Our friends at Eight Black Hands podcast takes a serious look at education in the U.S. and how it serves (or doesn’t) the 8 million Black students in the system. Their latest episode takes a deep dive into the role that the media plays in keeping the public informed (or not) about education. Who is centered in the stories the…
User Experience Problems Plague GoCPS, Too
Last Spring, CPS announced that they were making some big changes to the competitive admissions process for selective enrollment high schools, elementary schools and academic centers. Chief among those changes was the decision to no longer use the NWEA MAP test scores as a factor in the applications for those schools. In CPS schools, all students will sit for the…
Here’s what we’re reading this week: CPS graduation rates, Michele Clark HS, and policing children
These were a few standout pieces on our radar this week. Chicago narrows racial gaps in 5-year graduation rate, but disparities persist, by Mila Koumpilova in Chalkbeat Chicago. An analysis of graduation rates recently released by CPS seems to show increased graduation rates across the board, with stubborn racial disparities. We’re keeping an eye on how this data shakes out.…
I’ll Believe Y’all Are Serious About Black Lives Mattering When You Send More of Our Kids to College Instead of Prison
This post originally appeared on Hope+Outrage on June 17, 2020. I’m hearing a lot of people now all “rah-rah” for Black lives mattering. Meanwhile, I’m over here rolling my eyes at it all because to me, talk is cheap and history has receipts. Black lives didn’t matter in America when Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Jordan Foster, Rekiya Boyd, Eric Garner…
It Is Time to Examine the Systems Contributing to Teacher Burnout
Wednesday started out like any other; I left my house at 7 am to drive to my school campus, where I teach bilingual early childhood special education. Out of nowhere, I burst into tears. I thought to myself, I don’t know if I can do this anymore. Not just today. I don’t know if I can do this any day,…
NYC May Make Dramatic Changes to Its Gifted Program—Should Chicago Do the Same?
New York City’s Bill de Blasio announced recently that the NYC Public School system will phase out the Gifted and Talented Program. Beginning next fall, no new kindergarteners will be enrolled into gifted elementary school classes, which accounts for about 16,000 students. Of those students, about 75 percent are white or Asian American (who make up about 25 percent of…
In CPS, Classrooms Are Cotton Fields And Students Are Exploited
As a student on the South Side, I can tell you that most of the schools that I have stepped in have metal detectors, including my own high school. Every single student that walks in the school has to walk through metal detectors, every single day. Every single day, I set my phone and watch on the table, and I…
A CPS Third-Grader Got in Trouble for Stating Truths about Columbus
A Chicago Public Schools third-grader knows the real deal on Columbus and Indigenous Peoples Day. Do you?