Issues of Education

Addressing both the length of the school day and year as well as more local administrative flexibility on removing poor-performing teachers, Illinois Senate Bill 7 is being called an education reform bill that sets the standard for the rest of the country relative to teacher accountability.

"Education cuts never heal" and "Speaker Madigan stop your cuts" were the chants of the crowd,

Promoting and advocating for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to re-instate an "open campus" scheduling which provides a recess and longer lunch period, the Raise Your Hand Coalition (RYH) launches its Fit for Learning campaign.

Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn announced that a limited amount of school funding has been restored to the State's 2011 budget. However the state budget has not been approved by both the State House and Senate and it is uncertain when that vote will be completed.

Q. How did you feel about Huberman not showing up and not calling today?

I got a call from his secretary at 4:30 on Thursday saying that he had chosen 12 schools to visit on Friday.

Raise Your Hand Coalition hand delivered a letter to Mayor Daley yesterday requesting a meeting to discuss funding for public school education in Chicago for this coming year and the future.

As you know, the State of Illinois is in crisis.  Illinois ranks 48th out of the 50 states for school funding.  Yet under the Governor's initial budget proposal, education funding would be further reduced by $1.3 billion and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) would face a $600 million deficit. Our schools would be drastically impacted: increased class sizes of up to 35 students; layoffs of more than 2,700 teachers; and major reductions in programming.