Board of education

Illinois corruption watch: January 2016

02/12/2016
In January several instances of corruption, influence peddling and mismanagement across Illinois were brought to light, from the College of DuPage’s expense-account mismanagement, to Chicago’s red-light-camera bribery case.

School districts should stop using tax dollars to support ballot measures

By Jeffrey Schwab
10/15/2014
Should a school district be allowed to use your tax dollars to promote a ballot measure that would raise sales taxes? Of course not. In fact, the Illinois State Officials and Employees Ethics Act requires all units of local government, including school boards, to adopt policies prohibiting their officials and employees from using government resources...

TAGS: ethics, Illinois State Officials and Employees Ethics Act, taxes

Contagion: Strike fever spreads across Illinois

By Paul Kersey
02/04/2013
  [updated Feb. 4, 2013] With the Chicago Teachers Union having waged a largely successful strike against the Chicago Public Schools, we can expect to see other public school unions, and maybe other government employee unions, following their example. Strikes allow unions to preserve costly wages and benefits, or block needed reforms, by shutting down...

Seven DuPage County-area governments receive high marks in online transparency audit

By Brian Costin
08/02/2012
CHICAGO (Aug. 1, 2012) – In the latest round of online transparency audits conducted by the Illinois Policy Institute, only 13 of 22 local government agencies in the York Township-area in DuPage County received passing grades. In an effort to fight corruption and encourage public participation in government, the Illinois Policy Institute grades governments on...

CPS board votes to put students and taxpayers first

By Chris Andriesen
02/24/2012
by Michael Wille Following a contentious 7 hour hearing on Wednesday, the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously to turn around 10 failing schools and close or phase out 7 others. These schools had been seriously under performing over the last 5 years even with increased financial support from the city and the state. Nevertheless,...

Emanuel Names New Head of CPS

By Chris Andriesen
04/20/2011
by Mark Cavers Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has named Jean-Claude Brizard to serve as the new head of the Chicago Public Schools. Mr. Brizard spent the past three years as the Superintendent of the Rochester School District where he pushed for a number of the education reforms that Chicago will need to implement to give our kids...

The Facts About School Vouchers

By Collin Hitt
05/02/2010
SB2494 has been endorsed by newspapers across the state. Learn the facts about SB2494 below Does your legislator support SB2494?  Find out more here. Senate Bill 2494 creates a pilot program to give parents in Chicago’s lowest-performing and most severely overcrowded schools educational options.  Each family enrolled in one of these schools will be offered a school...

Who Lives Below the Poverty Line in Illinois? Family Structure and Education Mark the Highest Risk

A new Illinois Policy Institute analysis finds that adults with no spouse and living with children are most likely to live below the poverty line. Education matters just as much.

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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