What High School Did You Go To?

What high school did you go to? -- That's a question that someone asked on one of the Facebook groups I'm in. Now for me, it's a complicated question since originally I was 'sposed to go to Lane Tech. But I didn't -- I went to Lakeview instead. Why? Well, first, because two friends I knew (neighborhood kids) were going to Lakeview and second, because Lane Tech at the time was all boys and that seemed a bit weird. After a few more years Lane Tech let girls in as well but by then I was far gone.

SunTimes Article on Lack of Librarians at Chicago Public Schools

Surprising and not-to-mention disturbing article about the lack of librarians in the Chicago Public School system: 'CTU Pushes for Libraries, Librarians in Every CPS School'. We get the count in the subtitle: '... just 107 librarians for more than 500 schools'.

Lemme do some math: So we're talking about almost four fifths of Chicago's public schools without access to research help? Disturbing!

Sun-Times on Solutions to Failing Schools

The Sun-Times gets school reform right in this editorial:

There are lots of ways to improve failing schools. Charters are one way, but so is investing in traditional schools by offering smaller class sizes, better teachers, financial incentives for teachers and a longer school year. There is no single solution. Pretending otherwise is just as harmful as pretending that scores have gone up miraculously when we know they have not.

[h/t CapitolFaxBlog]

Props to the Chicago Public Schools

 From the Chicago Tribune:

After-school tutoring, better-trained teachers and new classroom assessments in Chicago public schools helped drive an "extraordinary" increase in state scores that improved the fortunes of nearly every city elementary school last year, district officials said.

This is just one year's results and from year to year there are enough changes in the way the test is given to make drawing longer-term conclusions problematic. That said, anyone familiar with our school system knows how hard everyone works -- particularly the teachers!

These results are a great credit to their efforts.