid a lot of attention to the effects of Detroit’s massive population loss – increased corruption, ineffective public safety and an unsustainable pension system, to name a few. But among the hundreds of articles written about the city after it declared bankruptcy, no one has...

The fight for school choice lives on

06/22/2013
In May of 2010, the Illinois House of Representatives voted down the 2010 voucher bill. My hopes had been high for this bill, because I knew what school choice would mean for Illinois families. Vouchers mean freedom from failing schools; the possibility of students and families choosing their own path instead of being stuck with...

Teen unemployment in Illinois: the toll of the Great Recession and minimum wage

By Ted Dabrowski
11/12/2012
The problem Only 27 percent of teens in Illinois had jobs last year – the lowest Illinois teen employment rate in the 42 years this data has been collected. The figures were worst for African American teens in Chicago, where only 10 percent had jobs. As the graphic shows, the Great Recession clobbered teens with...

A model of success: Chicago’s charter schools hold the top nine spots for 2012 ACT scores

10/08/2012
The problem Too many of Chicago’s children don’t reach their full potential because traditional public schools are failing them. Our solution Chicago’s charter schools are proving, once again, that low-income children can succeed if given a chance. Why this works In 2012, charter schools held the top nine spots for open-enrollment, non-selective public high schools...

Cheat Sheet: Chicago Public Schools

By Benjamin VanMetre
09/11/2012
    Cut through the rhetoric. Here are the facts. CPS Revenues and Expenditures Total revenues: $5,534,664,416 (source Ilearn/ISBE) Total local revenues: $2,508,887,449 (source Ilearn/ISBE) Total state revenues: $1,906,809,466 (source Ilearn/ISBE) Total federal revenues: $1,118,976,501 (source Ilearn/ISBE) Total expenditures 2011: $5,680,099,797 (source Ilearn/ISBE) Chicago public schools will drain their cash reserves this year and will face a $1 billion shortfall during the...
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FAQ: How the federal scholarship program would help Illinois students

Illinois students could soon benefit from scholarship money to help them find a tutor, attend ACT or SAT prep sessions, pay tuition, get special education services or assist with other academic needs. That will happen in Illinois only if Gov. J.B. Pritzker lets the state’s schoolchildren benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, established...

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Diana Graham

Process for unionizing non-state workers raises red flags

By Paul Kersey
06/19/2014

CBS Chicago: Illinois’ highest-paid superintendent receives $400K per year to oversee 1,200 students

By Ted Dabrowski
05/02/2016