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January, 2013
Ann Grimes and Laura S. Washington were no strangers to taking on a challenging project, but when TV producer Scott Craig asked The Chicago Reporter to collaborate with him on a full-scale investigation into Chicago Public Schools, the duo found that it was trying from the get-go.The task: Find an “average” Chicago high school. Not the best, nor the worst, to paint a fair depiction of the city’s...
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January, 2013
It was just three paragraphs, but the conclusion of Sharon McGowan’s 1976 school funding investigation caused a political stir in Illinois.McGowan had discovered that $85.5 million in federal funding earmarked to help Chicago’s 212,434 “poverty children” in the 1974-75 school year had been instead spent for general purposes throughout the public school district. The fund, created by Title I of...
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November, 2012
Dyryl Burnett takes off his brown fedora hat as he steps in front of the classroom. All 23 of his students are early for class—the first after lunch—and he waits for a moment until chatter softens, music videos are paused and eyes turn toward him. The banter soon follows.“Ooo, Mr. Burnett has his jazz hat today,” one student announces, prompting a chorus of giggles and petitions for him to put it...
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March, 2012
Did you miss Editor and Interim Publisher Kimbriell Kelly on the Barber Shop Show? Listen online.
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March, 2012
The news: In March, acceptance letters will go out to Chicago students who applied for coveted seats in the city’s highest-performing schools.Behind the news: Odds are that white students will have an edge in getting into Chicago’s strongest grammar schools, a Chicago Reporter analysis of enrollment data found.While white students’ overall enrollment has shrunk, the share of white students...
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March, 2012
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January, 2012
One morning in November, D’Whitney Harris, a freshman at Michele Clark Academic Preparatory High School, posed a question in front of an audience of educators, students, reporters and city officials: “How much would you have to save a day from age 18 to become a millionaire by 65?”Jazanay Taylor, her classmate, didn’t miss a beat. “$7.50 per day, assuming 7 percent interest,” she said. “Were you...
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January, 2012
At the end of every month, Chalonda McIntosh pays her bills. First, rent, then her car loan, then child care for her son. “Then, if I have enough left over, I put food in the house,” she said.But most months, she doesn’t get there. She often can’t pay child care on time and racks up late fees. McIntosh said she’s lucky to have a spot for her son at St. Vincent DePaul’s child care center on North...
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November, 2011
In his formative years, nothing excited Arthur Robertson more than marching. Tightly coordinated dance moves, flags twirling wide circles in the air, and the hundred spin tosses of wooden rifles and sabers drew him into precision drilling at age 12.Robertson went on to become a teacher and student dean at Paul Revere Elementary in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, but his marching...
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