Author: Maureen Kelleher

Maureen Kelleher is a senior writer and editor at Education Post, but before that she spent a decade as a reporter, blogger and policy analyst. Her work has been published across the education world, from Education Week to the Center for American Progress. Between 1998 and 2006 she was an associate editor at Catalyst Chicago, the go-to magazine covering Chicago’s public schools. There, her reporting won awards from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the International Reading Association and the Society for Professional Journalists. A former high school English teacher, she is also the proud mom of an elementary student in the Chicago Public Schools. Find her on Twitter at @KelleherMaureen.
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Chicagoans Speak Out Against Keeping CPS Schools Open in the Face of the Coronavirus Pandemic

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Last night, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a new set of measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19. Those measures did not include closing schools. Chicago Public Schools announced they will keep district schools operating as usual. Currently, only Vaughn Occupational, where a staff member tested positive for coronavirus, is closed. According…

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Here’s How Redwood Grow Deftly Brings the Science of Reading to Teachers

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Last month, I wrote about my visit to Redwood Day School, where teachers use structured phonics and an explicit approach to reading instruction that is proving effective for students who have experienced persistent reading challenges. The goal of Redwood Day is to help students catch up to their grade-level peers and return to more traditional schools. But many more young…

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If Student-Based Budgeting Is the Slicer, We Need a Bigger Pie

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Chicago Public Schools recently wrapped up a series of workshops discussing how student-based budgeting works and asking parents, school leaders and community members for their ideas about how to make sure the neediest schools and students get an equitable share of funds. Critics charge the current budgeting process creates a vicious cycle of disinvestment when already under-resourced schools lose students.…

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Where’s the SQRP That Measures ‘Academic Gusto?’

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To many parents, teachers and principals in Chicago Public Schools, the letters “SQRP” spell a four-letter word. SQRP–which stands for “School Quality Rating Policy“–has been a simmering issue for years, and it boiled up last June when Mayor Lightfoot’s newly appointed Board of Education approved tweaks proposed under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Currently, SQRP is the yardstick by which the…

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