A few hundred education activists kicked off the last day of the Chicago Teachers Union's three-day march against school closings at William J. & Charles H. Mayo Elementary School Monday morning. Education activists also delivered a petition calling for a moratorium on school closings to City Hall this afternoon. Progress Illinois was there for the actions.
Emmet Elementary School’s utilization rate is 66 percent, higher than a handful of other Austin neighborhood schools.
Even still, the Chicago Public Schools wants to close it at the end of the
year, and that decision continues to puzzle some West Side community
members and parents who spoke out against the action before Emmet’s final community meeting last night.
“Unfortunately we
have an administration with this corporate ideology of privatizing
education that uses our data to punish schools rather than use them as
tools to go ahead and improve our children’s education,” said Dwayne
Truss with the Austin Community Action Council. “And that’s wrong.” Read more »
A bill to put a to put a temporary moratorium on school closings
advanced in the Senate Education Committee Tuesday, however it was
“shelled” and all language was stripped out, according to a spokeswoman
for Sen. William Delgado (D-Chicago), the legislation’s chief sponsor.
The bill, SB 1571, was changed because the votes in the committee weren’t all there for its approval and its language needed to be strengthened.
Lawmakers were also feeling the heat of getting bills out of committee by this week’s deadline, the Associated Press reported.
Stacy Davis Gates, legislative and political director for the Chicago Teachers Union, which sent members
to Springfield to testify on the moratorium’s behalf, said stripping
the language was a “legislative maneuver,” because if it stayed in
committee, it would be dead.
“The biggest part is it’s alive,” she said. “Had everything stayed in as is, it probably wouldn’t have gotten out.”
A group of education activists boarded a bus to Springfield this morning to campaign for a moratorium on school closings in Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
Leaving
shortly after 6:30 a.m., the group of approximately 30 CPS staff
members, students and supporters plan on attending a 1 p.m. Senate
Education Committee hearing at the Illinois Statehouse. Organized by the
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) the group aimed to petition for lawmakers’ support and testify on behalf of SB 1571, legislation that would place a two-year moratorium on school closings.
“Before
they instill policies and close schools they should listen to the
people who actually do the job,” said Dorothy Clabaugh, a librarian at Alexander Graham Elementary School in Canaryville, which is one of 129 schools that is facing a potential school action.
Illinois’ teen unemployment rate is among the highest in the country and during a panel on Thursday at the Chicago Urban League, local elected officials came face-to-face with Chicago’s unemployed youth.
In our story yesterday about the current-year budget cuts Gov. Pat Quinn's administration is seeking from the Department of Human Services, we focused at one point on a tense exchange between State Sen. William Delgado (D-Chicago) and a top Quinn budget manager. Delgado, a Democrat representing the 2nd State Senate district, was angry that DHS programming for alcohol and drug treatment is staring down cuts this year while the Department of Corrections, which runs Illinois' prisons, is proposed for more funding in Quinn's next budget.
The State Democrats posted more comments from Delgado about the issue on their website today. Delgado didn't pull his punches:
It seems that the Governor is targeting human service
programs that are specifically targeting economic struggling populations
and transferring those funds to the Department of Corrections, where
people will end up when those services are cut from the budget. I inquired with the Governor’s office if other agencies
are being targeted for reductions instead of always cutting human
service programs. I’ve received no response thus far.
Over in the House, meanwhile, State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) is gathering backers for HB 106, legislation that says the "elimination of State funding for addiction treatment and prevention shall be immediately halted." The bill has nearly 30 sponsors in all, including some members of the GOP caucus. Treatment Alternatives for Safer Communities, a drug counseling organization, estimates that the mid-year cuts proposed for addiction services would result in 55,000 people losing access to rehabilitation initiatives and thousands of layoffs at social service agencies.
The Illinois Department of Labor estimates that workers reported
roughly 10,000 wage theft incidents last year alone. A worker-friendly bill introduced in the General Assembly this year would make it a whole lot easier for state officials to enforce existing labor laws.
Emmet Elementary School’s
A bill to put a to put a temporary moratorium on school closings
advanced in the Senate Education Committee Tuesday, however it was
“shelled” and all language was stripped out, according to a spokeswoman
for Sen. William Delgado (D-Chicago), the legislation’s chief sponsor.
A group of education activists boarded a bus to Springfield this morning to campaign for a moratorium on school closings in 
In our 
