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 at Chicago’s Namaste Charter School. Find her on Twitter at @KelleherMaureen.

What Can NYC’s Specialized Schools Learn From Chicago? Getting Beyond SHSAT Prep.

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While New Yorkers debate the merits of scrapping the long-used SHSAT as the gatekeeper for entry to the crown jewels of the city’s high schools, there’s another way to get at the root problem of too many underprepared elementary students, especially in Black and Latinx communities. It’s working in Chicago. I am well aware that transplanting a bright idea that…

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Let’s End the Admissions System that Forces Families to Pray for the High School of Their Choice

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Last Friday night, families all over Chicago sat glued to their computers, waiting for the first round of results of the district’s high schools admissions process. Today at school, eighth-graders all over town are comparing notes about who got in where. Some young people and families are rejoicing, others are in tears. No one likes to put so much pressure…

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