It's a common Depression-era tale -- the kid who trudges two miles to school each day, through rain or snow, without complaint. But two dozen or so Lansing parents don't see it as a character-building opportunity, now that their kids' school district has eliminated bus service this year to save money.
For the first time in 13 years, Chicago School Board members on Wednesday approved a budget that includes no property tax increases for schools.
Here for the opening of the new $50 million Sir Miles Davis Academy, Erin Davis, the late jazz great's son, reflected on the call for a boycott of Chicago Public Schools. "I think people are fed up, and they're trying to do something to change things," said Davis, whose family has long supported the elementary in South Side Englewood.
Incoming college freshmen often pay a physical price for the combination of high levels of stress, free-flowing booze, unlimited carbohydrates and a sudden lack of parental control: the infamous freshman 15.
State Sen. James Meeks offered Monday to drop a three-day school boycott if top Illinois Democrats -- Gov. Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan -- agree to publicly back a new $120 million, three-year plan to reform the state's most seriously ailing schools.
Warren Township High School student Jaime Wilt, 17, faced some tough questions when she completed the American College Testing (ACT) last April. Wilt scored a 36, the highest possible composite score. Wilt is among 428 students in the United States to achieve the score and one of 62 in the state.
Recess is an age-old tradition. You can still find kids enjoying the midday break from class at the Chicago area's most-affluent schools. But good luck finding it in schools that serve Chicago's poorest and most violence-ridden communities.
Chicago Board of Education members will vote this week on a proposed $5.1 billion operating budget for the 2008-09 school year, which includes the district’s largest investment to date in its High School Transformation Plan.
Even if a student plans on a major where the financial rewards aren't so obvious, such as art history or philosophy, most American families don't factor in their child's expected earning power when considering the potential debt load for college.
GLENVILLE, W.Va.---- Crammed on middle linebacker Derek Walker's plate are beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, spinach and a roll.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas---- Court authorities here will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring.
A day after a civil rights lawsuit called the state's school funding system discriminatory, those who have been battling inequities in the Chicago Public Schools were optimistic, pointing to a historic win in New York. "The New York suit was successful, and very similar, so we're hoping that case will set precedent," said Julie Woestehoff of Parents United for Responsible Education.
No matter how you look at it, Shalisa Kline Ugaz has helped to put the folk back in music. The 38-year-old is the founder of the Alegre Strings Program, which right now has 180 students studying violin. Kline Ugaz uses the Suzuki method of instruction as the basis of her teaching, but incorporates Latin folk music and songs to teach music principles. The program also will soon be known for the Cumunidad de Alegre, a string orchestra composed of students from the Pilsen neighborhood.
Harvard University is the country's oldest, wealthiest and most selective university. Now it's back on top of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings, claiming sole possession of the No. 1 spot for the first time in 12 years.
SEATTLE---- Ah, life in the university district. Cheap ethnic food. Vibrant street life. Fresh-faced students whizzing by on bicycles.
The State of Illinois' school funding system violates the civil rights of its black and Latino children and should be declared unconstitutional, a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Chicago Urban League contends.
The Chicago Urban League isn't the first to ask Illinois' courts to force state lawmakers to reform school-funding inequities. At least two other coalitions have tried and failed.
A Chicago Urban League lawsuit challenging the school funding disparity between rich and poor districts is a "constructive" alternative to the student boycott championed by State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago), Mayor Daley said today.
Ashley Wegner, 11, stopped attending private school to enroll at John T. Magee Middle School because of its recent renovations. Her father was a carpenter working on the building, so when he saw how Magee was coming along, he and his wife decided to send Ashley there.
Ted Dallas, the embattled Chicago Teachers Union vice president, was ousted this week for alleged financial improprieties ranging from $6,200 in liquor and dinner expenses to allegedly signing a $17,725 check to himself for sick days.
NEW YORK---- A privately funded initiative that pays students in some New York City high schools up to $1,000 for passing Advanced Placement tests is not making the grade, critics say.
The Chicago Urban League and the Quad County Urban League filed suit against the State of Illinois and the Illinois Board of Education Wednesday, claiming the state’s public school system is leaving “hundreds of thousands” of minority students behind.
As the first day of school nears for Chicago Public Schools, two movements to improve education for its mostly low-income, minority students are on a collision course. The Black Star Project and its Million Father March -- a five-year-old movement steamrolling across the country -- are calling for men, especially black men, to take children to school en masse Sept. 2.
Zeleke Gessesse makes Chicago shine as a compassionate city through the care it shows for young people in Africa. The reggae musician and Lincoln Park resident is the co-founder with Ziggy Marley of One Love Africa.
PRINCETON, N.J.---- At Princeton, pride in being ranked No. 1 comes in a rolling wave of orange.
College presidents from 100 of the nation's best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.
Little Flower, a onetime Catholic school in Auburn-Gresham, closed 14 years ago.
Never mind four years of tuition -- the college selection process alone has gotten so expensive that parents need a budget just to deal with campus visits and other costs.
A disgraced former Chicago Public Schools principal -- once labeled a "superstar" -- may be returning to school but she won't get paid for it.
Some 90,000 Chicago Public Schools students will eventually be able to use their student IDs to catch the L. Under an expansion of a program approved Wednesday by the CTA, CPS high school students will receive new IDs that grant them reduced fares and can be used like CTA "Chicago Cards'' on trains and buses.
Illinois students' scores on a key college entrance exam rose solidly this year, to the highest level since the state began mandating the ACT for all high school juniors. But the gap between black and white students' scores also has grown in that period.
A teenager who scattered three mutilated mice and a decapitated rat around Glenbard East High School -- including putting one dead rodent in a drinking fountain -- was sentenced Tuesday to two years probation.
State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) met privately with the City Council's Black Caucus last week to explain his plan to have hundreds of Chicago Public School students boycott the first four days of classes.
The Rev. Al Sharpton joined the growing movement to hold students out of class Sept. 2 in an effort to bring attention to funding inequalities for Chicago Public Schools.
The parents were solemn as they walked among empty chairs representing their murdered loved ones. Finding their child's chair, they stood, reflecting, bolstered by family members and friends. Sometimes there was a smile, a "Remember when. ..." It was opening day for the "Chairs Memorial" exhibit at the Field Museum last week.
Close to 1 million state reading and math tests have to be rescored, Illinois education officials conceded Friday in what one outside expert called a "wide-scale foul-up.''
Julie Miklos, 40, of Chicago is the mother of two boys, Matty, 8, and Danny, 9. She is a super saver and shared her tips for back-to-school saving: "First, I keep my sons' supply list with me in my purse the entire summer. You never know when you are going to run across a good sale."
For three days, hundreds of students would cut their classes and camp out instead in the lobbies of some of Chicago's most prominent businesses -- from the Chicago Stock Exchange to Aon Corp. -- under an expanded September school boycott plan detailed Thursday by state Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago).
Sun-Times special report: Maybe kids do know best. For a social studies project this year, fifth-graders at Little Village Academy plotted a cost-free way to counter the guns and gangs that plague their neighborhood: They asked parents to volunteer to lead after-school programs in drawing, painting, handcrafts, dancing, sports, cheerleading and chess.
Live like a student while you're in school, so you don't have to live like one after you graduate.
For many students, the solution to the violence that has wracked schools this year lies in get-tough actions: cracking down on guns and gangs; adding more police and cameras to streets and schools.
UIC sophomore Oscar Vargas has learned to save money by buying used textbooks. "It makes a big difference," he said. He made the mistake of buying new books last year, his freshman year. He spent $100 on a brand-new calculus book and then found he could have bought a used copy for $40, he said.
Second-graders at Sexton Elementary gave these responses to this Sun-Times survey question:
Eleven-year-old Maria Rivera is afraid to play in front of her own home. She spends much of her free time indoors, alone with her mom. Fear of the guns and gangs that plague her Little Village neighborhood has left Maria virtually a prisoner in her own home -- an image she drew for a fifth-grade social studies project.
Mobile classrooms are a form of racial segregation, according to a civil rights group and some parents in the Elgin School District U46.
Sandra Guy: It's a back to basics back-to-school year in electronics shopping, because there is no "must-have" item this year, experts say. "We haven't seen one product that teenagers are gushing over. Most of the text-messaging products and miniature computers have already been on the market for a while," said Kathy Grannis, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation in Washington, D.C.
Play isn't just kid stuff. It's important. Even the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights recognizes play as the right of every child. Yet, many Chicago Public School kids surveyed by the Chicago Sun-Times say fear of violence has robbed them of the ability to play freely outside their home, in their neighborhood, or with other kids.
Notebook PCs made for the back-to-school college market are usually as boring and practical as a pair of brown back-to-school pants. ASUS bucks that trend with the new ASUS eeePC 1000H . . . a compact Windows XP subnotebook with a comfortable screen, an Intel processor, 80-gig hard drive and up to eight hours of battery life.
Perhaps the best lesson in home economics this fall will be learned before school bells ring as parents struggle to keep the cost of resupplying their returning students down. And there's even a course in geography thrown in for the truly thrifty who strive to become one-stop shoppers.
He's only 13 years old, but Benyamin Nunn already knows nine friends or relatives who have been shot -- three of them fatally. The list of places he can't go for fear of violence -- the park, the neighborhood pool, the basketball court, basically anywhere off his block -- seems far longer than the list of places he can go.
To understand how Chicago Public School students have been affected by urban violence, the Chicago Sun-Times in May surveyed at least one classroom per grade in first- through eighth grade at each of three schools: Sexton Elementary in Woodlawn; Little Village Academy on the Near Southwest Side, and Talcott Elementary in West Town.
Gov. Blagojevich announced plans Tuesday to herd Illinois lawmakers back into special session next week to consider a pared-down state construction program and increased funding for schools.
State Sen. James Meeks took to the pulpit Sunday to reiterate his plea for Chicago Public Schools parents to keep their children out of city schools the first day of class and instead go to the New Trier district.
Chicago's Robert Morris College has added so many degree programs that it plans to change its name to reflect its status as a full-fledged "university.''
Hundreds packed a South Side church Sunday to hear Minister Louis Farrakhan address what he called a nationwide educational system that is in decline.
A three-story dormitory housing female students collapsed in central Turkey on Friday, killing at least 16 students, injuring at least 27 and setting off a search for a half dozen students believed to be under the rubble, authorities said. Frantic rescue workers removed debris with shovels, pickaxes and their bare hands in search of any survivors.
Lutheran Church delegates voted 23-6 Wednesday night to keep open Luther High School South, a financially troubled school on Chicago's Southwest Side.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.---- In the Navajo language, there's no one word that translates into ''go'' -- it's more like a sentence.
Congress wants to blow the whistle on colleges that raise tuition sharply, while helping students pay less for textbooks and making Pell grants available year-round -- part of a wide-ranging bill designed to address concerns about rising college costs.
Mayor Daley said Tuesday he understands state Sen. James Meeks' frustration about the school funding disparity between rich and poor districts, but he said that doesn't justify an opening day boycott. A South Side pastor with a huge congregation, Meeks has pledged to keep "several thousand" Chicago public school students out of class Sept. 2.
